Neptune Aquatics

Kinetic's ELOS 120

Didn't realize those pictures would come out so huge. But here's the sketchup provided from Trigger Sys today:

ArtSump.jpg
 
Skimmer and Light (Bubble King 160 and Giesemann Infinity) have arrived at Neptune Aquatics! Gotta go pick them up. Trigger Sys sump will be here next week. Gotta start planning how to get those pocket screws out of the center brace on my stand!

Plans for replacing the sump:
1. put heater and auto water xchange tubes into display (no chiller for now, it's cool enough these days)
2. drain the sump, move chiller out of the way
3. Find some really long extension to get the bottom two pocket screws out of center brace on stand. the top pocket screws will be easy. not sure if the center brace will even move, or if I can get it back in if it's real snug.
4. Remove the current elos sump
5. Quickly clean the pumps (run through vinegar, get a nice brush down, run through RO for awhile, about an hours of cleaning)
6. zip tie neoprene to the bottom of each pump to dampen sound
7. Put the trigger sump into the stand
8. Put all pumps in, plumb things together
9. Put all dosing and auto exchange tubes in holders
10. Turn it all on, let her rip!
11. See how high the water level is, create a "stand" for the skimmer to sit 8" into it
12. Put my chaeto into the fuge and setup the light accordingly
13. Put the chiller back in

That should be it, hopefully it all works out.

Today I got new test kits (yet another set) to try. All Salifert this time: Ca, Mg, and ALK. I've been using old Ca/ALK saliferts and new ELOS ones, so now it's time to go back to the new saliferts. The KH kit is a bit different, it has a dropper and a reagent now instead of just a reagent. Anyway, here are my params:

ALK: 9.3dKH (I dose 5mL of bionic part 1 in the morning and night every day)
Ca: 440ppm (I don't dose at all)
Mg: 1320ppm (No dosing here either)

How do those params sound? Randy Holmes-Farley says that Ca should be 380 - 450ppm, so that looks fine. ALK should be 7-11dKH so that's OK too. Mg 1250 - 1350ppm, so I'm just about right as well. Still no colors in my coral. Darn, I was hoping it was some parameter I could easily adjust. I can only narrow it down to my lighting at this point (need new lamps, though with the infinity coming, it should help).

Should my ALK be higher? Ca? Mg? I have a new BubbleMagus dosing pump that I haven't been using since these levels seem OK. The Auto Water Exchange with the LiterMeter III has probably been helping this whole process while changing out 4 gallons a day throughout the day.
 
I'm not fiddling that much, just doing a lot of water tests and keeping ALK up. I want a new sump for a few reasons, the most important one being I'm a gear junkie.
 
Your chasing numbers that you didn't have before this. That is fiddling.
 
Can someone help me troubleshoot my Giesemann Infinity?
  • No cracks in the lamps
  • Lamps are not black, look brand new
  • The "springs" where they connect look good, with good contact.
  • The connectors are kind of loose, but I think that's how they're supposed to be?
  • Two chords come out of the fixture, each plug right into two Electronic 250watt ballasts
    One ballast fires up 2 T5's, the other ballast fires up the second pair of T5s, weird
    No buzz at all from ballasts, even when plugged in
    I see T5 ballasts I think inside the fixture, smaller long ones
    Tried leaving the ballasts in for 20 minutes, still nothing from the halides. t5's are bright as heck though
    Ballasts say Vin: 95-265VAC, Vnorm: 220VAC/1.14A

Here's some pictures to show how I tried to hook it up. Let me know if you seen anything I'm really plainly doing wrong:













 
If all the above fails :lol: then I'd try remounting the MH several times. My DE's require multiple mounts usually to get them to fire the first time.
 
isn't there a computer controller on that system? Ocean Treasures had some older models on their systems so you might want to ask Derek if he knows.
 
I looked inside the fixture with a flashlight in one end, I could see two blue lines going to the right side of the fixture behind the right pair of T5 reflectors, but then there's blue lines on the left pair of T5's that go out to the chords. It looks almost certain that the cables are going to the wrong side, and the wiring is backward, unless there is some crossing somewhere that I can't see.

Here are the lines showing the "power" lines going from the halides through to under the right pair of T5s:



Here are the lines going out (the top is facing down in these shots), notice two blue ones coming from the left, and none from the right


And here's a closer shot of the blue lines coming out from the left:
 
Good news! The halides fire now! Over on reefcentral, reps from MSX (marine solutions) and ATB jumped into some of my threads and helped me troubleshoot the problem. Those guys are nice! They didn't even sell me anything in the past. Don't you just love the reefing community?

Anyway, it lead me to try to use a printer power cable to plug into the ballast into the wall, and bam, halide came on. Apparently Giesemann forgot to supply me with two chords, one for each ballast. The plugs that did go into the power strip were for the T5's, and bypassed the ballast completely. The power really had to come from the other plug, which wasn't given to me.

Unfortunately the instructions didn't show or say anything about the wiring, just said to connect everything, so I had no idea.

But anyway, I'm reusing my old fixture's plugs that go right in, until Giesemann sends me new ones.

The new light looks awesome! The T5's are controlled independently which is great, I can control each pair. The halides are also independent, so I have them staggered as well.

How long should the halides both be on for? I'm thinking 3 hours? So one comes on at 6, the other at 8, each for five hours? That means the first one would go off at 11, then the second one at 1am, for a total of 7 hours of light, with 3 hours with both on full blast.

Another thing is, the stock lights look way too "green". The MegaChrome 13.3K look real green, and it came with two actinic +, and two powerchrome that look white to me.

I'm thinking of replacing those powerchromes with ATI blue+ at least, but might also need to swap out the halides. Any suggestions?
 
Well that's good news, in two ways. It would suck if one power supply did both because that would mean halides and T5s had to be on at the same time. However Art did you mention there was an socket without anything plugged into it earlier? Could have helped a bit :D

And yeah I hate the G* MH bulbs, fired up the "Marine" bulbs... I think it's a 13.5K and mucho green, even after letting them burn in for a while.

Depending upon what color you're looking for it's hard to go wrong with Phoenix bulbs.
 
Yup we could have trouble shot this with ALL THE DETAILS :lol:

FWIW the "ATB rep" is Victor and a local to the BA>
 
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