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Coral Vue Hydros

Reefer 350


HarryPotter

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4 minutes ago, Weikel said:

Wait are you saying that you got lower tds out of the rodi section by boosting pressure?

It would seem that it's so. He might have added another stage ( if i remember correctly)

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5 minutes ago, JBM said:

It would seem that it's so. He might have added another stage ( if i remember correctly)

Interesting time for a google 😝

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3 hours ago, Weikel said:

Wait are you saying that you got lower tds out of the rodi section by boosting pressure?

 

Yessir! Went to 99%+ rejection from a mediocre ~96%. Just that will triple my DI life I believe 🙂

3 hours ago, JBM said:

It would seem that it's so. He might have added another stage ( if i remember correctly)

 

I added a third DI stage, but this is unrelated to that. RODI membranes are optimized for high pressure, their advertised ratings are at a specific psi. Lower than that and you get worse performance. 

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3 hours ago, Weikel said:

 Interesting time for a google 😝

 

Yeah look online, tons of info on it. Spectrapure guarantees their RO membranes to perform to a certain spec at a minimum PSI for that reason- you cant feed it 30psi and expect to get 99%+ rejection. 

 

This booster pump will pay for itself in resin within a year, now that I am making water for the 300g and my 70g. 

 

While looking at the instructions, I realized that RODI units are supposed to have color-coded tubing. Mine was almost all blue, so the "plumbing" to the booster pump was a bit confusing. I also had to trim my "refill" line to get enough tubing to get this going. I placed an annoying order at BRS to fix that later- $10, might be a waste because it "works" and I only needed a 8 foot section, but I figured while I was at it I could get some spare and/or get things properly color coded. 

o2pRbTu.png

 

 

 

 

 

 

This tank is looking better. Acro polyp extension is improving, and alkalinity is stable at 7.0 with 30ml dosed daily. RTN has stopped on all but one or two pieces, and montipora colonies are slowly darkening up. Still no color, but brown is better than pale white. 

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I'm so happy to hear things are going better!

 

I have to say, getting my Booster Buddie was one of the best purchases ever. Even if they don't know how to spell :lol:

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8 hours ago, teenyreef said:

I'm so happy to hear things are going better!

 

I have to say, getting my Booster Buddie was one of the best purchases ever. Even if they don't know how to spell :lol:

 

Question for you then: do you have a valve to shut off the water supply from the wall, or do you just shut off power to the buddie booster and let the internal valve stop production? 

 

I guess you could leave the buddie booster powered and then just open or close a water supply valve to have it automatically turn on? 

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9 hours ago, HarryPotter said:

 

Yessir! Went to 99%+ rejection from a mediocre ~96%. Just that will triple my DI life I believe 🙂

 

I added a third DI stage, but this is unrelated to that. RODI membranes are optimized for high pressure, their advertised ratings are at a specific psi. Lower than that and you get worse performance. 

 

Well, you certainly learned me a thing or two!

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1 hour ago, JBM said:

 

Well, you certainly learned me a thing or two!

 

In that case, one more DI tidbit! Color changing resin is less efficient than non-color changing, as you are trading absorption capability for the color change. So I use two non color-changing canisters, and only my final one is color-changing. 🙂 

 

 

Just snapped this photo- of the red cap darkening up again. It was SUPER pale, you can see the STN areas up top. Still ugly brown, but alive and will without a doubt color up again in the upcoming months. 


And yeah, there is a small paly-problem. Epoxy time? Lol 

 

wuWo06A.jpg

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4 hours ago, HarryPotter said:

 

Question for you then: do you have a valve to shut off the water supply from the wall, or do you just shut off power to the buddie booster and let the internal valve stop production? 

 

I guess you could leave the buddie booster powered and then just open or close a water supply valve to have it automatically turn on? 

Yes, that's what I do. It stays powered on and I have a shut off valve on the supply. 

 

But I do cycle the power every so often to trigger the auto flush. 

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Recovering full tank shot- check out how brown that cap on the right is compared to an old photo, like the one on pg 1. Hints of color on acros, just barely. 

 

 

TAEkyG6.jpg

 

Here was 5/18, a nicer photo (DSLR) but shows how much the colors have died out. Looking at the photos, there has been very little growth in general. Makes me wonder whats wrong; everything is stunted. I wonder if that was due to the metal contamination, and then my alk overdose just took everything past the edge. 

 

cZeXYv6.jpg

 

 

 

On my computer I hit "auto" white balance, and this happened LOL. It does NOT look that yellow, nor are my rocks blue. So not a "real" photo, but nonetheless pretty. 

 

The back of it looks more like it does in person, just not the front. 

 

iv6NBr6.jpg

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On 10/8/2018 at 7:04 PM, markalot said:

Recovery is good!

 

Look at me, being a good daily tester! 

 

Today: 

Alk: 7.9 

Ca: 420

Mg: 1240

PO4: 0.00 <~ guess I need to feed more

Salinity: 1.026

 

I was looking at a tank I idolize on r2r, and noticed that they kept their 8 bulb  t5 fixture 12” above the waterline, and corals were all well below that. And then I realized that my fixture was 5” above the water line 😳. No wonder there has been no growth tips since August,  when I switched to the 8 bulb fixture? Cooking em! Estimate ~800 par.

 

Raised it to 8” above water line 

 

yLZflLG.jpg

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@teenyreef of course just as the last batch of dry rock is coloring up, I want to glue on more rubble to mount sticks. My acros always do so much better on rock versus the rack. Although, that is probably because the rack was getting 800 PAR 😳

 

#RockWillNEVERMatch

 

UqLKybq.jpg

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Nice!

 

I've also learned it's helpful to mount the frags on small pieces of rubble rock which are glued onto the main scape. Even after the frag gets well encrusted, it's still possible to move it by breaking the rubble rock off.

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10 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

Nice!

 

I've also learned it's helpful to mount the frags on small pieces of rubble rock which are glued onto the main scape. Even after the frag gets well encrusted, it's still possible to move it by breaking the rubble rock off.

 

Thats a great tip. Makes permant mounting less permanent- will definitely do that where I can.  On the 300g too, have like 25 acros to mount 😳

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1 minute ago, HarryPotter said:

 

Thats a great tip. Makes permant mounting less permanent- will definitely do that where I can.  On the 300g too, have like 25 acros to mount 😳

That's what they call a Good Problem :biggrin:

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Does anyone else see specks of color returning on some of the branch tips? This guy almost died during the Alk spike- look how huge and flattened some of those polyps are.

 

rQqaKot.jpg

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14 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

I think the secret sauce in your tank has been reactivated omgomgomg

 

Heavy metals, Alk spikes, and burning the sh** out of em 😂😂😂

 

Alk tested the same today, I didn’t run the full “barrage” of tests. 

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Wasn’t originally going to post this, it was a quick video I took on vivid aquarium’s random flow generator- I sent them an apex toggle box in exchange for their premium return nozzle system.  It is MUCH better than the stock “stub”, but I am not sure whether the nozzle really has changing flow patterns. Later I will shut off all powerheads and feed the tank to see what that looks like. 

 

 

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Christopher Marks

That's a nice 3D printed trade!

 

VCA's RFG nozzles are really neat, I was impressed by their demonstration at MACNA, they had multiple propellers submerged underwater spanning across the tank, you could see them spin up in the flow at random. I wonder if there is a minimum flow requirement for the effect to work, there didn't seem to be much visual indication from the nozzle itself. They seem so perfect for nano reefs in particular, but the design scales up great. I'll be curious to hear your thoughts with your powerheads turned off.

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57 minutes ago, Christopher Marks said:

That's a nice 3D printed trade!

 

 VCA's RFG nozzles are really neat, I was impressed by their demonstration at MACNA, they had multiple propellers submerged underwater spanning across the tank, you could see them spin up in the flow at random. I wonder if there is a minimum flow requirement for the effect to work, there didn't seem to be much visual indication from the nozzle itself. They seem so perfect for nano reefs in particular, but the design scales up great. I'll be curious to hear your thoughts with your powerheads turned off.

 

I got the more difficult end of that trade LOL- sent them a huge LED toggle box with direct apex connect. Probably 10x the printing time AND needed assembly. 

 

I did already have my own loc-line assembly, this was more of a "social" thing in between fellow 3d printers. 

 

I was mainly curious to see if it was the same as the open source loc-line random flow on Thingiverse, link here:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1784377

 

These things are very quick to print, being so small. Years ago I did print out that RFG from thingiverse but never ended up using it, because I didn't have the plastic I wanted at the time. I was curious how similar their design would be, given the one on thingivierse has a creative commons non-commercial licensing. Is the thingiverse file posted in 2016 VCA's? Almost certainly not, if so they would have deleted it by now. But is there design a copy of that model, which has a non-commercial licensing? 

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A Little Blue
1 hour ago, HarryPotter said:

Wasn’t originally going to post this, it was a quick video I took on vivid aquarium’s random flow generator- I sent them an apex toggle box in exchange for their premium return nozzle system.  It is MUCH better than the stock “stub”, but I am not sure whether the nozzle really has changing flow patterns. Later I will shut off all powerheads and feed the tank to see what that looks like. 

 

 

You simply don’t have enough flow going thru them. They have a recommended flow rate chart, you should try using that. 

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  • HarryPotter changed the title to Reefer 350

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