James' 120 Gal Reef Trials and Tribulations

Now I am confused again. This goes back to my original question if you had a pH controller or not.. My controller and solenoid setup would automatically turn off the co2 if the pH dropped below whatever mark you set it at. You appear to be turning yours off manually. Is that true?

 

Yes I have a aquacontroller with ph probe in my display and have a solenoid on the co2. I had it setup to turn off at 7.9, but I realized if it turns off the co2 at 7.9 the ph will continue to drop through the night lower than the 7.9 I have it set at. Also with it shutting off whenever the ph drops below 7.9 I will have less control on how much cal/alk is supplemented to the tank. That will make it harder to dial in to my tanks uptake. If its timed say the solenoid is on 8 hours a day only during lights on, then I will have a "standard" of how much is supplemented by the reactor, which will make it easier to figure out if I need to raise or lower flow/bubble count. The idea is, if 8 hours a day with 45 mL per minute of effluent at 30-40 KH is not enough. Then raise the rate of effluent, and also raise the bubble rate to a ratio that matches how much you raised the effluent. Then if that still isn't enough, raise the bubble count more but leave the effluent alone (lower ph in the reactor.) Eventually It should get dialed in nearly perfect. If I went only by tank ph, it may be on for 8 hours a day (average) one month, and the next month it is on 10 hours a day. That may give the roller coster effect when dialing in the reactor. So for the past 2 days manually (through the aquacontoller) I have been turning off the solenoid after lights out, I am going to automate this I just haven't programmed it yet.

 

wow beautiful tank. i love the aquaqscape. your ricordias make me jealous sorry to hear some perished. either way keep up the good work. MORE PICS PLEASE

 

Ahh that is what I thought might be happening. You know do you have room for a refugium? A refugium on a reverse daylight schedule would help keep pH up.

 

I do have a refugium in the sump. Its full of cheato and takes up about 10-15 gallons. Right now I have like 18 watts of some freshwater florescent bulbs (no idea the kelvin). It is definately growing, but not nearly as fast as it was in my last tank. The last tank I had different lights on it, but sold those lights with the last tank. I am in the market for new lights over the sump right now actually just haven't found a solution I like yet. It is also on a reverse daylight cycle, the ph still manages to drop .10-.20 everynight.

 

Took a few pics today

Today I decided to add an extra hour on each end of my daylight cycle, so now the 175's are on for 10 hours and the 250 is on for 8 hours. I also set up the timers for the co2 solenoid, it is set on the same cycle as the 250 watt halide. Hopefully this will give the ph time to recover from the night drop, and it shouldn't drop as much at night.
I always said "no, acro's are hard to keep and they don't even look that nice," but looking in my 120 "something" was missing. Before I took my Guam trip I got one, then now I am back everything is still tip top. So yesterday I acquired 3 more acro's and it inspired me to take some pictures today. I snapped some pics of the rics and a few others, while I was at it. I really can't decide if using the flash is good or not, so I took a few of each. When not using the flash it was only the 175 watt 12k reflux's on, they are REALLY blue/purple and sort of wash out the nice greens and oranges. I need to learn how to take better pictures, also should probably use something other than a point and shoot. I also took a pic of the completed DIY calcium reactor.















I hope there are no rules with posting too many pictures...

 

Are you kidding? You didnt post enough! Lets go!................chop chop.

Great pics BTW


[SCROLL]Luna;D[/SCROLL]

 

Wow your acros look great! That DIY calcium reactor is getting a workout!

 

Another one of his that didn't post before:

 

I managed to get a small ick problem... My powder blue tank, yellow tang definitely have it. And my coral beauty has a bit of a cloudy eye... GREAT! I have been feeding very little once a day and I think that may be the cause. Malnutrition with the tangs and they spread it over to the coral beauty, that's my guess anyways. I had no signs and no new additions for over a month. Plus I run a UV sterilizer. I thought I was in the clear and ready to set my new years resolution of one year without buying a coral or a fish... I went ahead and bought one cleaner wrasse yesterday, he immediately got to work. That is how I noticed the coral beauty's eye, the cleaner wrasse went to work on him first. There is NO way with this rockwork that I will be getting any of the infected fish out for treatment. I raised the tank's temp 1.5 degrees now it should hover right around 81, and I started feeding a bit heavily soaked in garlic and selcon. I hope this is kind of like a humans common cold, and with a balanced nutrition they will get over it. In the past 8 years of saltwater, I have only had to treat very few fish for ick and a freshwater dip always seemed to do the trick. Not going to be possible with this tank... Anyone had any good experiences with other in tank treatments?