150g Indio-Pacific Biome

[FarmerTy]

Keep an eye on the solenoid. I still think it may be the issue. When mine went out... it would work for a little bit and then not work. Then it would start working again and not work. Make sure you set your bubble rate pretty close to where you need it without the solenoid so that in case it goes out, you don't dump tons of CO2 in your tank.

[Sascha D.]

If the solenoid goes out, doesn't the gas stop? I guess it depends what goes out.

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[Reburn]

They can stick open or stick closed. Hence why people stay it's a good idea to have a separate feed pump. That way if the solenoid sticks open the next step for your controller is to turn off your recirculation pump and your feed pump and Email an alarm.

[FarmerTy]

I've had mine stuck open before.

[Sascha D.]

It's been a busy week!

The aquarium controller has been an interesting experience! Setting it up to do everything that you want is super easy. All you have to do is open the installation wizard and follow the instructions. It would have been super cool if the instructions told you about the wizard though. I'm glad that Brian dropped that little bit of knowledge on me or else I would have spent an hour trying to find it. I'm still having a bit of trouble with the wifi. It connects using my home network, but to monitor it remotely I need to connect to the outside IP. There was something about opening the port. I found a link today but I need to be home to use it. It's pretty much above me so I'm probably going to fumble around in the dark until I find a light switch.

The basic controller comes with a pH probe, four temp ports and a temp probe, two ATO ports, two light dimming ports and 8 relay slots.

• Relay 1 - Display Lights: I have set the display lighting to run on a similar schedule to what I currently have. I'm not really interested in dimming or running actinics separate from the day lights. Turn on at 11am and turn off at 9:20pm. Done.
• Relay 2 - Refugium Lights: The refugium lights will run on a reverse photo period. If you're going to run a lighted sump, then a reverse lighting schedule provides the most stability in the system. I've had the most luck with this schedule.
• Relay 3 - CaRx: The pH probe is measuring the calcium reactor chamber. I have manually tuned the gas and the effluent to maintain a 6.5 pH. The relay is set to turn the solenoid on at 6.7 pH and turn it off at 6.5 pH. In the future I may change this relay to a feed pump that will turn off the pump in the event of a solenoid failure.
• Relay 4 - Return Pump
• Relay 5 - Circ Pump 1: Relay 5 and 6 have the wave maker potential. I currently run 35x constant flow in the display. In the future I may want to add another WP40 and run two on a wave maker with one constant flow pump. Right now they are set to constant on.
• Relay 6 - Circ Pump 2
• Relay 7 - ATO
• Relay 8 - Skimmer

The temp probe will likely be set to read the return section of the sump. I never have to worry about the tank overheating since the LED's give off so little heat. I do have to worry about the tank getting too cold without a heater. The tank's deep dimensions keeps the water temperature fairly constant. Therefore, the place that I want to take the temp is the return chamber, which is the smallest water volume in the system.

Feeding Mode: I have both circulation pumps connected to the feed mode. Turning the pumps off will help reduce waste by giving the fish more time to eat the food without it blowing away.

Water Change Mode: The circulation pumps, return pump and skimmer pump are connected to the water change mode. Turning off the pumps will reduce splashing. The SCA-302 skimmer operates in 6-8" of water and I currently have it set to 8". I have it set to turn off during water changes so that the skimmer won't go crazy if the water level fluctuates.

Overheat Mode: The tank is unlikely to over heat, but I may as well use the function since it's there. The tank does not have a heater to malfunction so the only possible way it would over heat is in the event the room temp reaches extraordinary levels. If the water temp reaches 86 degrees then the lights and circulation pumps will turn off. I don't want the return pump to turn off since that is the major avenue for gas exchange. I thought about having the skimmer pump turn off as well, but I don't think it would make much difference.

ATO: The automatic top-off system is the last thing that I have to set up. The controller comes with float switches and the capability to implement the top-off system. I plan to run the ATO pump on relay 8. I'm not entirely sure how to hook up the float switches and so I have saved it for last. I also need to find a reservoir that will fit into the stand.

[jolt]

I had to do one thing to get my wifi visible to ouside worled. I had to set up port forwarding on my router. How to do this is specific to your brand of router. You should be able to find instructions on the web for that. the RA wifi uses port 2000 by default, so unless you changed that (not possible in the wizard if I recall correctly), then the port you want to forward is ip_address_of_ra:2000 Some people also have to fiddle with their modem and/or talk to their internet provider to enable port forwarding functionality on the modem.

Once you get it working I recommend setting up your system on the Reef Angel forum. I use that web page constantly to monitor my tank. It also gives you a handy link to the translated IP address of your wifi controller. The IP address that will be seen outside of your router will be different than the IP address you see inside your home network. This translated address will be the one you want to configure in the Reef Angel app on your phone, which I also highly recommend.

[Sascha D.]

Thanks Jim,

I have set up an account on the portal and I have downloaded the app. So far Brian helped me get the internal IP and the external IP. The phone app works while I'm inside my house, but it does not update the portal. From what I read on the forums I have to use the external or "away" IP to update the portal. The forum mentioned opening the port on my modem, but I haven't figured it out yet.

[jolt]

No worries. Just to be clear though, it's the RA WIFI that updates the portal, not the app. The way it works is that your RA uses the WIFI adaptor to 'phone home' to the RA portal (you can find the exact code in the RA library if you are inclined to). Once your RA has made itself known to the the RA portal, then the portal regularly contacts your RA for updates using the external IP. So, once you have that working you should point the app at the external IP not the internal one. The app basically uses the same update mechanism as the RA portal, so when you point it to the external IP the app will work anywhere.

[Sascha D.]

It looks like we had almost everything set up correctly. The home and away connections were good, but the firewall IP pass through had the wrong port. After I had changed that then everything works great. To get my app labeled correctly, I had to label all of the ports on the portal and then entered my away IP into the settings. After that I went to my settings, clicked labels, and then imported them from the website.

[FarmerTy]

I'd say you have a nutrient issue Sascha. Dinos and bubble algae are usually indicative of it. I'd imagine your skimmer and macro aren't able to process it fast enough. I forget if you do any other method of nutrient removal.

Perhaps you need to get back to a steady water change interval?

Or run your sump light longer and prune your macro more frequently?

[Sascha D.]

I set up some Gfo last week so hopefully that helps. So far I've done two water changes this month and checked my filtered water to make sure its still producing zero TDS. Nitrates are zero and I prune the macro regularly.

The bubble algae had been in the from the start but I've been manually removing it. I didn't notice it very badly until now. Most rocks are clean but a few have sprouted heavily. The main problem with bubble algae is that it can grow in the shaded areas under rocks or in between corals. Valonia can also grow in low nutrient systems once introduced by spore.

As far as nutrient intake, I feed mysis Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I thaw the cubes in a cup, drain the water, and feed with a net. I feed Pellets on Tuesday and Thursday and I feel Nori on Saturday. I feed the pellets slowly so that they all get eaten and none touch the ground.

The dinos are nearly gone and the GHA has reduced by half.

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[Sascha D.]

After careful consideration I decided to pull out the worst rocks and go to town on them. After about an hour I had a bucket full of stuff. The largest rock that introduced the Valonia to the system was so bad that it would have taken me hours to pick everything off of it! Even then I couldn't be sure that I had gotten everything and it likely has spores still inside. I removed the corals from that rock and plan to either cook it, kill it or sell it. It's a really nice rock, with good shape and size. After I was done with the other rocks they were rinsed and put back in place. I'm sure that I will still have to remove one here or there, but 90% of it was done last night.


I got all of this out of three rocks in about an hour.


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[Sascha D.]

There isn't always good news to post. I am very saddened to announce that I came home to a disaster on Wednesday. I walked through the door and looked into the tank to find every fish dead. The return was shooting a massive amount of bubbles out. It's normal to see bubbles in the return line when the return chamber is low, so I checked and it was near full. Right next to the sump I saw that the calcium reactor was also bubbling in the media chamber and the bubble counter was dry. I immediately went to the back and unplugged the solenoid and all of the bubbling stopped. I checked the reactor pH and it was still 6.5.

I'm not 100% sure what happened except that it has to do with the CO2 gas. I can only assume that a gas leak either cause the pH in the tank to drop or dropped the oxygen levels too low. The fact that the bubble counter on the solenoid and on the reactor were dry is curious. There is a check valve in between the solenoid and the reactor that will not allow backflow, so the water in the reactor bubble counter could not have escaped through the gas line. The only way that water could have escaped is through the feed line since the effluent line was dry. That line runs from the manifold to the reactor. It is possible that a large amount of gas entering the chamber could pressurize the reactor higher than the return pump pumps water into the reactor, reversing the flow. The excess gas would then go into the tank as if the bottle were hooked up directly.

How could you prevent that? Maybe put a check valve on the feed line? Would the gas from the tank leak into the reactor until it breaks the seam or would it just stop when the gas line reaches a certain amount of pressure? I guess leaking into the air would be better than leaking into the tank.

Anyway, my next thought after turning off the gas is to try and save what's left. I set up a QT and started doing a water change. Ty had the great idea of pointing my circulation pumps to the top of the water to help with gas exchange. Unfortunately, only 4 of 18 fish were accessible from anywhere I could reach. I would have to start taking out rocks to find the bodies before they spike the ammonia and nitrates. Things got from bad to worse after I removed about 30 pounds of the loose rocks. The left tower fell over! The rocks were still attached with acrylic rods, but the structure wouldn't stay up and I had to remove it. Before I knew it I had had 150 pounds of rocks on the floor in tubs and buckets. Truly a disaster.

I did what I could Wednesday night and finally went to bed at midnight. The water was too murky from all of the sand stirring to see what I was doing. The next day I spent the whole day trying to clean up the mess. Everything had a fine layer of murk on it so the first thing I did was take out the remaining rocks and do another 25 gallon water change. By this time I had changed about 30% of the total water volume and cleaned the sand bed every second I could. The problem with disassembling any structure is that you have to remember how it goes back together! Of course I couldn't and so I had to recreate my aquascape. I broke out my handy-dandy drill and masonry bit and went to town. The result you see below is the new tower structure.

[jolt]

Oh wow

[Reburn]

Sasha,

I'm very sorry to hear about this. It is truly a sad day.

On the bubble counters being dry, I have noticed on my c02 setups that if I'm moving massive amounts of gas through the bubble counters the bubble counter will go dry. The rapid movement of the gas will push the water out of the bubble counters and even through check valves kinda like the way a skimmer will push the bubble head up into the collection cup. I use a regular top fin check valve on my ATO line. They will pass water through them the correct way for sure.

Since I don't know what kind of regulator your running I will mention that single stage regulators (cheaper regulators) will have what is commonly referred to as an "EOTD end of tank dump". What happens is basically the pressure in the bottle gets very low when your at the end of your gas. The bottle pressure is below the working pressure allowing the regulator to basically pass gas unrestricted. This problem can be cured by running a dual stage regulator if your not already.

If the c02 bottle was dumping more gas into the reactor is completely possible that the reactor filled with some gas and then flowed out the effluent line into the tank. This would have happened due to the fact that the co2 couldn't dissovle anymore in the reactor water. Once the gas got discharged into the main tank water it started dissolving into that water lowering the PH and pushing the C02 saturation up. Did you have your effluent line underwater?

My next guess would be as simple as a needle valve failure or a regulator failure. While uncommon these do happen.

[FarmerTy]

Sorry bud for the rotten luck! That's awful!

While I can't frag any fish, if you need help restocking some of your corals that died, just hit me up when you're ready.

If you have any interest, maybe I could swing by sometime next week and take a look at that CaRX with you and see if we can troubleshoot it and find out what happened.

Let me know if I could be of any help otherwise. Know that the ARC community is feeling the pain with you.

[Sascha D.]

Thanks Reburn. I had thought that may be the case with the dry bubble counter on the solenoid. I'm not sure the model number, but I'm running a 2 year old Milwaukee solenoid. The effluent line was not submerged and was dry when I got home. The reactor was also 80% full of water, where it would normally be 100% full. The part I find odd is that the pH of the media chamber was 6.5. If gas was dumping into the reactor then the pH should have dropped to a crazy low level and been shut off by the controller. Somehow the gas never touched the media chamber and went directly into the tank.

[Reburn]

Where the effluent line discharged into the tank was that end underwater?

Did your PH probe tip ever come out of the water or did it stay submerged?

[Sascha D.]

Sorry bud for the rotten luck! That's awful!

While I can't frag any fish, if you need help restocking some of your corals that died, just hit me up when you're ready.

If you have any interest, maybe I could swing by sometime next week and take a look at that CaRX with you and see if we can troubleshoot it and find out what happened.

Let me know if I could be of any help otherwise. Know that the ARC community is feeling the pain with you.

Thanks Ty. I appreciate the offer and advice yesterday. It's too early to tell which corals will make it. A lot happened in a 24 hour period and there were rapid parameter swings. I expect it was too much for some of the more delicate corals. The new aquascape has about 30% less LR in it than before so there is less room to mount corals. I will remove the ones that don't pull through and readjust the ones that made it. I also have a few rocks covered in corals that I will sell to make room on the sand bed. I expect it to be at least two weeks before I do anything.

[Sascha D.]

Where the effluent line discharged into the tank was that end underwater?

Did your PH probe tip ever come out of the water or did it stay submerged?

The effluent line is not long enough to reach the water level of the sump at normal operating levels. The only way it could be submerged is if the water level of the sump raised higher than normal.

I'm not sure on the pH probe. The water level was low but I'm not sure if it was below the end of the probe. I could check when I get home.

[Reburn]

If the effluent line wasn't underwater any gas that escaped the effluent line should have off gassed harmlessly into the atmosphere. Which means any co2 that made it into your DT should have been dissolved in the water.

My guess is that the ph probe failed when the reactor started dissovling too much c02 causing the solonoid not to trip off. Either by simple equipment failure or by the probe tip going dry causing inaccurate readings. This caused super saturated c02 water to make its way into your DT. The reactor having air in it when you found it was simply an aftermath of the water being maxed out on co2 saturation. The damage was done while the reactor was running still pumping out water. The air pocket that formed in the reactor was being pushed out and just off gassing into the atmosphere. The co2 bubble rate exceeded your feed rate and dissove rate which is what caused the air pocket to form but by the time the air pocket formed the damaged had already been done.

I hate to say it but it seems that you may have been victim of multiple equipment failures at the same time. First the regulator and needle valve and then the PH probe.

Again I'm very sorry.

[madsalt]

Wow so sorry to hear about the loss.

[Sascha D.]

If the effluent line wasn't underwater any gas that escaped the effluent line should have off gassed harmlessly into the atmosphere. Which means any co2 that made it into your DT should have been dissolved in the water.

My guess is that the ph probe failed when the reactor started dissovling too much c02 causing the solonoid not to trip off. Either by simple equipment failure or by the probe tip going dry causing inaccurate readings. This caused super saturated c02 water to make its way into your DT. The reactor having air in it when you found it was simply an aftermath of the water being maxed out on co2 saturation. The damage was done while the reactor was running still pumping out water. The air pocket that formed in the reactor was being pushed out and just off gassing into the atmosphere. The co2 bubble rate exceeded your feed rate and dissove rate which is what caused the air pocket to form but by the time the air pocket formed the damaged had already been done.

I hate to say it but it seems that you may have been victim of multiple equipment failures at the same time. First the regulator and needle valve and then the PH probe.

Again I'm very sorry.

Wow! Thank you for the very detailed response. It sounds like the perfect storm of catastrophe. The CO2 was definitely entering the tank through the manifold because the bubbles coming from the return stopped when I unplugged the solenoid. The water and gas both enter the reactor through a bubble counter. If it got blocked then the gas wouldn't enter the media chamber and the pressure may have forced the gas through the feed line. In that case the controller wouldn't have turned off the reactor because the pH in the media chamber still read an acceptable range.

Could this problem have been caused by the effluent line being under water? It is possible that the ATO failed and raise the water level high enough to submerge the effluent line. My question is if that would rule out any other equipment failure or if the regulator and/or needle valve definitely failed. If not then I definitely need a new regulator setup.

[+brian.srock]

Sorry for your loss. That seems about right because even if the ph probe failed your co2 isn't wide open and would of only added a little bit more to your reactor and if it was wide opened it would of melted your media.

[Reburn]

Just so I'm reading right.

Does your c02 line and influent line merge before or on the reactor?

I have only ever seen the influent feed line and the co2 line are attached to the reactor in completely different spots.

If your influent line and c02 line merge before or on the reactor a clog in the influent feed line at the reactor could cause the c02 to flow back through the manifold to the DT. I would look for a simple clog before I start searching for bad equipment.