Gilroy 425g Build Thread (All Apex, all the time)

[Terence]

Do you ever run GAC?


Not trying to copy you, but I run those same grow lights with chateo, sulfur and ozone.

Been wondering if I can dump the GAC or switch to intermittent.

How much food are you putting in?

I do not run GAC regularly. I will fill a double-reactor about once every 3-4 months and run it for a month. Might have to do it more with now doing less water changes.

I feed about two big pinches of pellet food (Crossover Diet, Spectrum, TLF mixed Nori Flakes). On top of that I also feed about a square inch of LRS a day and then a couple times a week I put coral foods (ROE, Oysterfeast, etc.) from Reef Nutrition and a slurry of ReefRoids in a squeeze bottle in the tank an hour after lights out.

 

[JBKReef]

Wow. Two slow days at work and I made it through the 76 page journey.

Terence your commitment to the thread and the community is awesome! Have to say, since I was not reading it live you definitely succeeded with your April Fools day joke.

Couple lessons learned here that will potentially save me headaches later: 1) Buying a thermostat for my titanium heater and not relying on the Apex for primary heater control (Redundancy) 2) Heading to Home Depot tonight from work to pick up a compartmented storage briefcase. (Seriously solving a major annoyance for me here.) 3) Figuring out how to excavate my basement to make a fish cave. (Would love a remote sump).

Couple questions from things you mentioned in the past:

Did you ever venture down the phytoplankton road or was the seeding of your refugium all you ever needed?

Since you did not add any anemone; were the clowns ever hosted by some of your euphyllia?

Cant wait for future updates.

 

[Terence]

Wow. Two slow days at work and I made it through the 76 page journey.

Terence your commitment to the thread and the community is awesome! Have to say, since I was not reading it live you definitely succeeded with your April Fools day joke.

Couple lessons learned here that will potentially save me headaches later: 1) Buying a thermostat for my titanium heater and not relying on the Apex for primary heater control (Redundancy) 2) Heading to Home Depot tonight from work to pick up a compartmented storage briefcase. (Seriously solving a major annoyance for me here.) 3) Figuring out how to excavate my basement to make a fish cave. (Would love a remote sump).

Couple questions from things you mentioned in the past:

Did you ever venture down the phytoplankton road or was the seeding of your refugium all you ever needed?

Since you did not add any anemone; were the clowns ever hosted by some of your euphyllia?

Cant wait for future updates.

I am so happy when I get responses like this. It makes me feel that spreading the info is worth all the trouble.

Absolutely DO NOT run any heating element straight off of the Apex. EVERYONE out there that is doing this now - do not wait - make this change NOW. The whole idea about temperature control with the Apex is not to replace other temperature controllers, but add to them with redundancy. Take that away and you still have a huge potential for disaster just waiting to happen.

I have dosed phyto from Reef Nutrition for some time - I wanted to do it ongoing in my fridge with a DOS, but I have just not been able to get that project going yet. Everyone says phyto is great, but its one of those things that is hard to measure success on. I would love to set up my own reactor as well - but time time time just isnt there.

I am still contemplating adding a bubble tip. I have a spot - but I am wary. My clowns do not host in anything but definitely are a pair. They have not spawned yet that I know of - probably because I keep my temp pretty low.

Thanks again for reading and good luck with your tank!

 

[Terence]

One more tidbit of info regarding using the Trident 4-part Core method. I found this out on my own and maybe this will help others. The tubes from the dosing pumps that dose the Core7 liquids must enter the sump in a VERY high flow area. I had mine in an area with decent flow passing by it, but evidently not enough. It created stalactites crusted solution and clogged the ends of the tubes with it. So, I moved the MPR that I have holding the tubes to an area just past where my drain comes into the sump. If this is not turbulent enough, I do not know what would be. We will see how it looks later today. I am speculating that this also has more to do with how much comes out at a time. Since the DOS distributes a daily dose across the entire day, each dose is often about .2ml which is just a few drops really. I think this may also be an issue. Stay tuned.

 

[Vivid Creative Aquatics Verified Sponsor]

I picked up a pair of these at RAP last weekend. 1" Slip fittings. Going to remove the 1"->3/4" loc-line on my sea swirl and put a 1" thread->1" 45 slip a short piece of pipe, and then this device. The demo really looked cool and it will be nice not to have the loc line there.

Terence, We can't wait to see how these do on your SeaSwirls. We had quite a few questions about paring the RFG nozzles to the SeaSwirl at RAP this year. And, since we had not tried it ourselves yet, we are genuinely interested in the results. Please keep us posted.

 

[andrew james]

I there some reason you're keeping the ends out of the water? I was alway under the impressiom that main taining a asyphon was bad.

 

[Terence]

I there some reason you're keeping the ends out of the water? I was alway under the impressiom that main taining a asyphon was bad.

I don't exactly understand what you are asking. If you are talking about the dosing tubes being submerged, it is not possible for them to create a siphon as the two dosers are higher than the tank.

 

[jml1149]

Hmm, given enough flow past the end of the tube, you might create enough differential pressure to draw on the line. That looks like an awful lot of stalactites for 2cc doses.

Have you considered locating the tubes just above the water line?

 

[eschulist]

Having the ends of the dosing lines submerged isnt going to cause a siphon but it will cause capillary action. The dosing fluid is going to try and equalize with the water its tube is resting in. Therefor very slowly pulling out the liquid without the DOS even running.

 

[Terence]

There will likely be some equalization of the sea water back into the line possibly. Siphon won’t happen though as it is a peristaltic pump and unless there is a problem there it can’t happen.

I am dosing 30ml a day now total in four two hour periods spread throughout the day.

I got stalactites even when the tubes were out of the water.

I am thinking that unless you are running say 5ml at each dose event there might be an issue with salts this concentrated.

 

[andrew james]

There will likely be some equalization of the sea water back into the line possibly. Siphon won’t happen though as it is a peristaltic pump and unless there is a problem there it can’t happen.

I am dosing 30ml a day now total in four two hour periods spread throughout the day.

I got stalactites even when the tubes were out of the water.

I am thinking that unless you are running say 5ml at each dose event there might be an issue with salts this concentrated.

I understand that is's impossible orr whatever but it would also completely solve your problem by just raising the lines a couple inches out of the water.

 

[Terence]

I understand that is's impossible orr whatever but it would also completely solve your problem by just raising the lines a couple inches out of the water.

Yes. But when I had them out of the water before, the solution crystallized (precipitated) off the end of the tube and created stalactites. The Core7 additives are highly concentrated compared to say B-ionic. I think this may lead to an issue if you are pushing less than 1ml per dose.

 

[andrew james]

Ok here is my last idea. Tap your manifold somewhere with higher pressure. And add them there in the correct Oder. remember they dont need to be added at hr same time,.

 

[Terence]

Ok here is my last idea. Tap your manifold somewhere with higher pressure. And add them there in the correct Oder. remember they dont need to be added at hr same time,.

Don't have a manifold any more.

They are currently dosing about 5 minutes apart.

I just checked the tubes under the water. No stalagtites, but there was about 3/8" precipitation in the lines. I am assuming the fluid is going in and not clogged as the amounts in the DDR are still at the same level.

 

[Newb73]

For reference.

This started as a fist size ball 4 weeks ago.

225g tank with tiny 40g sump and a Kessil H350, Kessil H80, and a 65k side firing JBL grow light ducted taped to side grew this in a tiny refugium space of a Trigger 39 sump with a tiny 10x15 grow area!!

I mix it and turn it once per day or so.

Myth busted.

It is not the size of the sump foir cheato, it's the power of the lights.

This along with a nitrate reactor and continuous water changes allows me to feed and dose nearly as much as I want, when ever I want. Phosphate undetectable on Hanna and nitrates undetectable on a ELOS.

 

[Newb73]

Terrence.

Can we back up?

I run an 800w titanium heater straight off a relay outlet on an EB8.

I run two temperature probes, one in the display and one in the sump so that I can see if one is reading bad (display always runs about 1 degree warmer than sump so it's easy to see if something is off)

Both temp probes are set to email me warnings if something is off and both are set to kill the heaters...in other words if one probe reads low and has the heater on, the second probe should ultimately kill the heater at 81 degrees.

Why would I need another controller? I am not big on heaters with internal controllers nor do I have any reason to suspect the probe on an external controller such as a finnex would be more accurate or reliable than my apex probes...in fact, I find that box on my 90 to be kinda sketchy.

Is the concern that someone would fat finger the Fusion dashboard buttons to the heater "On" position?

 

[Newb73]

Don't have a manifold any more.

They are currently dosing about 5 minutes apart.

I just checked the tubes under the water. No stalagtites, but there was about 3/8" precipitation in the lines. I am assuming the fluid is going in and not clogged as the amounts in the DDR are still at the same level.

Odd, no precipitation on the lines in 2 plus years using BRS pumps and BRS 2 part.

Could it be the tubing itself or is Tritons stuff super concentrated?

 

[Terence]

Terrence.

Can we back up?

I run an 800w titanium heater straight off a relay outlet on an EB8.

I run two temperature probes, one in the display and one in the sump so that I can see if one is reading bad (display always runs about 1 degree warmer than sump so it's easy to see if something is off)

Both temp probes are set to email me warnings if something is off and both are set to kill the heaters...in other words if one probe reads low and has the heater on, the second probe should ultimately kill the heater at 81 degrees.

Why would I need another controller? I am not big on heaters with internal controllers nor do I have any reason to suspect the probe on an external controller such as a finnex would be more accurate or reliable than my apex probes...in fact, I find that box on my 90 to be kinda sketchy.

Is the concern that someone would fat finger the Fusion dashboard buttons to the heater "On" position?

The reasons are many. First off, the one you mention. Fat fingering an outlet - or possibly someone like your kid doing so.

Or, let’s. Say you are cleaning up the wiring, putting things back together, and inadvertently swap two cables. The one for your UV or some other always-on outlet and the one for the heater element.

Next is the possibility that something with the Apex itself went wrong. Maybe it got a corrupted signal or some other failure.

In all these instances you MAY get your alert, but what if you don’t? This has happened to more than one user.

Of course you can do what you want to do, but I am a firm believer that I can have the apex control my heater and set its thermostat one degree warmer than my desired temp.

There is no coming back from 91-degree water.

 

[Terence]

Odd, no precipitation on the lines in 2 plus years using BRS pumps and BRS 2 part.

Could it be the tubing itself or is Tritons stuff super concentrated?

Triton Core7 3a and 3b are a super concentrated 2-part. Much more than the standard BRS one you mix up.

 

[Newb73]

The reasons are many. First off, the one you mention. Fat fingering an outlet - or possibly someone like your kid doing so.

Or, let’s. Say you are cleaning up the wiring, putting things back together, and inadvertently swap two cables. The one for your UV or some other always-on outlet and the one for the heater element.

Next is the possibility that something with the Apex itself went wrong. Maybe it got a corrupted signal or some other failure.

In all these instances you MAY get your alert, but what if you don’t? This has happened to more than one user.

Of course you can do what you want to do, but I am a firm believer that I can have the apex control my heater and set its thermostat one degree warmer than my desired temp.

There is no coming back from 91-degree water.

Well those are all good points. I never found an 800w titanium heater with an internal thermostat.

The controllers with flimsy temp probes using suction cups are prone to actually popping off and ending up on the floor turning heater wide Open so I have avoided them. I suppose you could get a JBL true temp controller and literally tie the cord for the temp probe in a knot around the skimmer????

I had never heard of a relay outlet or apex programming spontaneously failing without user error.....news to me. Didn't even know that was possible.

Even when lightning fried my base unit the EB8s ram their Fallback program perfectly.