120gal mixed predatory reef tank

[whatcaneyedo]

I've got a small assortment of things I use every once and a while. Once every week or two I might use Lugol's, Selcon, Vit Chem or Kent Garlic. Each week I add some magnesium salts to my water change water. Then every couple of days I'll feed Coral Frenzy. Kalkwasser and a Calcium Reactor do the rest. I haven't added baking soda or calcium chloride in months and I only breifly tried some Pro Bio products and Vertex bio pellets earlier this summer.

[BlueTang<3]

Dude your tank is awesome. Ever consider running a dosing pump vs reactor?

[whatcaneyedo]

Originally Posted by BlueTang<3

Dude your tank is awesome. Ever consider running a dosing pump vs reactor?

Nope. I've already got the calcium reactor figured out so that I have to do very little work to keep my parameters in check. I calibrate the probes and top off the media about once every three months, clean the whole reactor twice a year and get the CO2 cylinder refilled about once a year. I haven't adjusted the flow in a month or two, the last time I added baking soda was in June and I have not used Calcium Chloride at all this year. Plus I think more trace elements are added back to the water by dissolving coral skeleton than by dosing.

The only downside to the calcium reactor in my case is that my pH tends to be quite low throughout the winter. Right now I sit around 7.7 to 7.9 I'm trying nearly every trick in the book to combat this. What I may try next is drawing my skimmer air through CO2 absorbing media.

[whatcaneyedo]

My Tunze ATO has begun to act up this month for the first time in 4 years. For some reason it doesn't always stop topping off once the water level returns to the bottom of the photo eye. So what I've done is add another float switch to my controller along with some more program language so that if the water level reaches the float switch the controller will shut off the tunze for 30 min. While doing this I also added a command to shut off the ATO for 30 min whenever the Kalk reactor mixing pump comes on. This way freshly mixed kalk water isn't being pumped into my tank anymore.

Overall my program looks like this now:
If Power 020 Then LT1 OFF
If Power 020 Then LT2 OFF
If Time > 00:00 Then WP1 ON
If Time > 00:00 Then ALM OFF
If Time > 00:00 Then SKM ON
If Time > 00:00 Then ATO ON
If Time > 18:00 Then FWT ON
If Time > 19:00 Then FWT OFF
Max Change 005 M Then WP1 OFF
Max Change 020 M Then LT1 OFF
Max Change 020 M Then LT2 OFF
Max Change 030 M Then ATO OFF
If Sun 060/-120 Then LT1 ON
If Sun 120/-060 Then LT2 ON
If Moon 000/000 Then MON ON
If Temp > RT+1.3 Then COL ON
If Temp < RT+1.0 Then COL OFF
If Temp > RT+1.3 Then FAN ON
If Temp < RT+1.0 Then FAN OFF
If Temp < RT+0.7 Then HET ON
If Temp > RT+1.0 Then HET OFF
If Temp > RT+3.0 Then LT1 OFF
If Temp > RT+3.0 Then LT2 OFF
If Temp > RT+3.0 Then ALM ON
If Temp < RT+-1.0 Then ALM ON
If Temp < RT+-9.9 Then HET OFF
OSC 003/255 ON/OFF Then KAL OFF
If pH2 > 06.60 Then CO2 ON
If pH2 < 06.50 Then CO2 OFF
If pH < 07.60 Then CO2 OFF
If pH < 07.60 Then ALM ON
If pH > 08.60 Then ALM ON
If pH > 08.40 Then ATO OFF
If Switch1 OPEN Then ATO OFF
If Switch1 CLOSED Then ATO ON
If Switch2 OPEN Then WP1 OFF
If Switch2 OPEN Then ALM ON
If Timer KAL = ON Then ATO OFF



New pictures
Top right to show off the montipora colonies.


Top left to show off the green acro


Probably my all time favorite clam. Fortunately its also one of my few surviving ones.



These two Pocillopora colonies started growing on my returns about a year ago all on their own by either spawning or polyp bailout.

[whatcaneyedo]

At 4:00am this morning I couldn't sleep so I went down stairs to have a look at the tank. The one year old seal on my crappy Reeflo Dart pump must have just went so there was about 2 gal of water on the floor. Ironically I had just removed my water on the floor sensors last week so that I could use a second float switch on my ACIII to protect against my failing Tunze ATO... If they were still in place I might have had some earlier warning about the flood. Fortunately I'm not a complete idiot so I have a spare Dart to use as a backup when these things inevitably happen. So an hour and a half later my rusty old spare is in use again and some of the water is cleaned up. Now I'm just waiting for Reeflo to respond to my email so that they can gouge me with the price of another seal to get me by until next year. Merry Christmas devil tank.

[zum14]

Wonder if that was the "watery" noise that we heard? Crazy. Funny how, what was it? a week ago? you were talking about that very backup pump. Good thing it was there. Could of been an interesting day.

[whatcaneyedo]

That sound we heard certainly sounded like a small burst of water. I bet thats what it was too.

This is the second time I've needed to replace a seal... actually its the third time because I've needed to do it on both my primary Dart and what is now my spare (both were purchased used BTW). part of the process is to silicone a new one in which then takes time to cure. That is the main reason why I own two but its a good idea to have one extra regardless. What weirds me out is the last time it was just a slow leak that resulted in a little salt creep and corrosion. This time it was flowing out at about the same rate that water passes through my calcium reactor. Up until now it was absolutely fine, no salt creep no nothing.

[whatcaneyedo]

I've acquired a few new goodies over the last few weeks. The girlfriend got me a new camera (Canon EOS Rebel XS) for Christmas so I've been playing around with it and thumbing through the manual. Then I got myself a Neptune Apex on boxing day. I also picked up a new seal for my Reeflo Dart when I visited Progressive Reef so that I could immediately fix the leaking pump. In a few more weeks the two that I ordered directly from Reeflo should arrive. I was very pleased with their customer service considering the time of the year.

Here is some more good news, my toadstool which bleached back in August is finally re-gaining its color! If you look back in my thread I mentioned how it and a few other coral begun to bleach when I tried out a minimal amount of Vertex biopellets.



Now that the dying has stopped I wanted to show off this pieces as well... It was a nice healthy looking platygyra when I bought it a month ago. Unfortunately it was inadequately bagged for the trip home. Upon arrival the bag smelled like rotting fish. However I consider myself lucky that this much survived and I accept 50% of the blame. When I told the retailer that I had a long drive back to PG what I should have said was please use a larger bag and a lot of water.



Here are a few random shots with the new camera.

[Madreefer]

Nice pics. Did you use a different macro lens than the one it comes with?

[whatcaneyedo]

No just the EF-S 18-55 lens it came with.