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LowersMyBP's Latest Tank (1 Viewer)

Thanks!

Dosing BRS 2 part every half hour, 24 hours a day. Staggering the ca and alk by 15 minutes. Using BRS Dosing pumps on timers.

Daily, I blow off the rocks with a turkey baster both times I feed the tank. I also will check the filter floss I have in the sump to see if it needs changing.

I run GFO for 3 hours, 2 times a day, roughly during the periods I feed. I use a bit more than half the recommended amount and change it out every 2 weeks. I have this on a timer.

I do a weekly 20-25 gallon water change.

I try to test alk once a week, I only keep it around 7 or 8 dkh.
Try to test CA once every 2 weeks or so.
I will chuck some MAG into my water change water every once in a while when I test and find it low.

Clean the skimmer cup about 2 times a week. I scrape the glass when I want to be able to see better.
 
Jan/Feb (last time I scraped the back wall...)

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Fun one from the end of april:

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This week:



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LowersMyBP said:
I run GFO for 3 hours, 2 times a day, roughly during the periods I feed. I use a bit more than half the recommended amount and change it out every 2 weeks. I have this on a timer.
Click to expand...

James, I want in on this secret... :rock:

Oh and the tank is looking great.. I think the secret maybe in the timer above, can you DIY it?
 
Taklu said:
James, I want in on this secret... :rock:

Oh and the tank is looking great.. I think the secret maybe in the timer above, can you DIY it?
Click to expand...

Just a daily timer, the same as the lights, I would imagine.
 
So, I added 9 or 10 fish about the first week in May (including 7 tangs). Unlike some, I feed my fish, so since then, I've been doing 2 water changes a week to make sure I don't get behind on nutrient export. My skimmer, a reef octopus extreme 250 with 2 sicce psk2500's with the white lightning needle wheels, may have been able to keep up, but I don't like to dance with the devil.

Things are doing well. Haven't lost any fish or corals. I have had to watch my alk as I use reef crystals and it mixes up at 10 or 11? I want to keep my alk around 7-7.5. It got up to 8.3 and I changed 2 light bulbs. I have 2 acros that had the bases die and then stop. I keep watching them.

In the meantime, I've been working on an ATS. I paid a guy to build it. He did a great job. Turns out, however, you can have too much light, so it wasn't working at all. I've been running it on a 55G that I set up in a back room pretty much just to test this thing. I think I got the ATS from him about 5 or 6 weeks ago?

Last week, it looked like this, after a few weeks of running the new screen (believe I took the pic 7/11):
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David Grigor said 'bald spot in the middle means the light is too bright' so on 7/14 at the meeting in Elk River, the builder adjusted the LED drivers to dim the light. I put them back in the thing on saturday night and then I cleaned the screen sunday night (7/15).

Tonight, 7/21, I cleaned the screen again:
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other side:
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Screen after cleaning: (David Grigor, do you run it under the tap or pour old saltwater over it to rinse it at all?)
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Algae in the bottom of the cottage cheese container:
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I figure I'm going to run it back there for another 2 weeks or so and then look to put it on the 180G if I think we have the light intensity right. I have to take the skimmer offline to do it, so I need to be sure it will work. I also want to make sure I understand how to maintain it/clean the screen etc to get optimal performance. (need to talk to David Grigor...)

The screen size is approximately 14.5 X 6 inches => 87 Square inches on each side. I don't hang out on the ATS sites, but I thought that means about 8-9 cubes of food a day. I currently feed about 4-5 cubes. Also feed about three sheets of algae that are about 4"X4" and about 3-5 pinches of live black worms. (Yeah, I have a convict tang that is about an inch thick...)

(those 4-5 cubes are made up of pe mysis, regular hikari mysis, some rod's food and some nutramar ova, all mixed with some garlic and selcon...)

Anyway, I am optimistic this will allow me to go back to a single water change a week without having a nutrient problem.
 
Two weeks ago tonight, I put a brand new screen on this thing. I realized I wasn't maximizing the area inside the box, so I cut a new screen. I mashed some algae into it and turned it loose. I cleaned it last monday, not much on it. Tonight, I got this:

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Again, this is on a 55G in a storage room that I have set up specifically for the purpose of testing out this ATS. As it stands, it looks like it is ready to go. The dimming of the lights was the ticket. I hope to be able to get time saturday morning to take my skimmer out of the sump and put this in its place.

This is what it looks like. It will sit down inside the 40B sump, the fins will rest on the top of the tank.
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I MIGHT be able to slip a small skimmer in next to the thing. I may have someone willing to lend me a ?diablo? for a while. I will see if it fits. If it turns out I want/need a skimmer in place, looks like the bubble king mini's might be small enough to fit. In speaking with David Grigor, however, it sounds like this thing will likely be sufficient. A skimmer at the start would probably just be there for my peace of mind.
 
Well, I did it, I pulled out the skimmer, hope I don't regret it. This is what I was getting every 24 hours or so:
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This is what 1.5 years of not being able to remove the thing to clean it gets you..
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And this is what I have in it's place currently:

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It is a pretty small skimmer, but it will 'take the edge off' for a little bit. I hope to remove it. If I find that I still need to run a skimmer with the ATS, I will just ditch the thing and buy a BK super marin 250 with the cleaning head and be done with it. Time will tell.
 
Looking at the ATS pic, one quick suggestion, plan for a fan failure. it appears that if there is a fan failure its a heat trap (unless the detail is not visible in the pic); its ok for T5's or VHO's but not for LED.. after a certain junction temp is reached out goes the smoke.

for the skimmer part, I havent restarted the skimmer yet...waiting and watching... its been lets say not comfortable... here's the key indicator. when the skimmer was running any run off food would never be visible, but now it collects in spots in the sump and begins to decompose.. needs frequent cleaning...
At the same time looking at some of the crazy ATS pics I'd say my ATS is a long ways to go; for multiple reasons I will still keep a part of the fuge.. just cos I have the space and its already online.
 
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Noted on the temp. The lids on top are three separate pieces. If i am going to be gone for longer than a day, I will leave the lids off the led slots in case the fans fail.

However, from what my LED guy told me, due to the closeness of the led lights, we have the drivers turned down pretty low and he doesn't expect much heat. I intend to do a test one night with the fans off and see how it feels. As it is, I have never been able to perceive ANY warmth reaching in through the top or the two vent holes to touch the heat sink.
 
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