Wildeone's Newest Obsession

[wildeone]

watch it with these airlines.
if you have the pump below the container and the pump shuts off, you could have a back siphon.. make sure you either raise them up, or use check valves

Thanks for the input Rob. The pump is actually above the containers, but outside of the photo. That is not something I did on purpose and probably would have learned about the siphon issue the hard way!

[wildeone]

they look like tunicates to me... (aka.. sea squirts)
they are small little filter feeders... good to have..

looks like sponges and tunicates.

WOW, another new little thing, or hundreds of new little things in my tank!

[wildeone]

I thought I would touch on my feeding practices in the journal in order to get opinions on the way I am doing it. I really had no one to directly teach me and my process and amounts are based on what I have read, what I have picked up online and what the LFS recomended. I would like topoint out that i truly trust the LFS that I go to, they are all reef tank owners and members of the local reef club. The chain LFS on the other side of town would tell me anything to get me to buy product.

My feedings are broken down to three different catagories, fish, anemone and filterfeeders and corals. Here is a photo of my current product selection minus my phytoplankton.



Fish
My fish typically get amixture of a BB sized chunk of cyclop-eeze, a few fish flakes and about 1/6 of a cube of mysis shrimp. As you can see the total amount doesn't exceede 1ml in my test tube.



I add .5ml of Selcon to this and let it soak for about 5 minutes.



Then I drop in some tank water and let soak for about 5 more minutes mixing with my pipette.
I also prepare about a 2"x2" piece of seaweed to a lettuce clip and drop a few drops of Selcon on that and let soak.



And finally i add this to the tank feeding over my anemone (to try to get clowns associated) and I taget a little to my shrimp.

I then put the lettuce clip in and the tangs go to town on that (and a snail everyonce in a while).



Anemone
I feed my BTA everyother night a piece of silverside about 1" in length. He always takes it (but I am told they will always eat) and usually has to fight the shrimp a little to keep it from being stolen. I also soak these in Selcon before feeding.

Corals and Filter Feeders
I am currently feeding from my supply of homegrown phytoplankton. In the past I have used DT's and Phycopure. I will more than likely add rotifers to my list as soon as I am sure I have the phytoplankton culturing down to a science. I feed about 3/4 cup every 3 days or so.

If anyone has any suggestions or comments please let me know. Like I said earlier, I am basing all of this on things I have gathered from various people. I guarentee it can be improved on.

[wildeone]

I had trouble with my leather coral. I didn't open for almost a week. After much ado about nothing and some top notch support here on TR everything seems OK now. Here is a link to the thread if you are interested.

[wildeone]

Here is the scoop. I have an Aquacontroller Jr reef controller with a PH probe. When I first set it up I noticed my PH didn't match my test kit PH. After some research I realized I needed to calibrate it using calibration fluid. So I ordered PH 7.0 and 10.0 fluid to calibrate it. I calibrated the unit and it showed a lower PH tan what I was testing. It was around 7.95 to 8.05 and I was testing 8.1 to 8.3.

The manufacturer suggested in a thread to someone else with a calibration iss that they do a firware upgrade. i never got around to it myself until this past weekend. And due to technical issues, I couldn't get the update to load. But I had a thought; if the unit is calibrated right, and I stick the probe in a new 7.0 and 10.0 sample and it read correct then it is OK. So i did just that and it read 7.00 and 9.99, close enough for me.

The issue is that my true PH then is running between 7.95 (night) and 8.05 (day). SO I guess I need to raise it. I have been reading on Wet Web Media the relationship between ALK and PH and I don't quite feel comfortable with my knowldege yet to tackle this. Is there anyone out there that can offer some help with this situation?

[fat walrus]

are you sure the probe is working? they get encrusted with minerals and may be cracked also. i go through a probe a year.

[wildeone]

It is only 2 months old and it has notr really been abused. It was sealed when I got it as well, so I would think it is OK.

[bmwaaron]

How is the controller working so far Wildeone?
I was looking at them but wanted to know if you had to do it over would you go with the Aquacontroller 3 or would you buy the JR again?

[fat walrus]

a ph probe has too stay wet at all times, were yours encapsulated?

[wildeone]

Yes, I took the protective cover off, rinsed it off, putit in the sump and left it plugged into the controller, I just never paid attention to it. So it has been wet the whole time.

[fat walrus]

if you have any of the calibration solutions left, use it as test solutions against your test kits.

[wildeone]

How is the controller working so far Wildeone?
I was looking at them but wanted to know if you had to do it over would you go with the Aquacontroller 3 or would you buy the JR again?

Well honestly, for my 65 I think I would do the JR., but when I step up to a larger setup with MH lighting and all of that stuff I may go to a 3. The only benefit I see right now is the ethernet connection and the webserver (if you buy Aquanotes I believe). For me that was not a big issue, I will run mine through a RS232 to RS485 converter, over CAT5E, back to RS232 and into my PC. Then I use www.logmein.com to get to my PC from anywhere and check on the tank. Cheap way to get it done!

The controller itself has worked flawlessly, except for this PH issue. I wouldn't run a reef without one now.

[wildeone]

Hey FW thats a great idea, I will give that a shot tomorrow. And I was thinking, I always test at night when the PH is 7.95 on the AC unit. My test reads 8.1, but the graduation is .2 so the next lowest is 7.9 and the next highest is 8.3. So technically they could both be right.

[bmwaaron]

I will run mine through a RS232 to RS485 converter, over CAT5E, back to RS232 and into my PC.

Ok I know that the JR has the serial port. Are you saying that you run the RS232 to RS485 so you can basically run the JR as an ethernet port? I dont have a serial port on my laptop so I would need to convert to Ethernet. Is that what you were talking about?

Or would it be easier to use something like this http://www.icsdatacom.com/pdfs/ICP7560_ds.pdf ?