Big Country

I went out there last weekend, is a long trip for me but picked up a very large encrusted frag of cali tort and a nice Yellow Bali colony along with a few lyretail anthias, got a great deal on a box of IO as well. Will definately try and return on a more regular basis

That's some nice size frags, I'll have to check him out

Well, I heard back from neptune, you have to daisy chain the DC8's they will not work if you split the wire to each DC8. This unit has work flawlessly for a couple of years, I'm sure it's just bad luck on my part that I had a end cap fall off of a titanium heater and allow water intrusion, and now a pump cord fray enough to expose the wire to saltwater.

Update the DC8?

I have a Aquacontroller III setup with 2xDC8's, common setup with communication going from ACIII to A level DC8 to B level DC8. In the last 2 weeks I have had problems with 2 pieces of equipment plugged into A level DC8 shorting out, first a heater and last night a pump, and blowing the GFCI. The ACIII is plugged in elsewhere so it is still running and seems to think that it's still controlling since the status is changing on its screen, the B level DC8 is plugged into another circuit so it is still powered up. Problem is the ACIII is losing communication with the B level DC8 since the A level has no power after blowing the GFCI. Whatever status B level equipment is in at the time of the power outage to A level is what status it stays in, that's fine for lights and some other things but scaring me to death that a heater might be on and stay on, or my CO2 be on to the calcium reactor and stay on. Would be bad to have a ATO or dosing pump doing a programmed addition to the tank also. I caught the problem last night by noticing that my calcium reactor PH climbed to 7.8, luckily the GFCI tripped when the CO2 was off and since the ACIII lost communication to B level the ACIII couldn't turn the solinoid back on so the PH just kept going up. Is there a way to write a program code to tell you if the ACIII loses contact with the DC8? Is there any other safety that I can program that might help? At this point I'm thinking about taking my calcium reactor off of my ACIII and putting it back on a reef fanatic ph controller. My Jager heaters have thermostats set a little higher than set temp so theoretically they should shut off themselves no matter what the ACIII is telling them to do. I also sent a email to Neptune asking if I could split the phone connection and send a seperate line to each DC8 to independently control them without being daisy chained together which would be the easy solution.

Where did you order them from? Cheapest I see is 8.99ea plus shipping

I must have bought the wrong bulb from Home Depot, I wrote down the numbers from Melevsreef to look for it. Do they sell that bulb at HD or Lowes?

I tried one of the 5100K cfl bulbs built inside a reflector, just grew red algae very well. Went back to the basic CFL, not sure of the color temp, and it does fine. The reflector for my CPR aquafuge uses a 7100K CF bulb and it always grew chaeto well. You could try a normal flourescent fixture, don't know of any reason it wouldn't work.

That's what I use, a clamp on light reflector from home depot with a 60w CFL bulb. Works just fine

Welcome back, make yourself at home and ask any questions that you can think of, plenty of great people and plenty of knowledge that they are willing to share on here

Just because it's not as easy for you as it is for us...lol

When you see it getting low in the reactor add some more. I tear down my kalk reactor once a month, rince it out and add all new kalk

I would check with Aquarium One in Rockville

just add about 3/4" of powder in the bottom of the reactor, depends on how large diameter of reactor you have. 500ppm is high for calcium, should be around 380-400. I don't trust API kits for calcium, see if someone near you can come over and test it with a salifert kit.

1/2 cup is about what I put in mine, sometimes a little more.

Agree with that you're skimming way too wet

Unless you're looking to order something else from BRS please do yourself a favor and check out www.reefgeek.com I ordered many T5 bulbs from them, their prices are competitive, there is nobody better at packaging bulbs, never had a single one break in shipment. Great customer service and they usually throw some candy into the box This is supposedly a sweet purple bulb http://www.reefgeek.com/lighting/T5_Fluorescent/Bulbs/54_Watt/54W_Fiji_Purple_T5_HO_Fluorescent_by_Korallen_Zucht

I always liked the ATI bulbs better than the Geiseman bulbs, seemed to have better color.

Ordered the MR5-18" reactor to use for biopellets since I couldn't get them to work in my MR1, just wouldn't fluidize no matter how I tried to modify it. Got the kit built and followed Justin's directions and cut an inch off the tube in the reactor so it was off the bottom of the reactor, took out the bottom diffuser plate and screen as instructed. Dumped in the biopellets and hooked up the water pipes. Turned on the water and the biopellets fluidized instantly with not alot of flow going through it, even had to use the ball valve to turn down the flow. Why buy an expensive biopellet reactor when these great reators are so cheap and work like a charm. Another great reactor from Avast Marine added to my collection. Thanks Dan and Justin. Can't wait to see the new biopellet nozzle attachment but not sure I'll need it as well as it's already working.

Cheapest price I've been able to find on Radiums is SOSlightbulbs.com, they are $69.95 on there. Radium 250w 20K's are best on M80 ballasts

I bought one of those lamps to put on my refugium after reading that awhile back, I grew great red algae under it and my chaeto turned to mush and died. Have gone back to the CFL 60w light bulb with new chaeto and it's growing well. Just my experience.

I think most people that lose whole tanks to kalk overdose have way too much kalk in their stirrer, I start mine off with like 8 tsp of powder and add a few more twice a week. Even if I dumped my entire 15g of RO water through the reactor I don't think it would put enough kalk into the system to wipe it out. Would probably have more of a problem with lower salinity, skimmer/sump overflowing, and a big PH swing if that happened.

Yes, put a check valve between the RO reservoir pump and the kalk stirrer or when it cuts off you're liable to pull all the kalk back into your reservoir. My Deltec 500 came with a check valve installed on it and the instructions recommended I put another one between the pump and stirrer.

I'd check the calibration on your probe first. Kalk will only make your PH worse.

I feel your pain man, I put emerald crabs in my frag tank to take care of algae. Got tired of the nasty egg crate and removed it along with most of the algae. Couple days later noticed one of my nice acans missing 5 or 6 heads and found an emerald crab on the bottom of the frag rack. Haven't lost any more heads so it must have been him eating my acan. It's in the display now, there's some algae in there and plenty of polyps to keep him busy. Misbehavior in the display tank earns a trip to the sump to do battle with my very large green serpent starfish.