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KJoFan's SCA 150g Build (1 Viewer)

Made a couple upgrades to the RO/DI this morning.

Well one isn’t an upgrade so much as a repair. Our 12 year old booster pump finally gave up the ghost a little while back. I purchased a replacement and installed it today. Unfortunately it’s still a no go. So I will replace the power supply as well and hopefully that does the trick.

Second thing is a potential upgrade.

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Since my water is essentially well water I thought I’d give the single bed resin thing a try.

Granted my booster pump isn’t working so max psi is barely 40 right now. But I’m a bit confused at my tds meter results.

My original tds meter measures water out of the RO unit itself and measured 2 after letting it run and flush a bit.

But the triple tds meter that came with the new DI setup supposedly measures the water at the same point and it reads 6 vs the 2 my old one reads. Then after the cation and anion stages it’s reading 8 and after mixed bed 2. This was after letting it run for quite awhile.

So for now I’ve shut it down as I’d rather not fill my reservoir with 2 tds water. Anyone have any ideas? Is it just the low psi or something else?


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Was the booster pump completely removed from the system when you had the odd readings? Tds reads current passing through water. Im not sure the design of the booster but it could possibly produce some stray voltage? Idk just a idea
 
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Booster. It was plumbed in but not plugged in. I did transfer my existing mixed bed DI canister to the new setup as it doesn’t appear depleted at all.

Once I get the booster going and get my psi back up to 70 vs the 35 it’s at now I’ll see how it goes.

If it still is register my tds after the last stage then something else is going on.


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Issue resolved. Got the power supply for the booster pump today and psi is now up from 35 to 80+. I also put new mixed bed DI in the last canister and TDS readings are now: 6-0-0. This tells me that the mixed bed DI should last quite a while in theory. We'll see how long each single bed lasts.
 
Can't quite make it out, what kind of lights? Look like they have decent cooling with fans... and don't have to rely on just one fan if it fails which would be nice.
 
A closer look.

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I need to pick up some longer bolts in order to mount them to my existing bar on my canopy. They do make nice third party adjustable mounts but for now I will just be mounting them directly to the bar.


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Ayyyyyyye! Nice looking hardware you have there! with 4 on that tank you will be more than fine. as for programming so far my favorite light project is the reefrockerlive 17k sps program. you can download it from their website. I made my own prior to that which worked well but i fell this one gives the corals a bit better color! If you have questions let me know! and FYI while programming, the fixtures and led's get HOT so do not put them on anything that will melt hahaha
 
Ayyyyyyye! Nice looking hardware you have there! with 4 on that tank you will be more than fine. as for programming so far my favorite light project is the reefrockerlive 17k sps program. you can download it from their website. I made my own prior to that which worked well but i fell this one gives the corals a bit better color! If you have questions let me know! and FYI while programming, the fixtures and led's get HOT so do not put them on anything that will melt hahaha
Four is probably overkill to some degree and I could have gotten by with 3 more than likely, especially if my rock scape stays as open as it is. But, knowing me I would have always wondered if 3 was enough. With 4 there should be no doubt. The project by reefrockerlive was exactly the one I was going to go to first. His pics (though probably doctored some) of sps are hard to argue with.
I'm planning to program after I get them mounted up so hopefully no danger of burning anything. I'm going to finish getting them mounted here in a bit. I'm excited to see them lit and over the tank!
 
Nice lights! Definitely keep us updated on your experience with them.
 
Four is probably overkill to some degree and I could have gotten by with 3 more than likely, especially if my rock scape stays as open as it is. But, knowing me I would have always wondered if 3 was enough. With 4 there should be no doubt. The project by reefrockerlive was exactly the one I was going to go to first. His pics (though probably doctored some) of sps are hard to argue with.
I'm planning to program after I get them mounted up so hopefully no danger of burning anything. I'm going to finish getting them mounted here in a bit. I'm excited to see them lit and over the tank!
I will say that my biggest complaint about the lights is the fact that they are very hard to take pictures with unless you put the fixtures in photo mode (one at a time). Colors look great in person but hard to capture correctly it seems, hence why i rarely post pictures anymore. I may add a pair of t5 bulbs on my build if i can to even things out, that or get the aquatic life fixture. Will see how things go before throwing more money in however.
 
Nice lights! Definitely keep us updated on your experience with them.
Thanks! Hoping for good things to keep reporting back to this thread. :)

I will say that my biggest complaint about the lights is the fact that they are very hard to take pictures with unless you put the fixtures in photo mode (one at a time). Colors look great in person but hard to capture correctly it seems, hence why i rarely post pictures anymore. I may add a pair of t5 bulbs on my build if i can to even things out, that or get the aquatic life fixture. Will see how things go before throwing more money in however.
I had a real struggle getting them connected at first for some reason, even using usb/pc but I finally succeeded and everything is going smoothly so far. I hope the corals don't have any issues adjusting. I am poor at picture taking as it is, so don't expect to see any pictures from now on. haha! I really want to resist supplementing with any other lights if I can help it as I'm convinced one good light source should be successful. That's why I went with 4 fixtures for max reduction of shadowing and all those typical pitfalls of LEDs.

One thing I can't quite resolve is the buttons on one fixture at some point stopped lighting up and working properly. I tried the key calibration feature but it didn't help. Not a big deal since I'm controlling them via my Profilux but it bugs me when something isn't right.

Nice start Karen

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Thanks Brian!
 
Thanks! Hoping for good things to keep reporting back to this thread. :)


I had a real struggle getting them connected at first for some reason, even using usb/pc but I finally succeeded and everything is going smoothly so far. I hope the corals don't have any issues adjusting. I am poor at picture taking as it is, so don't expect to see any pictures from now on. haha! I really want to resist supplementing with any other lights if I can help it as I'm convinced one good light source should be successful. That's why I went with 4 fixtures for max reduction of shadowing and all those typical pitfalls of LEDs.

One thing I can't quite resolve is the buttons on one fixture at some point stopped lighting up and working properly. I tried the key calibration feature but it didn't help. Not a big deal since I'm controlling them via my Profilux but it bugs me when something isn't right.


Thanks Brian!


I dont have a profilux yet, but its possible that the manual control is disabled while being controlled with the p4? Similar to the Vortech pumps when connected to apex via wxm? Just an idea!
 
Yes, you are correct to some degree but there are a couple menus you can still access on the unit. Plus, the other three light up and work fine. Just the one is misbehaving. From what I’ve read, it’s perhaps not uncommon. Still annoying though. :)


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I just got back from vacation and used a smartphone for great pictures. I use a pixel 2 xl with a MOMENT case and lenses. They have wide angle, tele-photo, macro lenses etc that help these devices get the best performance possible without buying a separate DSLR.
Sure there's room for improvement but that being said those are some pretty good shots.
 
I probably won’t invest too much into lenses and such for the phone as I do have a DSLR, just don’t break it out very often. There are some neat gadgets for phones for pictures these days though.


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