Disaster's 80gal + 15gal SPS Reef Tank

[JR!]

looks good man. shots of the sump?

[disaster999]

Ask and you shall receive

 

I didnt change much from previous setup. But Im thinking of re-hanging the light. Heres a better shot of the skimmer

[metrokat]

How are you doing?

[disaster999]

Im doing ok, thanks for asking. Still bummed to be looking at an nearly empty tank, but it will return back to its former glory hopefully soon.

[disaster999]

This is around 2-3 days worth of skim. Its foaming up pretty good and actually bursting out of the cup. I have to clean it again...yuck

 

[RollaJase]

I think I am definitely underfeeding my tank, my skimmer does not produce anywhere near as much skimmate as it used to, even after a clean. Time to up my feeding schedule I guess haha.

[disaster999]

I think my skimmer is just skimming whatever is left from the cycle. With the decaying matter and flesh i left in the tank while cycling...the skimmer had to work overtime to skim those out. Also, my pellets are tumbling twice as much for some reason so that might contribute to the added skimmate. Im sure when my tank matures, the skimmer will return to normal.

 

The diatom bloom seem to be coming to an end and my tank isnt as brown as before. Ill wait a bit longer just to make sure none of the pests is coming back and ill start slowly stocking my tank back up.

[4x5]

Sorry to hear about all your troubles but it's good to see your tank on the come back. On a totally unrelated note, your skimmer is pretty badass.

[jedimasterben]

Also, my pellets are tumbling twice as much for some reason so that might contribute to the added skimmate.

So those are biopellets in there? I would consider turning them off and letting things settle down, getting everything transferred back in before using them again, and starting low. If you're not adding any nutrients to the water then they'll just strip it.

[disaster999]

Well everything is transfered in right now. Everything that survived is in my tank...which is not very much. You do have a point with the pellet a stripping too much right now. I'll turn it down for now with the minimal bioload I have at the moment.

 

Just looked at my tank this morning and the algae is starting to pop up. Can't wait for my tank to be completely covered

[disaster999]

so this is in the mail right now...

 

[RollaJase]

Very interested to hear what you think of the Jebao doser. I have used a few of their products in the past (small pumps) and have found them to be quite good quality for the price and pretty quiet. I saw that this had come out just after I placed my order for a Marine Color doser. Seeing as the price is pretty similar to the Marine Color unit and you get an additional head if it performs well it will be a very good value for money unit.

[disaster999]

Im interested to find out how it performs also. My friend recently bought this doser and highly recommends it, and its not too expensive, so I thought ill give it a try.

 

Will keep you guys posted.

[disaster999]

Doser finally came. Went to work straight away and used up all the scrap acrylic i have lying around and made a rack for it

 

 

Here it is installed

 

I have to do something about this power connector. I might need to relocate it

 

Heres a shot of the screen on the unit.

 

One problem mounting it this way is I cant really see whats on the screen. I have to take the doser off the rack and adjust it which might be a hassle at first, but once you dailed in your setting you pretty much dont need to touch it again.

 

Its pretty quiet too. Its much quieter than what i expect it. It seem to dose pretty fast as during my initial test. I havent calibrated it or anything. Still need to get more tubing, the tubing holder and containers for dosing. Will give my final thoughts later.

[Paleoreef103]

Definitely keep us posted on what you think of the Jebao doser. The price point almost feels like it's too good to be true! I'd love to see how accurate the dosers are and if the heads are sturdy.

Good luck on the rebuild!

[disaster999]

I was able to play with the doser this weekend and calibrate the pump heads. The doser calibrates its dosing heads by counting how many units it takes to reach 100ml. All 3 of 4 heads check fine, but one of the heads would time out before it reaches 100ml. It would only reach to 95ml before. For the price I paid, I'll let it slide. Ill just compensate for it by adding a few mills more to my dosage.

 

I dont see myself using this doser that much at the moment. My tank is still pretty empty. Ill slowly add more corals again and repopulate my tank. In the mean time, please excuse the potato quality photos as the only thing close to my tank was the Nexus 7 with its crappy camera

 

 

New fish, yes I'm using an ADA tank to quarantine my fish...im baller like that

[RollaJase]

You could always make a right angle adapter for the power conenctor to allow you to push it in deeper on that rack. Actually I'm pretty sure you can buy right angle adapters for DC connections online, should only cost a few $$.

[disaster999]

Way too much work...I gotta change, and get in my car and drive and park and shop...

 

I did this instead. Wasnt the cleanest gluing job, but thats all i had on me.

[RollaJase]

Haha, yeah or do that. That will work fine .

[disaster999]

So after playing around with the Jebao dosing and setting up a dosing schedule, here are my thoughts on the doser. I tested my calc and alk and mg in my tank and found that Calc is at around 425ppm, alk was at 6.5dkh and mg is around 1200ppm. I want to raise my calc to 450ppm, alk to 9dkh. For the 2 part solution, I am using Randy's 2 part recipe and used reef calculator to figure out how much to dose. Then took the total amount needed and divided by 5 since I want to spread the dosage over a day.

 

Setting up the doser was....not that fun. Although the menu was easy enough to navigate...the programming is very tedious. It will ask you how many times a day you want to dose between 1-24 times, the interval between dosage from 0-30 days, the amount of each dosage in ml and the time to dose for each dosage.

 

Say for my situation, I want to dose 5 times a day everyday. I will set the doser to dose 5 times a day, 0 interval days since I want to dose everyday. The doser will then ask you how much you want to dose for the first dosage and the time to dose that. Then it will ask you how much you want to dose for the second dosage and the time, and the same for the 3rd dose and so on. I have calc and alk to dose, 5 times a day, so thats 10 settings to set. Imagine if you have all 4 pumps running and running 24 dosages a day for each pump. you would have 96 settings to go through. I would of loved for it to ask you the total dosage you want to dose, how many times you want to dose and the time period you like it to dose and the program itself figure the rest out on its own. Much less work on your part.

 

Im quite happy, tho, with the doser overall. It did its job. It dosed the right amount as requested and my calc and alk did change. It overshot my targeted parameters by a little, but its with in margin of error. My concentration might be higher, or the calculator is a little off. More testing and adjusting is needed, but the doser did what it suppose to do and im pleased with it

[Cameron6796]

Sorry about what happened I haven't really followed but why did it crash.

[BattleAthletics]

 

Sorry about what happened I haven't really followed but why did it crash.

.....read a couple of pages back

[Arkayology]

Nice rack for the doser. I need to make something like that for my bubble magus doser.

[disaster999]

Sorry about what happened I haven't really followed but why did it crash.

Long story short, I was hating my tank since it was invested with hydroids and flatworm and looking like shit. I wanted to restart my tank so took out all the rocks and nuked them with Hydrochloric Acid (the stuff they use in Breaking Bad to dissolve people). Had all my corals and fish in a holding tank, Corals were pissed off, started chemical warfare, all SPS died, all fish died, all invert died. LPS and clam were only survivors.

 

Nice rack for the doser. I need to make something like that for my bubble magus doser.

 

Its pretty easy, your welcome to copy mine. Its not the cleanest or most elegant rack, but it works

[BattleAthletics]

Hydrochloric Acid (the stuff they use in Breaking Bad to dissolve people).

It was hydrofluoric acid, I would know, HF is a calcium seeking acid that over time several days to months will deteriorate your skin & bones. The shit that they wear is a weak form of personal protective equipment, one smell of anhydrous HF will send your nose burning or even bleeding, it is extremely corrosive in contact with water, not an immediate reactive chemical, over time. We had a guy get exposed over 20 years ago, he was ruined for the rest of his life, severe respiratory problems.

 

I remember seeing your tank when I first got on the forums and loved the big ass frog spawn.