Chipmunk's Office 20g

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Thanks flatland I tend to do that, I tend to make really huge updates every week or every few weeks instead of smaller, more frequent ones. Life just keeps me busy!

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Welp.. looks like I missed my tank's 1st birthday! Not sure the exact date I actually set the thing up, because as you all know planning a while.. but still. Happy birthday tank!



At any rate, I figure it's time for an update. No new livestock since my last updates. I'm still working on some algae problems and am kind of putting off new additions until I really get that figured out. All the livestock is still doing well, although the SPS are not really growing much (hardly surprising, given the algae problems probably mean high N/P, but I digress). I had the algae under control for a while, but work has been keeping me busy. Additional, I started volunteering at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, which has also been taking up a good bit of my time. I'm working hard at getting the algae under control and finding a good tank maintenance schedule to keep it at bay. I'm currently doing 50% water changes twice a week, as well as changing the GFO weekly (1 cup).

I've made a few equipment updates. First, I got a Reef Keeper Lite, mainly for temperature regulation. It has been working well, and I sleep a lot better at night knowing I have a backup to the heater's built-in thermostat. One unexpected plus of having the RLK is the feeding mode. I put my return pump and MP10 on the RKL and just put it in feed mode when it's time to feed. It's much nicer not having to shut off the surge protector every time I feed. Now, the RKL turns the pumps back on if I forget to cancel the feed mode. I also added an old overflow box to my QT tank, which now has a 10g sump as well (total volume of 20g). This helps keep things a bit more stable.

I also have two planned equipment updates that I'm pretty excited about. The first is my dosing pumps. I DIYed my pumps, and they're a mess. If I'm honest, this wiring nightmare is probably not the safest. I finally found a good enclosure size and have ordered a few project boxes, in which I can put all the components.



Scary, no?

The second upgrade is to my battery backup system. It is also a mess. I have a battery, to which is attached an inverter and a battery maintainer. Into the inverter is plugged my DIY transfer switch, which is also plugged into the wall. The output is a single outlet, into which I have plugged a surge protector. It's also a mess, although probably less of a safety hazard. I've since been drawing up some scale ideas for putting all these parts in to a nice metal enclosure. There will be two things coming out of the box: first, a single plug that will go into the wall. This will supply utility power to the system. The second will be a pair of battery clamps to connect to the battery. That's it. The unit will have an outlet on it, into which I can plug whatever equipment I want. This is a bit more of a project, but one that I think is worthwhile. It's almost to the point where I wonder why I didn't just buy an inverter/charger, but I stand with my decision, because with this system I can update any of the parts at any time. If the inverter/charger broke, I'd have to throw it out and buy another. Anyway, I'm very excited about that update and hope to share more about that later on down the road.

[chipmunkofdoom2]

I received the project box I ordered yesterday, so last night I put together a final version of my dosing pump. The box is about 6"x4"x2". If I'm honest, I don't actually need all that space, but there are a few circuit boards in there and having the flexibility is nice. Here are the end results:











Here's it next to an Xbox controller for size comparison.

Overall I'm very happy with the results of this project. Raw materials costs were just over $27, and the most expensive parts were the pump and case respectively. The various electronics inside that I've experienced the most failure with have been $1 - $5 parts. Overall, it's been a very, very low cost and reliable dosing solution.

[chipmunkofdoom2]

I snapped a few pictures of the filefish in my gallery at the National Aquarium during my shift this morning:

 

 

 

I had never considered filefish in a reef before, but these two have a ton of personality. They're orange filefish and they're about 2 feet long. They're in a tank with some fairly aggressive tankmates and they have trouble competing for food, so we've gotten into the habit of handfeeding them. When we climb behind the enclosure to feed, they come to the surface by the ladder and "spit" water at you, as if to say "hey buddy, I'm hungry!"

 

These guys are probably my favorite out of all the animals I have in my gallery.

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Well, I've done it again.. I've made about a million and a half changes in the past few weeks and haven't been keeping my thread updated. I'm going to do this in a few chunks as to not write a novel.

 

Long story short, I went ballistic in my quest to conquer my nutrient issue and made some radical changes. I upgraded my stand so I could fit a larger sump. I bought a decent needlewheel skimmer to go in the larger sump. I started dosing an organic carbon source again, and all these changes are paying off big time. The algae is literally melting off the rocks. It's funny, I did 50% water changes every 3 days for weeks straight, and I've seen more progress in the first 3 days of carbon dosing than I did that month of 50% water changes. 

 

I think all this points to phosphates bound to my live rock as being the culprit. My hypothesis is that the organic carbon dosing is using nearly all of the nitrates as they become available, which is limiting algae growth based on nitrogen. After nearly all the algae is gone from the rocks, I'm going to start testing phosphates. I expect then I'll see substantial phosphate levels. Since organic carbon dosing removes far more nitrogen than it does phosphorus, even though the phosphates are in the water, they likely will not be used for algal growth because of the lack of nitrogen. At any rate, that's down the line after the nuisance algae has almost completely receded.

 

For today, I'm going to share some updates on the stand I built. I posted earlier in the thread about how I built a stand out of 2x4s for my QT tank. I decided to finish the stand and move my main DT to it so that I could fit a larger tank underneath for a sump. My old stand would only hold a bucket, which didn't have enough room for a decent skimmer.

Here is the original stand, unfinished:

 

 

I added some 1/4" plywood, trim, and filled the seams (rather inexpertly, I admit, but I was just trying to get things done):

 

 

Then I just primed and painted with some semigloss black. It turned out pretty well actually, you can see a lot of the grain:

 

 

And finally, the DT on the new stand:

 

 

There are more updates to cover, including the new skimmer and my unexpected transition to T5 lighting. But like I said, I'm keeping the updates relatively short, so that's all for today.