Integral9

Looks like diatoms or a brown algae of sorts. Do you have much light around your salt vat? How about the fresh water vat you use to fill it? If you are using RODI to mix salt, and there is no light sources, I don't think you should be getting much of anything growing in your vat unless it was already there. The only thing that builds up in my salt mixing buckets is the salt crystals around the edge. Which is not longer a problem after I stopped aerating the water as it was causing some pH issues. I keep a power head in each bucket running constantly until I do a water change. Then I refill the bucket and make more salt. It never dries out or see anything but RODI and salt mix. edit: Oh, and I keep a lid on the buckets as best I can and they sit in a dark room most of the time.

A cap on the end of the pipe behind the tank with a 1/8" to 1/4" hole will help quiet it down. It may not quiet it down completely, but it should help a lot.

I have a feeling your pump expedited his return to the display.

I like to buy them from local fish stores if possible, but for some reason the bulbs I want are never available from the store's wholesaler of choice. So I usually end up having to wait several weeks while the LFS tally's up enough orders to place an order. So I did not order form a LFS this last time. I got 14 36" T5s from Marine Depot. They shipped them in their individual boxes, taped them together to form one large box. Around that was several layers of bubble wrap and all of that was stuffed into a hard cardboard tube (~6" diameter) with an additional bit of bubble wrap on the ends. None of the bulbs were broken. While I did qualify for "free shipping", I did pay $1.40 in "shipping" for insurance. I understand bulbs are harder to ship than, say GFO, so I didn't complain.

Hmm... Sounds like the relay in the Avast ATO is a digital relay. They are not as reliable as the solenoid based relays as they may not turn off / on when desired. I don't understand the electronics fully (never used them in the lab), but my basic understanding is the pump isn't pulling enough juice to make the relay flip. A simple solution is to put a surge protector between the pump and the relay (I don't know why that works). So I'd try that and if it still gives you a problem, it's probably a bad relay or sensor. edit: It *HAS* to be a surge protector. You cannot use a simple power strip.

sounds like a check valve(s) or an air gap between the top off's output and the sump / tank is what you need. Either break the siphon with the air gap or stop it with a check valve. I prefer the air gap as it never fails. A 1/2" pipe holder is what I used to secure the tubing in place above the water line. Otherwise there is a risk it will fall on the floor and then the ATO will pump your RODI all over the floor.

my $0.02 Flourescent bulbs light ignite a gas and excite a phosphor causing the electrons in the phosphors to bounce valence levels. Think of the valence levels as orbits. Higher valence = higher orbit. When an electron drops down to a lower energy valence level, it gives off a photon. The frequency of that photon is determined by how many valence levels the electron moves. With flourescent lighting, the phosphorous in the bulb is a mixture of many different phosphors, and with that mixture you get electrons moving to / from many different valence levels, causing a wide spectrum of light. A similar thing happens with metal halides, except instead of a phosphor, you are excite a mercury vapor. It takes a little while for the mercury to gasify, so that is the warm up period you see with them. LEDs on the other hand only excite the atoms from one side of the diode to the other. Also, only certain combinations of materials can be used for LEDs. And since the diode is made of 2 very specific substances, there is not much abundance in different valence levels for the electrons to bounce to. So the light emitted is very specific and almost singular in it's frequency. So it takes many diodes to produce a broad spectrum of light. White LEDs & color varying LEDs are made up of an array of diodes. (typically Red, Green & Blue) The diodes are very small and depending on how the LED is made, very hard to see. So don't think that just because you only see one plastic bulge, you only have 1 diode. If you look into the LED from the top, you might be able to see the array. Adjusting the voltage / power to the diodes independently will have the effect of adjust the spectrum peaks and effectively the color of the light we see. One advantage of LEDs is we can literally fine tune the light spectrum to only produce light that's useful for photosynthesis in our corals and not waste light, provided we (someone) can identify all the combinations of elements to produce light with a diode at the varying frequencies that are needed. There's also the heat thing too. :-)

Why would you put both pumps at the same level? I don't think that would be optimal as you wouldn't be maximizing the head from each pump. http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/pumps-parallel-serial-d_636.html

No, not quite. But it would be close. Two identical pumps aren't going to have the pushing / shoving match that 2 differing pumps will have, which is what I think the problem is. Which is probably the result of the differing impeller designs of the two brands. eg: If you have 2 people, one standing on the shoulders of the other, they can lift something twice as high as just one guy. If you have two guys standing on the same level, they can lift twice as much, but no higher than only 1 guy can lift.

This. With similar pumps, you would probably achieve the expected result of doubling the head.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE92C05720130313?irpc=932 Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2

pull the pump and air line off and make sure there isn't any calcification / salt creep in the air line or calcification inside of the intake on the pump blocking the airline hole fwiw: a cup of microwaved rodi down the air line once in a while is a good way to keep it clean. I just fill the little air box on the top of the air line with the water and let the venturi suck it out.

Ditto. Got 1 in training already and one more on deck. This is what I would do. You could also attach a float switch to the bucket and wire it down to the first pump so it automatically comes on when it needs to fill the bucket. You might want a two way float switch though and put the 2nd float switch in the primary reservoir, so the first pump comes one when it needs to fill the bucket upstairs, but also won't come on if the primary reservoir is empty.

Wood glue and 3/4" 1/4 round should be enough to provide support for a 4" ledge after the fact. Just don't try to stand on it.

In the 5th pic: I saw a red montipora capnella (bottom) The center one looks like a bi-color of sorts. the top one is too washed out for me to see. Need closer pics or a better angle to see the color of the body and polyp. In the 4th pic: those are yellow button polyps.

Alright. They are an AC motor. So if the magnet is slightly in the wrong direction when the AC is supplied to the electro-magnet, the magnet turns the wrong way. The bushing that is referred to is simply a bump-stop that holds the propeller (aka screw) in place and prevents it from turn the wrong way (as the wrong way unscrews the propeller from the housing). When the prop starts to turn the correct way, it tends to screw itself back into the housing, holding it in place. Easy fix: Take the cover off the power head. Put your finger on the tip of the propeller to hold it in place in the housing and turn it on. Let go of it slightly so that it can start turning and it will probably bump against your finger and then go back into place, turning the correct direction. Then replace the cover. Problem solved. fwiw: Over time the bump stops (aka bushings) on the covers wear out. It happens faster if you use the powerheads on a wave maker, because the props chew into the bump-stop almost every time it starts up and wave makers increase the number of starts dramatically. iirc, The older series of koralia powerheads (non-evolution) lack the bump stop.

+1 As with any nutrient export. You must harvest the algea, xenia, whatever to "export" it. Otherwise when it dies it will just re-import the nutrients it absorbed. ime: Xenia is a less common nutrient exporter. Most people use macro. My azalea bush really likes the macro algea from my fuge.

The advantage of the DJ switch panel is you have a toggle switch to control each outlet on the back. So if there is an emergency, you can quickly shut off circuits without having to yank plugs out and risk grabbing a wet (possibly electrically hot) wire. The disadvantage is that you have to plug in your controller to it, so you have controlable power strips plugged into the back of your DJ panel, and those controllable strips might have surge suppressors after them. Gets a little messy, but with some zip ties or velcro strapping you can clean up the cables nicely. The hard part is remembering what's plugged into where. So labeling the switches with a label maker is a good idea.

my electronics are mounted to the back of my stand, outside the cabinet. Between the tank and stand I have a 1/8" plywood sheet that extends out behind the tank several inches. That provides a shelf to put things on as well as a water shield for the electronics under it. I have a DJ switch panel as a master switch, which all my pumps, powerheads, controllers, etc are plugged into. The DJ switch panel is plugged into a dedicated 15A GFI circuit.

take everything out of the tank that's breakable. esp. glass heaters and thermometers. They really do just get curious and smash things open to see what's inside I guess. I think it may have to do with keeping their hammers in top shape though. They probably go soft if not used. Also, any fish you have in there will be at the least, unnerved once they discover their roommate. When I had one in my display (via hitchhiking) all my fish stayed on the opposite side of the tank and only ventured over to his side for a quick swim by to grab some food. Damsels might be good choice. Certainly nothing that lives in the sand or is particularly passive.

My sentiments exactly. I have had similar experiences with ich on my tanks w/out a UV. Which is one of the 2 reasons I would like to keep my UV. The other being, I would have to replace the pump on my reactor to something smaller than a Mag 7 as well as re-plumb the entire loop. I don't know anything from Sanjay specifically, but I have read and heard comments from people around the interwebs regarding the use of bio-pellets and describing a condition in which if the effluent from the biopellet reactor is not run through a protein skimmer or discharged near the intake of a protein skimmer, you could easily end up with algae blooms and nitrate problems because the bacteria from the reactor die off in the DT introducing the nutrients they consumed back into the water. I also read about a problem early on in the use of biopellets where the pellets were not made from the 100% biodegradable plastics and thus introduced toxic chemicals into the tank. I believe that was a problem with using the industrial grade pellets that were intended to be mixed into other plastics to make the plastic biodegradable. I don't think this is a problem with using any of the products intended to be used as bio-pellets in our hobby. I thought Bio-pellets were fairly new (3-4 years maybe). Are you confusing bio-balls and bio-pellets? (seems to be a common mistake) fwiw: I loop back all my filtration to the filter sock except my skimmer. I would do that one too, but I would have to use a larger filter sock to accommodate the extra 1" pipe and I just don't have enough room for a 7" filter sock.

There are 2 ways to get bubbles from the sand bed that I know of. 1) Nitrogen cycle: Nitrates --> Nitrite --> Nitrogen 2) Methane gas: Caused by rotted / decaying animal or plant matter. Essentially as the matter decays it releases methane which bubbles up. This is more common in nature though, and not in our aquariums. If this was happening in your tank, you would probably have a huge nitrate problem and it might smell like someone farted next to your tank.

Oh they kill a great deal of what passes through them; at least mine does. After installing it, not only was the water clearer but the skimmate had a different smell; less rotting more dirt like. Which I take to mean there is less bacteria. Sure it won't sterilize at the lab grade level, but that's not it's intended purpose. I think what's expected out UV lamps in the lab can't be compared to what we expect out of them in our aquariums. It's like comparing the death star's weapon to luke skywalker's light sabre. That's great. I'm going to start using that to describe all the orange tanned people I see....

The UV sterilization I do in my tank is mainly to eliminate free floating algea, and some bacteria. I do not believe I have enough exposure with the UV I am using to eliminate viruses or parasites. I do that or get close to that with the UV I have on my QT (if my calculations are correct). I'm sure what you are sterilizing in the lab is for all of the above and then double or triple that to be sure you kill the guys who have developed SPF1000 sun screen bodies and UV filtering eyes. That's the way I see it too, which is why I'm confused as to all these people saying it's counter-productive to run both. I guess I'll find out.

That's what I've read too. While I believe it makes sense at first, I don't see the problem once the bio-pellet is up and running with a colony of bacteria inside. I can see the UV being an issue if you were trying to start the reactor as your water column would be virtually bacteria free, but if you put microbactor in the reactor and let it sit for a day before turning it on, it would give the bacteria a chance to colonize and not be effected by the UV. It's not like the UV sends out little UV-nanobots to kill everything microscopic in the tank. Would be cool though, if you wanted to start over. Better than chlorine or muriatic acid. I digress.... So does the biopellet reactor work outside the reactor too? I thought running the effluent from the bio-pellet reactor into your PS was to remove the excess bacteria. ie: you don't want it floating around your tank as it will cause an algae bloom. Seems to me like the UV would assist with this.