High Tide Aquatics

Rygh's 250 gallon - Rev 3

Decided to just Upgrade the Apex controller. No GHL.
For most of the time, it has been great.
And I don't want to deal with learning a whole new system, or worse, having two different types.

I could probably get some of the parts fixed, but I have done a lot of electronics, and I
think I have a feel when they are at the end of their life.
Electronics around salt water simply do not last forever.

I need to focus on the main task - getting the tank back to normal.
 
I know how you feel with that mysterious aiptasia, I bleached and muriatic acided(?) all my rock, before putting it into the 300g lagoon on the floor, then one day I started noticing aiptasia, and the biggest ones... were around a blasto colony that I had... and obviously didn't bleach/acid ... FML moment there. Oh well new tank we'll do the same thing, except everything is QT'd just to make sure no random pests (and hopefully I actually stick to it this time!). The unfortunate thing is I have some grandiose vision for the rock structure but that usually means making permanent ... so removal of rocks might be problematic. We'll see.
 
rygh said:
Decided to just Upgrade the Apex controller. No GHL.
For most of the time, it has been great.
And I don't want to deal with learning a whole new system, or worse, having two different types.

I could probably get some of the parts fixed, but I have done a lot of electronics, and I
think I have a feel when they are at the end of their life.
Electronics around salt water simply do not last forever.

I need to focus on the main task - getting the tank back to normal.
Click to expand...
Just a thought, maybe set up a apex jr that only monitors as a redundancy to your main apex’s sensors. It wouldn’t do anything but if your main salinity probe goes haywire, you’d have another to check against.
 
Flagg37 said:
Just a thought, maybe set up a apex jr that only monitors as a redundancy to your main apex’s sensors. It wouldn’t do anything but if your main salinity probe goes haywire, you’d have another to check against.
Click to expand...
A good idea. Unfortunately no salinity connections on the unit.
So I then have to buy the expansion module and so on.
But it would work. Hmm.
 
rygh said:
A good idea. Unfortunately no salinity connections on the unit.
So I then have to buy the expansion module and so on.
But it would work. Hmm.
Click to expand...
I was thinking later about it and I suppose you can add all the needed modules and still run it from the same apex. That way all your graphs could be overlaid and seen together. It might be a bit more organized at least from a software aspect.
 
I ended up buying a new Apex unit.
I wanted to upgrade to the new version anyway, since I will probably end up getting their Alk monitor.
(If it ever comes out. Hint hint)
And I can put the old classic version under my DT, to monitor a couple of things there as backup.

But guess what ... the salinity did not work. Argh!!!
Sure, Neptune has good support, and is cross-shipping some replacement parts.
So not really so upset.
But salinity was one of the key reasons I upgraded.
 
The real bad news - found another Majano last night. GRRR. That makes 3.
I tried so carefully...
But I guess if you have thousands, hard to get every last one.

I may get a couple of matted filefish after the holidays.
Probably need to get 3. One for DT, one for skimmer section, one for fuge section.
I had one before, and it definitely ate them, but simply could not keep up.
Sadly it died in a broken pump protector.
 
ashburn2k said:
kill it manually now?
Click to expand...
For a couple, manual removal is easy, and I did that.
But the one I just killed was behind a rock, only found when cleaning something else.
So who knows how many others lurk in the tank.

All I know - it is KEY to not let them get to critical mass.
Even if that means a raccoon butterfly and only having certain types of corals.
 
How embedded is the rock in your tank? I'd remove the whole damn rock, even if it means removing a stack, and chip off the offending summabitch. And yeah the rocks won't go back the same way, but then you get the feeling of a new aquascape :D
 
sfsuphysics said:
How embedded is the rock in your tank? I'd remove the whole damn rock, even if it means removing a stack, and chip off the offending summabitch. And yeah the rocks won't go back the same way, but then you get the feeling of a new aquascape :D
Click to expand...
Nothing is embedded. I did that.
In fact, with the first one that had two, I bleached it.

Quite a while ago I decided it was really important to be able to get rocks in and out.
Some of the big ones are in multiple pieces, with small hidden pins/pipes that come apart,
and actually do go back together the same way.
 
The plan for the old classic Apex:

As above, I upgraded, so my old controller is gathering dust.
The plan is to use it as a backup alarm.

1) Measure temperature, and alarm on out of range.
Easy and obvious.

2) Put a float switch in the overflow, and put it on an alarm if water drops.
Think of this as a cheap way to measure return flow changes.
Inside overflow, I have most water going full siphon, and a bit over the top of the pipe.
So if return flow drops even 15% or so, the water level in the overflow starts to drop.
Same if I get some crud stuck in weir, etc.
I can trigger an alarm on that.

3) Put all powerheads on the outputs, and alarm if current changes.
Leave them always on, as usual.
But measure the power, and put an alarm on that.
If one seizes up, the current should change, and I should be able to trigger on that.
Needs testing though.
 
So I finally eliminated the algae mess!!
But I cheated...

Whatever was rotting in the rock after the reboot finally ran out, and I stopped getting tons of crud per day out of skimmer.
Then I did some big manual removal and scrubbing of algae.
It was clearly hurting, but you know how hard it is to really eliminate.
So I cheated and hit it with some Algaecide. (Dino-X)
Worked great. No algae, no problems with corals.

My snails may starve. Might have to give some away.

Still have some Cyano on the bottom. That pink is not Coraline.

Now time to get all the parameters back in check.
In particular, get phosphates down and salinity up.
And set up the QT again.

Then if all is still well after thanksgiving, get some new corals.

No new Majanos in the last week either. Hope hope hope...

IMG_3385-1.jpg
 
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