victoly

True, but I was willing to pay for quality. It does much of the built in timing (not that an apex couldnt, I just didnt have 3 eb8 ports to spare). I would have had to spend another 150 for EB8, plus 100 for pumps.

hell of a car ride

Acropora abrotanoides High flow loving sps:

Lost mine in tank treatment, looking for a small frag of it:

bump

I used the little plastic adapters to get from the small metric tubing to standard 1/4 poly tubing. Air stones were not used. I was just dosing kalk via ATO and supplementing everything else manually. It was screwing with my pH too much, so i canned it. You can do a CaRx without apex, but youll need another pH controller, i just didnt have the space in my cabinet for a sump or enough space in my back area, so dosing was my only option. My total setup cost was ~300 for pump, 30 for jugs, 30 for solutions.

There's another statement you use to keep it on for x amount of time. The Min function keeps it from changing states for whatever time you put in the statement.

Min Time 05:00 Then On

depends on how you have it set up. When the float actuates, you want it to run for x minutes?

Bought some of this to diffuse my LED shimmer (it was bothering me). Its just a simple stick and peel. I'll upload videos if I can remember. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007B9PNOQ/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Also got my bubble magus up and running after much teeth gnashing. The tubing supplied by bubble magus is either in metric or mini airline, or something goofy. I wanted to use regular 1/4" tubing so this was my solution: I used the plastic adapters from these: My dosing regimen thus far is 1 mL B-ionic Alkalinity 2 mL B-ionic Calcium 20 mL B-ionic Mg

bump, sold and price drop

it uses rollers to "pinch" the tubing and move fluids. peristaltic pumps are going to be a much more reliable method of dosing kalk. bonus, you can use it for other dosing if you ever switch away from kalk.

Stick your probe in a small container of cal solution and see if it reads correctly.

Yeah lumias are DIY

Yeah lumias are DIY

Will you trade one for a hug?

Thank you for spelling all that out. It definitely helps me and I'm sure will help others in the future who might read this.I feel like I understand all the info on dosing but now I'm confused about the water change. I have about 20 gal ready to go. I was going to do it all at once, should I do smaller ones to avoid increasing the alk too fast? When you think about it in terms of percentages, 20 gallons out of a total system volume of maybe 100 (minus LR/Sand), is only 20% water change, not crazy by any standards. Although, to be safe you could space it two days. Once I duplicate that alk test you could make the decision to begin dosing, or what your course of action could be.

Dude, you tried to pull out your mushroom's guts...

Oh man and we haven't even gotten started yet! If it makes you feel any better there are many Ph.Ds out there that have done their thesis and research on some aspect of light and how it's used by chlorophyll and science still has a lot left to learn. The following is a very brief description and you need to follow up with your own research, I would recommend Dana Riddles articles on Advancedaquarist.com to start with. Light is measured in nanometers the shorter the wavelength the higher the energy level. Different wavelengths bands are perceived by the human eye as different colors: below 400 is UV which the we can't see but is used by chlorophyll and corals, 400 to 500 is various colors of blue, green starts around 500 and goes to yellow and then orange and around 610 red takes over . There are currently five kinds of chlorophyll. PAR stands for Photosynthetically Available Radiation and measures light absorbed by chlorophyll a and b which is from 340 nm to about 500 and then from about 600 to about 700. Lux is a different measurement of light and is biased towards the green and yellow spectrum which the human eye is more sensitive to. There are people who would be aghast that I would recomemend using a lux meter as it is more sensitive to the light that is not being used by chloraphyll a or b. There are two considerations I would point out. The first is both PAR and lux measuremnts are composite numbers and two different sources of light can have very different spectral output but give the same PAR or lux reading. The second is some corals are absorbing yellow light but reflecting red and blue wavelengths giving them a very pronounced purple coloration, we do not know what they are doing with it but when dealing with the coloration of corals we need to be looking at everything between 340nm and 700nm. And yes I know this means both lux and PAR meters are inadequate for the job. Ideally we need a cheap meter that displays the entire spectrum. PAR and lux meters still are the best method we have for measuring the realative intensity of a light fixture. I prefer PAR but as cheap as lux meters are I'm more than happy to sue them. There are three different "things" that give coral their colors. The first is the corals symbionts, it's symbiotic dinoflagelates, brown, and symbiotic cyanobacteria for some corals that fluoresce orange-red. Many corals produce fluorescing proteins that absorb a wavelength of light (excitation wavelength) and reemit it as a longer wavelength thereby changing the perceived color. Corals also produce chromo protiens that absorb some wavelengths and reflect other wavelengths. Now to continue complicating the issue is there are obviously very major spectral differences between different light sources. For example a 14,000K or 20,000K MH bulb has a significant portion of the UV removed. If someone using one switched to a LED fixture that uses UV or has a narrower/reduced orange/red component their corals are not going to look the same and may. as has been my experience, start to go down hill. What I like about Buildmyled is the expanded spectral output has eliminated the problem I have had with some corals and with others I am seeing colors I've never seen before. There also is no such thing as an "Ideal" That made my eyes bleed. lol. I'm honestly surprised I've done as well as I have without knowing any of that. But, my corals are doing okay under the 6 bulb t5 (3 blue 3 10kK) so I imagine any amount of leds would vastly improve their look and growth. I gave a couple leathers that weren't doing well under my lights to Derek who has 5 Ecotech Radions on his 375 and the darn things are growing like weeds and extending there polpys now. I think if you're switching for a look, you might be better off messing with your bulb combo than changing to LEDs. The biggest difference between MH/T5/LED is their energy expenditures and operating costs. In fact, the people who grow coral professionally still by and large use MH because the growth/coloration is better (in their opinion). If you're having husbandry issues, I'd bet the farm that it's the water and not the lights.

The ball valve should function exactly the same whether it is on barbed fitting or hard plumbed PVC.

step ya game up jack

hahah, i love that this thread has gone from Sherita: Look at this badass tank i made! to Sherita: I'm not sure why you can't see the gifs.... Sorry

i think those are AI Sols and not AI Vegas

Therein lies the problem with building/choosing LEDs. There are many, many variants of every LED. Do you want 3 watt or 5 watt? What lense angle do you want? What color combinations? What power are you driving them at? What manufacturer? As someone who has been where you have been and chose to go the DIY route (mostly because I was constrained within a closed hood), I wouldn't go my route . The advantage to the AI Hydra/Vega is that you can swap in/out "pucks" which are LED sets much easier than if I decided I wanted to change colors. I'd have to pull LEDs, reheatpaste them, and that's if their power/color/placement specs are acceptable. BMLED is nice because you can customize it on the front end. However, I have heard murmurs from various users that they just don't put out enough light to cut the mustard.

I am so flippin excited to see how this build turns out. If i had to do it all over again, it would likely look just like what you're doing.