High Tide Aquatics

Richie's 48x24x12 frag tank

I wish I could get a perfect picture of this tank right now. My acros and other sps are growing into such large colonies that I'm starting to run out of space! At some point I'll start fragging these, and also at some point I'll start transferring them to my display (after I get it setup again).

I'm going to start hunting for more lights for this tank so that I can start spreading things out more.

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New problem for the day. ATO dumped about 20 gallons of freshwater into my frag tank. Saw it in the morning, turned a fan on over it and went to work.

Finally checked salinity just now and it's about 28.0ppt. I pulled about 6 gallons of water out and added a bit under 5 gallons just to boost a bit.

All coral and fish are still happy looking, including acros with fully extended polyps. Clam however is gaping, which is the main reason I did some water switch.

Currently has a heater blasting in that room, two fans on the tank.

Hopefully is ok. The crazy thing is I've had so many issues with this tank recently and yet everything is very happy. I've never had acros this colorful and growing so well.

Issues just in the last couple months:
* Twice had to power go out overnight due to EcoFlow issues. That would've led to a pretty big temp swing and very little water movement for upwards of 10 hours
* Recently my kalk dosing was either too low or off. Alk has been around 5.5, and I've been slowly increasing it, but it's still below 6. I thought that's actually what screwed up today at first, that I'd been dosing too much kalk until ill realized it was ATO.
* This salinity crash

There's something that's making this tank robust and I'm not sure what it is.

* I dose All-for-Reef during the day and Kalk overnight
* I don't do that many water changes
* I feed many many times a day with an Avast feeder and a mix of reef jerky + mysis
* I occasionally test alk, but nothing else

Really interesting.
 
richiev said:
New problem for the day. ATO dumped about 20 gallons of freshwater into my frag tank. Saw it in the morning, turned a fan on over it and went to work.

Finally checked salinity just now and it's about 28.0ppt. I pulled about 6 gallons of water out and added a bit under 5 gallons just to boost a bit.

All coral and fish are still happy looking, including acros with fully extended polyps. Clam however is gaping, which is the main reason I did some water switch.

Currently has a heater blasting in that room, two fans on the tank.

Hopefully is ok. The crazy thing is I've had so many issues with this tank recently and yet everything is very happy. I've never had acros this colorful and growing so well.

Issues just in the last couple months:
* Twice had to power go out overnight due to EcoFlow issues. That would've led to a pretty big temp swing and very little water movement for upwards of 10 hours
* Recently my kalk dosing was either too low or off. Alk has been around 5.5, and I've been slowly increasing it, but it's still below 6. I thought that's actually what screwed up today at first, that I'd been dosing too much kalk until ill realized it was ATO.
* This salinity crash

There's something that's making this tank robust and I'm not sure what it is.

* I dose All-for-Reef during the day and Kalk overnight
* I don't do that many water changes
* I feed many many times a day with an Avast feeder and a mix of reef jerky + mysis
* I occasionally test alk, but nothing else

Really interesting.
Click to expand...
Lost the clam. Rest of the tank seems fine. Bummer because I had that clam a long time, but nice this tank is so robust.
 
richiev said:
Lost the clam. Rest of the tank seems fine. Bummer because I had that clam a long time, but nice this tank is so robust.
Click to expand...
My unlucky streak continues. Left town for a couple days, have all my backups in place, and of course right after leaving my primary power supply dies. I even got a wonderful alert via home assistant that my EcoFlow power output dropped to basically 0, but I was driving and assumed it was a false alarm.

Later my neighbor who was checking on things let me know something was alarming. That was the heater in my sump which is underpowered intentionally. Thankfully I moved my main heater into my display awhile back, so at least the temp was stable.

I over the phone walked her through it and got a backup running my return pump, but my power heads are all off, along with my reef pi, and the pump for my QT tank that has a filefish in it. I'm hoping I can get a different friend to stop by tomorrow and connect another one tomorrow.

Worst case it'll be one more thing to deal with when I get back Wednesday.

If that tank wasn't growing so well I'd probably tear it down at this point.
 
richiev said:
My unlucky streak continues. Left town for a couple days, have all my backups in place, and of course right after leaving my primary power supply dies. I even got a wonderful alert via home assistant that my EcoFlow power output dropped to basically 0, but I was driving and assumed it was a false alarm.

Later my neighbor who was checking on things let me know something was alarming. That was the heater in my sump which is underpowered intentionally. Thankfully I moved my main heater into my display awhile back, so at least the temp was stable.

I over the phone walked her through it and got a backup running my return pump, but my power heads are all off, along with my reef pi, and the pump for my QT tank that has a filefish in it. I'm hoping I can get a different friend to stop by tomorrow and connect another one tomorrow.

Worst case it'll be one more thing to deal with when I get back Wednesday.

If that tank wasn't growing so well I'd probably tear it down at this point.
Click to expand...
I’m in sf. Let me know if I can help.
 
Turkeysammich said:
I’m in sf. Let me know if I can help.
Click to expand...
richiev said:
My unlucky streak continues. Left town for a couple days, have all my backups in place, and of course right after leaving my primary power supply dies. I even got a wonderful alert via home assistant that my EcoFlow power output dropped to basically 0, but I was driving and assumed it was a false alarm.

Later my neighbor who was checking on things let me know something was alarming. That was the heater in my sump which is underpowered intentionally. Thankfully I moved my main heater into my display awhile back, so at least the temp was stable.

I over the phone walked her through it and got a backup running my return pump, but my power heads are all off, along with my reef pi, and the pump for my QT tank that has a filefish in it. I'm hoping I can get a different friend to stop by tomorrow and connect another one tomorrow.

Worst case it'll be one more thing to deal with when I get back Wednesday.

If that tank wasn't growing so well I'd probably tear it down at this point.
Click to expand...

Im on several people's emergency tank phone list. You could always add my number to your list.
 
Thanks all! I have the return pump and Kalk dosing still working, which means the only thing it's currently lacking is maximum flow. I think it's stable enough that I'm not considering it an emergency, but I really do appreciate the offer.

The tear down would be kinda sad, but also would be a big money saver and stress remover. I need to get my main display all back in order so I can start moving colonies over and reassess my investments.

Just crazy though how stable this tank is despite all these issues. Hopefully it's still good when I get home tomorrow.
 
Went out of town and inadvertently had let my ATO reservoir empty. Luckily I have RODI lines run so my neighbor just had to flip on a valve at the sink.

Unfortunately took a long time to get her to the point she could do it. Partially because recently I'd created this giant mess:

1000001352.jpg


Incremental temporary things added up to a hot mess. I just blew my memorial day off and redid everything though. Semi therapeutic:

1000001356.jpg
 
psidriven said:
good lord, the before pic would drive me nuts. i like that pegboard, do you just widen the holes to pass the cords thru? do you have a link to the pegboard? think i'd like to use it.
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Pegboard is Ikea Skadis. I designed a pass through that's screws tight. I 3d print them and drill a 1.5in hole through the board, then install to route cables behind. I can just barely get full size plugs through that. 1.75in would probably be better, or ovalized.

I installed the pegboard on some collapsible shelving mounts. That lets me easily pull it away from the wall to run things behind and tighten mounts.

There's a bazillion Skadis compatible things online, so I've started putting boards here and there in my house for convenient mounting. Normal pegboard works too, but I like the shape of the Skadis holes. They let you push locking pieces through and then turn them to tighten from the front. At least in theory. In practice I tend to try and get it so I can get behind easily to hide cables.
 
richiev said:
Went out of town and inadvertently had let my ATO reservoir empty. Luckily I have RODI lines run so my neighbor just had to flip on a valve at the sink.
Click to expand...
So the line from the RODI unit already goes straight into the ATO reservoir? If you put a solenoid inline you can just leave the sink valve on and use the solenoid to start and stop the water flow.

I have the XP Flood Guardian hooked up between my unit and ATO reservoir. I can remotely turn the switch on and off with a Kasa smart switch, plus it's on a daily schedule to reset and fill the reservoir up again with no manual intervention. I know you like to DIY tinker, so I'm sure you can devise a way to hook up a stand alone 24v solenoid to your smart home ecosystem. Like this one
www.saltwateraquarium.com

ATO Solenoid Valve - Icecap

Shop The Best Saltwater Aquarium Equipment & Supplies at Saltwater Aquarium. We Carry Everything you will Need for your Fish Tank.
www.saltwateraquarium.com www.saltwateraquarium.com
 
CaseyP said:
So the line from the RODI unit already goes straight into the ATO reservoir? If you put a solenoid inline you can just leave the sink valve on and use the solenoid to start and stop the water flow.

I have the XP Flood Guardian hooked up between my unit and ATO reservoir. I can remotely turn the switch on and off with a Kasa smart switch, plus it's on a daily schedule to reset and fill the reservoir up again with no manual intervention. I know you like to DIY tinker, so I'm sure you can devise a way to hook up a stand alone 24v solenoid to your smart home ecosystem. Like this one
www.saltwateraquarium.com

ATO Solenoid Valve - Icecap

Shop The Best Saltwater Aquarium Equipment & Supplies at Saltwater Aquarium. We Carry Everything you will Need for your Fish Tank.
www.saltwateraquarium.com www.saltwateraquarium.com
Click to expand...

In my experience, those push connect solenoids will eventually not fully close and slowly drip/leak even when power is off.

I have opted to switch everything out to one of these two 9-36V/24V 1/2" motorized ball valves. Usually the US Solid brand.

IMG_0788.png


IMG_0789.png


And get a 1/2" NPT to 1/4" push connect

IMG_0790.png
 
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CaseyP said:
So the line from the RODI unit already goes straight into the ATO reservoir? If you put a solenoid inline you can just leave the sink valve on and use the solenoid to start and stop the water flow.

I have the XP Flood Guardian hooked up between my unit and ATO reservoir. I can remotely turn the switch on and off with a Kasa smart switch, plus it's on a daily schedule to reset and fill the reservoir up again with no manual intervention. I know you like to DIY tinker, so I'm sure you can devise a way to hook up a stand alone 24v solenoid to your smart home ecosystem. Like this one
www.saltwateraquarium.com

ATO Solenoid Valve - Icecap

Shop The Best Saltwater Aquarium Equipment & Supplies at Saltwater Aquarium. We Carry Everything you will Need for your Fish Tank.
www.saltwateraquarium.com www.saltwateraquarium.com
Click to expand...
Valve -> first round of filter -> booster pump -> solenoid pressure sensor-> ... -> float valve in reservoir

Something like that is my setup. I can't remember where exactly my solenoid is connected. I like to have the valve manual. I find I get a small trickle periodically without it. I also like the it avoids the RODI constantly topping off which I've read can cause TDS creep through the membrane and also lets me be sure I can at worst dump 20 gallons into my tank versus infinite (if the ATO goes crazy).

I do however have another, default closed, solenoid that I ordered sitting in my garage. I was going to swap the valve with that one, so when remote I can refill all my things from my phone. Flip the valve open for an hour, have it auto turn off. I didn't get around to wiring it up yet though.

What setup do you use?

Edit: err, you already said what you do. Bad at reading today. That's basically what I'm going to do, but set it up so I can push a button and it turns on for an hour.
 
RandyC said:
In my experience, those push connect solenoids will eventually not fully close and slowly drip/leak even when power is off.

I have opted to switch everything out to one of these two 24V 1/2" motorized ball valves. Usually the US Solid brand.

View attachment 69655

View attachment 69656

And get a 1/2" NPT to 1/4" push connect

View attachment 69657
Click to expand...
Lol, thread race. That's almost exactly the one I bought and have sitting in my garage. Do you run it on a smart plug?

My plan was run my booster pump and that valve off the same smart plug.
 
richiev said:
Lol, thread race. That's almost exactly the one I bought and have sitting in my garage. Do you run it on a smart plug?

My plan was run my booster pump and that valve off the same smart plug.
Click to expand...

I wired most of them to run off the 24V accessory port on the apex, though there are some wired to a 12V power block and controlled via a switched outlet.
 
richiev said:
Valve -> first round of filter -> booster pump -> solenoid pressure sensor-> ... -> float valve in reservoir

Something like that is my setup. I can't remember where exactly my solenoid is connected. I like to have the valve manual. I find I get a small trickle periodically without it. I also like the it avoids the RODI constantly topping off which I've read can cause TDS creep through the membrane and also lets me be sure I can at worst dump 20 gallons into my tank versus infinite (if the ATO goes crazy).

I do however have another, default closed, solenoid that I ordered sitting in my garage. I was going to swap the valve with that one, so when remote I can refill all my things from my phone. Flip the valve open for an hour, have it auto turn off. I didn't get around to wiring it up yet though.

What setup do you use?

Edit: err, you already said what you do. Bad at reading today. That's basically what I'm going to do, but set it up so I can push a button and it turns on for an hour.
Click to expand...

Make sure to have a float valve in the container should you forgot to manually switch it off or don't have an automatic timer setup to switch it off for you.

Better yet, just have your ATO configured with float switches and use a controller to trigger filling it to a high sensor or for a period of time (an installed float valve is necessary). That's how I have my garage ATO reservoirs set up.
 
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