Reef nutrition

Alex’s IM 150 EXT

Darkxerox said:
Might be an @Srt4eric question but can you have a ball valve on the return to act as a restrictor? Then take the return line, hook that into some silicone tubing and fill a 5g bucket to measure actual flow rate like @richiev . Or syphon a known volume out of your tank during a water change and see how long it takes to refill and start the overflow.

Usually running larger pumps at lower flow rates is much quieter and is one thing to think about.
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That’s how AC pumps work. They don’t dial down the voltage or the motor speed, they just restrict flow. But it puts more back flow resistance on the pump. Don’t know what this translates into pump wear, but it definitely isn’t going to make it last longer.
 
Darkxerox said:
Might be an @Srt4eric question but can you have a ball valve on the return to act as a restrictor? Then take the return line, hook that into some silicone tubing and fill a 5g bucket to measure actual flow rate like @richiev . Or syphon a known volume out of your tank during a water change and see how long it takes to refill and start the overflow.

Usually running larger pumps at lower flow rates is much quieter and is one thing to think about.
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That’s a good point. For my new builds I plan using larger rated return pumps than needed and will run at lower power. I think it’s also better for the pump to be underpowered and be running at 100%
 
Darkxerox said:
Might be an @Srt4eric question but can you have a ball valve on the return to act as a restrictor? Then take the return line, hook that into some silicone tubing and fill a 5g bucket to measure actual flow rate like @richiev . Or syphon a known volume out of your tank during a water change and see how long it takes to refill and start the overflow.

Usually running larger pumps at lower flow rates is much quieter and is one thing to think about.
Click to expand...
I use a ball valve as a restrictor on my return lines. I have one pump splitting off to two returns. I have the ball valve on the return closest to the pump slightly closed to even out the flow.
 
Weekly water testing and interim results after stopping the 1) CO2 scrubber, as well as the 2) refugium, and 3) reduced tank turnover flow:

My feeding at the moment looks like the following:
- 3 times daily 1-minute plankfeeder with mostly dry food (TDS+various EasyReef)
- 1 time frozen food (LRS) daily (various)
- 1-2 sheets of seaweed daily (Little fishies)
- Twice a week coral feeding with Captiv8 Integr + Invigor + MIN S from Fauna Marin.

Alkalinity consumption: Down by approx 10%.

CA consumption: Down by approx. <20%.

PH: Down to approx 8.2 max daily.

Nitrate: 3.4 mg/l

Phosphate: 0.06 mg/l

Alk and PH were expected to go down following the changes to the tank.

My main concern is the disproportionate decrease in CA consumption (while things still seem to grow well). I have been slowly dosing various additional trace elements manually to bring them up to target levels, which changed the water chemistry quite a bit. In combination with the other changes, this might have temporarily impacted CA consumption.

Nitrate and Phosphate are lower after (!) removing the cheato from the refugium, which means (as it was my assumption anyway), that my refugium did not do much.

Nitrate is getting too low now for my taste. I will likely double the current coral feeding and see how this impacts nutrients.

IMG_2034.jpeg


IMG_2035.jpeg
 
RandyC said:
That’s how AC pumps work. They don’t dial down the voltage or the motor speed, they just restrict flow. But it puts more back flow resistance on the pump. Don’t know what this translates into pump wear, but it definitely isn’t going to make it last longer.
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In a case like that, I bleed off excess rather then restrict.
 
BAYMAC said:
In a case like that, I bleed off excess rather then restrict.
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Meaning you recycle water back into the return chamber? Using T after the return pump and a ball valve on the end of that pipe going back into the return chamber or manifold? I used to do that on older pumps worked okay..
I use the same plumping setup as @Srt4eric on the large tank but the ball valve is only for maintenance purposes since I use Variable DC return pumps..
Plus any ball valve or gate valve will reduce the flow even with them wide open since they have a smaller diameter inside unless you use unions/adapters on them so the gate/ball are larger then your pvc return lines…
If your using valves to reduce the flow 50% or so its like diving with one foot on the gas and other on the break at the same time not very efficient…
 
Darkxerox said:
Any fish aggression? Curious how that yellow and white tail get along. Nice borb too!
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Yeah, so this is a good question.

The two borbonius anthias I got from @SupraSaltyReefer developed very (!) well. You can only see the much smaller one on the picture. The other one got pretty big already. Unfortunately, they have recently started to bully the royal gramma. He has a hiding spot where they can not get to under a Monti, but whenever he gets out, he has to hide next to one of the gyres. Not sure how much food he gets due to this, so I am worried about him.

The yellow tang is what @derek_SR would call an a** ho**. I have been thinking about rehoming him but this would be a tough move. And I still do not know how to catch fish out of this tank.
 
Alexander1312 said:
Yeah, so this is a good question.

The two borbonius anthias I got from @SupraSaltyReefer developed very (!) well. You can only see the much smaller one on the picture. The other one got pretty big already. Unfortunately, they have recently started to bully the royal gramma. He has a hiding spot where they can not get to under a Monti, but whenever he gets out, he has to hide next to one of the gyres. Not sure how much food he gets due to this, so I am worried about him.

The yellow tang is what @derek_SR would call an a** ho**. I have been thinking about rehoming him but this would be a tough move. And I still do not know how to catch fish out of this tank.
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My borbonius also has a dick for a head.

I'd be happy to take an asshole YT and add him to my current group of assholes should you ever decide you need to rehome him. I miss my YT very much.
 
Yesterday, I was able to properly mount my Quanta ATLAS lights to the 80 20 bars with 3D-printed parts from http://clev.ca/Shop/. This solution is very clean compared to the zip ties we used up until now, but it also requires the hooks to be removed, which raises the lights slightly higher.

This was the last step in the ATLAS + Helix (+Hydros) journey of the past few months, and it was not easy to figure this out since Very few people had installed it at that time. Still, I am very happy with the outcome.

One lesson learned was to not set the Helix at the same intensity as the ATLAS, which was a mistake a made that I have not fixed yet. The reason is that the ATLAS has three power settings while the Helix has none. I am using the ATALS at 66% - 55% of the lowest power setting (140 watts) while the Helix are set at the same value, which makes them produce a proportionately stronger blue blue light. This will shift to my preferred whiter light as I increase the ATLAS intensity.
 
Alexander1312 said:
Yesterday, I was able to properly mount my Quanta ATLAS lights to the 80 20 bars with 3D-printed parts from http://clev.ca/Shop/. This solution is very clean compared to the zip ties we used up until now, but it also requires the hooks to be removed, which raises the lights slightly higher.

This was the last step in the ATLAS + Helix (+Hydros) journey of the past few months, and it was not easy to figure this out since Very few people had installed it at that time. Still, I am very happy with the outcome.

One lesson learned was to not set the Helix at the same intensity as the ATLAS, which was a mistake a made that I have not fixed yet. The reason is that the ATLAS has three power settings while the Helix has none. I am using the ATALS at 66% - 55% of the lowest power setting (140 watts) while the Helix are set at the same value, which makes them produce a proportionately stronger blue blue light. This will shift to my preferred whiter light as I increase the ATLAS intensity.
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The helix comes with the adjusting dial that lets you set the power level - you can adjust them down. Or is that not what you mean?

My Helix are set to 75%
 
derek_SR said:
The helix comes with the adjusting dial that lets you set the power level - you can adjust them down. Or is that not what you mean?

My Helix are set to 75%
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Ah yes, they have this too but I am using the 0-10 V for this. The ATLAS do not have this dial but a three stage setting where you select the wattage 140 W to 240 watts. Since I am also using the 0-10 V controller for this, I can adjust each wattage individually from 0-100%, i.e., currently it is set as 66% of 140 watts.
 
Alexander1312 said:
Ah yes, they have this too but I am using the 0-10 V for this. The ATLAS do not have this dial but a three stage setting where you select the wattage 140 W to 240 watts. Since I am also using the 0-10 V controller for this, I can adjust each wattage individually from 0-100%, i.e., currently it is set as 66% of 140 watts.
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I see, how is the 10v connection? You’re controlling that with hydros (or not - if you can’t adjust the power? What is the point)?

I have some10v cables sitting around for the hydros but haven’t messed around with the helix, I just have the dial set to 75% and use an xp8 outlet to run them for a certain photo period.
 
derek_SR said:
I see, how is the 10v connection? You’re controlling that with hydros (or not - if you can’t adjust the power? What is the point)?

I have some10v cables sitting around for the hydros but haven’t messed around with the helix, I just have the dial set to 75% and use an xp8 outlet to run them for a certain photo period.
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Yes, both the ATLAS and Helix are ramping down (there is only a 5-minute ramp-up!) via the Hydros 0-10V controller. This works very well, but compared to the Reefis, which ramp down to a very low-intensity setting, the Helix (and the ATLAS) turn off rather abruptly. I might need to speak to Luca about this, but this might be a limitation of the setup - and more a nuanced issue rather than a critcal miss.
 
Alexander1312 said:
Yes, both the ATLAS and Helix are ramping down (there is only a 5-minute ramp-up!) via the Hydros 0-10V controller. This works very well, but compared to the Reefis, which ramp down to a very low-intensity setting, the Helix (and the ATLAS) turn off rather abruptly. I might need to speak to Luca about this, but this might be a limitation of the setup - and more a nuanced issue rather than a critcal miss.
Click to expand...
Even more like halides then!
 
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