howaboutme April 13, 2014 Share April 13, 2014 I went with the school of thought that you should run your tank as if it was established during cycling and will continue with that technique in future tanks. This way you can learn your equipment, tweak as necessary and not worry about hurting any livestock, etc. I also did a water change or two during my cycle (in addition to the last one you do to lower NO3) for practice. I thought that was important too. You want to get your water change routine down quickly. I don't think it prolonged the cycle too much, maybe a bit. I did start with a small portion of fully cured LR in addition to the rest of the base rock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motti April 15, 2014 Author Share April 15, 2014 Thanks everybody for the advice, after much more reading in several different forums I decided to keep the skimmer running. Going to keep the lights off in the main display for the next 5 weeks and keep a short light period on the frag tank and fuge. By the way I noticed the first amphipod yesterday Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motti April 22, 2014 Author Share April 22, 2014 I started monitoring PH in the tank, and it's kind of amazing how much a fresh air line from the outside helps to keep stable PH, at night the PH is currently at around 8.18 and during the day it's around 8.3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldReefer April 23, 2014 Share April 23, 2014 I started monitoring PH in the tank, and it's kind of amazing how much a fresh air line from the outside helps to keep stable PH, at night the PH is currently at around 8.18 and during the day it's around 8.3 Glad to see it is working forward. It is one of the most under-rated things you can do for your tank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DuffyGeos May 9, 2014 Share May 9, 2014 I started monitoring PH in the tank, and it's kind of amazing how much a fresh air line from the outside helps to keep stable PH, at night the PH is currently at around 8.18 and during the day it's around 8.3 Motti- I don't think I remember seeing any details on the fresh air line install. I would like to do the same. Can you give me the details on size of line, where it terminates, is it pumped, all the nitty gritty. Thanks.....lights on in 2 weeks!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motti May 9, 2014 Author Share May 9, 2014 Nice to see that your lights are coming on soon!!! I am going to start putting together my diy radions probably next weekend... So far the lens and chips are just seating on the desk in my fish room As for the air intake, I thing tubing I got was 3/8" I just drilled and tapped the fresh air for the ac and hooked it up to the line. The line is running unpumped to a quick connect T where it splits into both skimmer pumps Ph almost always constant!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motti May 9, 2014 Author Share May 9, 2014 Also, It's been a while since my last update.... beside letting the display tank cycle, and having bunch of sps frags coming back from the dead and starting to color up again, I've been working hard on the settings panes of my DIY controller. So far, I've got a basic framework working, figured out the communication strategy between the server and the arduino, and completed the light management panel. This is the light management panel main view, you can add/modify and delete light fixtures from here. I am planning to have 3 sets of fixtures. one for the Refugium, one for the frag tank and one set of 5 fixtures for the main display tank. You can select and setup the color, pin and pwm chip for each channel, since some fixtures could be using more than one pwm chip, I thought it would make sense to add that option. (still need to code the arduino part for them... hopefully will have some more time tomorrow) Night and day configuration screens to set up the maximum brightness during the day and the maximum brightness during the night, also this pane allows the user (me) to configure the color spectrum by controlling each channel independently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DuffyGeos May 10, 2014 Share May 10, 2014 Nice to see that your lights are coming on soon!!! I am going to start putting together my diy radions probably next weekend... So far the lens and chips are just seating on the desk in my fish room As for the air intake, I thing tubing I got was 3/8" I just drilled and tapped the fresh air for the ac and hooked it up to the line. The line is running unpumped to a quick connect T where it splits into both skimmer pumps Ph almost always constant!!! Great! Unfortunately for me my house was built in 98' when they did not use fresh air intakes on the AC. That is why I was asking how you pump it. You are already using forced air which is awesome! Now I have another project i will need to do! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motti May 10, 2014 Author Share May 10, 2014 Good luck on it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YHSublime May 10, 2014 Share May 10, 2014 Thanks everybody for the advice, after much more reading in several different forums I decided to keep the skimmer running. Going to keep the lights off in the main display for the next 5 weeks and keep a short light period on the frag tank and fuge. By the way I noticed the first amphipod yesterday I actually steered you in what I think is a "wrong" direction. I revisited Tony Vargas book this morning and with the Berlin Method, which I attempted to use to start my tank, it's suggested you run everything, including activated carbon, except for your lights. I'm glad you decided to look further into it, and run it! Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motti May 11, 2014 Author Share May 11, 2014 I actually steered you in what I think is a "wrong" direction. I revisited Tony Vargas book this morning and with the Berlin Method, which I attempted to use to start my tank, it's suggested you run everything, including activated carbon, except for your lights. I'm glad you decided to look further into it, and run it! Cheers. Ah, there are so many ways of getting things done in this hobby. One thing that I am happy i am taking is... time... had a dyno, cynco and some other weird algea outbreaks in the refugium and frag tank, but it' almost totally erdicated. got a 55g clean-up crew from reef cleaners about 2 weeks ago. they really help keeps things nice and clean. I decided to go with no hermit crabs this time around, I always find them attacking snails and other things around the tank. It's good thing you reminded me about running carbon, I haven't started running it yet. still need to choose a good media reactor, and also I need to figure out how much to run. One thing i decided on is to use those ROX 0.8 carbon. seems pretty sweet from the demo video. but that will most likely take place in a week or two, next weekend i'll be putting the lights together. this weekend I pretty much finished testing all the electronics, still need to write the code to wire everything together. So far that's a list of electronic capacities i got sorted out and tested... 1 8 outlet relay box (ordered another one which will be daisy chained on the same chip) for the mixing stations, i got the pressure tanducers which will help me monitor the depth of the liquids in each tank. each tank also has it's own temperature probe. Got a selonid to control the flow of fresh water into the mixing tank. 5 channels on frag tank (using lumia 5.2), 6 channels on fuge (using my DIY radions G3) Probe box, will measure PH, ORP, and Salinity, it also has 3 temp probes (one for each tank in the fish room, sump, fuge and frag tank), it has a small pressure tranducer to measure the water level in the sump, I am also going to wire a float switch as a backup sensor) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rachell3210 May 15, 2014 Share May 15, 2014 following! really interested in your controller, specifically for the LED's.. I just set up a 29g biocube and plan of updating it with leds and custom controller thanks to the Electrical Engineer husband loll. Looks awesome so far! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motti May 16, 2014 Author Share May 16, 2014 Thanks, hopefully I'll have more updates this weekend, did some testing for the light sliders yesterday, it seems like I'll have to modify the communication between the arduino and server a bit since some data is not going through the way it should Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave w May 18, 2014 Share May 18, 2014 I just found your build thread and I am amazed at what an impressive job you've done. I am especially impressed with your DIY arduino mega controller, because this is exactly what I'm trying to do. However I am more of a programming simpleton than you are so I'll just use more megas rather than learn how to use each I/O to control more than one device. Keep up the beautiful work and keep us all updated. You're doing a first class job and will end up with a gorgeous tank. Future TOTM? I think so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motti May 18, 2014 Author Share May 18, 2014 I just found your build thread and I am amazed at what an impressive job you've done. I am especially impressed with your DIY arduino mega controller, because this is exactly what I'm trying to do. However I am more of a programming simpleton than you are so I'll just use more megas rather than learn how to use each I/O to control more than one device. Keep up the beautiful work and keep us all updated. You're doing a first class job and will end up with a gorgeous tank. Future TOTM? I think so. Hi Dave, Thank you for the kind words the controller is turning out to be quite more work than I anticipated, I worked on it yesterday and today to finish coding the ramping up/down of the lights. The approach I took with this controller was not to try to re-build everything from scratch, but rather use existing modules if possible. I've used Adafruit's pwm extender to control the PWM channels for the lights, it has much higher resolution then the ones the comes with the arduino mega, also bought a relay boards instead of making my own from scratch. I've started a small YouTube Channel to keep track and show case demos for the controller, the first video is out. it's just demo the creation process for new light fixtures and the configuration on how to set up on/off ramping time Enjoy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DuffyGeos May 18, 2014 Share May 18, 2014 Very cool Motti! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave w May 19, 2014 Share May 19, 2014 That's a good looking program and it should be useful to anyone working off arduino. Even in my greenhouse I will probably light the phyto reactors 24 hours during the winter because I need to keep the greenhouse warm at night, and heat put off by lights works just as well as heat put off by a heater, giving me double utility for my electric bill. Keep up the good work. Even though you are trying to use "off the shelf" programs that have already been written, it is good that you know enough about the programs to tweak them. That's more than most of us know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motti May 23, 2014 Author Share May 23, 2014 Things been coming a long very slowly while the main tank is cycling... I decided that I want to add some more sand to the main display, I ordered another 60#s of sand from drs foster and smith yesterday. The pumps were blowng it around too much and I need to patch few spots. With no real predators a get a lot of macro organisms in the tank. The display tetank is full of little hydroid jellyfish, got to me hundreds on the aquarium panels at least. The sump refugium and frag tank starting to get a lot of whiter little flat warms which based in pictures online i have id them as Acoel flatworms, based on what's online they are harmless but may eat pods. That thing is so small so I wasn't sure if it was a pod at the beginning. Algea battle is both frag tank is still ongoing, most of the diatom algea is gone, the cleanup crew is working hard on eating it and laying eggs everywhere. Also ordered some Hannah checkers and carboon reactor from Bulk reef supply. I am thinking about using bio pallets, had my eyes on a reef dynamics reactor which is a circulator reactor that has the option the adjust the flow inside the reactor independently from the flow coming in/out of the reactor. Does anyone have experience using them? Seems like the pallets are really expensive how long do they usually last? Do I need to replace them or they just dedegrade I am going to get some more work done on the controller this weekend, haven't decided if to work on the probes or the outlets. And to finish the update with some pictures Sps that I thought were about to die starting to come back Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motti May 26, 2014 Author Share May 26, 2014 New additions : Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motti June 15, 2014 Author Share June 15, 2014 The light fixtures for the display tank are completed. I probably ended up getting much more light than what I really need, but we will see how it goes. I still have 6 harnesses left from my order if anyone is interested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motti June 15, 2014 Author Share June 15, 2014 Some frags I've picked up from mike last week, they are currently in the frag tank until they are finish encrusting the plugs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DuffyGeos June 15, 2014 Share June 15, 2014 Motti- great job on the lighting, looks like you will get a lot of coverage. Some good pics of your future babies! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motti June 21, 2014 Author Share June 21, 2014 Motti- great job on the lighting, looks like you will get a lot of coverage. Some good pics of your future babies! Thanks, I think i went a little overboard with them. I was supposed to have them installed today, but the guy who was supposed to help me with them cancelled on me. so it will have to wait till monday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howaboutme June 22, 2014 Share June 22, 2014 Nice picts! Are you still helping out w/ the RA Iphone app? What's the status on that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motti June 22, 2014 Author Share June 22, 2014 Nice picts! Are you still helping out w/ the RA Iphone app? What's the status on that? I finished only two of the several screens so far, I don't have much time to work on it, but hopefully i'll have some more progress soon. I will most likely try to get my hands on a cheap used device and try to hack it away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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