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arking_mark

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Posts posted by arking_mark

    Bubble elgea

    in General Discussion

    I 2nd the Emerald Crabs....

    52 minutes ago, cdw79 said:

    Has no one had negative experience w Emerald crabs? I haven't experienced this myself but have heard stories / seen pictures of them chowing down on some (sometimes very expense) LPS, which has made me swear them off purely out of an abundance of caution

     

    I've only heard this...never experienced this.

    TSM Aquatics Rocks!

    in Vendor Experience

    Normally, I would not promote a vendor, but I have to say these guys are the best. I have made several online purchases from them and have yet to lose a fish. They QT all their fish and are on the east coast. This alone is worth my business.

     

    However, it's not when things go right when you see the true colors of a vendor.

     

    Long story short, I ordered a Copper-banded Butterfly from them. Instead of having them ship it, I opted to pick it up instead, as they are only about 2hrs from me. A mistake was made in the bagging that the owner immediately took responsibility for. Instead of just giving me a refund, he went above and beyond and pulled his CBB from his show tank as a replacement and drove down to get it to me.

     

    Getting a well-established eating CBB that is a known Aiptasia eater is nigh impossible. The owner Ray made the impossible a reality!

     

    This CBB greets you whenever you come to the tant, eats like a champ, and eliminated my remaining 2 Aiptasia (I have been using Aiptasia X for the last couple of months to treat the occasional one or two that pops up).

     

    TSM went above and beyond...they have earned a customer for life!

     

     

    House of Tropics Complaint

    in Vendor Experience

    Normally, I would never disparage a local establishment, but after today's experience, I feel I must share.

     

    1. I haven't been there in years, since they are 50 minutes away from me. However, the past times I was there they were always the best option in the area for quality and fish.

    2. I called on Friday for a CBB fish and was told they have several healthy specimens and would put one on hold that I could pickup on Sunday.

    3. I make the trip up only to find that the CBB held was injured and diseased.

    4. Looking at several other tanks, the condition of many of the fish was poor.  Many of the fish had ick and other health issues.

     

    I immediately left having wasted about 2hrs of my day.

     

    However, the worst part was seeing many people buying fish that if not properly QT'd at home will probably wipe out their tank and require a fallow period.

     

    Warning to all who shop there.

     

    Switching salts

    in General Discussion

    So a couple of thoughts on salt mixes.
    1. Your target parameters
    2. Consider you're dosing regime
    3. Consider you're water change regime

    For many years, I used IO Reef Salt as my main salt due to its elevated parameters. I did a bi-weekly small 5-10% water change to keep my tank at more normal seawater parameters. Basically, the elevated IO Reef salt parameters were replenishing my tank...no dosing.

    In my current build, I'm dosing and doing incremental AWC. In this case, I needed to switch to a salt that mimics natural sea parameters so that my dosing regime maintains my target parameters. I went with Brightwell Neomarine Salt which has a 7-ish dKH and will allow me to target a slightly higher 8-ish dKH and other parameters to be maintained by my dosing method.

    So when picking a salt mix, you need to make sure it works with your target parameters and tank maintenance plan.

    FYI, Brightwell Neomarine is a salt that mixes clean.

    Issues with pH

    in General Discussion

    · Edited by arking_mark
    Syntax

    You can test if it is a gas exchange issue vs high CO2 in your abode. Take a cup of tank water and an air stone and aerate the water outside for an hour, then do the same thing inside. You now have three measurements tank PH, outside aerated, and inside aerated. 

     

    1. If outside aerated tanjkwater has higher PH then inside aerated tank water you have a CO2 problem.

     

    2. If inside aerated tank water has higher PH then your tank, you have a gas exchange issue.

     

    Note that both of these can be true. If 2 is true, you can increase PH by increasing gas exchange in your tank via surface agitation or a skimmer.

     

    You mentioned keeping your dKH at 10. I'm assuming this is maintained through 2-part and kalk dosing. How are you ensuring this is steadily maintained? A large increase or decrease in dKH can also result in coral shock and death. A normal PH swing in a 24hr period can be .3 without effecting coral. A dKH swing of .5 to 1 in 24hrs is probably also acceptable for a reef tank. However, quick swings in these parameters can cause issues.

     

     

    My first reef

    in New to the Hobby

    11 minutes ago, Bmp78 said:

    I do have issues with salinity. No matter how much salt I added the bar isn't moving up much.. 
    I had it at 1.020, 40g (tank +Sump). I added almost 3 cups of salt gradually in the sump and bar moved form 1.020 to 1.022. I am afraid of over dousing salt because I don't know if my refractometer is doing any justice. 

    There are reef calculators that will help. Also, I hope your not adding salt directly to a tank with Livestock.

    A slightly different approach to AWC

    in General Discussion

    Key takeaways if you don’t want to read the long post:
    1.    Very small footprint
    2.    Mechanical and electronic redundancy against water accidents
    3.    Only maintenance is adding salt once a week and pushing a button
    Makes this ultra low maintenance!

     

    In preparation for my upcoming build, I decided to tackle getting my AWC in place. I'm looking to go ultra low maintenance and have limited space.  The typical AWC two container solution with plumbing, valves, and pumps was not going to work.

     

    My space is limited to a cabinet under my sink and a small 24"x12"x72" behind the door of my bathroom. This eliminates seeing any equipment and making my wife happy.

     

    Another constraint is that no water accidents can happen that would cause any damage.

     

    The tank will be a Red Sea Reefer 525xl which will have roughly 140gal of saltwater (including sump)

     

    To minimize the need for water changes i decided to go with the Triton dosing method which I implemented with the GHL KH Director and a GHL 2.1 Doser. With this, I figure I only need to change out 12% of my water or less per month or about 17gal.

     

    In the end, this is what I came up with for ULM AWC:
    1. AquaticLife Twist in compact RO/DI installed under my sink; easily fits and makes cartridges easy to replace.
    2. Flow-lok leak detector to provide mechanical shut off to RO/Di in case of leak in cabinet
    3. Added an additional 1/4 tube saddle drain for tank waste water
    4. Plumbed 2 lines of 1/4 inch tubing from under sink to behind the bathroom door. One to supply RO/DI and the other for waste water. Then plumbed 3 lines of 1/4 inch tubing through my closet to behind my tank. Just a couple of drywall holes with plates...went high up and they really aren't noticeable.
    5. Installed 24"x12" Elfa shelving behind the door for equipment.
    6. Went with a single 10gal Bashsea ATO container for the RO/DI AND fresh saltwater with a heater and Tunze nanostream 6020 for mixing. It is dead silent!
    7. To the Bashsea, I added a vertical mechanical float valve and a RO/DI Flood Guardian - RODI Auto Shut Off Solinoid. The mechanical float valve is the backup incase the electronics fail.
    8. Then I automated this by adding GHL float sensors, PowerBar, and a Maxi doser. The Maxi dosers provide precise high-speed metered water exchange and are on a day schedule due to the fact that they aren’t silent…they are not loud either. One Maxi takes water from the Bashsea and adds it to the tank while the other take water out of the tank to the waste.

     

    So here is how it all behaves:
    A.    The Maxi does small AWC throughout the day
    B.    When the low water sensor in the Bashsea is triggered, the Maxi is turned off, and the RO/DI Flood Guardian turned on. It takes about 1.5 hours to fill the Bashsea, as only about 8 gal can be filled with the float valve and I leave 2 gal so as not to have to turn off heater and Tunze pump.
    C.    GHL notifies me when the sensor was triggered
    D.    At some point, I just add salt to the Bashsea and hit the Maintenance button on my GHL which is basically a two hour delay for turning the Maxi back on. This gives it enough time to properly mix the salt.

     

    So with this setup, I only need to add salt and push a button about once a week.

     

    One caveat is that the GHL is not the easiest to do automation with and took some creative thinking to do this.


     

    Aptasia observation and question

    in General Discussion

    So I added a rock to my display tank several months ago. Recently, I moved it to my observation tank. Prior to moving the rock, there was no aptasia in either tank. The observation tank gets all its water from the display tank so that they are in lock step with each other. After a couple weeks, the rock that was moved developed aptasia. Not sure how this is possible unless aptasia can go dormant or I have something in the display tank that was keeping it in check...and I can't think of anything in the tank that would do that.

     

    Any thoughts? Has anyone else seen this before? 

     

    The aptasia has been eliminated with Aptasia X, so no worries. 

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