Jestersix

Alex’s IM 150 EXT

Ayman said:
@Alexander1312 Tank looks fantastic, as for the favias at least in may experience they like low flow low light I would not give them more then 150 but max 180 I think they should be fine.
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Thank you. They are getting this amount of light, and it’s the place with the least amount of flow, but I am not sure that they are particularly happy. It’s only a few days, so hopefully they will improve, or I am misinterpreting their well-being.
 
Time to refill the plank. This is my dry food mix. Approx 20% or less of each of these ingredients.

I am currently down to 1 minute twice a day due to higher nutrients (I am feeding nori, dandelions and frozen food also daily).

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Avoided a massive disaster this morning resulting from a faulty Ecoflow DELTA 2 Unit.

In summary, on or before 1 am tonight, the back up unit turned off its power ports without reasons, turning off all Hydros devices connected to them.

Temperature dropped to 74F, and only two MP40s remained on since they were not (!) connected to the power back up - this was probably a major factor that nothing was harmed by this.

Troubleshooting with their customer support confirmed that the unit needs to be sent in for repair.

This is the unit I have - bought last November.

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This is the way I have the power connected:

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Lessons learned:

I have all types of back up but if the power back up is broken, there was no plan for that. No alarm went off, and the only way I found out was by checking the Hydros app when I woke up and realized it was not connecting.

The only fix I can think of off is to have an Inkbird connected to the power which is not backed up, as it would provide an audio signal if the temperature is too low.

Defintely not impressed with the Ecoflow.
 
And it had to happen when our temps just started dropping!! Lucky you were not on a jet fueled Holiday!

Doesn’t your inkbird currently have an audible alarm plus the app alarm ⏰ goes off when temp drops or gets to high? Unless your using a different temp controller on your heaters? I can hear mine through the house or on phone..But you just reminded me to put back my water level sensor alarm in my return pump section. Their are numerous on the market that use floats or optical thats send alerts, strobe lights, sirens if water rises or gets to low if return pump fails another reason not to use check valves in plumbing lol!!..My VarioS has the water level kill switch but no remote alarm..Hydros makes water level alarms I think..
 
PjFish said:
And it had to happen when our temps just started dropping!! Lucky you were not on a jet fueled Holiday!

Doesn’t your inkbird currently have an audible alarm plus the app alarm ⏰ goes off when temp drops or gets to high? Unless your using a different temp controller on your heaters? I can hear mine through the house or on phone..But you just reminded me to put back my water level sensor alarm in my return pump section. Their are numerous on the market that use floats or optical thats send alerts, strobe lights, sirens if water rises or gets to low if return pump fails another reason not to use check valves in plumbing lol!!..My VarioS has the water level kill switch but no remote alarm..Hydros makes water level alarms I think..
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Agreed, timing could have not been worse.

I am currently not using an Inkbird for water temperature alarms. I have two temp probes which produce an audible alarm if the temperature drops below 76F.

However, they need power to operate. So during a power outage, they would be powered through the power back up they are connected to.

Since I do not have the heaters connected to the power back up, the temperature would drop before the the power back up battery is depleted.

The only reason I consider adding back the Inkbird is to have it on a separate power line which is not backed up purely to detect power back up outages vs power outages - which is crazy to think about it, but since it happened today, this is how I would address this going forward, unless there is a better way to do this.
 
derek_SR said:
Do you really have both your heaters and controllers connected to a wifi power strip (and the same one at that)? I would consider separating at least one of those onto a different circuit.
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Agreed, and good catch. It's my Achilles heel. I have been waiting to get a better price on the XP8 as the power strips should not have any (high powered) heater plugged into them.

Unfortunately, there is no other circuit available in my hallway so separating them is not possible.

Also, the 2x 350 watts Helios do not turn on unless there is an issue with the BRS 600 watt heater (!), i.e., if temps drop below 76F.
 
Alexander1312 said:
Agreed, and good catch. It's my Achilles heel. I have been waiting to get a better price on the XP8 as the power strips should not have any (high powered) heater plugged into them.

Unfortunately, there is no other circuit available in my hallway so separating them is not possible.

Also, the 2x 350 watts Helios do not turn on unless there is an issue with the BRS 600 watt heater (!), i.e., if temps drop below 76F.
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But you have 2 outlets available on your XP8 if I am looking at your diagram correctly - why not put at least one of them there?

Also it's ONLY heaters on that wifi strip, why not remove it entirely and leave the aqualogic directly plugged into the outlet?

I wouldn't trust those wifi outlets with my christmas lights.
 
derek_SR said:
But you have 2 outlets available on your XP8 if I am looking at your diagram correctly - why not put at least one of them there?

Also it's ONLY heaters on that wifi strip, why not remove it entirely and leave the aqualogic directly plugged into the outlet?

I wouldn't trust those wifi outlets with my christmas lights.
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Yes, these wifi plugs are cheap quality.

The reasons why I did not plug the heaters into the XP8 are twofold:
- The XP8 is connected to the power back up, and I do not want to drain the battery during a power outage.
- Also, if the heater is going through the power back up, the DELTA keeps spinning the fan on higher speed frequently to recharge, which is annoying in terms of the noise level.
 
Alexander1312 said:
Mindnote - for mindmapping primarily, no so much flow charting, but it worked for this too.
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Definitely a worthwhile endeavor - I documented all of mine (written on paper with ink pen...sadly) and it was a good exercise. It opened my eyes to a couple potential risks and I made some changes as a result. Maybe I will transition my handwritten one into a digital format and share, but I was really careful with flow and heat in particular - and actually have both return pumps on entirely different circuits all the way back to the breaker box, just in case. One of them is on the wave-engine and one is not, etc.

I am lucky in that my tank has access to two outlets on separate circuits, one of which was installed by an electrician and is a full 20amps entirely dedicated to ONLY the tank, which is also nice peace of mind.

Not meaning to poke a bunch of holes in your set up, just wanted to offer suggestions as someone who went through all of this pretty recently.
 
I had an GFCI outlet installed for the large tank but other smaller tanks I use these portable GFCI extensions gives a little piece of protection! They come in all gages and designs.
But who all remembers to test them monthly lol The ones made after 2015 supposedly tests themselves!


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derek_SR said:
Definitely a worthwhile endeavor - I documented all of mine (written on paper with ink pen...sadly) and it was a good exercise. It opened my eyes to a couple potential risks and I made some changes as a result. Maybe I will transition my handwritten one into a digital format and share, but I was really careful with flow and heat in particular - and actually have both return pumps on entirely different circuits all the way back to the breaker box, just in case. One of them is on the wave-engine and one is not, etc.

I am lucky in that my tank has access to two outlets on separate circuits, one of which was installed by an electrician and is a full 20amps entirely dedicated to ONLY the tank, which is also nice peace of mind.

Not meaning to poke a bunch of holes in your set up, just wanted to offer suggestions as someone who went through all of this pretty recently.
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My hallway did not have any outlet when I got my tank, and the one it has now was also installed by a professional electrician :) - he might actually be reading this post :).

Seriously though, no problem if you are poking holes into my setup - I absolutely do not believe how I have done this right now is how it should be done.

The reason I recorded mine (digitally) was mainly to know what is happening with the connections which grew over time and it provided transparancy over where the problems are. I never went through the next steps to resolve these issues, unfortunately.

The issue I had this time were obviously not related to this mess, but other issues could occur for sure from not getting this better organized.
 
I am getting ready to pick up a mated pair of Synchiropus picturatus / spotted mandarins from Kenny this Sunday.

This was planned for two months, but it is not easy to get them through quarantine.

I did and do not want to add any more fish to the tank, but I could not find a better way to (hopefully) manage the flatworm population in my tank.

I always thought that the melanurus wrasse was too lazy, but I do now think he is trying his best, as it does not seem to get out of hand, really. Yet, there are still too many on some of the corals.

The fish in my tank are mostly relaxed, except the large borb anthias, who always fights with the yellow tang and the smaller borb anthias when it’s feeding time, but never before or after that. The blue throat trigger pair is also very friendly.

Still, I have concerns about adding these peaceful fish properly to the tank. They will be in the large in-tank box for a while, but the fun always starts when they are being released. The mirror method seems to be the only way to properly control aggression in the beginning.

While these guys are meant to eat the flatworms, I want to make sure they have enough to eat, especially during the higher risk phase in the beginning.

Some of you might have received a BF coupon from Dinkins for their copepods today. They seem to be pretty high in the Reef2Reef award rankings, and I have ordered from them a lot when they started. Very friendly people.

However, I was planning to add amphipods (vs copepods) to the tank to get ready for the mandarins. Amphipods have always seemed rather expensive from Dinkins - 100 amphipods in the box (and out of stock), and I previously purchased them here: https://www.irwinsbugs.com/live-reef-bugs.html?id=98928447&quantity=1. Unfortunately, the 1600 count was not available this time, and I was only able to buy the 800 count. 100 amphipods from Dinkins cost 50 USD, 800 from Irwins all in 60 USD.
 
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