acropoorer

I have dual calfo's on my tank. I just cut two 1" slots (drilled each end), but you could do a similar thing at the very top of the tank. I bought a wet saw with a diamond blade specifically for glass and some hole saws. If you need a saw I would loan it out if you need it. I love not having the clunky looking overflow box in my tank and the waterfall doesn't fill up with algae like the teeth flows do. The only downside is that you have to have the space behind the tank for the box or boxes. Here's some pic's. Instead of a slot, you could do a trough. The slot is just big enough to put my returns through. Also, I did a full 4 sided acrylic box so that I could color the back glass and not have it as part of the overflow.

Here's my advise for what it's worth. If you have a small load, get a timer to control your solenoid and set the drip to a solid steady stream, with a bubble rate of say 100 to 140 per minute. Let it run for 15 or 20 minutes and check the KH of the affluent. It should be > 25 dkh and < 40 or you need to increase/decrease the bubbles or decrease/increase the drip. 20 lbs should be plenty on the pressure. Use the timer to turn on the C02 for 4 or 5 Hrs a day and watch the kh of the tank. If the kh stays in the 9-12 range you should be good. If it creeps up decrease the on time or if it creeps down increase the on time. Slow drips and low bubble counts are your worst nightmare as the water control valve plugs (particulates) and small changes in pressure affect the bubbles with low counts. I run mine this way without the timer as my calcium load is high (have lots of big acros, coraline and lps) but many tanks run lower loads and can't run full bore 24/7. As your coral grow you will have to slowly increase the ontime once you find the sweetspot. i have a ph probe in mine but more to keep an eye on things, it doesn't control anything. Once in a while I make an adjustment to the bubbles or flow, maybe once a week. Another thing you might like if you don't have a dual chamber is to run the efffluent into a bucket with an air stone (drives off excess C02), in my tank this raises my ph about 0.2 and keeps me above 8.2 in the daytime. You may not find this a requirement if you are only running C02 in the daytime as photosynthesis burns the excess C02 off. Just works for me and no or few system failures as it is simple.

What you want to do on your reef. There are soft coral, lps and sps corals, mixed corals or fish only with live rock, or.... Any idea of what you want to put in the tank yet. This will greatly influence the type of advise you will get.

I feel your pain and was certainly not trying to make light of your situation by suggesting a controlled experiment, just drive home the point that I think you are dealing with a contamination issue from the light in the water. Based upon my experience and yours I think you need water changes. Again, please accept my apologies, I don't think there is anything funny about losing any amount of corals (lost plenty of my own stuff and it feels bad).

This is interesting as I had a similar situation 4 years ago. In my case the light was in the water (in the sump) all night and there was clearly plating removed from the reflector. Here's the thing with electricity, current will take the path of least resistance so it is unlikely that current will travel far from the light. Also, the neutral wire is really an insulated ground wire where the Hot wire is an oscillating voltage (110V rms at 60 Hz). I think the voltage swings both positive and negative so the average voltage is 0V. Can't imagine how you could get much, if any current in the tank as a current path would be very resistive through the water hose, into the tank and back to the wires. By the time my tank lighting came on (6 or 8hrs) all my corals were major freaked out, sps were covered in slime. I did major water changes and added anything that could remove heavy metals. Most of my stuff recovered after a month, but all of my stoney coral were affected, especially sps and hammers. None of my fish or soft coral suffered. I thought it was some sort of electroplating, but wasn't sure of what. The wires were copper and the reflector was some sort of light weight alloy like aluminum (the reflector had small holes eaten into it). Then there is the element in the bulb which is probably a tungsten alloy, so maybe the burned up element contaminated the water. Hard to believe a voltage in the tank would cause a problem. Voltage is just a difference in net charge between the the water and ground. Humans quite frequently develop large potentials of several thousand volts and it doesn't harm us. Walk on a carpet and touch a wall sometime. Current through humans though is a very bad thing, a few milli amps passing through your heart can kill you -- say one hand to the other. It disrupts the tiny electrical flow of the nervous system which can stop your heart if the signals are overpowered. So the fish are fine and they have hearts and nervous systems, but corals are affected? I never did figure out what caused my coral to almost die, but I still believe it was contamination from the light and after hearing your story I think maybe the element in the bulb. Controlled experiment anyone?

Not sure why no one wants to use a copperband butterfly. I have owned three and all of them have kept my tanks completely clear. There is a small risk of coral nipping, but if you feed them, not a problem. I had one that lived for 4 years plus and a second one I've had for almost two years. And hey, pretty to look at and not very expensive.

If you want to save $$ and get a fast setting epoxy, get it from marine depot. They have the 2 little fishies AquaStik in stone grey and coraline red, 9.99 and 10.99 respectively. These are the big 4oz sticks. I have used it all and find this to be the fastest setting and best colors (white is the worst). Just be sure to get it with a big enough order to avoid the shipping cost. http://www.marinedepot.com/miscellaneous_epoxy-ap.html

OK Eric, I'll trade. What do you have and what are you looking for?

I like the D&D aquatics high sensitivity kit (Merck test method from Deltec). The range is from 0 to 0.1 and it's best to stay below 0.045 which a lot of kits won't measure to any level of accuracy. Usually run about $90 but they have over 100 tests and last forever.

You need to fix that signature. And man does that stuff look great! Better?

Sure, but by now I'd have thought you'd have that 34 gal full up. Of course you're always welcome to visit just to look, but I'm running a night cycle till I get this stuff in the house (just plain hot in the garage). LED's on at 8:30pm, T12 actinic at 11:30pm, MH on at 1:30am so I had to stay up really late to get your full light pics. Taking vacation the week of the 4th and hoping to get the tank inside by the 11th -- maybe wishful thinking...

+1 Ok, Ok. You know I am limited by the Iphone quality and to lazy to figure out how to use my cannon. I am starting to see some of my stuff that has suffered starting to color up and my parameters are stable. Here's a few pics.

Very Nice! Do you hire out?

Must be the camera adding in all of those bright colors... I really think it is the oregon's, cali's, LPS and the starphire glass. I also left the worst looking stuff in the old tank and thankfully many of my corals are just dulled in color rather than brown.

Thanks Mark, I'm flattered. Some sps are hard to make look bad, but I am missing some magic and want it back. Some of my stuff is not lookin so good. Been here before, but not sure I know why I am here now. I am hoping it is just the build up of crap in my old tanks (haven't been cleaned in almost 2years). I hope I am solidly on the mend by my next build update.

Thanks Brooks.

I know what you mean, my chalices really look small.

I love the scoly's too. Got them in a trade, wouldn't mind more but all cool popular ones are pricey.

Here's a quick update on recent developements. I have installed all my lights into the hood and moved most of my corals into the new tank in the garage. So far, chilling hasn't been so bad as I am running a night cycle with lots of fans. Water quality is still poor -- missing the magic yet so corals are not well colored but I haven't lost any. I still have 10 to 15 corals to move and not a lot of room left. Some of my SPS still has decent color but others are not so hot yet. LPS and softies are all doing well. Here's a few iphone pics from whats moved in so far.

I agree on the chiller. I run the stock 28 gal JBJ as a quarantine tank and it gets to hot if I don't keep the lid up 2". The stock unit is typically 5 degrees above ambient at the peak. If you keep your house really cool and don't run the actinic and halides together you might be OK at peak temp, but the swing will be higher with the skimmer. A fan on the sump might work. Looks like a quality build, like the way you set up the ro/di. I'm a big fan of plywood stands -- looks like you have good carpentry skills.

Usually a 5 stage system has a sediment stage, 2 carbon stages, an ro stage and a di stage in that order. If you have two carbons (ideal for chloramine). The first carbon is a refillable granulated carbon and the second a chloramine buster. You should have all the stages you need, just a question of did they send you the right filters.

Thanks for the info Mark. For now, the tank is mostly empty and I'm looking for a quick kick start (preferably cheap). This dry live rock thing is new to me, but sooner or later it has to go live. My goal is to make it live, not sure that vodka or polyp labs will do that for me and if I try either it will be to get the rock established so I can quit additives -- don't want to do any long term dosing. Seen to many complex systems with periodic issues. I am hoping that the stability will kick in and get things moving. We'll see... Thanks again, Dale

Thanks for the link Brooks, and I was joking about your parents. I fully expect they would trust you without the article. Thanks again, Dale

Details? How did you start it? How much? Did you start before you had established rock? How long have you used it? And what did your parents say? It's for your reef tank, Yea Right!

Thanks, already picked some up at aquatek and have been using it. No change in the nitrates. Aquatek Bruce suggested dosing vodka, may try small doses. He didn't think the stability would help much with nitrates, though seachem makes some claims to help.