DaveS

Hah so apparently I had noth tapatalk pro and the newer one installed and was launching the older pro app. That's why whenever I tried to download the latest in the app store it was saying it was already installed. Thanks for the motivation to look further into this and figure out out! Sent from my SM-G925V using Tapatalk

Test Sent from my SM-G925V using Tapatalk

Uploading photos from my phone using Tapatalk just causes the android app to crash. Annoying that I've given up on that.

Brand new brutes, never touched salt before. Tank was recently cleaned too. The entire tank is basically a big mixing station at this point. We can monitor for a few days of continuous agitation to see if things get worse.

I'd be really excited to find out more but I'm not sure the brown stuff is related to keeping a pump running constantly. I just mixed 80 gallons of salt last night into a big tank of freshwater. Within 20 minutes I saw the brown film on the surface of the water. Reminds me of soap scum from a bath tub...

In theory with the right plumbing and set of valves, you can just use transfer pump to keep the water moving. Obviously it will only work for one of the tanks since you are keeping them separate (fresh vs. salt). I do wonder however what the power consumption costs are like. Something tells me a little Maxi jet uses less power than an external pump. Given that it's running 24/7, that power savings could add up. Also, keep in mind that if you wear a Maxijet out, it's cheaper to replace than the external pump.

Maybe get smart on how you cut the old silicone in those corners. I bet either a perfect flush cut or probably an angled cut which maximizes the amount of new silicone touching the glass would make a difference.

New si will not stick to old si. From what I have read, the main reason resealing old tanks doesn't work is because they didn't get rid of all the old silicone.

Wow that sucks. At least it wasn't full! I'm thinking you will need to figure out a way to get down into the exterior seams (sides and bottom). Smooshing it is the only way I can think of to make sure the silicone is all where it needs to be and doesn't leak. The baffles are not a big deal but even a small leak on one of those 3 edges would be a deal breaker. Maybe see if you can get a rounded stick or something to do the smooshing for you?

Yup, don't begrudge him at all, business is business. Free is free so the neighborhood can't expect more than what they paid for. The real problem is that for 20 years everyone was just ok with things and never took the time to work out a real arrangement.

Disaster Update: Guy who said he would come this morning called and said his plow's transmission is shot and can't move. Now we gotta scramble to find someone who can plow 1600' of pipestem for the neighborhood. Just hiked to the entrance. VDOT clearned the local roads but definitely didn't make it easier to get into our nieghborhood! One a different note, my 5 year old has decided he likes the snow again.

I have a 5 year old boy. Last hour or so went like this; Whaa, Daddy I want to go out and play in the snow. 10 minutes later: Whaaa, this jacket and snow pants are making me too hot! 10 minutes later: Whaaa, this snow is too deep, my feet don't work! 10 minutes later: Whaaa, my face is cold! 3 minutes later: Whaaa, I want to go back inside....

My disaster so far: my entire neighborhood assuming that the neighbor who runs a construction business will plow our 1600' pipe stem as he has done for the last 20 years. Turns out they are on vacation and the son is too busy plowing their paying clients to go by Mom and Dad's house to plow us neighbors. Scrambled and found someone who said they will come do it Sunday morning. Let's hope he shows!

I suspect the difference is that it was under warranty. The first time either my EB8 blew a triac or my controller head died out they fixed it for free. I just had to ship it to them. No loaner available. Then, once past the warranty period, when the same problems occurred, I was on my on for repairs. It's like $35-45 a pop plus S&H so not a huge sum of money. It's just more a PITA having to be without the controller for 1-2 weeks while things are being shipped back and forth across the country. Fortunately WAMAS is great and I have been able to find someone willing to loan me a part. But then that brings me to another annoyance- module portability. You can't easily swap out an EB8 and you can't predetermine outlet assignment. When you add the temp EB8, you get 8 new outlets and have to transfer all the programming over. When you get your old part back, maybe it will be seen as the original 8 ports, maybe not. There isn't an easy way to deal with this so you end up having to do lots of cutting/pasting.

I've had bad to mediocre experience with their support. I'm even kind of annoyed at their products. They seem to be way to sensitive and blow out easy. I just sent my EB8 out last summer and it's already blown one outlet again which is stuck on and can't be controlled. I could do what Rob did and replace the triac but may not bother as I have spare outlets. All that having been said- they are still one of the better options out there for 90% of the reefing population. As much as I'm annoyed, I don't think there is a better option so I stick with them and continue to recommend them to others with the appropriate warnings. Nothing is perfect so it's all a matter of balancing cost, convenience and reliability. The convenience part is where APEX overcomes any other deficiencies they may have.

If there aren't any issues with your 55 and you don't have a deep sand bed in it, then this will be simple. Just move everything from the 55 to the 180 and enjoy. Assuming you do this in one session and don't let things dry out, all the bacteria you have in the 55 will go into the 180. It was enough bacteria before the move, it will be enough bacteria after the move. Everything will just think you did a big water change as whatever you had in 55G of water is now in 180G of water. You won't need to add any new bacteria from a bottle because your bioload hasn't changed. As dread said, you can add new live rock and things will start populating them over time. You won't have a cycle. Give everything a week to settle down and you can start to gradually add new livestock. Don't over think it and stress out.

Nice job! You really picked up on all the various issues with a computer UPS for long term backup. At the end of the day, without a generator, people go the Marine Battery route as you have detailed. Now let's see if you end up need ANY of this! Hah

Wow, now those are some serious systems that I'm sure need serious maintenance consideration. I hope I don't give the wrong impression- generators need maintenance. I'm sure the kind of specialized systems you are talking about require highly specialized skills that are (and should be) expensive. My main beef is with the idea of charging high dollars for COMMON activities because they are on systems that appear specialized to the uninformed. Basically capitalizing on people's ignorance and fear. First world problems I guess... I dunno, sounds like dread knows of some places which would be better suited to handle things. I don't know they do NEED oil changes that often. The service guys just say so but.... Honestly, remembering to take the oil to the local garage is probably harder than the oil change. Find the oil hose, unscrew a nut, drain oil out, screw nut back on. Find oil filter, unscrew, wipe some oil on the new filter's O-ring, screw it back on. Pour in new oil, run 5 minutes, check oil levels. Done.

Yes, it's a 27KW unit. It's got a 2.4L 4 cylinder engine. I'm told it's a Mitsubishi and the same engine they put in their Eclipse cars. It really is just like a car except it runs once a week for 10 minutes unless there is a problem. People suggest an oil change every 3 months and changing the spark plugs, air filter and coolant every year or so. These are the same people that sell you service plans where, for 4 installments a year of $300 each, they will do all your service. If I had periodic outages I might bite but I can't believe a car that runs 10 minutes a week using SYNTHETIC oil needs an oil change every 3 months (130 minutes of engine time). I have refused to pay $300 for an oil change for 4 years. I just change it myself with a box of Mobile 1 on sale from Costco, a $5 oil filter from Autozone and $5 air filter from Amazon. Now 3 months ago I did think it would make sense to have someone come out and deal with a bigger service call. Things like gaping the plugs, changing the coolant, and whatever else needs to get done beyond a simple oil change (kinda like a 30K tune up for your car, although I have ~30 hours on this thing). So I agreed to have a $500 one time service call instead of the annual plan. The guy comes out, spends 10 minutes wiping the dust/dirt off the outside, changes the oil and calls it a day. I asked- what about the electrical load test (oh, can't do that in the rain), what about gaping the plugs and changing the coolant (oh these things are build like a tank and don't need that). Needless to day, I was pretty annoyed. My point with the above is that these things are basically cars and can be treated as such. The service you are paying for is a glorified house call from Jiffy Lube. Yes there are some electrical things to consider but with electricity, the only thing moving are electrons so there isn't much to maintain. Heh, we shall see!

Just realized that I never contributed to the specific topic of the thread. Here's my preparation. I have 5 seconds of outage before it kicks in. I think it's the best (and most expensive) insurance I've ever bought. Never needed it in the 4 years we have had it....

KHH and Tom's post have good technical details. I should add that, even after you do the math based on the battery specs, you need to keep in mind that you will lose 50% of the juice from the batteries due to DC-AC circuit conversion inefficiency. I had a wacky project one time dealing with UPS's and learned one interesting fact: Typical computer UPS's are NOT designed to provide power over a long time. Their circuity and batteries can't handle the heat, discharge characteristics and other issues that occur over a longer time period. Computer UPS's are only designed to provide power for 10-20 minutes- long enough to shut down a computer. By buying a bigger UPS with more battery juice, you are getting a UPS that is intended to keep a bigger computer running for the same 10-20 minutes, not a smaller computer running longer. Anyways, sorry to derail this thread. I just thought it would be useful things for people to keep in mind as they ponder options.

I'd be curious to see if the UPS lasts 48 hours with the heater. Granted it's probably a 150W heater and would only run for a few hours over 2 days but seems like a pretty high load for a typical UPS, even a large one. In my head I use the Ecotech backup as a reference. It has two 9 Amp hour batteries and that is supposed to drive an MP40 for 36 hours. The common APC ups units have a single 7 AH battery. Maybe your large ups is like thier rack mount units that have four batteries. Hopefully you won't need to test things out but if you do, let us now how long things lasted. It may help those who are contemplating a generator.

I'm not an expert but my guess is that a Maxijet in the fresh water barrel may be enough. Between the heat it generates and the motion, you may be able to prevent things from freezing. You refer to it as a water barrel so I'm envisioning a 55G Pepsi barrel which is fairly flexible so unless it freezes solid, you should be ok. Again, just a guess. I also doubt a heater running for 6-8 hours at night will cause a problem either so that may be an option. Worst case the heater quits but I see no reason it would explode or do anything more than stop heating.

I think the policy is to read the board and see what is being posted. http://wamas.org/forums/topic/76699-inclement-weather/

Will the actual RO/DI filter be kept inside or in the garage?