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The Maroon Lagoon V2.0


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So now you’ve got plenty of room for a few BTAs [emoji4]

 

 

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Good luck getting a BTA to anchor down on the glass. It would just move into the PH and get shredded like most BTAs eventually do when they start moving around. And if I released one into the rocks it would just divide a million times and pop up all over the place killing all my prized acros. No, no thanks. I'll keep one in a cage off in a corner, but that's about it.

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15 hours ago, jolt said:

Looking good, as always :)

 

Thanks, starving my corals has really paid off. I think of it like managing super models, hardly feed them anything and they'll look super sexy! :lol:

 

Totally joking, I feed my tank 5 times a day and my nutrients are up there. It's becoming a struggle to keep PO4 below 0.10 PPM. I'm hoping the addition of the squamosa clam will help absorb some of my nutrients in the tank. 

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37 minutes ago, Gig 'em @ NDstructible said:

Thanks, starving my corals has really paid off. I think of it like managing super models, hardly feed them anything and they'll look super sexy! :lol:

 

Totally joking, I feed my tank 5 times a day and my nutrients are up there. It's becoming a struggle to keep PO4 below 0.010 PPM. I'm hoping the addition of the squamosa clam will help absorb some of my nutrients in the tank. 

Surely you meant 0.1 PPM?  If I read them correctly, most of the papers that are being cited recently on ARC that study low Phosphate typically define "low" to be <0.03 PPM (after you convert the more 'researchy' units of micromoles to PPM that is).  One paper tortured the corals 10X lower than that even!

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1 minute ago, jolt said:

Surely you meant 0.1 PPM?  If I read them correctly, most of the papers that are being cited recently on ARC that study low Phosphate typically define "low" to be <0.03 PPM (after you convert the more 'researchy' units of micromoles to PPM that is).  One paper tortured the corals 10X lower than that even!

Good catch Jolt, yeah I put too many 0's in. The edit has been made.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I don't have many updates. Just that my CaRX flow slowed when I was out of town, Alk dipped to 4.9 and it's back to 9 two days later. It's amazing how much abuse acros can take when they're healthy! Oh, and I finally got a good shot of my smallest tank inhabitant! I love small fish, they make inspecting the nuances of the tank so much fun [emoji16]
89c4ac0f57ba0235552b6117e9674fd5.jpg

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4 hours ago, Gig 'em @ NDstructible said:


Haha but no corrective action was taken, it is what it is at this point. I wouldn't have known otherwise, all corals seem happy as ever

You know you're a consultant when you say....

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31 minutes ago, Gig 'em @ NDstructible said:


Do you miss it yet? Wait, are you back in yet or taking a different path now?

I don't wanna say never, but I'm pretty solidly in the "force majuere" when it comes to consulting. 

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The tank has gone for a wild ride with Alk swings lately. Low of 5 a few days ago and high of 10. Swing was due to the flow slowing down while I was out of town, now it's just a game of tuning it to the right range.

fb0bfeb7b99192c48c4be8377f923ce9.jpg

 

Surprisingly nothing is dead and not a single burned tip. I assume because everything is pretty healthy the corals have been able to handle the rapid change. As proof, here are so coral pics I took tonight!

Left to right: Hawkins exhinata, blue iris, DaM mille

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Left to right: miyagi tort, Vivids borealis (?), and GE Key Lime Breeze

9c77d07e2bf5f33c35405c52d24958af.jpg

 

Vivids Confetti

c9dffa36bf8a9869a9abd7f2c4aa7d2c.jpg

 

New purple acro from ASD next to my RR Firecracker

2d29b12c64181eb03075f0b366f91e2d.jpg

 

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The tank has gone for a wild ride with Alk swings lately. Low of 5 a few days ago and high of 10. Swing was due to the flow slowing down while I was out of town, now it's just a game of tuning it to the right range.

 
Surprisingly nothing is dead and not a single burned tip. I assume because everything is pretty healthy the corals have been able to handle the rapid change. As proof, here are so coral pics I took tonight!
Left to right: Hawkins exhinata, blue iris, DaM mille

 


Had some alk issue while I was out of town the other week as well. It’s so frustrating when everything runs fine for months unattended..while you’re home. Glad to see everything made it through ok. Hopefully it evens out and the maroon lagoon keeps growing out gorgeous corals!




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10 hours ago, Bluemoon said:

 


Had some alk issue while I was out of town the other week as well. It’s so frustrating when everything runs fine for months unattended..while you’re home. Glad to see everything made it through ok. Hopefully it evens out and the maroon lagoon keeps growing out gorgeous corals!




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I know right? Sometimes I feel like my tank just waits for me to leave before it starts changing things on me. I wouldn't have even known the alk was dropping if I hadn't tested it when I saw the low drip rate. Better that than seeing a bunch of burned tips! :blink:

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Any thought to maybe your decreasing effluent rate over time may be due to the the on/off cycles for the CO2 you programmed with the solenoid? Possibly the pressure differences when the CO2 is on versus off? Just throwing out guesses here. This is the 2nd CaRX you've had decreasing effluent rate in. Were you running the same method of programming your CO2 with the solenoid on the last CaRX as well?

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10 minutes ago, FarmerTy said:

Any thought to maybe your decreasing effluent rate over time may be due to the the on/off cycles for the CO2 you programmed with the solenoid? Possibly the pressure differences when the CO2 is on versus off? Just throwing out guesses here. This is the 2nd CaRX you've had decreasing effluent rate in. Were you running the same method of programming your CO2 with the solenoid on the last CaRX as well?

The first reactor was controlled by pH. That was a nightmare and a mistake I'll never make again. For the most part this reactor has been solid for a long time. I think the issue was my security programming if you want to hear the whole story...

In the programming I had set the pH trigger value (I can't remember the exact value, but it was high enough that it was actually shutting off my solenoid and CO2 injection). I did not realize what was going on for a while and my alk kept dipping lower and lower with my large SPS coral growth in the tank. To combat this I kept bumping up the CO2 bubble rate. Eventually I thought to myself "maybe the effluent flow rate is just too fast and not giving the water in the first chamber enough time to dissolved the media!". So I started messing with the effluent flow and slowing it down to a drip--drip--drip. Well that was fine and good until mineral build up on the line and likely sediment in the needle valve slowed it down even further.

That's about the time I realized the pH in my reactor wasn't dipping as frequently as it used to with the timer I had programmed. Aha! Because the pH is reaching that safety off point and CO2 isn't being injected regularly. Likely I need to calibrate the pH probe at this point... Anywho, I lowered the safety off set point of the pH probe, opened up the effluent rate again, and BAM! Alk spiked back up. Now it's just a matter of adjusting the CO2 bubble rate to that nice equilibrium point.

Kinda feels like this, but I try to keep running the CaRX to spinning just one plate, though I got too zealous and tried adjusting too many variables before realizing what the issue really was.

YellowishEarnestDegus-size_restricted.gi

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one problem w/ leaving the co2 solenoid on all the time, and only setting it up by bubblecount.... that solenoid was not designed to stay on ALL the time and will burn out.  yes, its true having it cycle on and off will ALSO burn out the contacts.  a balance has to be found somewhere in between.... cycle it less, give it time to cool off, adjust bubblecount & efluent to cover the "off" time.  there is no real "right" way to do this, just the best way that particular tank seems to like... and the person maintaining it.

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one problem w/ leaving the co2 solenoid on all the time, and only setting it up by bubblecount.... that solenoid was not designed to stay on ALL the time and will burn out.  yes, its true having it cycle on and off will ALSO burn out the contacts.  a balance has to be found somewhere in between.... cycle it less, give it time to cool off, adjust bubblecount & efluent to cover the "off" time.  there is no real "right" way to do this, just the best way that particular tank seems to like... and the person maintaining it.
Why do you have to go around making logical sense on this board. This is a place of no logic!

I'll see what I can do. The solenoid hasn't failed me yet in roughly 2 years now so I might just keep riding it out.

My old method of cycling on and off with pH killed my solenoids every 1.5 or less years.
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