Chyendra's 45 Gallon Cube

[squirrelieygrrrl]

lookin great chy!

 

love where your going with it all. i can kind of see your vision coming to fruition. its gonna be killer once it all grows in.

[Chyendra]

Thanks!! I'm so impatient for everything to start growing.

 

Here's some more pics of the tank inhabitants

Royal Gramma

Midas Blenny in his hideout

Porcelain crab filter feeding

My emerald crab kicked the porcelain crab out of his anemone! So now he lives in the cup coral

[Chyendra]

I'm so sad.... I found my porcelain crab dead today. I don't know what would have happen to him? I hope my emerald crab didn't kill him. Any ideas? He seemed happy and healthy! The above pics were taken only 2 days ago!

[Rehype]

Sorry to hear about the porcelain crab chyendra...he was a beautiful specimen.

 

It sounds like your emerald might have taken him out....I've heard of emeralds getting aggressive toward tankmates and even killing fish in some cases.

[squirrelieygrrrl]

oh noes...

 

 

the emerald was my first thought too. sorry chy.

[chrishayes]

Thanks!

I'm going to run my heater, fans and use the temp probe to stabilize my temp (I don't trust the readings that my coralife thermometer is giving me)

I'm going to do an an auto top-off with 2 float switches.

and I'm still trying to decide what I want to do with the last outlet. Probably, I'll set-up my return pump so that I can do a feeding mode. But if I ever get a doseing pump I could always use it for that.

It also comes with a pH probe, so I'll be able to see what my pH swings are throughout the day and try to stabilize that.

 

I'm excited!

 

Do your fans actually COOL your tank to a temp below your heater setting? I mean are they enough to surely keep temps from gerring out of control on a hot summer day? If not then I would hook your MH to it as well and use the itemp to turn it off. Also, as you state what you want to do with it you have no more outlets. 1 for heater, 1 for fan, 1 for ato pump and 1 for MH if you decide to go there. I feel this was the biggest reason I bought the rkl to act as a safety. By leaving the heater tstat at a few degrees higher than you set your itemp heater function then setting the default to ON this allows the heater to still function if the rkl craps out for any reason. Then set an alarm to shut off heater if above whatever temp you feel is your max in case the rkl relay gets stuck closed or some other unforseen issue arises. Then also by having the MH programmed the same way as to default off along with fans in the event the rkl fails this keeps the tank from overheating.

 

Its the alarms that are misunderstood along with setting defaults properly that cause rkl users problems. If you dont beleive me ask stevieT. He had his heater set to default off and over a weekend away from his tank the rkl failed leaving the heater outlet off all weekend and he returned to a 62 degree tank...

 

In the end I feel the MH is worth the outlet spot more than any other.

 

I too bought mine to run an ato with a float in the tank to activate the pump and a float in the topoff tank to deactivate with low level but I couldnt get enough cash for my current ato to make it worth not using it so the switch kit will just hang out till the coralvue ato system kicks the bucket. Also make sure that you place the lowest wattage devices on outlet 1 and 4 or the outermost two. These have relays for switching instead of solid switching which allows them to turn on and off absolutely when the rkl tells them to instead of sometimes failing to unswtich due to lack of amperage differential on low power cunsuming items like small 12v fans or small ato pumps.

 

HTH

[chrishayes]

oh noes...

 

 

the emerald was my first thought too. sorry chy.

 

Yeah I put two emeralds in my tank together at the same size but one killed the other within just a few days. Now the winner doesnt bother anyone or anything including my valonia(why its there in the first place)

[iAquanaut]

Your tank is amazing! I had to read over your whole thread.

 

I noticed that you have a plate coral and a purple gorgonian. I have been wanting to get these corals for awhile now and wanted to know if you have any tips on care for them. Also, would they do well under T5's?

 

I'll be tagging along! I can't wait to see what those SPS look like once they get growing!

[Chyendra]

Hey thanks!

 

I've had really good luck with both of my plate corals, but my purple gorgonian has never done well for me, it's alive, but it doesn't grow so I really can't give any advice in regard to the gorgonian. But my green plate coral started out as a 1" little baby and now it's about 4-5" in diameter. So far my orange plate seems happy too. IMO they are relatively easy to care for if you have a mature aquarium. They would do great under T5HOs. They do best sitting on the sand bed (I've heard from others that they will move, but Mine don't), they like moderate flow, and I feed mine every couple days but you don't have to(flake, mysis, whatever you feed your fish, they'll eat it). I think feeding them has contributed to their growth. One thing I've noticed is they like a stability alkalinity. Mine will shrink up if the Alk drops to low, but get especially angry if it jumps around too much. I keep mine between 7.5-8.5 dkh, but I've had it higher in the past and they were fine as long as it stayed stable.

[iAquanaut]

Thanks for all the info! I'm still interested in gorgonians, even though you said that yours hasn't grown. Have you tried any other species of gorgonians in previous tanks?

 

A plate coral would do great in my tank considering what you said. Although, my tank doesn't have much open space on its sand bed (I have a 10 gallon) so I may have to wait till I get a bigger tank or rescape my current one.

[Chyendra]

I've tried to keep frags of Non-photosynthetic gorgonians (beautiful colors! one was bright yellow and the other was brigh red both with white polyps). I didn't keep them very long and decided to sell them because I was using phytoplankton to feed them and was having major algea problems from the excess nutrients.

[drichards36]

How are your acans doing?

[Chyendra]

They're doing pretty good, Slow growing, but seem happy & healthy The orange one has a new mouth I think, but the red one is pretty much the same size.

I'll try to take some new pics soon.

[chrishayes]

hows the rkl setup going?

[Chyendra]

my life has been crazy busy so I haven't even been able to open the package yet. Probably tomorrow evening I'll be able to start getting it set-up. I think my durso needs a little more tweeking because since adding a filter sock to the drain my sump level has be flucuateing a lot, which would cause major problems for an ATO.

[Chyendra]

yay! My RKL is up and running

I got the iTemp calibrated (at first I was thinking, "What? Calibrate with what? my jankity coralife probe?? I'm not sure I even trust my glass thermometer, but in the end that's what I had to do I guess.)

I got my pH probe calibrated.... My tank has a ph of 7.96!! This is right after the lights come on, so hopefully I'll watch it go up throughout the course of the day, but this is also right after I dose my alk supplement, so I thought it would be higher. Well... This is why I got the pH probe, so I can monitor swings, and begin to tweak my system toward a higher & more stable pH.

 

I got my fans & heater set-up... Chris I have a few questions for you about the heater settings.

 

Allow me to think out loud for a few paragraphs....

 

The heater default setting is to turn on when the iTemp reading is below your set-point. Lets say 78 deg for demonstration purposes. This is with the default setting of "OFF". Correct? This would mean you would have to set your heater's internal thermastat to come on higher than that, or the same time, say 78.5... So if the heater stayed on, no prob b/c the RKL will keep it off. No over heated tank. If the RKL fails, and never turns the heater on (this is the senario you mentioned above), then the heater won't be able to turn on andthe tank may get too cold.

 

SO you're saying, I should use the controller mode, And set the heater to come ON when the iTemp is below 78. If the hysteresis is set at .1 then the heater should turn on at 77.9 and off at 78.1 correct? Then set the default to "ON" so if the RKL fails, the heater will stay on. At this point the heater's internal thermastat will have been set to turn on if below 78.5, so the heater will continue to run and (hopefully) turn off at the proper temp. This way, BOTH the RKL and heater would have to fail in order to fry your tank or freeze your tank? The heater will always be on while the RKL is in control, and the RKL will do the switching. OK I think this makes sense. HOWEVER... if you set an alarm to turn off the heater when the temp is say 84 deg, aren't you just setting a back-up for something that has already failed? (IE: your RKL didn't turn off, so is telling it to turn off again really going to help??)

 

Ok... Here's my current settings.

SL1 - iTemp & pH

PC4 - Outlet 1 (future ATO)

- Outlet 2 (Empty... future MH or return pump?)

- Outlet 3 Heater --> controller mode, default ON, Set point 78, hysteresis .2. (Heater therm. set at 79)

- Outlet 4 Fans --> fan mode, default ON set point 78.8

 

 

I'm not sure if my fans will be enough to cool my tank when summer comes. Only time will tell. At that point I might just reset my tanks temp a little higher, say 80, and see if my fans will allow it to remain steady there.

[chrishayes]

yay! My RKL is up and running

I got the iTemp calibrated (at first I was thinking, "What? Calibrate with what? my jankity coralife probe?? I'm not sure I even trust my glass thermometer, but in the end that's what I had to do I guess.)

I got my pH probe calibrated.... My tank has a ph of 7.96!! This is right after the lights come on, so hopefully I'll watch it go up throughout the course of the day, but this is also right after I dose my alk supplement, so I thought it would be higher. Well... This is why I got the pH probe, so I can monitor swings, and begin to tweak my system toward a higher & more stable pH.

I did not calibrate my temp probe after reading many forum posts and DA saying it is precalibrated. I did calibrate my ph probe several times to try to get it as acurate as I could(fun huh). My Ph is right in line with yours. I use Kalk in my ATO and this is causing problems I think due to the change in evap from day MH to night, no light or fans. So my Ph swings from 7.89 in the am to 8.22 in the late evening of the photoperiod. I dont think its a big prob though as long as it doesnt go nutty low or high or swing in the 7.7 to 8.3 range.

I got my fans & heater set-up... Chris I have a few questions for you about the heater settings.

 

Allow me to think out loud for a few paragraphs....

 

The heater default setting is to turn on when the iTemp reading is below your set-point. Nope, the default is whether you want the outlet to turn on or off and stay that way if the rkl were to fail. Lets say 78 deg for demonstration purposes. This is with the default setting of "OFF". Correct? This would mean you would have to set your heater's internal thermastat to come on higher than that, or the same time, say 78.5... So if the heater stayed on, no prob b/c the RKL will keep it off. No over heated tank. If the RKL fails, and never turns the heater on (this is the senario you mentioned above), then the heater won't be able to turn on andthe tank may get too cold.

The rest is correct. You would want to set the default of the heaters to on then turn your heaters thermo up a few degrees to keep the two theroms from fighting each other this way when/if the unit fails the built in thermo takes over but youll never know it...unless you set up an alarm. I would set the alarm to flash and beep which is the first 2 --'s the third is only for use with the network adaptor.use this alarm to trip when below your setpoint.

 

SO you're saying, I should use the controller mode, And set the heater to come ON when the iTemp is below 78. Yes. If the hysteresis is set at .1 then the heater should turn on at 77.9 and off at 78.1 correct? Yes. Then set the default to "ON" so if the RKL fails, the heater will stay on. Yup. At this point the heater's internal thermastat will have been set to turn on if below 78.5 (i would go a little higher just so they dont fight each other), so the heater will continue to run and (hopefully) turn off at the proper temp. This way, BOTH the RKL and heater would have to fail in order to fry your tank or freeze your tank? yes mamn. The heater will always be on while the RKL is in control, and the RKL will do the switching. OK I think this makes sense. HOWEVER... if you set an alarm to turn off the heater when the temp is say 84 deg, aren't you just setting a back-up for something that has already failed? (IE: your RKL didn't turn off, so is telling it to turn off again really going to help??) yeah pretty much but if one or the other thermos or outlet does something wierd but the rkl is still in control then it will force shut off of the relay.

 

Ok... Here's my current settings.

SL1 - iTemp & pH

PC4 - Outlet 1 (future ATO)

- Outlet 2 (Empty... future MH or return pump?)I know its tough to use a valuable outlet for the halide but like I said this is for the utmost protection of the tank. If a fan fails or its unually hot you know how quick a halide will heat water.

- Outlet 3 Heater --> controller mode, default ON, Set point 78, hysteresis .2. (Heater therm. set at 79)sounds good

- Outlet 4 Fans --> fan mode, default ON set point 78.8 I would change the default to off. would also set an alarm for this to shut it off if it sticks on for some reason with a flash and beep alert. My thinking is that if you have the halide protected from overheat then it would be off making the cooling less needed so the fan if defaulted on would just cool the water to the point where the heater would fight it

.however, I think it would be rare for a fan to fail AND have a tank overheat from ambient temps at the same time.

 

I'm not sure if my fans will be enough to cool my tank when summer comes. Only time will tell. At that point I might just reset my tanks temp a little higher, say 80, and see if my fans will allow it to remain steady there.

 

If you are in any doubt that the fans will cool the tank then I would SURELY put the halide on the system. Really, it is the reason I bought the rkl. I couldve kept my dual temp controllers but there are a few times a year where the fans just arent enough to keep temps from spiking. With a halide shut down the pc's would provide enough light for the corals to not be photo stressed from lights going out repeatedly and the temp spikes would be a bigger stressor than photoshock anyways. I mean I compare it to clouds passing over on a natural reef.

 

I just started playing with the multitimer function yesterday to get prepared for dosing pumps one day. I did it with my pc's making them turn on and off for presribed periods throughout the day. For real these are the most intellectually daunting tasks on the programming of the rkl. My head literally hurt after an hour of reading how to do it then i gave up several times while actually doing it. But I got a simple program figured out and it is working so far. Once I get the dosing pumps(kalk is just not enough anymore) I will detail how to program these as it is a strange beast to say the least. lots of thinking down the street from the box

[chrishayes]

http://www.3reef.com/forums/1020409-post1.html

 

To date this is the best how-to ive found on the net. Much simpler than the instruction pdf as long as you want to pretty much just copy his setup. Also, in case you dont have it

RKL_User_Guide_2_0___Web.pdf

[reef-luva]

 

That is very cool Chyendra....many, if not most tank stands that I have seen

"in stores" are similar. A solid wooden frame and a decorative cover over that.

 

When I built out my aquarium store racks/systems, I did the same.

In the motion picture art department world, we call them "facades"...french for "face"

 

I have seen this done with Home/office tanks in the past.

Yours looks super clean and very pro...I am jealous....

 

if ya want, Google Andrew Shourd and you will see the films I have worked on,

with Brad Pitt, Steven Spielberg and many others....

[Chyendra]

Thanks Reef-Luva, I can't take any credit for the design or build, but I do agree that the guy who made it for me did a fantastic job.

 

Thanks for the RKL programming help Chris. I hear what you're saying about the MH overheating the tank. Right now, I don't have any PCs or T5s so my MH is my sole light source, and temps aren't a problem. Maybe i'll get another PC4 before summer

Right now I have my return pump hooked up in that spot and set-up to turn off on standby, which is super convenient. I used it probably 3 times yesterday for feeding, changing my filter sock, and working on my durso (still giving me some trouble). I know... it's not THAT hard to just unplug the pump, but I have to dig the powerstrip out form behind the tank. And if I use standby to turn off my pumps, I can delay my ATO from coming on for a set time after that, so the water level in my sump has time to stabilize, and things don't get flooded. (a problem I didn't think I would have, but at least I found a solution!)

[chrishayes]

THats a good idea on the startup delay after standby. Originally I was going to do that as well with my skimmer return pump and mp10 but after some creative rearranging in the pathetic little jbj stand I was able to get all power strips and pc4 oriented so that all my pumps that need shut down with WC are on one pwer strip and made the on/off switch face outward so its easy to quickly do. I just cant justify the cost of the pc4 space for something that simple with no need for automation. Us jbj owners are also lucky in that when pumps are shut down for a WC the rear sump raises(where I have my float switch) and doesnt fall with DT water level so my ATO has no issue as once the pumps are back on the level levels out quickly with no tripping of the float. Thanks JBJ got that one right at least!

 

I do think I will buy another pc4 sooner or later as I will need it for the dosing pumps if I go that route. I figure as long as I space it out by several months the $90 hit wont seem so bad to have a fully controlled system. I mean whats another $90 with a tank that is pushing $100/gallon

[Chyendra]

I hear what you're saying. Once you start getting into the top-end equipment, on such a small tank it seems a little crazy!

 

So using the float switch function on my RKL it doesn't give me a "stand by delay" option... Maybe I can set it up to work via the "controller" function.

 

At any rate, I got my float switches wired and programed! my little pump I was going to use isn't strong enough So I ordered an aqualifter, which hopefully will work really well. I should have ordered 2 now that I'm playing around with the idea of kalk dosing, but all well, I can always order another. In the meantime, I have a 1 gallon container drilled w/ air line tubing and an air pump (based of the DIY ATO by Willtel found Here) and it works great! Obviously I will need a larger container in the long term once I get my aqualifter, but in the meantime, I can use this to trouble shoot any problems w/ my programing, or float switches. IF/WHEN I decide to start Kalk dosing, I will probably try to use this little set-up first, and upgrade to an aqua lifter if I feel the need. Pretty neat all the things you can control w/ the RKL. I'm definetly saving up for another PC4.

 

In sadder news... I've been making to many changes too quickly, and my SPS have been suffering a little. I upgraded my bulb to a pheonix 14k 250 (was using some random old 20k) which definetly has more par, but I only left the screen on for a week before removing it because everything seemed fine and I was getting impatient (I should have known better...) I also changed out my GFO, which I didn't think would be a problem because I had been using phosban, and I switched to the BRS GFO because it's cheaper. Well it must be better at absorbing phosphate too b/c I used the low end of the recomended amount and I'm seeing some bleaching due to too fast of a phosphate reduction.

 

SO in the long run, lower phosphate and higher lighting will be better, but my SPS aren't happy with the changes happening so fast. I hope I don't lose any In light of this, I'm NOT going to start messing w/ my ph and kalk dosing until they look better. My ph may be low, but at least it's stable.

[savageajc]

Whoa love your tank and stand! i wish my stand was as cool haha. Also digging the midas blenny, my fiance has always wanted one but ive like.."eehhh" if that makes sense lol But yours looks sweet (and angry) !

[chrishayes]

jesus Chy it seems that we live in parallel paths states away! I have many of the same problems as you and have done a lot of the same things as you or am thinking about the things that you do. Its like whoa, feel that?lol Seriously, I just changed from DFS gfo to BRS and had the same reaction except no real affect on the sps. Algae turned brown and water went crystal clear. I dont know if id say its stronger but the amount reccomended are MUCH higher on the BRS stuff. On a side note, the pellets tumble very well in my aquavia reactor whereas the DFS stuff did not. Im stickin to BRS.

 

I also kalk dose and have been using some old kent stuff that im sure hasnt been made in 10 years so I thought i may as well get some with my gfo order as it was like 9 bucks for a garbage truck load. AND, i too am having the same low ph as you. So, I wanted a way to allow the tank to get more kalk at night but I didnt want to pump kalk water in there without evap so I thought about trying to set a timer to turn on the ato for a few set times a night, no thats stupid, the floats control the pump. Of course I thought if I could get the tank to evap from the fans at night that would work but how the hell do you regulate that? I didnt realize how simple it was. Up to now I have an alarm setup to trip when below 78 for my fans off the itemp to protect from over cooling. However, after our back and forth on your thread I realized how redundant those alarms are for the fan and heater where multiple things would have to go wrong AND its not certain that the RKL would even be able to trip in that event.

 

SO, I just reset a new alarm using the ph probe and setting the trip below to 7.85(a reasonable .3 swing through the day to 8.2) then attached the alarm to the fan outlet and told the fan to come on when ph below 7.85. problem solved. now evap keeps the ph up at night at the times when needed.

 

Another note, I stopped vodka dosing after a month. I feel that it was helping the war on algae but I just couldnt stand the bleached out pale look of the coral even though i started feeding to the point of pregnancy to all animals in the tank. I just realized that id rather battle algae the old fashioned way while having naturally vibrant coral in the process. I also started getting a little cyano in the sand so that was the tipping point. I knew that there was little odds that id be able to balance the tank without taking too long and having casualties.

 

oh and im also impatient as $hit too!

[Chyendra]

Thats interesting that you decided to use your fan to control your Kalk & RO dosing. I was thinking that I would just use my ph probe to trigger an air pump driven kalk doseing pump. My ph probe is downstream from where I would have my ATO and Kalk dripper dose, so it would probably turn off prematurely due to an artifactually high ph, so any additional kalk added after the pump turned off wouldn't be a problem. This is all theoretical... mostly because I'm still having major problems keeping my sump water level stable... it's becoming super frustrating because I can't use my ATO at this rate, which is one of the major reasons I bought the RKL.

 

Another fun update however is that I finally got a neon goby! They used to be such a common fish, but I've been looking for one for the past 3 months. I actually got two, hoping to have a pair, but they fought like crazy, so I had to section up my quarantine tank, and eventually sell one of them. They've gotten alot more expensive than they used to be. I thought I paid $15 for mine 5 years ago, but my LFS recently wanted $40 each! They're crazy... I eventualy got mine for $27.. still alot for such a small common fish. Too bad I like them so much