Flagg37
Guest
You started that auto WC thread I didn't know you finished it.
What's wrong with your lights?
Rygh's 250 gallon - rev.2
- Thread starter rygh
- Start date
What's wrong with your lights?
Coral reefer
Past President
Have you tried copper band butterfly or Ora filefish?
rygh
Guest
A couple of the drivers are flaky.
Plus, while good at the time, not so good compared with recent LEDs. I only have a few wavelengths.
Needs replacing, but never enough time.
rygh
Guest
From all I have read, Copper band butterfly is supposedly only good for Aptasia. Fails on Majanos.
So never tried that.
I could try the filefish though. (I assume you mean Acreichthys tomentosus)
I have thought about it in the past, but I have never seen it locally, and I don't usually buy fish online.
Might be worth a shot though.
Not to big though, so there might be "issues" (meaning get eaten) by my Cuban Hogfish though.
Although I have been thinking of relegating that guy to the fuge anyway.
rygh
Guest
So I changed filtration strategy.
For many many years, I had been running an algae scrubber.
Super low nitrates. Some corals were fine, some were so-so, some did poorly.
After much discussion with others, the totally non-scientific consensus was that the ATS simply worked too well,
and it was starving the corals.
Plus, while I had zero algae, I did have cyano at times.
Which made sense, since you can get phosphates issues on a nitrate limited system, and Cyano love that.
I experimented with adding nitrates (calcium nitrate specifically), and that really seemed to help!!
But ... the combination of a super nitrate scrubber + adding nitrates seemed a bit silly.
Ok, a LOT silly.
So the new plan:
1) Automatic water exchange system.
Pump it in and out automatically.
2) Vinegar dosing.
Nitrate reduction through carbon dosing.
In theory, the bacteria help feed the coral as well.
3) Acropower dosing.
Keep the amino acids and food up for the coral.
If calcium nitrate helped, in theory this should be better.
Acropower seems to be one of the less snake-oil type additives out there.
Been running water exchange and vinegar for several months, and shut down the scrubber 3 weeks ago.
So far: No major difference to tank. Which is a good thing. But it has not been long enough to tell.
Parameters in general seem more stable.
Hardly dosing any Alk now, due to IO having high Alk, and doing water exchange.
Nitrates are up to around 10 now, and seems stable.
I have not ramped Acropower dosing yet.
Corals seem happy. No blatant difference.
I am getting some hair algae growth in the fuge now. Not unexpected.
Sand has to be cleaned more.
PH has dropped slightly. No waterfall and no algae doing CO2->O2.
I do like the electricity reduction.
Not huge, but noticeable.
One less thing to clean every week.
My skimmer fills up faster, so have to empty that more.
* I still have all the old equipment of course, so can switch back.
For many many years, I had been running an algae scrubber.
Super low nitrates. Some corals were fine, some were so-so, some did poorly.
After much discussion with others, the totally non-scientific consensus was that the ATS simply worked too well,
and it was starving the corals.
Plus, while I had zero algae, I did have cyano at times.
Which made sense, since you can get phosphates issues on a nitrate limited system, and Cyano love that.
I experimented with adding nitrates (calcium nitrate specifically), and that really seemed to help!!
But ... the combination of a super nitrate scrubber + adding nitrates seemed a bit silly.
Ok, a LOT silly.
So the new plan:
1) Automatic water exchange system.
Pump it in and out automatically.
2) Vinegar dosing.
Nitrate reduction through carbon dosing.
In theory, the bacteria help feed the coral as well.
3) Acropower dosing.
Keep the amino acids and food up for the coral.
If calcium nitrate helped, in theory this should be better.
Acropower seems to be one of the less snake-oil type additives out there.
Been running water exchange and vinegar for several months, and shut down the scrubber 3 weeks ago.
So far: No major difference to tank. Which is a good thing. But it has not been long enough to tell.
Parameters in general seem more stable.
Hardly dosing any Alk now, due to IO having high Alk, and doing water exchange.
Nitrates are up to around 10 now, and seems stable.
I have not ramped Acropower dosing yet.
Corals seem happy. No blatant difference.
I am getting some hair algae growth in the fuge now. Not unexpected.
Sand has to be cleaned more.
PH has dropped slightly. No waterfall and no algae doing CO2->O2.
I do like the electricity reduction.
Not huge, but noticeable.
One less thing to clean every week.
My skimmer fills up faster, so have to empty that more.
* I still have all the old equipment of course, so can switch back.
rygh
Guest
I did some cleanup on electronics.
Over the years I switched from DIY Arduino -> DIY Particle-Photon -> Apex.
Arduino worked, but network usage was pathetic.
Particle photon had great networking, but even with lots of workarounds, would hang every few weeks.
So now I (mostly) use a simple boring Apex.
Plus, once you do DIY on one thing, doing it over and over is a lot less fun, so tired of that.
At any rate, here is the current box of electronics.
Also has a screen that flops down to keep the garage dust out.
I still need to move lighting controls and power supplies the open area in the top. Someday...
Over the years I switched from DIY Arduino -> DIY Particle-Photon -> Apex.
Arduino worked, but network usage was pathetic.
Particle photon had great networking, but even with lots of workarounds, would hang every few weeks.
So now I (mostly) use a simple boring Apex.
Plus, once you do DIY on one thing, doing it over and over is a lot less fun, so tired of that.
At any rate, here is the current box of electronics.
Also has a screen that flops down to keep the garage dust out.
I still need to move lighting controls and power supplies the open area in the top. Someday...
Flagg37
Guest
That is a lot of cables.
Coral reefer
Past President
Yeah seriously. All the changes seem to make sense. Hope they treat you well!
rygh
Guest
Yeah... that is in progress as well.
On one hand, redundancy seems great.
Two return pumps, two heaters, 3 level sensors, and so on.
So very few single point of failures that can wipe out the tank.
But ... you can never really eliminate all possible problems with redundancy.
On the other hand, twice the equipment means twice as likely for things to fail, and twice as many wires and cables.
And often means more cost as well.
Long term strategy is changing.
Key redundancy will really just be MONITORING.
So some second very independent controller/DIY box to carefully measure everything.
If something changes, it texts me immediately.
Then, simplify the heck out of everything else.
rygh
Guest
Hope so to.
Changes in a reef aquarium are generally bad .... at least short term.
But I really have no choice. Temporary DIY things are supposed to be just that. But they are going on 6 years now.
Heck, even this "rev 2 thread" is almost 2 years old now.
Embarrassing...
rygh
Guest
No, there are about 8 smaller pieces of rock there, all stuck together.
The argonite mix looks exactly the same as the rock, so joints are really hard to see.
Total height is about 18."
rygh
Guest
Pros:
Basically plastic, so inert, no PH issues, no long soaking needed, lasts forever.
While Emaco is way better than normal concrete, it is still concrete, and does have some chemical issues.
Looks and acts exactly like rock, since it is mostly aragonite.
Epoxy soaks into the base rock itself, creating a much better bonding joint, and even strengthening base rock.
You can use fiberglass cloth and rods on the back to make it crazy-strong.
Cons:
The big one is that it takes a couple of hours to set!
With Emaco, you can do a piece, wait a few minutes, do another, and so on, building it all at once.
With epoxy, you need to support everything while it sets, and often takes a few builds, so multiple days.
Good 2 part epoxy is a LOT more expensive that concrete.
rygh
Guest
"West System"
rygh
Guest
Well, my tank is not doing so great these days.
The Majanos are winning. It is getting so badly infested.
And the Bicolor Angel I bought a while back in a desperate attempt to eat the Majanos is instead eating my mushrooms.
I can easily kill a few Majanos with Joes juice/etc. but the sheer number is too much.
A few options I am considering:
1) A lot less fish.
I have to admit, one key reason the Majanos are really bad is because they have lots to eat.
And that is because of the high fish load and how much I feed.
Many people have Majanos with no real problems.
But I like my fish.
2) Try other Majano predators.
Matted Filefish, Racoon Butterfly, or Double-Saddle Butterfly.
Eventually one will eat the Majanos. But just as certainly, it will eat other corals as well.
3) Give up on most types of corals.
Let them battle it out. There are a fair number of corals tougher than Majanos.
But most slow growing corals lose.
Easiest. But sad.
4) Tear down and rebuild the tank.
Not really as bad as it sounds. It would give me a chance to properly fix a few things while I am at it.
But then I have to be super-careful to QT corals from now on, plus there are issues re-seeding the wide variety of life in the tank.
5) Two tank systems.
A new small Coral tank, perhaps 30G or so.
The old 240G tank would then become mostly a FOWLR.
Fully independent.
This does fix a basic fundamental issue : Having lots of fish is not all that compatible with having a coral-centric tank.
Opinions welcome!
The Majanos are winning. It is getting so badly infested.
And the Bicolor Angel I bought a while back in a desperate attempt to eat the Majanos is instead eating my mushrooms.
I can easily kill a few Majanos with Joes juice/etc. but the sheer number is too much.
A few options I am considering:
1) A lot less fish.
I have to admit, one key reason the Majanos are really bad is because they have lots to eat.
And that is because of the high fish load and how much I feed.
Many people have Majanos with no real problems.
But I like my fish.
2) Try other Majano predators.
Matted Filefish, Racoon Butterfly, or Double-Saddle Butterfly.
Eventually one will eat the Majanos. But just as certainly, it will eat other corals as well.
3) Give up on most types of corals.
Let them battle it out. There are a fair number of corals tougher than Majanos.
But most slow growing corals lose.
Easiest. But sad.
4) Tear down and rebuild the tank.
Not really as bad as it sounds. It would give me a chance to properly fix a few things while I am at it.
But then I have to be super-careful to QT corals from now on, plus there are issues re-seeding the wide variety of life in the tank.
5) Two tank systems.
A new small Coral tank, perhaps 30G or so.
The old 240G tank would then become mostly a FOWLR.
Fully independent.
This does fix a basic fundamental issue : Having lots of fish is not all that compatible with having a coral-centric tank.
Opinions welcome!