bankyf

Snowing in Fredericksburg

So, why do people buy new cars? A well maintained car could go 200,000 - 300,000 miles or more. If I buy a new car before my old car wears out did I defeat the purpose of buying the old car? It is in the nature of many people to want to upgrade perfectly good cars, aquariums, light fixtures, etc!

The answer to that is "yes". LED's do lose intensity with time, however you would likely be looking at 5-10 years to drop down to 70% intensity depending on use. I have several panorama strips with one or two leds out, so the likelihood of failure is there. My LED experience in another industry is that quality leds are FAR less likely to suffer these failures. Some of the cheap Chinese LEDs are lucky to make it 2-3 years without failing. It is probably true that you will be ready to update your fixture to the latest and greatest before either of these are a significant concern as long as you buy a quality fixture.

I recently purchased the Milwaukee digital refractometer and I have to say it is one of the nicest pieces of test equipment I have ever purchased. I know a refractometer is already pretty easy to use, but once you use one of these you will never want to go back. It calibrates with a few drops of ro water and the press of a buttan and gives you an instant reading with a few drops of saltwater and the press of a button. No option to calibrate with calibration fluid, but it matches the calibration fluid perfectly when calibrated with ro. Not sure if it is setup for seawater or saltwater though

I use the finnes shown in the link and I love it. The pictures don't really show it, but there is an external temp sensor that mounts beside the heater for more accurate temp control. I have had it for about 9 months with no issues.

Yes, the 1 ml syringe included has .1ml marks on it, but the marks are so small and close together that it is very difficult to add exactly .1ml. It just does not have the resolution required to be as precise as you need to be for an accurate test. The .3 or .5 ml insulin syringe have quite a bit more resolution.

This is a known problem with the hannah calcium meter. First, verify that you are adding .1ml of sample and not 1ml of sample. The syringe include is really too large for the resolution needed to accurately add .1ml, so some insulin syringes from the drug store will help considerably, just watch out for the needle. Hanna claims they have tried to source a smaller syringe, but can find nothing under 1ml without a needle and they can't include a syringe with needle in the kit. The other problem is with our RODI water. Hanna believes that it may have more mineral content than we believe and this may be skewing the results. This can be verified by using lab grade DI water. I have not been able to find lab grade DI locally to me and most distilled water still lists a small mineral content, but I was able to find some that shows no mineral content. I rinse everything in the distilled water before I start the test, use the distilled water for the test and also use the insulin syringe and my results now appear to be accurate.

If the world was full of people holding out for the newest technology, there would be no new technology. Just a thought...

The majority of people bashing the Radion are people who don't own it. Most of them are AI owners who wished they had held out. The ecotech is an incredible fixture with so much room for growth with technology.

The beauty of the Radion is that the LED cluster is replaceable, so the upgrade to the latest and greatest will be a minimal expense. If anyone is interested in a Radion let me know via PM , I may be able to get a little discount.

I was going to mention that a trip to Jason's house was well worth the drive as well, but his website very clearly states no local pick-up. I hope somebody didn't ruin it for the rest of us.

The suction cup that immediately came loose was on the painted or vinyl background. The one that was bumped was mine, but it was only one side. I was still holding pressure on it and was easily able to re-tighten the side that came loose, totally a non-issue. Overall, I would not hesitate to move a large tank with 6 or 8 of the Harbor Freight suction cups. As mentioned, if one comes loose others can take the load while it is reset.

I should be available on Sunday, or any evening since my new business is only a few miles from your house.

I have that same laser if anyone local wants to give it a try. I have my doubts about the success and the risk of damaging your eyes by focusing on something so close is not worth it. It will burn things like paper and plastic from a few feet away, but a tank full of water is quite a heatsink.

Which school? I may be able to come by if you need help and/or donate a few little things and I am sure I know of some other local members who would donate a few things as well. FYI, don't have too much faith in any info received from our(Fredericksburg) local pet stores, they leave a lot to be desired. You will be much better off with information from the club.

Harbor Freight has a pipe tap set that includes the 1/2" for a reasonable price. You won't find a nut, but you may be able to find a pvc fitting that has 1/2 female threads that you could use as a nut.

Are you saying that your system uses more than 3500w on a continuous basis? That is a lot, I would hate to see that electric bill.

I never installed it. I purchased it after we lost power for 3 days from a hurricane about 8 years ago. It was going to be very complicated to installed and I was not thrilled with any of the installation options. It sat in my garage for about 2 years until I finally sold it. The power never went out once during that time. I can count on one hand the number of times the power has gone out since and never for more than a few hours. I ended up purchasing a 7500 watt portable and a manual transfer switch that I installed myself. I made stickers with good instructions to put on the transfer panel and generator and walked my wife through how to switch it over and start the generator. Probably spent less on the portable generator and transfer switch than I would have on the maintenance and upkeep of the whole house gen for the last 8 years. Not really sure of the actual cause, but we run quite a few fires related to whole house generators during power outages in Stafford County. I am not aware of any major property loss as a result of this and they are typically just confined to the panel, but it is frequent enough to make me nervous about leaving my generator running when nobody is home. In the event of a power failure while I am away, I use the apex to notify me and the ecotech backup battery to maintain circulation until I can get home to start the generator and switch it over.

Roni, When I purchased one a few years ago I determined that the gas company was also going to charge me about $700 to dig up the gas line and install a high flow valve at the street. This may be something to check into as well. Also, I was not going to need a concrete pad. The generator came with a composite pad similar to what is used with heat pumps. As far a natural gas vs. propane, the natural gas should be an endless supply, but you typically lose a few thousand kw if you power it with gas instead of propane.

Roberts Oxygen gives a WAMAS discount and they have several locations in Northern VA. The only down side is that they do a cylinder swap, so your pretty, new cylinde may get swapped with an old one. Buds fills your cylinder and they are in Merrifield.

I can't officially offer one for sale in this thread, but...

There is a post on RC in the ReefLEDLights forum about this with pics showing a significant difference between two CREE leds of different bins. Really makes you wonder if you are even comparing apples to apples when you look at another persons diy fixture.

I built a cage out of plastic canvas to go around my korallia pumps a few years ago. One I switched to MP40s I just ran the foam covers until I was confident that they were not going to wander any more.

That is somewhat shocking about the par on those AIs. Those are similar numbers to my Ecoexotic Panorama with low wattage LED's, but quite opposite of my "old LED technology" PFO solaris fixture. That Solaris rocks on par. I will say that the Panorama is growing SPS. I lost all of my color from some Phosphate issues, but it is slowly coming back.

I was told that they are paying a royalty or something similar in order to sell them. Don't know for a fact, but that would make sense.