AlanM

Just arrived. Broken into many pieces. Box is dented on the corner. UPS. Oh well. They're sending a replacement.

Haha, no I got rid of all of the RA gear. I'd be tempted to do that. I thought about how I'd like to use the new Apex too, but somehow putting an $800 controller on 4 gallons of water seems like overkill, even for me.

OK. That's the one I was looking at.

Thanks! That's bigger than the Fluval Spec III I had as a frag tank.

No tank now. I got rid of everything and was into brewing for a while, but sliding back into fish maybe. A pico like this isn't the ideal way to get back in, honestly, because the margin for error is small, and it will be easy to get discouraged if it fills up with cyano, heh, but the risk is small as well if I keep it simple.

I'm glad someone else here has one. I'm waiting to buy a return replacement until I get it here and can do detailed measurements. I can't find good measurements of the filter sections online anywhere. I have one of these in the cart waiting for those measurements: https://www.saltwateraquarium.com/syncra-nano-pump-110-gph-sicce/

Thanks, still in Gaithersburg, yep. Once I'm ready for rock/sand I'll send you a PM. I'm getting the tank today and then have a small cart of stuff to get: heater, heater controller, return pump upgrade, lights, salt, etc. I'll probably go a bit powerful on the lights for a 4g in anticipation of the inevitable. Deciding on a chinese PAR38 on the cheap end vs a Kessil A80 or an AI Prime HD.

I haven't had a tank in a couple of years, but I'm getting back in small. I have one of the Petco 3.7g AIO cubes coming that I'll be setting up with some coral and an invert or two. I know this is how it starts, heh. it's a small investment, but I'm intrigued by these very cheap little tanks with large filtration sections relative to the tank size. Ideally I'll be looking to buy some small established rocks and sand from someone's tank. This tank is so small you probably won't even notice they're gone. 8)

It is hard to tell from the pic, but it looks like the aiptasia has a single bubble-tip tentacle? That's pretty amazing if so. Never seen that before.

The lowest tank is always going to be the sump. No matter if it's the display or holds the equipment. That's where the water will go when the power is off. Having said that, you could set up drains on the upper tank so that when the power goes out it only drains a little bit of water into the display as long as you leave enough headroom in the display tank to accommodate the extra water. Then you'd have your return pump in the display tank or something I guess? You could also put another tank below the display to hold overflow. Then it would be the sump, could hold the extra water, and the upper tank would basically be a refugium. That's the most common config of people who put a tank above their display.

I moved this topic from another post so it would get more visibility.

is it possible that you have a flush valve on your RO membrane that is set in the wrong position? If it's wrong, then it isn't allowing the flow restrictor to operate and is rinsing water past the waste side of the membrane without letting pressure build up and make good water. Normal ratios of waste to RO are around 4:1 or 5:1. Much more than that and your membrane isn't working. Or maybe the tubing just isn't set up right on the flow restrictor. I'm surprised that the tap water where you are is only 25. Mine, in Gaithersburg, was 150 or so without RO/DI.

I agree. It does look like dinos. It's too brown for maroon cyano and looks exactly like when I had them. What worked for me was manual removal plus UV plus running the tank dirtier plus dino-x. So, feeding extra and skimming less and chemical. I did turn down the lights a bit while doing it so I didn't grow lots of algae and because they expanded in the light a lot. A total blackout didn't do it for me.

I don't know what that test kit is, but if your alkalinity is really 15 dkh, that is way too high. Alk of around 8dkh is good. Calcium of around 400ppm is good. Magnesium of around 1300ppm is good. Salinity of around 35ppt (SG of 1.026) is good. Nitrates below around 10ppm are good. Phosphate should be near the lower detection limit on whatever test kit you have. Keep everything around there over long term, and you'll do fine. Is your salinity high too? What do you run at? What are you testing for and how old is the tank? It looked like you were still kind of working out issues with adding rock and water topoff well into October, so the tank seems pretty young and maybe you're having issues with stability of water chemistry. Corals can grow in a range of parameter levels, but they don't like changing conditions. They need stability. Until you get your system settled down it will be hard to have stable water parameters and it will be a challenge to keep coral alive.

How are your water parameters? Calcium, alkalinity, nitrate, phosphate? Are other corals doing ok?

Maybe use a kalk stirrer instead? It adds alk and calcium in a balanced way and also scavenges CO2 from the water.

You'll regret not having a shutoff valve there even if you have a timer. Probably everyone in this club has flooded their basement or bathroom or laundry room at least once with their RO/DI system. If you hunt around on the forums you can find people who have gotten pretty inventive with floor space and have put brutes one on top of the other with a 2x4 and plywood frame and stuff. I'd get a small pump and drop it into the SW container with a hose on it and just let it circulate in there until you need it. Then you can pull out the hose to fill buckets to carry up. It really is nice to have a container of SW and a separate one of DI. You might also find some people here with extra roto-mold containers that would stack better in place for holding the water.

I emailed you on Oct 20 using your email address in your WAMAS profile to say you were up for borrowing the PAR meter, but got no response. As a result I moved on to the next person. I have one available to send if you want to answer that email I sent...

fixed the images. Not sure what was going wrong, but in this newer version of the board on the desktop I copied your image URL, clicked "Other Media" down at the bottom and inserted the image via URL and it seemed to work.

The classic one is Dow (Momentive/GE) RTV103. Most people say you don't want one with any of the anti-microbial additives, and this one has been used by many people for many years. You can get it from McMaster (with a certificate and test report giving the contents of that lot) easier than from the wall of caulk at the big box stores, I assume. https://www.mcmaster.com/7545A562/ Aquarium supply retailers also probably sell caulk that has been found to be reef safe.

9 Watts of UV lighting seems very low for their rating of 125 gallons. For reference, AquaUV which lots of people have used here for years, lists 25W for their "Classic" series to handle an aquarium that size. Just adding the twisting path in this Twist doesn't account for additional capacity to kill organisms. it just changes the geometry of the water path. You still need the same water/light contact time per unit of UV radiant power to do the same amount of pathogen killing.

I used the micmol Smart LED in the past. It worked fine, but it wasn't trouble-free. When I had an issue with it the company responded quickly to email and had a new firmware update that I had to open the box and apply to some pins to do the update. It worked fine and the light worked well after that. It seems like at the time they were a company who makes lights with the standard emitters and lenses that most blackbox LEDs have, but they do their own logic boards and controllers and accessories that are a step above what the blackbox ones use. The light you posted looks like a bit nicer finish than the one I had, but I can't speak to the reliability.

The left side in the picture is the water and air input. The top thing on the left looks like a muffler for the air input so it doesn't make a loud sucking noise. The right side would be the water output. It isn't set up to be recirculating, so that output needs some kind of a valve in it to set the water level. Normally I'd think that would go on the lower right part that you have circled with the upper right as some kind of a safety so that it wouldn't overflow through the collection cup. It's also missing the collection cup, as Milton said. I'd stick that thing in a tub with some vinegar and run the pump for quite a while to get it cleaner. I think I'd also take apart the pump and make sure the needle wheel and the rotor are clean.

This may be a silly question, but are the rubber gaskets on the inside of the glass or on the outside? From the pic it kind of looks to me like they might be outside, which wouldn't be good.

Seems like kalk would work. It is calcium hydroxide and combines with CO2 in the water to make calcium and carbonate ions, raising the pH in the process.