Getting back into the hobby want to get current on methodology

[ricman65]

I will admit being thrilled to see biota has captive bred mandarins. That was the centerpiece of my office tank, I got lucky and mine readily switched to frozen or prepared foods. I think I was initially successful with Fenners natural aquarium philosophy replicating an ecosystem more so than an eye popping extravaganza that consumes you to maintain. Once I’m current I plan to reach out to Ryan, I’ve been seeing some of his ultra low maintenance stuff. My office tank ran for 4 years with very little water changes, I did test and replace trace as needed but in that little 29 gallon with mostly coral and 4 small fish, balance wasn’t much of an issue. At first is when I did most of that, but I also had true live rock available. Utilizing that and a kids wading pool to allow the die off and then cleaning the rock up. I had quite the ecosystem going and once it ran for a year it was fine until the power compact socket shorted and melted the housing into the tank - boom 90% gone in an hr.

 

[jsmkmavity]

 

[Mebbid]

Yeah I feel like what I knew belongs in the Smithsonian, my t5 hood was state of the art cutting edge- turns out it was basically a tanning bed setup with a polished reflector. I’m plotting a hybrid zoa / lps maybe an encrusting sps or 2.

The neat thing is, those T5s had a few definite advantages over the current LED fixtures. LEDs create a lot of shadowing that's hard to fix.

 

[Skippy The Meh]

Welcome back to the hobby! Thoughts and prayers, cancer is a nasty SOB, rooting for you and your reef!
What kind of equipment have you been looking at to get it rolling?

 

[ricman65]

Welcome back to the hobby! Thoughts and prayers, cancer is a nasty SOB, rooting for you and your reef!
What kind of equipment have you been looking at to get it rolling?

So far I’m thinking dual returns using vectra returns with appropriate sized gyre power heads. Gotta watch the flow tho as I’m going lps / zoa. The sheer volume of led fixtures is a daunting task to sort thru. Prior to retiring and cancer I was an electronic engineer in Silicon Valley, we actually sold the equipment to manufacture chips and leds. It boggles my mind at the pricing for the finished products as the original oem diodes just aren’t that expensive, alas we can’t buy direct from them to make your own. You probably can but I’d be leery of it most of those will be ones that didn’t make spec to sell to their clientele.
Mostly I’m looking at people’s horror stories to make the hardware decisions.
I’m looking for ease of maintenance as you never know how you feel on a given day. I do plan on automating the parts that make sense to, definite ato and initially I’ll do manual water changes once we r mature and stable I’ll revisit auto 10% water changes. I’m on the fence for calcium supplementing. My calc load isn’t going to be that hi but I am going to need some. My previous euphyllia were growing like weeds and consumed a moderate amount. Since the initial surgery I have greatly recovered overall energy and stamina. It’s rather insidious as I knew this was affecting me but not to what degree until they removed. Now it’s the chemo n radiation which brings its own fun filled adventure. I start that in 2 weeks.

 

[Skippy The Meh]

Welcome back to the hobby! Thoughts and prayers, cancer is a nasty SOB, rooting for you and your reef!
What kind of equipment have you been looking at to get it rolling?

So far I’m thinking dual returns using vectra returns with appropriate sized gyre power heads. Gotta watch the flow tho as I’m going lps / zoa. The sheer volume of led fixtures is a daunting task to sort thru. Prior to retiring and cancer I was an electronic engineer in Silicon Valley, we actually sold the equipment to manufacture chips and leds. It boggles my mind at the pricing for the finished products as the original oem diodes just aren’t that expensive, alas we can’t buy direct from them to make your own. You probably can but I’d be leery of it most of those will be ones that didn’t make spec to sell to their clientele.
Mostly I’m looking at people’s horror stories to make the hardware decisions.
I’m looking for ease of maintenance as you never know how you feel on a given day. I do plan on automating the parts that make sense to, definite ato and initially I’ll do manual water changes once we r mature and stable I’ll revisit auto 10% water changes. I’m on the fence for calcium supplementing. My calc load isn’t going to be that hi but I am going to need some. My previous euphyllia were growing like weeds and consumed a moderate amount. Since the initial surgery I have greatly recovered overall energy and stamina. It’s rather insidious as I knew this was affecting me but not to what degree until they removed. Now it’s the chemo n radiation which brings its own fun filled adventure. I start that in 2 weeks.

I hear you, im a mechanical engineer by trade and as my pumps and lights have failed over the years ive torn them down to do failure analysis and see if i can repair them. Its really astounding that the basic design of a pump or powerhead hasnt changed in years, only the software, and prices only increase of course. I have recently seen some people have mild success with open source controller programs ran on raspberry pi’s. Maybe something to look into with your level of expertise in the area. Keep us posted on your progress, following along!

 

[tbrown]

Welcome to Reef2Reef! Glad you're here! Sounds like you're going through some stuff right now. When you're up to it and planning stuff out, this is a great place for collaboration and getting questions answered.

 

[CoralB]

Welcome !!