Inland Reef

A group order would be ideal as we'd get the group discount.

Another incentive is that each individual that participates on the group buy, automaticlly becomes a "preferred" customer and gets that discount on all future individual orders.

Each order is shipped directly to your address, so you don't need to coordinate pickups.

If we can't get 10 people to go in on ARC, then i can throw this out there on some other forums.

Anyone else need something from BRS???

Nice setup & a good price for a running tank.

I love my biocube29. Small footprint, but plenty of room for aquascape & livestock. Easy to setup & maintain for beginners.

Good luck with the sale!

Thanks for the great corals!

I got an Orange, and a Green leptastrea frag that look amazing. The orange was covering 75% of the square plug. The pics are nice, but they look even better in person!

Also got a sweet Tyree War Coral.

All are happy and beautiful in my tank.

Thanks

I was considering seeing if there was enough interest in a group order.

I know one other person that needs some BRS goodness.

Payin it forward!

Cool, one to keep, one to sell

I'll let it grow out and give it to someone looking for a frag when the time comes. I can't wait to give back something to the community that has helped me so much!

That's awesome man. It's what makes this community a great one to be a part of.

I've also been impressed and very happy to see the spread of aqua culturing. As an avid diver, it breaks my heart knowing that our reefs are being plundered for a hobby. It was one of the moral dilemmas I had when I was in the hobby many years ago. I'm proud to say that the two tanks I started up and been stocked with captive raised corals only.

Depends on what you want.

If you want one big colony, right now; then leave it alone and see if it fuses together. If there is no base to stabilize it, then it may break away anyways.

If you want to have two separate colonies, or you want to trade/sell it, then move it to it's own plug.

If your tank is doing good, and it's happy, then it'll grow relatively quick. So it'll either heal up pretty quick, or you'll have a good sized frag in short order.

Personally, I'd break it off and make a new frag out of it. You'll have more options in the long run.

I am by no means a chiller expert, but I've recently done a lot of research trying to figure out my chiller issues.

My problem ended up being not enough GPH through the chiller, which resulted in the chillers water chamber getting too cold & tripping the thermometer prematurely. The pump wasn't putting enough warm tank water through it to keep the chiller water chamber near the temp of the tank. It resulted in the chiller turning off before the actual tank was cooled, then as the tank water warmed up the chamber, it would turn on again (within 5-10min).

From what I've read, having too much flow will do the opposite. It will keep the chiller's water chamber too warm and won't allow it to cool down.

This would typically result in the chiller running for extended periods without cooling the tank much.

The chillers manual should state the suggested gph. You then have to calculate the head pressure.

On my 1/10 it's 200-300 gph. Bigger chillers will have more flow requirements.

Here is the link to my thread. It's got a couple links on chillers that may be of use. RC also has a decent head calculator with some of the standard pumps (Mag's are on there)

http://www.austinreefclub.com/topic/18191-how-often-does-your-chiller-turn-on/

Hope that helps a little bit.

+1 for what Mike said.

1: If they aren't opening at all, then eventually they are going to start dying, so may as well move them.

Where are they currently located as far as light and flow go?

I would try moving them to slightly more flow first. Most zoa don't need a Lot of light, so I'd work on that second; unless they are currently in a shaded spot.

At the very least, I'd try to blow off whatever may be on them (put em infront of a power head for a moment), or a quick dip.

2: If they are open and happy, then they'll re-attach on their own. If you want them on one rock, or in a specific place, then you can just glue them wherever you want them.

I've done it exactly as Ty suggested. Just put a drop of superglue on the rock, then stick the paly's base on it. The superglue gel only takes a couple seconds before it's nice and sticky, so you can lower it back into the water pretty quickly. Certainly try not to get glue on the opening, but they can recover. I recently glued down 2 zoa polyps, and it rolled in my fingers as I was trying to get it on the rock. Glue got all over one of the polyps. It took about a week, but the zoa slowly pushed through and eventually opened up fully.

Good luck!

I agree completely. A simple fan can make a night and day difference in tank temp!

I've got an oscillating fan circulating the room air, but I've been considering a small clip on desktop fan to blow across the glass. This would help to reduce the heat transferred from the MH light to the glass top, & in turn to the water.

To the main topic. I think I am on the right track with the flow issue. By replacing 3 of the 90deg elbows (on the return) with the eheim soft curve 180, the flow was dramatically increased.

Now the chiller is turning on once an hour. It's still not optimal as the chiller temp (while running) is slightly skewed & shuts off just shy of the desired tank temp. I plan on adding the other eheim soft curve to the pump side, & I'll be able to eliminate close to 2+ ft of unnecessary tubing, which will reduce the head pressure.

So hopefully I'll have this problem solved pretty soon.

"Your going to have more cycles than me though since your lighting is "nuclear" compared to my 4 T5's on such a small tank.."

Nuclear is a very apt description. All my experience has been in PC, then upgrade as quick as I can to T5's. I'm seriously considering going back to T5's, but want to give the MH an honest shot. I just happened to give it a try in the hottest summer ever! My home AC has been working to keep the temp at 76. Timing is everything.

In the past, I've only been interested in softies, LPS, & clams, and all those were just fine under T5's. I got a great deal on this complete system, so figured I'd see what the deal was with MH's. So far, I'm not super impressed with the drawbacks of MH. Higher tank & entire room temp's, more electricity usage, requiring a chiller, etc. With my experience and seeing a few SPS tanks under T5's, I know I can get the same results. Although a full bank of replacement T5 bulbs aren't cheap compared to one MH bulb. There is always going to be some give and take.

LED's are looking very attractive, but we'll save the MH, T5, LED discussion for another thread.

I'll answer your question before I get into all the experimental I've been doing.

I'm running the MH from 12-7 right now. Not sure if that's ideal or not, but I'll work on that after I figure out the chiller.

I'm not sure what the tank temp would end up at if I didn't have the chiller running. It would be above 82, so I didn't want to find out exactly how high it would go.

After doing a lot more reading, I'm starting to think that the problem is low flow through the chiller.

It's keeping the tank at the desired temp, but it's cycling on/off a lot to keep it there.

I've been monitoring the tank temp and while the chiller is not engaged, it has an accurate temp reading (figuring in the 1deg offset).When the chiller is engaged, the outflow is cooler, but doesn't get a great deal cooler before the chiller shuts off. The outflow is very weak; at least 1/2 that of the filter pump which is rated at 295gph. I think with the under powered flow, the chiller water chamber is cooling down too fast, and therefore tripping the temp & shutting it down. With increased flow, it should keep the chamber closer to tank temp, therefore providing an accurate reading.

I'm using a maxi jet 1200 which is rated at 294gph. 3ft vertical from chiller to the top of the tank, & 1.5ft horizontal. There is one 45 angle & 3 90deg bends from pump to return outlet. In a product review done by Advanced Aquarists they found that the actual flow with 4ft head was 155gph. So figuring in my vertical, horizontal, & restrictions, I'm probably a little shy of 150gph. I used the RC head calculator, but don't think I used it correctly as it said I would have 0gph flow.

The chiller manual states that it needs 20-300gph.

The maxi 1200 seems to be a rather common, albeit "budget" choice. Hopefully I'll be able to make it work.

I've already cleaned in thoroughly, & it's throwing out some high flow when not hooked up to the chiller.

I'm going to try using some eheim soft U curve's to eliminate the 3 90deg & 45deg elbows. I'll also eliminate as much wasted tubing as I can. Hopefully those changes will get the flow rate up to 200+ & solve my problem.

Keeping fingers crossed....

Replacing the stock pump is a pretty common upgrade for BioCubes. A lot of people seem to like the higher flow.

I recently replaced the return pump on my BC14 with a maxi600. It's got a higher flow rate and seems to circulate water into area's that were previously somewhat stagnant, without totally blowing things out. So in my case it was a beneficial upgrade.

Thanks Derrick, your feedback has been Very helpful.

Got a rare date night with the wife, so didn't get home until 10pm, then had to do some wfh. In between all that, it seems that I was still having the same issue of frequent chiller activation.

So, before I started fiddling with the settings, I was thinking, maybe the water output was on the side of the internal temp probe and thats why I was getting these weird readings.

When I say weird readings, I mean this: For example and simplicity sake; say the actual tank temp is 80. Chiller turns on, runs for a bit & then shuts off at 78. The actual tank temp is reading 79-79.5 So, the chiller is thinking it's cooler than the actual tank really is. I was thinking that maybe the water exiting the chiller is too close to the chiller thermometer, therefore skewing things.

So between working on servers, I decided to change the input/output hoses.

Side note: I was smart enough to know there was going to be a lot of water in the hoses, so I put the chiller on top of a bucket to catch whatever water flowed out of the hoses when I disconnected them. I disconnected the input hose first and water just gushed out of the chiller and didn't stop. I was like What tha Heck???. Turned off all power to the tank (filter pump) & it eventually stopped. Well, the chiller return hose was still sitting in the tank and basically created a vacume and started pulling tank water through it, similar to when you do a water change. Glad I had the bucket under the chiller, and a nice lesson to learn. Also facilitated my weekly water change that needed to be done anyways.

This was around midnight, so the tank temp was already down and the chiller didn't turn on again. On the positive side, The tank temp was reading 78 and the chiller temp was reading 79, so now there is only a 1 deg difference instead of two. So simply switching the imput/exit hoses had an immediate effect. Hopefully it solved the issue, but I'm still skeptical.

The owners manual shows 4 different diagrams for how the chiller can be setup and plumed out. 3 of the 4 diagrams show the input hose going int the right side port & exiting from the left port (if looking at it from the front), 1 diagram shows the opposite.

If that doesn't solve the issue, then my next step is to adjust the "pd" setting.

If that doesn't work then I'll most likely take it apart to see if anything is obviously wrong. Then take it in for service.

Thats an awesome phychodelic anem. I'm sure that one will sell super quick.

Y'all have great sources for live stock. I'm constantly drooling over your posts. Wish I lived in SD and y'all were a LFS for me. Then again, I'd be broke all the time & my tanks would be overflowing with corals.

Ahhh, thanks Derrick. That makes sense.

There is a setting marked pd, which comes after the differential setting. This isn't described in the owners manual so I wasn't sure what it was. It starts at 0 and goes up in single increments.

I'll see if doing a manual offset works. If not, then I may fiddle with the "pd" setting and try to figure out if that is in fact an offset.

Thanks for all the feedback. It's helped me narrow things down quite a bit.

I'll let ya'll know how things go when I get home and watch it for a couple hours tonight.

Yes, the off set or differential is set: "The differential is set at +- 2deg."

This is the lowest setting on this particular chiller.

mhart032: I agree completely, thats why I was thinking something was not right. I don't have any experience, but that seemed excessive for a tanks temp to change that quickly.

I'll know later tonight if changing the temp worked or not.

Still not entirely sure the flow rate is correct, but a maxijet 1200 seems pretty common, so at this point, I'll assume that it is.

It may indeed be the chiller thermometer.

While doing a bit more research on the Oceanic chillers, I read several comments that the chiller thermometer could be off by as much as 2 deg from actual.

I dropped a digital thermometer in chamber 2 & sure enough, it was reading 77deg while the chiller was displaying 79. I got the same readings in chamber 1, as well as the actual tank. When I first got the dig thermometer I verified it with a regular mercury thermometer for a week, so I'm pretty confident thats it's accurate.

So, I thought I was keeping the tank at 78, but it was actually trying to keep it at 76.

I turned up the chiller temp to 80, which should try to keep the actual temperature at 78. All this happened after the MH was off, so it never got warm enough for it to turn back on. This morning at 10am the tank was at 78 (chiller reading 80), so we'll see what happens when I get home from work and the MH has been running for several hours.

This is making a whole lot more sense now. It was trying to keep the tank 1deg below room temp, with a MH over a closed glass top.

Hopefully turning up the setting on the chiller solves the problem. Don't know why I checked Everything else, before I verified that the chiller thermometer was accurate. That probably should have been the first thing I checked. Oh well.

Thanks for the responses Tim.

The chiller is turning on about ten times per hour. When it is on, it runs for about 2min while it's dropping the temperature from 80 to 78deg.

The tank is a BioCube29 that was an open top but I had glass cut to fit the top, so there is only 1/2" or so between the glass and water. On top of that sits the sunpod 150w MH.

The chiller itself is not within the cabinet; it sits beside it. It has the suggested 12" of space in front and behind. When it is running, it seems to be running efficiently as it only take a couple minutes to go from 80-78.

The ambient air temp in the room is 76-77, usually 77deg.

My thoughts are that maybe the pump isn't circulating the water through the chiller at the correct flow rate. The return water pressure doesn't feel very strong compared to the pressure coming out of the filter pump. Then again, it's got to push the water out of the tank, through the chiller, and back up to the tank.

Other possibility is that the thermometer inside the chiller is malfunctioning.

I'm going to hook up a dig thermometer and place it in chamber 2 along with the chiller pump to see if the water temp is really changing that quickly.

How often does your chiller turn on in the middle of the day, with all lights on?

I'm wondering if mine turns on way too often. It's running probably 5-10x within an hour. I haven't logged it exactly.

I've always had T5's over my tanks, and have never had heat issues that required a chiller, so this is my first time running one.

I recently acquired a BC29 with a 150w HQI & chiller (Aqua Chill 1/10).

I've got the normal circulation pump in chamber 3, and the chiller pump (Rio 1200) in chamber2. The water return is on the right side, which is where the overflow is, but the return is mid way toward the front of the tank and blowing across the tank.

All fittings are tight, so it's getting the best circulation the Rio can put out. The flow rating on the Rio is 295gph, which the chiller owners manual states that it's adequate.

No other pumps in the tank.

Only running the 150w HQI and two LED stunner strips.

Room temp is 76-77deg

The chiller temp is set to 78deg.

The differential is set at +- 2deg.

I have a regular thermometer in the tank and the chiller temp seems to be pretty close to it. Maybe +1 degree or so.

This is also my first open top aquarium. It was putting off so much humidity into the room that it was raising the room temp by 2deg, so I had a glass top cut for it. The rear filter chamber is still open.

Even before I put the glass top on, it was turning on about as frequently.

When it does turn on, it cools the temp down within 2min or so.

So, does this sound somewhat normal? Is it turning on excessively?

Do I have it placed/setup incorrectly?

Any thoughts or suggestions would be great.

PM'd on Blasto's

I'm enjoying the 1st batch of corals I got so much, that I had to go back for another assortment.

Make plans and get over there; you won't be disappointed. Only problem is you'll probably want too many!

His entire tank is made up of rare and beautiful corals.

Clint: Thanks for letting me hang out a pic some great frags.

Nice find. I'm glad you enjoyed your visit and got to hit a lot of the local stores.

The stores are great, no doubt about it. If you like them, then you'll love being a part of the local club.

The Austin scene is pretty spoiled in that club members have some absolutely insanely beautiful corals, and are not shy about trading or selling.

Anyone have a busted T5 light where the ballasts are still working? I know the ballasts are usually the things that go out on lights, but things happen, so figured I'd ask.

I've got a 24" 4 bulb fixture that needs the ballasts replaced. Figured I'd see if anyone needs to get rid of a busted T5 before I buy new ballasts.

I'll take it off your hands if it's taking up space, maybe trade, or buy if it's a decent price.

Good question.

I had assumed since it would be similar to the last RCA sale group buy. But.... you know what they say about assumptions...

I imagine we'll find out after he talks to Jake, and Jake talks to his distributor.

Looking forward to knowing how much to budget.

Put me in for 2.