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Dan and Meg's 240 Gallon Long


Dan H

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If your calcium levels drop, you aren't too likely to kill anything, it just won't grow because it can't. Theoretically it could alter some of the water chemistry enough to throw things out of wack, but it's not a calamity. I had our old tank run out of CO2 and I didn't notice for what I'm guessing was a week or more. Like I said, I didn't even notice until the next time I tested the water params. No loss of coral, no nothing. But I'm sure the SPS were happy to start growing again once I refilled the bottle.

I understand your argument for the solenoid, and once the current one does eat it, I'll have to consider a beefier one. I have no doubts that at some point the relay will croak. They all do. It's a mechanical device, it will fail. The good news is that they are NC vs NO solenoids, so generally it won't stick open, and you won't drop the pH to something insane. It just won't drop it enough to do anything meaningful.

Yeah, those GLA regulators were really pricey. Hard to justify well over double what I paid just because it's shiny.

There are many things I'm willing to spend a lot more to get the best quality. The tank itself (you want to talk about people skimping on quality! We went with 1" acrylic not because we need to, but because of peace of mind), stand, lights, pumps, skimmer. But the regulator really wasn't on that list.

I couldn't disagree with this statement more. If my calcium reactor stopped working or I took it offline for a week I can guarantee I would lose a vast majority of my sps corals.

It isn't necessarily the calcium that's the biggest concern. It's the alkalinity level. And for it to drop 2dkh in a day which is almost the consumption my tank is at, then it would stress many of my corals incredibly. Not worth the risk in my opinion.

Very solid advice from quite a few of the local reefers here.

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Yeah, Reburn and Bigsby summed it up well. I know it's called a Calcium Reactor but the most important stability it brings to an SPS system is level alk parameters.

Agreed that a drop in Calcium generally won't cause STN and cause SPS to die but your alk will drop with it. With the 2 dKh of alk being consumed in 24 hrs in my system, being offline for a week as you mentioned would have me coming home to a bunch of pretty white sticks.

I don't test 2-3x a day anymore, that was just for calibration purposes but I still test weekly just to make sure things are inline. The most comfortable I've felt in gaps between alk testing is 2 weeks, when my tank was on automatic for about 2-3 years. Growth rate was consistent as well SPS population.

I test the rest as a formality monthly (Ca, Mg, NO3, PO4, salinity, K, and I2). They typically don't change as I don't do water changes and the CARX seems to take care of keeping Mg stable.

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Remember it's called a calcium reactor or CaRx because calcium, ie dead coral skeletons or being mixed with C02 which lowers the ph of the water to Melt the dead coral skeletons back into the water.

A calcium reactor puts back Alk, Ca, Mg, Strontium as well as trace elements.

If your Alk is stable all the other parameters will fall in line most of the time. Unless you have a tank full of chalices which are eating up your Mg or a tank full of only softies that aren't up taking any calcium.

I'm not trying to patronize you by any means but when I first got back in there weren't many explanations as to what a calcium reactor actually did. I thought as probably most others do that it was for putting back only calcium. This isn't the case at all.

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When you get down to it, the most important thing is not the adjustability/quality of the regulator. It's the quality of the solenoid and how diligent one is about keeping their CaRx effluent pH probe clean and calibrated. People who run CaRx's should be testing alk pretty regularly for safety, so your adjustments don't matter in a nominal sense (e.g., pH setpoint of 6.85 vs. 6.95), just that you adjust your pH such that the correct alk is administered to the tank.

What WILL matter is if your solenoid fails. If it fails open, it's game over pretty quickly if you tend to keep your CO2 flow rate adjusted high (not recommended) such that your solenoid is controlling flow. If it fails closed, and to use ty's tank as an example with 2 dKh alk drop/day, one to two days worth of no alk input is going to kill all your SPS.

In summation, a high quality solenoid is of the highest importance, but really just keeping the whole setup high quality is the way to keep your critters alive.

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This is generally accepted as the best solenoid as far as the planted tank guys are concerned.

Kip - 3 watt

Valve #D242010-0241 1606

Orifice 1/32

Volts 12VDC

Watts 3

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Geeze. Everything blows up when you're busy at work. I'm not saying I would want or purposely not run the reactor, I'm saying that I don't think it's instant death. You have a bit of time to get stuff fixed.

As I noted, my old tank had the reactor doing nothing for well over a week, nothing died. They weren't super happy, but it's not the end of the world.

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That all depends on how established your corals are their current growth rate compared to the amount of minerals available in your water. For some that rate gets pretty high once your corals start to really flourish. There was a time when I could let my tank go for about two weeks without having to dose or run my reactor. But once I started getting it really stocked and the growth rate started to take off is when the stability of my alkalinity levels really started to matter.

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Well said, I was going to say the same thing. If it's a SPS-dominant system with large colonies and a high rate of uptake, it is instant death in 2 days... or at least rampant STN on a majority of corals.

I have no idea your stocking in the old tank so I can't say much about it. I just know if you pulled the plug on my CaRX, Sam's, Bigsby's, VietPride's, or any other SPS dominant system, we'd have some pretty bad STN or deaths to show for it in about 2-3 days. Obviously this is all based on stocking load in your tank and what you're stocking. I wouldn't bat an eyelash if my CaRX went down and I had LPS, some softies, and some SPS. It's when it's a full-on SPS system is where I don't think it applies as much.

Sorry to beat a dead horse but just wanted to point out why it's different in systems that are geared toward SPS and are fully stocked.

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Exactly as bigsby and ty said.

The deterring factor to how fast your tank will crash is directly related to your daily alkalinity consumption.

Examples.

If your burning .5dkh daily. Yes you will probably be fine with 4 days no alk input. You will probably only loose the most sensitive pieces.

If your burning 2dkh daily like Ty or bigsby. 1 day with your reactor down and your loosing pieces the sensitive pieces and a chain reaction can start from the coral death, 2 days and your loosing most pieces and the chain reaction is full under way. Day 3 your house smells like coral death.

For your stand point. As of right now. Your tank will be fine. I would be surprised if your burning alk at all to speak of. When you have that 240L stocked to the gills with coral 1 day off on your CaRx will be a bad day.

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https://www.burkert.com/en/type/6011

Not sure about what the planted tank guys are saying. I know they hail the aquarium plants solenoid as the holy grail but it's nothing too special. From what I understand the solenoid linked here is about as reliable as it gets and rated for 1 billion on/off cycles. I see them going for about $50 on eBay

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The Burket is a good solenoid as well.

Dan,

To further beat the horse after he is dead and gone.

This is exactly what can happen to a tank with a CaRx malfunction.

Sasha, I'm very sorry to use your disaster as a learning example.

http://www.austinreefclub.com/topic/27848-150g-indio-pacific-biome/page-37

Further more something that hasn't been stated. Coloration of SPS is influenced by many factors. But swinging alk levels is almost a guaranteed way to have your sticks turn brown.

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I think the consensus on alk swings and coral death is pretty well established on this thread today, so I won't beat a dead horse, but I did have an instance when I was out of town last fall for a few weeks and lost a good deal of my corals when the reactor stopped working properly.

I have seen my current solenoid not switch off once, and luckily I was home and noticed it had gotten stuck. I turned it off and back in, which fixed it, but I'm definitely looking for a new/better valve soon. Not worth the risk!!

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Well, the bad luck continues. We lost the other firefish this afternoon. He was looking great, eating, everything fine, no signs of anything wrong. Then when we woke up this morning we couldn't find him. Rather unusual. So we looked around and finally found him laying in the sand bed hiding under some LR. We were already starting to get the QT running so we planned to catch him and put him in the QT. Well, unfortunately before we got the QT fully functioning, we found him dead and being eaten by a emerald crab. It's odd because he had no visible signs of problems until this AM. We couldn't get a good look at him, but from what we could see, there was no isopod this time, but that's not to say one couldn't have been munching on him. He did have some stuff hanging from his belly but it looked mostly like stuff from the sandbed, but we couldn't tell if it was perhaps something else wrong. Needless to say, we're really sad about the losses. Interestingly, the goby seems to still be running around having a grand ole time considering he has the whole thing to himself (we haven't seen the 2nd goby, but he could be in there considering we only see the 1 goby about once a day if we're lucky).

Well, we're chalking this up to a hard lesson. I suppose the good thing is now we have the QT running.

In a small glimmer of positive news, we picked up some Zoanthids last night at the River City after hours thinger. They seem to be quite happy today, so maybe we can slowly start testing some more corals now. All the water params are pretty good, although we're probably burning off some of the nitrates by generating some diatoms and a tiny bit of some hair algae. So, if you happen to have any really awesome Zoa's or Ricordea you want to offload, feel free to reach out to me - well, actually Meg since she's the Zoa and Ricordea fan. I'm holding off on the SPS for a bit longer.

I also did a test of the battery backup system to make sure everything would do what it's supposed to when power goes out. I flipped the breaker for the tank, and within 5 seconds my phone was going off with alerts. The Apex immediately did what it was supposed to and turned off all the appropriate devices. I checked on the battery and it gave an estimated run time of 135 minutes. I suspect that is a low estimate because it showed 135 as the estimate when I first tested the backup with nothing plugged in, and it stayed at 135 for over an hour. I think it just sorta defaults to 135 when it is more than 135. Now I just need to get the gas generator and we're all set.

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Cyberpower 1500 VA true sine wave.

http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00429N19W

We added the LR close to a month ago now. It is definitely not a water parameters issue, we've been testing frequently and they are all in line. All of our inverts are fine and the 1 goby that we can see is doing very well.

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Dan,

I had the same battery back up on my small tank. It would run a Jebao wp10 for right at 6 hours. It did the same thing and show 135 minutes for like 4 hours of running then it would start trickling down. The counter was never right.

What are you running off of the battery backup? I'm very curious to know how long that back up will run a gyre 150.

Something to note. I was told by another reefer that battery backups don't function right on a GFCI circuit and can cause issues. I put a plug in GFCI on the power cord coming out of the battery backup for safety reasons. I don't know if it was needed or if what the other reefer was saying is true because I just never tested it. The plug in GFCI protector was like $5 at Home Depot.

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It's only running the Apex, wireless bridge, and 1 Gyre 150. I've debated whether or not to have it run the return pump instead of the Gyre. Both claim to be under 50 watts so with the Gyre only the main tank would get flow, and with the return pump, the refug and whole system would also get flow. Seems like a better option... I may have just talked myself into switching it to the return pump.

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Ok, today will be a fun one... 3 shipments coming in - Fish, Coral, and cleanup crew.

Good news - This morning I somehow managed to catch the only fish in the DT - a green banded goby. I moved him to the DT. We figured it was not worth the risk to have any fish in there just in case some parasite or something was introduced with the firefish. So the DT will have a long rest period with 0 fish while we QT the new guys.

I'll be sure to take some pictures of the new arrivals once they are here. Hopefully this time we will have better success with the fish. So far (knock on wood) we have had 0 problems with any of the coral we've put in. Hopefully that trend continues.

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Ok, today will be a fun one... 3 shipments coming in - Fish, Coral, and cleanup crew.

Good news - This morning I somehow managed to catch the only fish in the DT - a green banded goby. I moved him to the DT. We figured it was not worth the risk to have any fish in there just in case some parasite or something was introduced with the firefish. So the DT will have a long rest period with 0 fish while we QT the new guys.

I'll be sure to take some pictures of the new arrivals once they are here. Hopefully this time we will have better success with the fish. So far (knock on wood) we have had 0 problems with any of the coral we've put in. Hopefully that trend continues.

I imagine you're knocking on that awesome quality wood that comprises your stand and hood? [emoji2]
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Well, our 3 shipments all came in this morning, and I'm finally done getting everything acclimated, placed, and happy. Sadly, the 1 really sweet acro I bought was DOA. The water in the bag was almost milky, and I could smell it as soon as I opened the box. As soon as it was in the tank, it immediately shed off it's skin. Bummer! Luckily the guy I got it from was really cool and said he will get me another frag in a few weeks. Sweet!

I'll take pics of the haul in a moment, but for now, our fish happy in the QT!

3 Yellow Staghorn Chromis

1 Blue Staghorn Chromis

2 Helfrichi Firefish

1 Fairy Wrasse

1 Mystery Wrasse

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Tonight I managed to get 2 cool videos. The first is our Pom Pom crab who is the cutest thing ever. The second is a really cool filter feeder just doing it's thing. At 45 seconds you can hear what we think might be a pistol shrimp hitchhiker.

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