120gal mixed predatory reef tank

[lastlight]

Sorry to hear about your clams. Amazing FTS. Love the green on that cap. Not sure if mine is just a different strain or what but it's such a pale green...makes me jealous!

[zum14]

Originally Posted by lastlight

Sorry to hear about your clams. Amazing FTS. Love the green on that cap. Not sure if mine is just a different strain or what but it's such a pale green...makes me jealous!

Tell me about it! I have a frag of that very cap. It grows like crazy but I have yet to get it that green.....

[whatcaneyedo]

All of my bulbs are 250W 14K Phoenix MH. I'm not sure if thats all there is too it of or if its a water quality issue as well.

[lastlight]

Do you dose anything other than Ca,Alk,Mg?

[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.