Ken's Reef Tank

Bato367 · Jan 17, 2021

I'm no expert so I won't judge. But, my only advice is not only 'patience' as you mentioned, but have fun. Because if it isn't fun, then what's the point?

Nice start! Looks like you're well on your way! And awesome to hear your daughter is all healed up!

Ken Good · Jan 18, 2021

I did a major water change before I added fish to try to mute the calcium incident. Today, I changed out the di-anion resin. It had been exhausted, according to the color change, since I set it up in September/October. The TDS meter showed that after the di-anion chamber readings were starting to hit 1. That was pretty fast. Either I have a lot of what the anion resin takes out or I had a lot of creep damage from not enough use over the last few months as I was setting up my tank. We will see now that I am using it on a regular basis.

It was kind of fun to watch the color change work its way up the chamber. I waited until it went all the way up. Ha!

Ken Good · Jan 18, 2021

I plan to keep my lights on their lowest setting and not turn them on most of the time for the first 4 months. I will add fish slowly over the next few months and then turn the lights on and try to get past the ugly phase. Then at around month 8 I plan to add my first corals.

Ken Good · Jan 18, 2021

I am looking to get around 8 fish total. I would like to have a hawk fish and a goby next. My last tank had a hawk fish. It was one of my favorites.

Then a month or so later I would like some small tangs. I know that I need to get them at the same time or they will surety fight. They may fight anyway, but this may slow it down. We will see.

Ken Good · Jan 18, 2021

I will mention a story on myself. Saturday I did a 1/3 water change. During the change I discovered that one of my returns was not putting out any water. I thought that it was clogged. So the next day I did a 50% water change, pulled the tank away from the wall so that I could get behind it. I addressed a few issues and tried to find out what was wrong.

When I added water back to the tank I discovered that the return was still not working. So I decided to turn the other return off to see if that "forced" water to the other return. It did not. Then I turned off everything else on the manifold. When I turned of the chiller, suddently water started powering out of the return. It appears that there was nothing wrong, just that water was diverting through the manifold back to the the sump. I turned down the flow rate to the chiller and that "fixed" the issue. Another way of saying it is that there was no issue to begin with.

If you cannot laugh, then you stay angry. Ha!

Ken Good · Feb 3, 2021

Added a couple of more fish. Added a few chromis and a 3 stripe fish. I thought I would regret it, but I really enjoy how they swim around out in the open. Very pleased.

Ken Good · Feb 3, 2021

I thought my test kit for nitrites was broken. The tests for nitrates were off the charts ever after ammonia went back down. I read some articles saying that nitrites are not lethal to saltwater fish. So I just quit looking at it all the time. I have continued to test, but only infrequently. I did read that if your ammonia gets too high, it can delay nitrites.

Today is the first time I have tested nitrites and they are finally showing signs of going down.

At least I know my test kit is not broken. Ha!

Ken Good · Feb 3, 2021

Water has been in the tank for about six weeks (since December 18, 2020). I am trying to evaluate what I think of Dr. Tims. I cannot decide. I am happy with where the tank is right now. But the cycle did not go anywhere like it was expected to using Dr. Tims. I am not certain I would use it again or that I would use it in the same manner.

Ken Good · Feb 5, 2021

I checked nitrites today and they are finally down to nothing. So I think my tank is officially cycled. I have had fish in the tank for about three weeks weeks since ammonia went down. It took this additional time for the nitrites to go down. Since I now have 8 fish, I think that I can confirm the reports that in saltwater, nitrites are not harmful to fish (unlike fresh water tanks).

Ken Good · Feb 5, 2021

First round of chaeto died, but I think it was another error on my part. Purchased second round and put it into the refugium in the last two days. Made other adjustments too.

Ken Good · Feb 5, 2021

I was out of town yesterday and it was nice being able to pull out my phone and go to my video camera at the right time and see the fish eat.

Ken Good · Feb 5, 2021

I am very pleased with the progress of my tank. One of my favorite things about the set up is the automatic water changes. Every night at midnight as we are all asleep the computer changes a couple of gallons of saltwater for new salt water.

Ken Good · Feb 14, 2021

Last Monday, I had an issue with my tank. The return seemed to be clogged. Of course, it could not happen on Saturday or Sunday, it had to happen right at the start of the week when I had no time. So I rigged a work around that bypassed the return and went with that for the week. I turned off a lot of stuff like the UV sterilizer and just tried to limp to the weekend.

On Saturday, I drained enough water to pull the tank away from the wall and I started trying to locate the issue. I was thinking that pieces of chaeto clogged the UV Sterilizer. So I started there. When I took apart the connectors for the UV Sterilizer there was a definite odor to the water.

Sure enough the line exiting the UV sterilizer was clogged, but not with chaeto. It was clogged with two small plastic bag remnants. I think they were from when it was shipped to me. I removed the plastic and searched for anything else, but could not find anything else. I put everything back together, but did not put the aquarium back against the wall. I refilled and tested.

Other small pieces of plastic kept being blown out of the returns. My left return has less pressure than my right and I did not know why. I thought I had designed the return system wrong. So I decided to shut down all the other nozzles and the manifold, except that one return. When I did this, one last small plastic bag was pushed out of the left return. OMG!

Twelve hours later and everything seems to be working great. Now I just have to drain enough water to push the tank back against the wall. Then put the water back in.

Ken Good · Feb 14, 2021

Lost two fish this week. One was a bi-color angel. I never saw it eat. It just kept hiding. So I think it starved to death. RIP Cleopatra. The other was my smallest chromis. I think it got killed by a powerhead. RIP Tesla.

Ken Good · Feb 19, 2021

I have been trying and trying to tune my protein skimmer. But it just has not been cooperating. So today, I took it completely apart and cleaned it and presto it now is working great.

Ken Good · Feb 21, 2021

The aquarium is looking good.

OrangeGoblin · Feb 21, 2021

Looks great! Any chance we can get a Christmas light pic or two?

Ken Good · Mar 13, 2021

It is time for another story in the unending saga of my life. I have been working on my chiller settings today since it is getting warm in Texas. I have been trying to understand "hysteresis" and "cooling difference." The manual is less than clear on the issue and after some research I would say that it is not completely correct.

I was searching and searching for this information on-line. The specific issue that I was having is calculating the cut-off point. I wanted to know the point that the chiller turned on and the point where the chiller would turn off.

The manual has a formula for calculating the turn on point, but does not explain the point that the switch turns off.

The formula for when the chiller turns on is X = Nominal Temperature + 5/6 times hysteresis + cooling difference.

So if the nominal temperature that I want is 78, hysteresis of .6 and a cooling difference of 0, then the chiller will come on at 78.5. The equation is X = 78 + 5/6 * .6 + 0. X equals 78.5. What is the shut off point?

There is nothing in the manual that tells you what the shut off point will be. The manual makes it appear that the shut off point would be 78. But this is not correct. I believe it can be calculated using the following formula X= Nominal Temperature + 1/2 times hysteresis + cooling difference. So if the numbers are the same as the example above then the equation would be x = 78 + 1/2 * .6 + 0. Therefore, X would equal 78.3.

So what is the funny story about this? Well in searching the internet I found a forum post that sets out this exact same problem from 10 years ago and it explained a possible solution. The post was made by ME. You can see it HERE.

Now taking the information that I posted from 10 years ago and the other knowledge I learned in my new set up. Here is my solution for heating and cooling to a temperature of 78 (and reviews are welcome).

1. I used the existing temperature sensor and set the nominal value at 78.1 and set it to Pulse Variable mode with a 10 minute pulse and a 1 minute pause. This works really well at keeping the temperature between 77.9 and 78.

2. I set up a virtual temperature probe that I set up to regulate the chiller. The reason I did this was because there were comments that you should not use the pulse variable mode to regulate a chiller. On this probe I sent the nominal value at 77.5. I set the cooling difference at 0 and hysteresis at 1.49. Using these numbers the chiller should come on at 78.75 and turn off at 78.25.

Finally, I would just mention that to a non-math person the manual on this issue might as well be written in Chinese. Let me give you just one example and that is what does the "cooling difference" even do.

Does it just add to the temperature before the chiller turns on and then cools the aquarium to the original temperature set point? The instructions make it sound like this is what it is intended to do because it says that it allows more time between cycling the chiller.

But it appears that this is not what it means. What is really means is the it adjusts the on and off points for the chiller by the amount of the "cooling difference."

Now if you are a math person this may seem very clear to you in reviewing the "formula." But to us non-math people it might as well be Greek. Ha!

So thanks in part to memory lane regarding a post I made on this same issue 10 years ago, I solved my chiller settings issue today.

Ken Good · Mar 14, 2021

In testing this programing for a day, I am starting to think that the manual may need to be updated. The manual says that the formula includes 5/6 * hysterisis. But in testing it appears that it is using the full hysterisis and not 5/6ths of it. Interesting.