Geeks never finishing reef build 40 gal Breeder

geekengineer · Oct 18, 2023

Forgot to mention I have to work on the PWM code though, but at least it's not stuck dim. I would like to use reef-pi but not sure if it will work with my hardware setup the way it is. I need it to be able to talk to another raspi that I have in the basement for the ATO and water change stuff.

oreo54 · Oct 18, 2023

geekengineer said:
Forgot to mention I have to work on the PWM code though, but at least it's not stuck dim. I would like to use reef-pi but not sure if it will work with my hardware setup the way it is. I need it to be able to talk to another raspi that I have in the basement for the ATO and water change stuff.

Way beyond me ..

geekengineer · Oct 24, 2023

Well just been mainly waiting for my tank to cycle and trying to get motivated to do more automation stuff. At least I have some of the basic stuff working, but I'm not running lights yet. I went to this LFS that seems like they sell lots of fish and corals called Aqua Culture. They do auction every Monday. Seems like you can get some really good deals. I ended up buying this new bacteria brew all in one thing the guy is trying to market. I also bought a couple of his bio balls. I now have a ton of ammonia which I hope the bacteria will start working on it soon.

geekengineer · Nov 6, 2023

Well not much to report and I haven't been getting things done too well either. My nitrites are super high right now during my cycling. So, I'm hoping maybe the Nitrobacter or whatever, hasn't taken hold yet.

geekengineer · Nov 20, 2023

Ok finally cycled and I got a few simple corals from the LFS the guy said would be pretty hardy for starting out. Nothing too fancy yet. The yellow one does glow in in the antic light which looks neat. I just got my light setup on my controller script but no PWMing yet. I am setting the antic to max low at night.

mizimmer90 · Nov 20, 2023

Just finished reading through your build thread and am so happy to see you finally able to get this up and running!!

geekengineer · Nov 20, 2023

well, it's a start at least. lol I think I started this thread in 2019 hard to believe it's been that long.

I'm going to give that coralline algae in a bottle a try and see if I can start getting some purple going. lol

mizimmer90 · Nov 20, 2023

geekengineer said:
well, it's a start at least. lol I think I started this thread in 2019 hard to believe it's been that long.

I'm going to give that coralline algae in a bottle a try and see if I can start getting some purple going. lol

Better late than never lol I'm rooting for you!

geekengineer · Nov 22, 2023

I think I burned the yellow coral. Its much blacker and a lot of the buds are closed. Not sure if it was adding too much Alk or too much light.

geekengineer · Nov 24, 2023

Well I feel dumb. My tank Ca and Mg have been low and I couldn't figure out why. I been trying to get it back up to where they should be as well as trying to figure out how to get my alk more stable. I just realized last night my apparently EC probe doesn't read to what the calculations seem like they should be so my salinity was way low. like 1.020 instead of 1.025. I had decided that my old refractometer was off but I was wrong. I figured out how I could make some calibration fluid by measuring some distilled water and exact amount of salt by weight and determined it was reading correctly. I'm going to run my saltwater reservoir that I corrected as my ATO for a while to get it back up.

geekengineer · Dec 1, 2023

Well the yellow coral seems to be doing better. Here is some pics I have a huge algae bloom tunes the lights down and that has helped. I got a small zoa also.

geekengineer · Dec 9, 2023

Well I forgot to check in lately for an update. I finally got it so the Mastertronic's water tester input feed is in a small circulation pump loop with the tank so it's always feeing in tank water. Unfortunately its calibrated to a 2M input tube regardless and my tank is like a 20 feet feed away from the basement.

geekengineer · Jan 2, 2024

Going to post more pictures, but tanks been going ok so far. I made a DIY refugium mainly cause the one that might fit was way too expensive and the one that was reasonably priced was way too long. I had a lot of trouble getting it to not leak as for some reason the epoxy coating on the inside wasn't enough. Pretty much leaked all the places I didn't think it would lol. I made a thin LED panel to light it. I have collected some small starter corals and now I have two turbo snails (Margarita and Mexican) helping out with the algae too.

geekengineer · Feb 1, 2024

Well I have my QT going with a few blue Chromis in there and at about 1ppm of copper. Waiting for my Hanna tester I bought to come in after realizing I need to be pretty accurate on this when I go to 2ppm. I was hoping for some better pictures of the tank but still too blue. I was playing with the white balance and trying some filters till trying to figure things out. Been running the tank with all blue to try to reduce some of the algae and one of the corals was staring to bleach so the LFS guy said it was a good idea to do it for a while.

geekengineer · Feb 27, 2024

Thought I show an updated picture of the tank. I guess not much to see but I have two blue-green chromis fish in there now. I Don't know if I can say its done yet.

Need to get motivated to code more python automation but its enough that it's not too bad for me day to day. I'd like to get it to support a mtqq server so I can do things with it more on my phone. I also have the Mastertronic which helps a lot. (when it works. lol)My parameters were a bit chaotic at first but its gotten better now that I have the dosing more figured out. My local LFS guy had me turn my lights down cause was growing algae like crazy.