lnevo

This is a good thread as well. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2349824 I have all the materials and everything programmed, I just need to run the lines and do some tests... That'll be my winter project.

I say dining room in the corner maybe a 93corner or a big cube visible from both room. My tank is in between the open dining/living room and while its not in the dining room, the dining table extends in front of it when we do big holidays. I plant myself at the head of the table right next to it

The link i posted for a denitrator was not a sulfer based coil version...this was a pumped up carbon dosing technique using methanol as the bacteria fuel.

Take a look at this. I think this is a great way to go and maybe pretty relevant to your unique situation... http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2381987

A few things can affect the ph probe. Stray voltage in the tank can. You can test this by putting some of your tank water in a cup and measure it to see what the probe reads. If it's a CO2 issue (windows helping...), you can test this by aerating the cup inside for a little while with an air stone and then measure. Then do the same with the cup outside the house and measure again. Regardless of that, I would say to test the water with a tradtional ph test because many times probes are just wrong. Also something to note is that probes do NOT last long. I would estimate from 6-9 months, sometimes up to a year, but they DO go bad. And finally as others have said, the important thing with probes and ph monitoring is to watch the trend. However usually when the trend changes is when it's time to change the probe

Ouch!

Hehe check out goblin glass. They make glass protein skimmers and stuff for those shopps as well http://www.gnomeglass.com/gcart/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=52 I really like the MAME overflow. I think I would definitely like to do a nano one of those! This build is coming along nicely. Keep those pictures coming!

Patience and persistence. Small incremental changes. OCD helps too.

a 29 would fit in the space nicely. Or a 20L.

Heres the reefbreeders 48". Not bad considering it has the controller for automated dimming and schedule http://reefbreeders.com/shop/photon-48/

I liked it for you..you can do it with the tapatalk client

Check out the evergrow d120 / d2040. A lot more light then those fixtures you mentioned. Those are geared toward fish only or soft corals only. The evergrow's could be gotten for less than 100 each now on ebay.

Tinkering... Lol

perspective. (wouldn't let me edit the above.) Anyway, Rick at ReefRadiance is going to get back to me after doing some checks on the generic d2040 fixture i got on ebay. I'm hoping to hear back soon. In the meantime I've wired the dimming wires directly to my controller and disabled the knobs. The lights dim really well across a nice spectrum now.

Both lights have been hacked. The range on the dimming with knobs is definitely smaller than the stock. We'll see how low and high they will go once I hook up the controller. Previously it dimmed a lot lower and was much brighter at high. But its working so far and i can always revert back. I'll touch base with RR to see if that is normal behavior. I have to say the inside is nice and clean and makes a pretty good foundation for hacking. The kit worked out very nicely from an instruction and ease of use.

No way! The rj45 port is the nice finished look i bought the kit for. I will install it nicely in the case and then plug an ethernet cable into it and strip that

So, not much to it. It's swap in replacement dimmers connected to a nice rj-45 port. They seem to have a lot more circuitry then the stock ones. I'm lacking the right drill bits and usb cable for my dimming module. So I have a bit of shopping to do.

The kits have been delievered. I'll be doing the unboxing tonight and probably the replacement sometime this weekend. I received the installation instructions this past weekend. Everything seems pretty straight forward. From what I've gathered this is a replacement of the stock dimmers. Holes will need to be drilled into the case in order to add an RJ-45 jack that is compatible with the 2-channel Apex wiring layout (pins 1+2, 5+6) So far, the only disconcerting thing is that it says to set the Apex operating parameters at 45-70. Effectively this puts the number of dimming increments at only 25 settings. However, there is some good news as supposedly less than 45 and the unit will be off and higher than 70 will stay at 100%. This is good becasue previous hacks reported having flickering below 10% and required turning off the ports that the lights are connected to. Now, I'm not sure how the Apex deals with dimming, but I'll be using a ReefAngel. Currently the built-in dimming ports no the RA are set from 0-100 just like the Apex, but the dimming circuitry is actually 8 bit and can be set from 0-255. The newer dimming expansion modules are actually 12 bit and are capable of being set from 0-4095. What does this mean? Nothing yet... Alan has been helping the RA community add support for the higher resolutions. For the stock dimming this would change the operating range from 45-70 to 115-178 giving us 63 increments of dimming (remember this is using an analog singal...) and if you are using the dimming expansion, we'd translate that range to 1843-2866, giving essentially 1024 increments of dimming. Which every dimming port you use though we should get really nice smooth dimming on the ReefAngel. I don't know if Apex does the same in the background or not. Would love to hear from those that have more details. Anyway, very excited about adding dimming capabilities to my D2040 fixture. I really hope to have good news to report and let everyone who has one of these lights get in on the controller action If anyone has any questions or wants a specific picture of something, let me know.

If you know that 0 is 0 and 35 ppt we are no longer talking about single point of calibration now are we. So yes go ahead and check both. Personally I calibrate every time I check. It's not extra effort by any stretch. And finally the OP obviously has an issue with his refractometer being off with ro or he has bad calibration. Either way he needs to check them both out. If he goes only with RO he could be off by as much as 5ppt.

And here's some expert advice laying out the real issues as well when using hobbyist grade refractometers. You may not know Boomer as he sticks to Manhattan Reefs, but he's otherwise a pretty well known authority. http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/chemistry/159347-calibration-fluid-refractometer.html#post1444522

I can use google too... Make your own decision.. http://blog.captive-aquatics.com/captive_aquatics/2011/01/refractometer-calibration-the-myth-and-risks-of-using-rodi.html Mine is pretty clear to me...

Exactly my point. One point calibration. Calibrating at zero is useless on a measuring device

You aren't wasting anything if you use an accurate reference. My 10 cent ruler that is 9" and says its 12" measures a 6" line just fine after i calibrate it with an accurate 6" measurement. But i wouldn't use its scale and calibrate only one inch. Point is not to assume and calibrate as close as possible to what your measuring. Same principle as calibrating a ph probe with 7 and 10 fluid and not with 4 and 7. Yes 4 and 7 will calibrate it, but it will be more accurate to what we measure if you use 7 and 10. It's just best practice.

I run both inline. I use Rox as well. My Rox is sandwiched between the sponges and plastic mesh. No carbon tumbling. I set the flow so the gfo is "simmering". Works well for me and no HLLE at all, although i just have one blue hippo tang