DaveS

Yea I've been trying to figure out a way to deal with the 1400GPH limit on the current SCWDs. Mine vibrate with my 2400GPH pump. I'm ordering 2 ASAP!

I feel for you man. Probably nothing I can say to make things better but here's one thought- if reef keeping was really easy, everyone would be doing it. But as it is, it's not easy nor cheap. That's why people drool over your tank when they visit.

Yea I'd agree that the snail slime is more of the problem than the carbon if other corals not slimed are not bleaching. I guess one thing is that if you're going to do carbon routinely than once your corals recover from the initial change in light intensity they'll be fine going forward and you won't have to worry about more bleaching from carbon.

I'm an adjunct professor there. I doubt I can help but let me know what you need.

This is interesting, I didn't know this. I have some Monti cap and Porcillipora that either touched another coral or got blasted with a power head and some of the tissue died, leaving a place for algae to grow. So that should get cut off? I always thought that leaving things alone the dead area would bounce back sooner as a place for the coral to grow/spread. Maybe that was just for bleached coral?

Thanks for the idea Bob. Looking at the text of the alarms, the pH is within the range. Also I ALWAYS get a 2nd alert about 1 minute after the first. This leads me to believe it has to do with the OSC command firing off.

Any suggestions out there on my problem? Still getting e-mails every time my Kalk turns on or off. Thx.

Anyone near me have it? Thx.

What did you mount the frags to? Do I see the remnants of a clam bake?!

Hey guys, can I get more info on this? I seem to have the same problem where I get a message every time my kalk stirrer is turned on/off. In AquaNotes Lite in the Program Editor on the Modem/Misc tab, the "Email alarm name" is set to ALM. I checked it on the console too. Here's my program. Most of this stuff is not enabled yet. Just LT1 LT2, KLK, Temp and pH If Time > 01:30 Then LT1 OFF If Time > 12:00 Then LT1 ON If Time > 23:30 Then LT2 OFF If Time > 14:00 Then LT2 ON If Temp > 77.0 Then COL ON If Temp < 76.5 Then COL OFF If Temp < 76.0 Then HET ON If Temp > 76.5 Then HET OFF If Time > 00:00 Then ALM OFF OSC 001/029 ON/OFF Then PM1 ON OSC 010/010 ON/OFF Then PM2 OFF If FeedA 000 Then PM1 OFF If FeedA 000 Then PM2 OFF If pH > 08.45 Then CO2 ON If pH < 08.35 Then CO2 OFF OSC 001/029 ON/OFF Then KLK ON If Temp < 77.0 Then ALM ON If Temp > 85.0 Then ALM ON If pH > 08.50 Then ALM ON If pH < 07.80 Then ALM ON

Nice shot of the mean greens Lance. Mind if I borrow it?

I would. I'm just wondering if using this technique is an accurate way to measure the PH inside the actual reactor. I think one thing I was wrong about is the flow rate of the effluent out of the reactor. Sounds like it's higher than I was originally picturing. Scott, are you using your MJ to feed the reactor or to recirculate water within the reactor? Maybe I"m using the incorrect terms and causing confusion... I can see using a MJ or some other powerhead to recirculate. The Aqualifter seems like the right volume pump to use for feeding tank water into the reactor and pushing effluent out. Anyone use something else? Thanks guys.

Hmm, interesting idea with the cup and external probe. Sounds like I would need a fairly small container/cup so that the effluent in the cup is representative of the the effluent in my reactor. I would think that the effluent in the cup could off gas C02 and give a false PH reading if left there long enough. I guess it all depends on how fast my effluent output is. That kinda goes back to some of the other questions I had. None of the other experts have any sage advice?

Hi guys, I'm finally getting around to thinking about maybe someday setting up the calcium reactor I got. It's a used Precision Marine reactor and I got a few questions. 1) What's the best way to feed it? Use an Aqualifter pulling up water from the sump? How do I decide how much I should feed? I know that how much Ca ends up in the effluent is dependent on CO2 rate and feed rate, is the goal to match those so that it puts in as much Ca as my tank consumes? If so, it would seem to make sense to keep feed rate relatively low so that I can keep CO2 rate low too. Obviously CA saturation in the effluent would be a consideration. 2) Where should I dump the effluent out to in my sump? Do I need to be concerned that my kalk stirrer and Ca reactor will both be on at the same time and be dumping in the sump at the same time? 3) This reactor doesn't have a place to install a PH probe. Anyone have an idea how I can fix that? Thanks everyone!

Just wanted to get some input from those with UV lamps on how theirs is plumbed in. I got an Aqua 40W unit like this one: http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_ViewItem~idProduct~AV2231.html The way it was put together for me is to have a 3/4" barbed fitting the input/outputs. Vinyl tubing was then attached via steel clamps and routed where it needed to go. It worked for a while until the other night... Just after dinner the water alarm goes off. I run downstairs to see water gushing everywhere. The barb broke off and the output of my sump pump was was just shooting onto the floor. Well 15 gallons of cleanup later I bypassed my UV and the tank is fine. I was about to go to HD to get another barb to replace the broken one but then it occurred that maybe there's a better way. I don't know if using hard plumbing for most of the length is any better or if there are other ideas. I don't know what caused the barb to break in the first place. Maybe the steel clamp was on too tight, maybe there was too much torque from the vinyl tubing between the weight of the tube/water and the routing it had to go as it wound under my tank. I suspect the later since the installer had to reinforce the tubing by the output to keep it from kinking too much. All I know is I want to make sure a failure like that doesn't happen again. Any ideas would be great!

Hey guys, not to reopen this debate but something just occurred to me and I wanted to get your input. As we've all identified, cleaning the panes for acrylic is more tedious as you need to use a scraper instead of a mag cleaner to avoid picking up sand and scratching the acrylic. Sooooo, what if it was a bare bottom tank? If there's no sand bed, I would think that allows mag cleaners to not be used without worry about scratches from sand. Am I missing something here? Did I address one of the bigger maintenance issues or did I just replace it with another one? Now if someone could just explain the benefits/drawbacks of a bare bottom tank...

Sure thing! Treesprite. If anyone is interested, I made some huge frags of Cateyes last week. Like 30-40+ polyps. They are doing great and I can bring some to the meeting for $35 a colony if anyone is interested.

Thanks Dave, just to clarify, you say order for the light command isn't important. If I had this If Time > 12:00 Then LT1 ON If Time > 01:30 Then LT1 OFF I would think that it would turn on at noon but then since it's after 1:30AM, it would turn off once it got to that 2nd line. Am I wrong on interpreting how it executes commands in order? For the wall wart that goes into the AC3 backup port, where do I get it? Should I just go to Radio Shack and find one with the same specs as the first?

Hey guys, I FINALLY got around to rewiring some of my stuff and am now getting my AC3 online. Before it was just monitoring temp and pH. So I got a few questions that haven't already been asked on this thread. 1) I read from the manual that the $,% of # after names denote characters on the display screen. Anyone got a good correlation to what the symbols are and their characters on the screen? 2) I want my lights to turn on in the afternoon and off late at night, like after midnight. Do I just reorder the ON/OFF lines like below and count on the execution order to take care of this? If Time > 01:30 Then LT1 OFF If Time > 12:00 Then LT1 ON 3) There's a plug for backup 9V. What's that for? Do I plug another wall wart on UPS to that so the AC3 know' power is off but can still function and send out an alert? Thanks for the help guys!

Hmm, well the thing is the fish IS eating so at first I thought he was just a pig. But now, about 2 weeks later, he's still bulging. I reduced my feeding and even stopped entirely for for 2 days and during that time his stomach didn't get any smaller. I mean in theory he could be finding tons of food in my tank but it's a little hard to believe there's enough food around to keep him bloated like that for so long. This added with the fact I haven't seen him poop makes me wonder if there's more to it. Thanks for the input so far guys.

So I got this nice cute little Power Blue Tang from a LFS about 2 weeks ago. He seems healthy and is even eating. Problem is, his stomach is always swollen and I have yet to see him poop. I've even not fed the tank for 2 days and it's still bulging. He does eat mysis and picks at the rocks in my tank just fine. Normally I would think the bulging stomach is a sign that he's eating a lot but I'm just kinda getting worried after 2+ weeks of this. Anyone know of a condition I should be worried about?

Hey, I'd be willing to trade some cat eyes with something of yours. Whatcha got?