victoly

I can't remember whether you have an apex or not, but if you have temp logs it would be a factor that you could quickly eliminate (maybe a temporary power outage that fixed itself when you returned home?). Otherwise, I'm trying to think of the parameters that would cause losses in such a short time period...Alk/Ca/Mg wouldn't cause receding, just lack of flourishing. So you're left with contaminants (painting, cleaning chemicals), pH issues, NH3, NO4, NO3, or something else?

it's been a pretty crazy hot week. how are the temps looking in the tank?

emily/rolando came to pick it up.

what size was your DT?

I have had it where peristaltic pump tubing needed to be replaced it developed a small crack over time and lost suction I did not notice till week later when corals were not looking good and my alk dropped to 5dkh. I have now switched to ca reactor I love it. In theory if you don't have nitrates or phosphate issue you should never need to do water change as all the trace minerals are being replenished from the ca reactor media while two part you still will need to do a water change to replenish what trace minerals are absorbed by the corals. If you switched to full balling method then you are truly replacing all what the corals need Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Good point about replacing the tubing on the head regularly. However, i still feel as if this failure is in the "it broke but didn't kill everything" category. The same type of failure could happen to a reactor, and therefore makes them even.

I built my own reactor for less than $50 out of 4" PVC. I ran my system on manual, which means one less thing to fail, a pH controller. I had an extended system that including 500G of refugiums, growout troughs and 150G display tank. I had oppossite photoperiods and had no problems with pH stability. Initialy there was much testing and adjusting for several weeks. Once calcium was slected as the concentration to monitor, there was no more tweaking required. Maintenance required was twice a year at less than one hour of labor in one year. When you put the labor cost in the equation, calcium reactor wins, imo. I thought the thread was going to deal with failure analysys. Worst case sceanario. Patrick You are running a special case tank which is heavily dominated by CO2 sinks. Most people don't have the capacity to safely absorb the quantity of gas that could potentially leak out of a system that doesn't have timer/pH control. However, your point about labor cost is totally valid. When you amortize your "time spent" mixing solution, over the life of your tank, it might very well be worth the extra couple bucks in startup cost if safety isn't a driving factor. What is a CO2 sink? You assume that because of no timer or pH controller, I have no control. I use a metering needle valve to set CO2 flow rate. If it fails, it would fail closed and block CO2. Worst case scenario would be low calcium and alkalinity. If the timer on your dosing pump fails closed, you will empty your batch tank into your reef tank. That does not sound like "best practice" to me. CO2 sink meaning a large consumer of CO2. All of the caulerpa that you have, in addition to the large tank volume, gives you a much wider cushion than the joe blow hobbyist. I have had a solenoid on a CO2 tank fail and nuke a previous tank, so it is possible to have mechanical failure on a CO2 based system.

Both for my own purposes and discussion. When i upgrade tanks (in like 15 years), you have to pick one or the other methods. I'm trying to figure out what the best application for my purposes will be. To your point about failure of probes/controller, that's why i feel that we as hobbyists should be doing our best to put hard engineering limits on potentially disastrous elements to our tanks. For example, instead of plumbing your RODI directly to the float in your tank, you have a fixed volume of water in your ATO reservoir.

oHHhhh. what kind of caps ?

I built my own reactor for less than $50 out of 4" PVC. I ran my system on manual, which means one less thing to fail, a pH controller. I had an extended system that including 500G of refugiums, growout troughs and 150G display tank. I had oppossite photoperiods and had no problems with pH stability. Initialy there was much testing and adjusting for several weeks. Once calcium was slected as the concentration to monitor, there was no more tweaking required. Maintenance required was twice a year at less than one hour of labor in one year. When you put the labor cost in the equation, calcium reactor wins, imo. I thought the thread was going to deal with failure analysys. Worst case sceanario. Patrick You are running a special case tank which is heavily dominated by CO2 sinks. Most people don't have the capacity to safely absorb the quantity of gas that could potentially leak out of a system that doesn't have timer/pH control. However, your point about labor cost is totally valid. When you amortize your "time spent" mixing solution, over the life of your tank, it might very well be worth the extra couple hundred bucks in startup cost if safety isn't a driving factor.

So to compare cost: CO2 year one costs = $646.33 Every subsequent year costs = $75.98 Dosing year one costs = $331.94 Every subsequent year costs = $79.99 So in terms of cost, annual operating costs outside of the initial startup cost are comparable. However, bang for your buck in terms of how much alk/ca/mag you can pound into your water is in favor of the calcium reactor. However x2 - (and this is the biggest for me) your chances of failure are greater in calcium reactors by design. I have personally had a CO2 reg screw up in a planted tank and dump lethal amounts of gas. If i had done to my reef tank, what I did to my planted tank, it would be catastrophic. The amount of CO2 contained within the tank is plenty to do serious harm in most hobbyists tanks. Dosing is limited (and therefore safer) by two things. 1) Dosing rate of the pumps, i have *never* heard of a pump failing in such a way that it pumps faster than intended. You might have a timer failure and pump longer than intended, but never faster. 2) Limit to the container size. This has the obvious downside of meaning a higher labor interval, but perhaps the risk is worth it.

Here's the dosing price layout: http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/bulk-media-additives/2-part-dosing-equipment/bubble-magus-liquid-storage-container.html (2 x $35.99 = $71.98) http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-2-part-doser-1-1-ml-per-minute.html (2 x $79.99 = $159.98) http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/monitors-controllers/timers/eco-plus-dual-digital-timer.html ($19.99) Consumables (this is exceptionally hard to predict on a fictitious system) http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/bulk-media-additives/calcium-and-alkalinity-additives/brs-2-part-calcium-alkalinity-total-package-bulk.html ($79.99) Total Cost of operation for year 1 = $331.94 Also, I found this:

Oh I agree, I'm just trying to get apples to apples here for the apexless. I'll do the annual operating cost for dosing later this evening.

This is just a simple price comparison for 100 gallon tank http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/geo-calcium-reactor-418.html - $299.99 for the reactor http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/reactors/milwaukee-ma957-co2-regulator.html $94.99 for the regulator http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/reactors/co2-tank-5-lbs.html $79.99 for the tank http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=milwaukee+ph+controller&hl=en&rlz=1C1GGGE_enUS379US379&prmd=imvns&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&ion=1&biw=1680&bih=963&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=9249091789668889912&sa=X&ei=PdU_UNbbE-ec2QXEgoHADg&ved=0CFcQxBUwAA#scoring=tp pH controller $95.38 Consumables Cost (annual) http://www.marinedepot.com/CaribSea_A.R.M._Aragonite_Reactor_Media_Calcium_Reactor_Media-CaribSea-CS0525-FICRCM-vi.html $22.99 * 2 uses/yr = 45.98 CO2 - $30 Total for CO2 = $646.33 for the first year of operation. This cost does not include incidentals like tubing/plumbing for setup OR shipping/taxes for goods. Total cost would probably be somewhere around $700.

this is what i was going to suggest. Setting up a float valve on the waste outlet could potentially have some undesirable effects...

I've been meaning to get a nice sampling on the club perspective of automated dosing setups versus calcium reactors. My personal feeling (and this is bias because i don't currently have either installed, although I have done CO2 in the past for planted tanks), is that dosing premixed solutions is the safer (and therefore best management practice) for getting necessary elements to our SPS. I would love to be convinced otherwise, because I think CO2 reactors are so much cooler than boring old dosing pumps. Go! Picture unrelated.

Yeah, i was thinking that to myself. They should have called it "All about corals" because the fish selection was meh, but the coral selection was outstanding. I pondered picking up some stuff, but his prices were fairly high (for good reason), and didn't want to risk a 3 hour trip back from the SE side of town to austin.

Beautiful piece. I've got a sarcophyton just like the one on the far side. It's one of my favorites.

My car has been broken into 3 times in Austin so... Let's keep this to the topic of a neat fish store I went to in Houston ... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=all+about+fish+houston&fb=1&gl=us&hq=all+about+fish&hnear=0x8640b8b4488d8501:0xca0d02def365053b,Houston,+TX&cid=0,0,11086687363665535060&ei=6fI-UNrcHciWyAGb9oHIBQ&ved=0CKkBEPwSMAA

I finished up my field work in houston today and decided to drop by a nearby LFS on the recommendation of a friend (Ben Johnson of Captive Aquatic Ecosystems http://www.caecosystems.com/). I was very impressed. They are a saltwater/reef ONLY store (wow!) and have 3 very large frag tanks packed with great looking livestock. I didn't get to speak with the owner, but it looked like they were doing quite a bit of growing on the premises, as evidenced by encrusting SPS on frag racks that had grown onto the rack itself. I just wanted to let folks know that if they're on the south side of Houston, that they should definitely drop by to see a top notch establishment.

can you post a picture of the current setup?

Yeah, i think it's a flow problem. We'll see though. Etannert was the first to respond, so it's hers at this point.

Looking to give someone else a shot at a bubble coral that has not been thriving in my tank. It has slowly receded over time and I'm ready to pass it on to see if someone else can get it to perk up. I'd prefer to send it to an experienced reefer with a well established tank.