mmmm 230... - Page 3

Gizmo · #21 03-02-2009, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delphinus

One thing, those nitrate probes aren't intended for continuous monitoring. Having said that, maybe keeping the probe wet will help it last longer. Who knows..

I've been reading more of that every day. I guess im one of the lucky ones. I've had that probe for over 2 1/2years, most of the time sitting in a cup of water in storage. I tried it out in a test sample and it was bang on.
Having said that, I think I will take the probe out of the tank when not in use and put it back in a container of fresh RO/DI water.

I've got sand, baffles, UV filter and the breeding tanks coming this week, I'll post some more pics this weekend.

Delphinus · #22 03-02-2009, 04:43 PM

Oh wow, you've gotten a nice long run with that probe. Uh .. don't listen to me then! Although that doesn't really surprise me. Generally speaking, doing whatever the opposite of what I do, is usually the better choice.

However, I would just say ix-nay on the RO/DI. I bought one of the first units and mine was defective from the get-go. Speaking with Lou Dell at American Marine, he suggested I soak the probe overnight in fresh water, try again the next day, and then call back and let him know if it worked. So I put the probe in RO/DI, followed through, and it still didn't work. (It turned out the problem was a bad solder in the controller unit, eventually I sent it in, Pinpoint fixed it and sent it back.) But when I called to say it didn't work, he asked "Did you use RO/DI? Tell me you didn't use RO/DI, because if you did, you just wrecked your probe." I said "But you just said freshwater, I just assumed RO/DI was the trick." So he said, "yeah OK, I should have warned you. I'll send you a new probe." That was nice of him to send a new probe. So anyhow, according to my conversation with Lou Dell, "don't use RO/DI to store these probes, use tapwater." For what it's worth.

Man I miss using mine. But it was something like $220 to order a new probe .. dang that stings.

Gizmo · #23 03-03-2009, 02:28 PM

I wonder why RO/DI would be bad for the probes, good thing i've been using tap water

Shipment of salt and sand came yesterday. Took 50 bags to give me a 3-4" sand bed

I'm thinking i'll be painting the back of the tank black to match.

Delphinus · #24 03-03-2009, 04:44 PM

I guess RO/DI has a strong affinity to strip out ions...

Black sand, black overflows .. seems a no-brainer to go black on the background.

I have that combo on a FW tank and it's really sharp. Only thing is in a reef, the rocks shed so much crud, you'll probably be doing a lot of vacuuming on your weekly chores. Hard to beat the look of a tank like that though!

JDigital · #25 03-03-2009, 09:20 PM

I found black sand to be highly magnetic with my 10G contest tank I had... Not sure if yours will act the same, but keep your magfloat away from it...