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BornToHula's 240 Gallon Build


BornToHula

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With this new Build I wanted to track my coral growth. These pictures are from 6/16/16. I'm horrible at keeping track of the names of corals, but I've tired to ID the ones I could. If anyone knows any of the unknown ones feel free to let me know!

Titanium Acro from Dan&Meg

A94lJkG.jpg

Digitata

lDVlCHw.jpgMmaDawP.jpg

Pink Millepora

a9jKnv7.jpg

Oregon Tort

Xt4hDKV.jpg

Blue Tip Mille

VzWdcPe.jpg

ORA Chips

9HWuIt4.jpg

Purple Stylo

CMgANwh.jpg

Unknown - This one lost a lot of color in my old tank, it was purple with green polyps

hcyPJzr.jpg

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I bought a new Red Sea calcium test kit to compare it against my also brand new salifert test kit.

Results are:

Red Sea: 425ppm

Salifert: 455 ppm

Not sure why the large difference, but the Salifert kit has read 455 - 460 the past 4 days. I'm thinking it may be reading high.

Well the mystery continues.

I tested calcium again yesterday. No calcium was dosed during this time period.

Red Sea kit read 445 ppm - a rise of 20 ppm

Salifert kit read 455 ppm - the same as on the 18th

I think the issue could be one of or a combination of the following:

1. Human Error in my testing. Yesterday I ran each test twice and came back with similar results each time, so this should give me a solid baseline. I will be testing again tonight.

2. Test Kits are reading off or I contaminated the kits somehow. I don't think this is very likely since both are pretty much brand new.

3. My dosing pump is either siphoning calcium solution into the tank or my apex code is wrong and the pump is running when its not meant to. I completely unplugged the dosing pump and removed the output tube from the tank to a cup to see if anything comes out.

4. I just don't have enough corals to have an effect on the calcium levels yet. I don't think this is the case because alkalinity is being used fairly rapidly. If I left the dosing pump for Alk off for a couple days my corals would be in trouble.

I'll be testing again tonight to see what the deal is. Its probably just me being a bonehead and messing up something simple haha doh.gif

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Okay, we are getting somewhere.

Yesterday the Ca results were:

Red Sea: 440 ppm - a drop of 5ppm

Salifert: 445 ppm - a drop of 10 ppm

Each test was done twice to try and eliminate human error.

So something is either wrong with the dosing pump or apex coding. I'll be looking into it tonight. No calcium solution appeared to be siphoning out of the pump so that's not the issue.

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My guess is a dosing pump issue, either with programming or the unit itself. We'll see in a few days.

What is your water change interval?

Water change interval is a 10% change (~25 gallons) once a week. Tomorrow is the scheduled waterchange day.

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Okay, we are getting somewhere.

Yesterday the Ca results were:

Red Sea: 440 ppm - a drop of 5ppm

Salifert: 445 ppm - a drop of 10 ppm

Each test was done twice to try and eliminate human error.

So something is either wrong with the dosing pump or apex coding. I'll be looking into it tonight. No calcium solution appeared to be siphoning out of the pump so that's not the issue.

Post the coding

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Okay, we are getting somewhere.

Yesterday the Ca results were:

Red Sea: 440 ppm - a drop of 5ppm

Salifert: 445 ppm - a drop of 10 ppm

Each test was done twice to try and eliminate human error.

So something is either wrong with the dosing pump or apex coding. I'll be looking into it tonight. No calcium solution appeared to be siphoning out of the pump so that's not the issue.

Post the coding

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Its pretty simple, I just adjust the times to set how long it will go off every 30 mins:

Fallback OFF
OSC 000:00/000:30/029:30 Then ON
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I think It was just an error on my part somewhere. The past two days have been normal in regard to calcium usage.

The dosing pump is working fine and the Apex Code is working as expected when I tested it last night.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I've been having some major issues with the Vectra L1. Whenever I even barely touch the cables the power cuts in and out, sometimes it cuts out on its own thumbsdown.gif . I woke up this morning to my ATO level alarm going off because the pump lost power. All the connections are tight so I can only assume something is wrong with the wiring. I just have to jiggle things around and it will come back on.

Guess we'll get to see how good Ecotech's support is!

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I've been having some major issues with the Vectra L1. Whenever I even barely touch the cables the power cuts in and out, sometimes it cuts out on its own thumbsdown.gif . I woke up this morning to my ATO level alarm going off because the pump lost power. All the connections are tight so I can only assume something is wrong with the wiring. I just have to jiggle things around and it will come back on.

Guess we'll get to see how good Ecotech's support is!

You have to start a heat ticket and they'll trouble shoot. I was un successful getting someone on the phone unless they called me.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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I've been having some major issues with the Vectra L1. Whenever I even barely touch the cables the power cuts in and out, sometimes it cuts out on its own thumbsdown.gif . I woke up this morning to my ATO level alarm going off because the pump lost power. All the connections are tight so I can only assume something is wrong with the wiring. I just have to jiggle things around and it will come back on.

Guess we'll get to see how good Ecotech's support is!

You have to start a heat ticket and they'll trouble shoot. I was un successful getting someone on the phone unless they called me.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Good to know, I hope to be able to take off a couple hours early today to take care of it.

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I have really fallen behind on updates for this tank!

Now that I have gotten the tank pretty much all settled and leaving the "new tank" stage... its time to move! doh.gif

I just put a contract down on a to be built house in Leander. I'm not looking forward to having to move the tank at all, but the good news is I will be building a quasi-fish room behind the tank!

The tank will be going into the study room, right by the entrance to the home. The study & storage room will have tile - not carpet like the plan says. We are adding additional windows on each side of the study door so the tank will be visible and not hidden away in a room. In the study there will be a vent with a humidity detector installed above the tank, along with two 20amp GFCI circuits for the tank to run on.

Behind the tank there will be a storage room - which will have a water source and drain for the RODI filter, a utility sink, and room for water storage tanks. There will be a 15amp GFCI circuit for this room. Since the tank was designed to house all the equipment underneath the tank, I don't plan on moving the sump or anything into the storage room, but I will likely run a RODI line to the top off storage under the tank.

The house wont be done until early next year - but I am looking forward to not having to drag water across the whole house for a water change! Moving the tank however - I am dreading that a little bit grin.png

V0E5VOx.jpg

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So cool to be able to build in all the infrastructure you need!

Yes! It was hard to determine what all goes in without wasting too much money or hurting the resale value. For example a waterproof floor with a floor drain got cut from the storage room - too expensive to justify it. You can bet there will be lots of leak detectors though.

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I am finally breaking down my 75g this weekend, but I'm not sure what to do with some of the corals that are in the tank that won't be coming over to the 240.

I have some frogspawn, a big piece of live rock that has zoas covering most of it, a big piece of green plating coral with brown polyps - that I cant remember the name of (edit: Spongodes!) , and some small others. Nothing very valuable.

The problem is everything is covered with vermitid snails. So I am wondering, should I trade in or give away these pieces with the disclaimer that they have the snails in them - or should I just nuke them when I acid dip the rock? I would hate to infect anyone else's tank with the snails.

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I am finally breaking down my 75g this weekend, but I'm not sure what to do with some of the corals that are in the tank that won't be coming over to the 240.

I have some frogspawn, a big piece of live rock that has zoas covering most of it, a big piece of green plating coral with brown polyps - that I cant remember the name of, and some small others. Nothing very valuable.

The problem is everything is covered with vermitid snails. So I am wondering, should I trade in or give away these pieces with the disclaimer that they have the snails in them - or should I just nuke them when I acid dip the rock? I would hate to infect anyone else's tank with the snails.

I don't consider the snails a nuisance but I understand your position. I think as long as you disclose it when you sell them, should be no problem. That or just take them to the LFS and trade them in for some credit to buy new fish/corals for the 240-gallon.

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I am finally breaking down my 75g this weekend, but I'm not sure what to do with some of the corals that are in the tank that won't be coming over to the 240.

I have some frogspawn, a big piece of live rock that has zoas covering most of it, a big piece of green plating coral with brown polyps - that I cant remember the name of, and some small others. Nothing very valuable.

The problem is everything is covered with vermitid snails. So I am wondering, should I trade in or give away these pieces with the disclaimer that they have the snails in them - or should I just nuke them when I acid dip the rock? I would hate to infect anyone else's tank with the snails.

I don't consider the snails a nuisance but I understand your position. I think as long as you disclose it when you sell them, should be no problem. That or just take them to the LFS and trade them in for some credit to buy new fish/corals for the 240-gallon.

Not a bad idea. I will probably just manually remove the snails that I can and trade them in for a little credit. That way I wont be intentionally killing corals which seem wrong.

As for them not being a nuisance - we'll have to disagree! They did a good job of trashing this tank, which is why I am being super careful on the 240g about them. Once they started reproducing it was a losing battle from the start.

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I sold my Rock with Aiptasia and trash palys for 1$ a lb with full disclosure on why it was that cheap. I don't want to set anyone up for failure thus why I made a point to both of the people that bought it the issues with the rock.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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