Piper

Eh, it's okay. Growing great but I'm lazy to care for it, so some of the corals are doing better than others, many massive colonies, others distressed. Still held together by a makeshift clamp on the top since the brace broke. One of these days I want to just tear it all down and start with a new tank. Wouldn't mind taking a break for a few years but the kids demand I keep her going.

I don't log in here much, but wanted to leave some feedback on 1800petsupplies. Just one experience, but I'm sold. They have a constant sale at 20-25% off. Had an emergency need for a new feed pump for my chiller, 950gph 12ft height. $160-170 everywhere else, $125 with 1800petsupplies. I expected a 50-75% chance the order would get cancelled because they couldn't follow through, or it could take weeks. My pump arrived in two days. Two days. With free shipping. Place is the real deal, discount dropshipping clearinghouse.

Looks like I posted a duplicate thread. Thanks tapatalk. Mods please delete one.

Got some. Need to keep it under control. Suggestions? Very large sump with plenty of room to swim, just obviously a low light environment.

Time to stock up on flake food. Bought several cans of good stuff last time, but can't seem to find the reserve I had stashed, so back to the store (virtually). Need something that marine angels will do well on, just have one in the tank but still. Large variety, angels, clowns, anthias, wrasse, cardinals, , tangs, etc. We supplement with mysis and nori. What's my best choice for a flake?

Haven't been around much, but just caught this. Did the same thing with mine last month. 5ft angle brackets and a couple of coarse thread rods. It's still slightly bowed, but cranking down maybe a quarter turn every couple days. It's much better than it was, but I may never get it completely back until I replace the tank which I hope to do in the next year or two. I'm just not sure I see the need to risk pushing it back to square when I've alleviated most of the stress already? Curious other opinions. Is a slightly bowed tank still endangered?

It's in the machine shop now, so I don't have it on the tank yet. Hoping this week. I'll put it over the existing. This tank and stand have really seen better days. We're working on some really good business later this year. With any luck, I'll be able to upgrade this one, add a couple others and let this one go to someone who wants to refurb.

No, hasn't been fixed yet. Ordered stainless steel corner pieces and a couple of stainless steel 3" screws. Material is in the machine shop now being turned into a custom brace. I was unable to determine with certainty what kind of tank it is. This'll work fine as long as we go slow. I'll empty out a bunch of water before we start tightening. Hopefully this week.

Three 2060's. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk

Simple math. You can get cheaper lights, but replacement lamps and power consumption will ultimately be much more with T5. I had a wonderful T5 setup with 20 bulbs I just replaced with Evergrows. Bit of an adjustment but no question the right move. Power consumption is a fraction the T5's and the T5 bulbs need replacing every 18 months. It would have cost me $600 just to re-bulb my two fixtures which are exactly EOL, and I'd have to do it again in another 18 months. Need a 6ft T5 fixture??? :)

Thanks for all this. I'm not sure how to use it. Are the values listed specifically for 39w T5's and do I add them all together? I think I had 8 blue plus, 4 blue special, 4 KZ FP, 4 Aquasuns. At a glance, I suppose the cumulative PAR for all my bulbs, if these are all 36" 39w T5 values would be something north of 6000? I'm probably not understanding precisely. The exercise here is to try to figure out how high I can/should ramp up my new LED's. Full sun, 100%, looks about the same visually as my T5's. I had 20 36" T5 bulbs on my 220gal combined wattage of 780. I understand that visually is not the way to make the judgement though. My entire family wants to crank up the LED's. I'm trying to figure out how high how soon.

Can't find PAR or LUX ratings on a single one of these. Found a dead link to a study a guy named Grim Reefer on ReefCentral had done. Sent him a note to see if there's a new link. Interesting, you'd think this info would be on a white sheet from each manufacturer.

Anybody know a source for PAR values on various T5 bulbs? As it is, I'm writing the manufacturers to try to find out. I need PAR values on 36" 39w T5's, ATI Blue Plus, ATI Blue Special, KZ Fiji Purple and Aquasuns. Leads appreciated. Thanks.

No, I haven't yet. Any idea if this is an all or nothing thing? The pump is running and making bubbles, so the impeller is working. Since my last post, I do have effluent finally making it to the can now, so at least I'm not in any danger until the new pump arrives. What do you think, swap out the impeller for grins or leave it be?

Quick response from coralvue. Impressive. Hello Bob, Sorry to hear that. The pumps automatically shut off when there is something wrong with the impeller. If the impeller is defective with air pockets or there is an imbalance on the impeller magnet or the impeller prop starts to come off, then the pump will shut off. Running dry does not shut off the pump. Eventually, after running dry for a long time, the impeller will swell or crack and it will prompt the pump to shut off. So, you probably just need a new impeller and that should solve the problem. You can purchase it directly from our website. Here is the link... http://www.coralvue.com/bubble-blaster-pump-pinwheel-impeller Regards, --- Sincerely, Carlos Chacon

So the new sump is in, and I've known for a while that the feed pump for my SRO-6000 has been degrading. Now it's not getting it done, period. New Danner Mag ordered to replace. Ugh. Here's a question for all of you. The bubble blaster pump has, unfortunately, seen some time on dry. Probably on the order of 20-30 minutes. Coralvue's web site says they have built in intelligence on the new ones to shut down in the event of trouble. Mine didn't. I already know the answer, but thought I'd run it by you all. It's still making bubbles, but I don't trust it anymore. Opinions welcome. About 75% sure I'll have a new one on order shortly, but need to determine which model is the best replacement. Sent a note to that effect to Coralvue but that could take days.

Love them already. These are the 2060's. Hard to tell from the pic with them twisted and such. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk

And so it begins. just got decent at growing corals, into a routine, and all H-E-double hockey sticks breaks loose. Lost power last week, and I think I cracked my glass sump in the garage when I dropped my feed pump to my SRO skimmer, was trying to reprime the pump when it slipped out of my hands. Been leaking ever since. Met another WAMAS member last night and picked up a new acrylic sump, in the process of stress testing it, wrapping it with insulation, will soon begin tearing down my equipment in the garage to replace the sump. Last night we replaced the lights. Got the new LED's from Monkiboy as Christmas presents. Nice thing about getting the old T-5 fixtures of the tank is we're partially down to a clean top to address the broken brace problem however we decide to tackle it. Downside momentarily of the new LED's is trying to get coverage. The T-5's covered every square inch of the tank and the light was very even, no quarter. The LED's leave areas of shadow. So I'm playing with the positioning now and when I know what I want will try to make them look prettier in place. Hope I don't need to restack to make sure no SPS goes hungry. Have them on cloudy setting now to acclimate. Could raise them some and go to "sunny" and that should broaden coverage. Beautiful look though. Perfectly content with the stock setup provided.

You recall where on the tank?

Left messages on both of Quantum's numbers but haven't heard back. So I went out to oceanic's site and left a message. No response yet. With all of this, I'm starting to think again about contacting a machine shop to fabricate a couple of braces for me. Anyone have any idea how to be entirely sure I have an oceanic tank vs Marineland or something? I really don't know, just seem to recall the Pets, etc that sold it to me said it was Oceanic.

My reef is just stacked, not mortared or anything. We should be able to take a significant number of rocks with colonies off the top without worry of replacing them correctly. If we do, that mitigates the possibility that something could go wrong that takes several times longer, say having to clamp and reclamp to get the new frame on, or having trouble getting the old frame off, etc. We'll see, but I think being ready is better. If the tank is damaged in the process and the corals need to go to babysitters, we're halfway there this way as well.

Doesn't surprise me. Thanks for the feedback. I do think it's riskier to do it full, makes sense that it would be, but also makes sense to me that if you're spreading the load from the clamps somewhat evenly across the top with 2x4's or such that it should certainly lessen the risk. As I'm discussing this in PM's, I think we're down to where we're looking at leaving the sand bed, cleanup crew, several inches of water, but remove 75% of the water and the top of the reef during the process. Monday I'm going to take the advice in this thread to see if Quantum can help me find my replacement top frame. Once it's arrived, surgery. I'm considering a replacement tank but realize that I have to fix this one regardless to reuse or sell, so there's no reason to make the new tank the fix for this particular situation. Fix what needs fixing, upgrading later a separate issue. Thoughts of the day anyway.

I would think even just running a couple or three taught pieces of packing tape front to back for now while I'm deciding fix or replace and getting it done would help???

Sorry, Quantum? I will check the vendor section when I have a few, but if they're not a vendor here, where/who are they? Appreciate the tip. Sounds like I really need to change tanks before fixing this one if at all possible. Stinks. I don't get why putting a brace across the front and back with clamps wouldn't work with it completely full, but I do get that I am not the expert and need to listen to them in this instance. 2000lbs of water and a few hundred pounds of glass smashing into me all at once for making one false move is a H-E-double hockey sticks of an incentive and I'm not keen on winning a darwin award.

Suggestions on 240gal long would be very welcome. Also outside the box ideas how to get a little insurance in the meantime. Tie wraps?? Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk