JVU’s RSR750
- Thread starter JVU
- Start date
Coral reefer
Past President
I was wondering how you would place them. Looks fairly even par all over.
I was thinking of doing that, but I haven’t. Kessil recently came out with the adjustable angle adapters which I could have used. I was able to lower the lights significantly with the extra spread from more lights, which helps. The lights seem less glaring nearby than they used to, even without any angling.
Yeah, those are my back-glass frag racks. They aren’t actually high up, they are about half way down and up against the black (less reflective) back glass. I just couldn’t easily write those somewhere else. The numbers are on the frag rack images refracted by the angle I took the pic.
sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
While I'm not a huge huge fan of the idea of "perfectly uniform lighting" (since it largely doesn't exist, but for other reasons) having 200s at the sand bed and 200s at other levels is a good way to make sure you can grow anything everywhere.
Follow up to my trials of fragging my blue photosynthetic sponge-
Among the methods I tried, the easiest and best was just wedging them in rubble in a 16 oz frag cup, and letting them attach to whatever they want. Generally they attached from the sides, and then turned that into their bottom, which was kinda interesting.
They also really like melding with adjacent sponge frags, but are easy enough to cut apart again as needed. Very hardy, and did very well through the fragging process.
I’m giving away the resulting frags to members tomorrow at the Coral Farmer’s Market. I’ll have to make more frags again soon since this grows well.
Among the methods I tried, the easiest and best was just wedging them in rubble in a 16 oz frag cup, and letting them attach to whatever they want. Generally they attached from the sides, and then turned that into their bottom, which was kinda interesting.
They also really like melding with adjacent sponge frags, but are easy enough to cut apart again as needed. Very hardy, and did very well through the fragging process.
I’m giving away the resulting frags to members tomorrow at the Coral Farmer’s Market. I’ll have to make more frags again soon since this grows well.
PSA reminder to re-calibrate your probes every once in a while.
My pH readings have apparently been creeping up slowly, and I haven’t recalibrated for a long time. It got to the point that it was periodically tripping a fail-safe I had originally set up with my DOS dosers when I set them up, where it stops dosing my Triton Core7 when the pH >8.4 (Neptune Apex recommendation during setup). I didn’t have an alarm or anything setup, and it took me a while to figure out what was going on because I was having to increase my dosing more than expected, and had some mismatches between the Alk, Ca, Mg.
I recalibrated my pH probe today, and it dropped about 0.3 units, which is a big difference. For example right now after calibration it is 8.2 (normal), was reading 8.5 (too high) before.
I also cleaned all 4 probes with citric acid soak and a toothbrush.
My pH readings have apparently been creeping up slowly, and I haven’t recalibrated for a long time. It got to the point that it was periodically tripping a fail-safe I had originally set up with my DOS dosers when I set them up, where it stops dosing my Triton Core7 when the pH >8.4 (Neptune Apex recommendation during setup). I didn’t have an alarm or anything setup, and it took me a while to figure out what was going on because I was having to increase my dosing more than expected, and had some mismatches between the Alk, Ca, Mg.
I recalibrated my pH probe today, and it dropped about 0.3 units, which is a big difference. For example right now after calibration it is 8.2 (normal), was reading 8.5 (too high) before.
I also cleaned all 4 probes with citric acid soak and a toothbrush.
sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
How old are your probes too? I've always thought the "useful life" of pH probes was short enough that you really only had to calibrate them once.
They are nearly 3 years old, except for Salinity, which was replaced by Neptune about a year ago (Neptune Support is the best). I hope they aren’t EOL, they don’t seem to be.
I’m pretty sure they are supposed to be recalibrated more than once, I’ve read every 3 mo and every 6 mo, but not in the range of years.
Coral reefer
Past President
EOL?
sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
Yeah I didn't think pH probes that were in continuous use had a range of years (plural). Ultimately see how long it takes for the pH to drift in the future, that'll be a dead indication for whether or not they need to be replaced. They do use a silver chloride(??) solution in them, so are not "forever" pieces of equipment, they functionally will lose said silver chloride (in your water) over time. But I have heard quite a few people replace them after a year. Not sure how much the various "grades" (or cheapness) of probes affects the lifespan, but how long it takes for the probe to drift will be a pretty decent indicator, if next month you see your tank pH at 8.4 or whatever (not sure when you see that pH, day time?) when you think it should be 8.2 then you know it's time to chuck em.
As for the salinity probes, never use them before so not sure what their life span is.
jonmos75
Supporting Member
If you are using a probe to control an output then I would recommend checking calibration every three months (Set a reminder in Fusion to repeat), if using a probe to monitor then calibrating every three month is the best but most just check calibration every 6-12 months.
A probe should hold its calibration longer then 1-2 months and if they do not then this is a good indication that the probe needs to be replaced.
I never go straight to calibrating a probe if I think it is off or if it time to check the calibration of the probes. I always have 4-6 packets of 4,7,10, & 53,000 solution on hand and when it is time to check the probe I will open up a reference solution packet 7.0 and place the pH probe in and see what it reads. If it reads 6.96 to 7.04 then that is close enough for me and is still calibrated and will put this back into the tank, if out side the ranges then I would start the manual calibration method. I am old school and like to see the settling numbers and being in control of the process.
For salinity I am looking for 34.6 to 35.4 in the 53,000 solution.
Standard pH and ORP probes should be replaced yearly
Double Junction pH and ORP probes should be replaced every two years same with the Conductivity probe.
However I have seen people use the same probe for 4+ years with no issues.
A probe should hold its calibration longer then 1-2 months and if they do not then this is a good indication that the probe needs to be replaced.
I never go straight to calibrating a probe if I think it is off or if it time to check the calibration of the probes. I always have 4-6 packets of 4,7,10, & 53,000 solution on hand and when it is time to check the probe I will open up a reference solution packet 7.0 and place the pH probe in and see what it reads. If it reads 6.96 to 7.04 then that is close enough for me and is still calibrated and will put this back into the tank, if out side the ranges then I would start the manual calibration method. I am old school and like to see the settling numbers and being in control of the process.
For salinity I am looking for 34.6 to 35.4 in the 53,000 solution.
Standard pH and ORP probes should be replaced yearly
Double Junction pH and ORP probes should be replaced every two years same with the Conductivity probe.
However I have seen people use the same probe for 4+ years with no issues.
I implemented a pretty simple hack for being able to show a graphic for how much liquid is left in a reservoir that isn’t a Neptune DDR when using DOS as a pump.
I dose my Triton 3-part with 2 DOS pumps and 1 DDR. I use the DDR for parts 1 & 2 of my Triton Core7, and a larger DIY dosing jug for part 3 (which doses as much as the other 2 combined). I like the graphic tiles that show at a glance how much is left in each of the DDR containers, but it has always annoyed me that it won’t show how much is left in my non-Neptune container, even though I’m using DOS pumps for it, and even though you can enter the volume of the container, the Apex updates the volume as solution is used, and all other relevant details to be able to show it are there. Like Neptune saying “No pretty graphic for you unless you buy our DDR”.
Anyway I came across a solution by making the DOS think that it is plugged in to a DDR. Some EE folks obviously much more knowledgeable than I am figured out that if you connect with a tiny resistor the top left and top right wires of the 6-pin Molex plug the DDR uses to plug into the DOS, the system will see that as having a DDR connected and will allow you to use their pretty graphic. They also figured out how to wire up additional float/level sensors, which I didn’t have a use for at this time. In case you want the result without the wiring, there‘s a guy selling kits with plug/sensors on EBay.
The smart people who figured this out:
www.reef2reef.com
Although pretty simple as far as this kind of thing goes, I’m not very experienced with wiring/soldering, so it was a good learning experience for me.
By the way, I tried to find the plug and resistors at 4 different local stores and was unsuccessful (a couple months ago before the lockdown), so I eventually ordered from Amazon.
The 150 ohm resistor (comes in multi-packs):
The plug was hard to find, I wound up getting this one:
These top 2 wires are the ones to connect with the resistor, the other 4 to be cut close to the plug:
My old soldering iron was broken so I had to get a new one, I‘m happy with this basic Weller:
I soldered the 2 wires to each end of the resistor, then put shrink wrap tubing around with a heat gun.
Finished and plugged in to the DOS:
Voila, pretty graphic for my Alkalinity container (I didn’t update the volume yet, but notice the larger total volume):
I dose my Triton 3-part with 2 DOS pumps and 1 DDR. I use the DDR for parts 1 & 2 of my Triton Core7, and a larger DIY dosing jug for part 3 (which doses as much as the other 2 combined). I like the graphic tiles that show at a glance how much is left in each of the DDR containers, but it has always annoyed me that it won’t show how much is left in my non-Neptune container, even though I’m using DOS pumps for it, and even though you can enter the volume of the container, the Apex updates the volume as solution is used, and all other relevant details to be able to show it are there. Like Neptune saying “No pretty graphic for you unless you buy our DDR”.
Anyway I came across a solution by making the DOS think that it is plugged in to a DDR. Some EE folks obviously much more knowledgeable than I am figured out that if you connect with a tiny resistor the top left and top right wires of the 6-pin Molex plug the DDR uses to plug into the DOS, the system will see that as having a DDR connected and will allow you to use their pretty graphic. They also figured out how to wire up additional float/level sensors, which I didn’t have a use for at this time. In case you want the result without the wiring, there‘s a guy selling kits with plug/sensors on EBay.
The smart people who figured this out:
Apex DOS DIY level switch?
CuseReefer, I know this is an old thread. I was not on r2r, but googled and this thread came up. I did this mod to both of my dos units. It works flawlessly. I just wanted to thank you for sharing this info. I only signed up to thank you, but I’ll look around here a bit out of curiosity.
www.reef2reef.com
Although pretty simple as far as this kind of thing goes, I’m not very experienced with wiring/soldering, so it was a good learning experience for me.
By the way, I tried to find the plug and resistors at 4 different local stores and was unsuccessful (a couple months ago before the lockdown), so I eventually ordered from Amazon.
The 150 ohm resistor (comes in multi-packs):
E-Projects 25EP514150R 150 Ohm Resistors, 1/4 W, 5% (Pack of 25): Single Resistors: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific
E-Projects 25EP514150R 150 Ohm Resistors, 1/4 W, 5% (Pack of 25): Single Resistors: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific
www.amazon.com
The plug was hard to find, I wound up getting this one:
These top 2 wires are the ones to connect with the resistor, the other 4 to be cut close to the plug:
My old soldering iron was broken so I had to get a new one, I‘m happy with this basic Weller:
I soldered the 2 wires to each end of the resistor, then put shrink wrap tubing around with a heat gun.
Finished and plugged in to the DOS:
Voila, pretty graphic for my Alkalinity container (I didn’t update the volume yet, but notice the larger total volume):
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