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Maureen's Classroom DSA 105

Since I need to replace all media in RO system, it seemed a good time to make some upgrades this afternoon. Replaced broken pressure gauge and added inline TDS meter and flow meter, then changed media.
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I convinced myself I had procrastinated long enough and it would be easier than I thought. Wrong!
Pressure gauge took a surprisingly long time to change out and I wasn't sure it threaded in all the way. Doesn't leak, but doesn't work properly. Reads 38 psi instead of more like 58. I don't think the water pressure has dropped. What makes this gauge read incorrectly? Not screwed in all the way? Because I dropped it twice while trying to attach it?
Digiflow flow meter leaks at both fittings. I had to add my own plastic fittings which screw in and have a small o-ring. Is this what other people use? Tried not to squash the o-ring much. Is it good to have an o-ring there or should I take it off or use a fitting with no o-ring? How much teflon tape is too much? I kept adding more wraps and now it leaks much less but definitely leaks and sprays.
Decided automatic shutoff can wait until another day; I'm used to worrying water got left on.
Was looking forward to flow meter keeping track of volume of water running and when to change media. Not yet.
Still baffled by water leaving carbon. Our total chlorine test strips always read 0. Tested for ammonia today and there was some detected. Why no chlorine?
Might be time to change RO membrane. Will check tomorrow.
 
1) Pressure gauges are usually broken by over-pressurizing them, although no measurement tool/instrument likes being dropped. If it still reads zero correctly you have decent odds that it is still good. If it doesn't read zero correctly that's usually an indication that it's FUBAR on the inside. A couple other options. How certain are you that the correct pressure is 58 and not 38 at that point in the system?
2) I prefer pipe dope (paste) rather than PTFE tape in most applications, and it has held up better for me as well. Without a closer picture of your leaky joints to at least see what kind of fitting they are (flare, NPT, JG) I can't advise much more there. It really sounds like you have the wrong sort of fitting installed.
3) Chloramine breaks down into (among other things) ammonia and chlorine. If I remember correctly the chlorine is much more likely to be trapped by the carbon block than the ammonia, so the ammonia is the first to break through. Both of those are dissolved gasses which pass through RO membranes, so they'll consume your DI resin or pass to the product water if that isn't effective. Changing the membrane won't help this. Changing the carbon block should. Some carbon blocks are better at pulling chloramine byproducts than others, although I'm no expert on the specifics, so look to the BRS videos for information on that.
 
Phew! Added like 10 more teflon tape wraps and am leak-free with flow meter. Changed out everything except the membrane and moved old secondary DI to primary position. I think membrane has more life in it. Flow meter is awesome (expect mine can only count down backward, fine), so thanks @Coral reefer for recommending it in past threads. I also love the inline TDS probes. I always had a hard time disconnecting and reconnecting the tubing before DI stage to test. Now I can just leave everything connected.
Still not sure about pressure gauge. Still reads around 38 psi when on, though it’s always been 58. Old gauge stopped working last spring so I guess it is possible water pressure is lower now. I will have to test that a different way.
 
Flagg37 said:
Is your pressure gauge installed ahead of your RO membrane?
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Yes, the gauge is first in line. Today I'll try to check the water line feeding the faucet. I think it is running fully open but I'll see and also be sure the gauge changes if I close it more.
Flow meter gives flow rate and such so if I were to think about it I might be able to use that to figure pressure. ? Or I can just leave it, heehee.
In the night I also thought it would be wise to test the inline TDS probes against handheld meter to see if they agree.
The one drawback of flowmeter is it continuously reminds me how much wastewater I am sending down the drain! Wish it were at my house and I could use it outside. I had plans to add a second membrane or switch to different one but that takes time and possibly more water pressure. Wastewater reuse and reduction can be a goal for Earth Day in the spring.
 
jccaclimber said:
Are you also considering what happens when water does get under the floor covering, or just preventing water passing directly through it?
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Preventing passage is the goal because the mat we had that stays on the floor would stay wet underneath for a very long time. Other coverings we pick up daily for sweeping and to remove tripping hazard.
 
Guess what time some classes did a big dry ice lab today?
DryIceLab-Pt1.png

It will be repeated all day long tomorrow, so I will open doors more even though it will be hot and maybe add a fan to see if it lowers CO2.
 
Got a pH monitor on the tank? Would be interesting to see how that changes, heck wouldn't be surprised if your pH starts to drop when class is in session.
 
As if large numbers of small respirating humans wasn’t bad enough, now they bring in extra CO2 in solid form?!
 
sfsuphysics said:
Got a pH monitor on the tank? Would be interesting to see how that changes, heck wouldn't be surprised if your pH starts to drop when class is in session.
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You are exactly right - pH plummets during class, then rises when they leave and all night. To alleviate the reverse trend to what we generally see in home tanks, I dose Alk during the day and Ca at night.
 
A brief update on big tank which has had bleaching and algae issues since the spring. Still fighting algae in the DT (actually just responding by pulling it out, not actively attacking the problem) and yesterday pulled a bunch of weird slimy hair algae out of the sump in my return section. Still get no measurable nitrate or phosphate. Thinking of running some Phosgard next week when I am there to monitor.
The good news is that some of the corals have been starting to color up. Note the pectinia I love in bottom left area. Supposed to be blue-grey, but light brown is better than stark white when I thought it was dead in July.

JULY
July.jpg


NOVEMBER
Nov.jpg


A few other corals' tissue is staying white, such as the Cyphastrea and a Hydnophora. I am starting a thread about replacing expelled zooxanthellae in another forum.
 
Algae algae algae.
Frag tank has a delightful golden brown macro growing all over, seen in pic. The pic is actually from a circ pump/mini algae biotope in the 105 gal. See if you can spot the golden brown type, green hair, green feathery caulerpa, and green lily pad shaped leaf that grows on a runner like caulerpa. At least there is some coralline.

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I know students overfeed frag tank and both tanks are overdue for water changes. I was trying to feed more to big tank to see if it helps improve color of bleached corals. I have a fuge section in sump with chaeto, but light bleed has resulted in hair algae blobs growing in other sections. Adding that issue to January to-do list.
 
New year update.

Big reef tank (more blue than normal). Coloring up slowly. Recently measured light with PAR meter and need to figure everything out.
Big-Jan2020.jpg



Frag tank. Going to have some students fully attack macroalgae next week. Moved out frags that had grown into colonies and need to move a couple more. Gotta reorganize the whole thing to make room for...frags. Hopefully within a few weeks my new semester of students will be ready to do some pre-swap fragging and will need space for them.
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QT has some beauties that have been waiting for regular tank spots.
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Anemone-clown tank is going along fine. I hope to make some mods next week and update then.
New softy tank with shrimp and crab is okay but will get more attention soon.

News flash: I think I finally found a teacher - middle school, even! - who is interested in partnering up with my classroom in some way. The school is in Pennsylvania and the teacher sounds very excited at the prospect of my class sending them some frags. We have just started corresponding and haven't shared our programs and tank setups yet but I think this could be very cool for all of our students.
 
MolaMola said:
New year update.

Big reef tank (more blue than normal). Coloring up slowly. Recently measured light with PAR meter and need to figure everything out.
View attachment 13905


Frag tank. Going to have some students fully attack macroalgae next week. Moved out frags that had grown into colonies and need to move a couple more. Gotta reorganize the whole thing to make room for...frags. Hopefully within a few weeks my new semester of students will be ready to do some pre-swap fragging and will need space for them.
View attachment 13906


QT has some beauties that have been waiting for regular tank spots.
View attachment 13907


Anemone-clown tank is going along fine. I hope to make some mods next week and update then.
New softy tank with shrimp and crab is okay but will get more attention soon.

News flash: I think I finally found a teacher - middle school, even! - who is interested in partnering up with my classroom in some way. The school is in Pennsylvania and the teacher sounds very excited at the prospect of my class sending them some frags. We have just started corresponding and haven't shared our programs and tank setups yet but I think this could be very cool for all of our students.
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That is awesome. I’d be happy to send things to either or both of you guys.
 
We started a website (link in signature) when I set up the tank - it’s a long mess but shows some activities for aquatic studies elective and regular science classes. A couple examples - Last year our Sci dept started using sketchbooks/nature journals for close observation and first day of school examination of coral this year showed much more detail than in past years despite summer break:
MeetCoral.jpg

Polyp activity with multiple representations - packs in a lot of vocab in ways students learn pretty well:
Polyp.JPG

In regular science, we model some chemical compounds and reactions related to the tank:
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