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Fishfoo's IM170 EXT (1 Viewer)

The curse continues. Every time I take pictures of my fish one of them dies. After 1.5 years of no fish issues I walked downstairs to find my eight line flasher getting blown around by the powerheads, all but dead. No clue as to what happened. No real aggresion that I saw targeted at him whatsoever and he was just starting his transition to male which I was excited for. Oh well., such is the life of keeping fish in glass box with a bunch of blenders spread throughout.

Speaking of flow, I can't seem to dial it in. I thought I needed more flow, so I added a Reefwave 45 to the mix and now have way too much. I've turned everything down to ~50% which seems to help, but these gyres lose power at a much faster pace than normal powerheads, and need to be cleaned more often in my experience. It doesn't help that I have so many torches and am trying to limit the flow for them while trying to provide enough flow for the sps. Seems like an impossible task. I'll mess around with it a bit more but may end up just keeping the two mp40's and one of the reefwaves.

Side note: I wish every powerhead manufacturer had a feature when in random mode to have both a min % and max %. All have a max %, but the only powerhead I've ever had with a min% was the AI nero.
 
Sorry to hear about your fishy!

I have the same frustrating experience with powerheads having deadspots in one place and too much flow in another. Swapping out my nero for another MP40 so I can have them all synced for gyre circulation. It’s annoying you can’t sync a Nero to a Gyre even thought they are controlled by the same software.
 
I run my reefwave at 40%. Don't clean it overly often. I have it mostly pointed at the top of the water to break the surface tension.

So on one side of the tank I use two MP40s and the other side I use the Reefwave 45. One MP40 runs 75% and the other is at 60%.
 
MistakesWereMade said:
I run my reefwave at 40%. Don't clean it overly often. I have it mostly pointed at the top of the water to break the surface tension.

So on one side of the tank I use two MP40s and the other side I use the Reefwave 45. One MP40 runs 75% and the other is at 60%.
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I used to run this exact setup until getting the second reefwave and overall it worked super well. think I may be overcomplicating things by adding the second rw45.

Interesting that you haven't noticed much of a performance loss from them. For my mp40's I can go ~3months without cleaning them but with the rw45 it's half that.
 
spsick said:
I have the same frustrating experience with powerheads having deadspots in one place and too much flow in another. Swapping out my nero for another MP40 so I can have them all synced for gyre circulation. It’s annoying you can’t sync a Nero to a Gyre even thought they are controlled by the same software.
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Agree, should be able to sync them all if they're the same company essentially. I have been running both reefwave's and both mp40's running random flow patterns which only adds to the frustration of figuring out where to place the torches. I think I just have to go back to using the gyre purely for surface agitation and the mp40's on their usual random flow pattern. See how that works.
 
It just slows down. When I clean it it is way too much. Could get by with running at 20% if it was clean. I just crank it up a little bit. Occasionally I will put it in manual mode and push 100% in 15-20 second pulses. Blows everything out of the rockwork that has settled there.

I have debated adding another MP for that side but things are growing so I am skipping that for now.
 
MistakesWereMade said:
It just slows down. When I clean it it is way too much. Could get by with running at 20% if it was clean. I just crank it up a little bit. Occasionally I will put it in manual mode and push 100% in 15-20 second pulses. Blows everything out of the rockwork that has settled there.

I have debated adding another MP for that side but things are growing so I am skipping that for now.
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I think gradually increasing the power is key. I will try this next time.
 
Sorry to hear about your wrasse. Depending on the age of the fish wrasse usually have a shorter lifespan but who knows what happened.
 
That sucks about the fish. I just hate it when there isn't an explanation. Well...technically I hate it more when there is an explanation...if that explanation is that I was a bad fish/coral keeper. But second to that, the unknown is SO frustrating. So again, sorry for the loss.

Regarding your pump speed issue, it took me forever to figure out the "right" way to do it, but I'm using the GHL Versia pumps (Sicce XStreams) controlled with the P4. In the pump group settings you can select a minimum speed, so for the random modes it does properly allow you to have them only cycle from 50% to 100% or whatever you want, instead of forcing them to go to 0% to "whatever max speed" you set. The only downside is that if you want to use them in any sort of rotating mode, where certain pumps turn off, you can't leave them "slightly" spinning. They have to be totally off. My dream was that when they were active, they'd go 50% to 100% (or whatever), and when inactive they'd go to 5%. But when you set the minimum speed to 50%, that is, as the name suggested, the minimum speed. There is an option for "Off when inactive," which is what I have to use to allow the other set of pumps to run. Maybe not ideal, but I definitely like that I can force them to oscillate on the top end of the flow range, instead of spending so much time at those lower %s.
 
asifiqbal2 said:
Sorry to hear about your wrasse. Depending on the age of the fish wrasse usually have a shorter lifespan but who knows what happened.
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For sure. Could have been age, not sure. But yeah the flashers especially have a shorter lifespan.
Varig said:
That sucks about the fish. I just hate it when there isn't an explanation. Well...technically I hate it more when there is an explanation...if that explanation is that I was a bad fish/coral keeper. But second to that, the unknown is SO frustrating. So again, sorry for the loss.

Regarding your pump speed issue, it took me forever to figure out the "right" way to do it, but I'm using the GHL Versia pumps (Sicce XStreams) controlled with the P4. In the pump group settings you can select a minimum speed, so for the random modes it does properly allow you to have them only cycle from 50% to 100% or whatever you want, instead of forcing them to go to 0% to "whatever max speed" you set. The only downside is that if you want to use them in any sort of rotating mode, where certain pumps turn off, you can't leave them "slightly" spinning. They have to be totally off. My dream was that when they were active, they'd go 50% to 100% (or whatever), and when inactive they'd go to 5%. But when you set the minimum speed to 50%, that is, as the name suggested, the minimum speed. There is an option for "Off when inactive," which is what I have to use to allow the other set of pumps to run. Maybe not ideal, but I definitely like that I can force them to oscillate on the top end of the flow range, instead of spending so much time at those lower %s.
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Yeah having that min speed percentage adjustable is great and I don't understand why more companies don't integrate this. Seems like an easy win. Does not surprise me that GHL has it figured out though :)
 
Quite the interesting day yesterday. Came home with some new coral to find i pinhole leak in the bottom left-hand corner seam. Put some super glue on it to temporarily stop it (Was that smart? Idk kind of panicked lol) so that I could investigate a bit more. Thankfully It must have only been leaking for an hour or so as the puddle on the floor was small.

Now for the weird part... I'm fairly certain this was from some type of bristle worm/eunicid that was eating or burrowing through the silicone. I think this because the hole itself makes no sense, and there's a literal worm in the tunnel..

The pics aren't the best, but they show the hole when looking at it from the side, along with the tunnel when viewed from the front. If you zoom in you can see the worm.
IMG_6256.jpgIMG_6258.jpg

I knew getting it out would either not work and/or make the hole larger in the process, so I super glued the other side (good idea? probably not once again) to trap it. It's been 24 hours and it's in the exact same spot still from what I can tell, and thankfully no further leaks. I was in disbelief until I looked up some R2R threads that claimed the same, with this thread being the best example, along with the video he took.

Side note, I guess this guy used to be a tcmas member for a time. But yeah that's what I'm currently dealing with. Not sure where to go from here. Is the tank still safe? If no more damage occurs, what's my timeline look like? I've never dealt with a tank leak before so looking for some advice if you guys/gals have any.
 
Dude what???!!

so weird and I’m sorry this happened. Just when you’re back on track!!!
 
WTF. That is crazy!! I did not know that this was a thing.

I don’t have any experience to share. But my gut says if you could inject silicone from the outside in you might be able to seal it. I would not structurally thinks its of any concern but wtf.
 
reef junkie said:
WTF. That is crazy!! I did not know that this was a thing.

I don’t have any experience to share. But my gut says if you could inject silicone from the outside in you might be able to seal it. I would not structurally thinks its of any concern but wtf
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Cool, I was thinking the same with just how small the hole is. And yeah I had no clue this was a thing either, fun times in the hobby as always
 
Not a lot left in the hobby that excites me anymore... but @Fishfoo , that video3 of the worm was f-ing wild!

.....didn't know this was a thing

For a leak in silicone it might involve drying out the tank to where the leak is and plugging it up with silicone and letting it cure for 24-48 hrs
 
Guessing there will be all kinds of flashlights checking tank seams now 😁 just one more thing to worry about I guess. Would be interesting to find out about what kind of worm it is/was
 
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That’s a bummer and a new one for this hobbyist. Why not burrow into some rock or something. That is just crazy
 
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