Waterbox 7226, resistance to upgrading was futile

SkiCatTX · Oct 25, 2020

dragon99 said:
Minor catastrophe this week. My return pump (vectra M1) got clogged with chaeto so I had to pull it and clean it out. Probably due for that anyway since it's been running for ~11months. I ended up having to slow down the pump by 2 steps because it was pushing way more water after the cleaning.

Everything went smootly until the next morning I noticed a ticking/clicking sound. Figured it had sucked something in again. Pulled the pump apart and sure enough a hermit crab had found its way into the pump. And then the problems started... The stand lights cut off. Huh, weird. Then the skimmer turns on. I grab and flashlight and start pulling power cords out of the strip when I hear a sizzle and see water dripping!!! Apparently messing with the return pump caused the return line union to loosen up just a bit and it started leaking right into the power strip. Seconds later the GFCI trips and everything on the tank goes out.

Fortunately the damage was limited to the power strip. After several minutes of cursing and drying things off everything was back up and running.

In the good news column, I got Triton results back and this might be my best results ever. Everything is in the green except lithium, which is caused by my use of Instant Ocean/Reef crystals (sidebar, not a fan of RC, but Amazon has been out of IO for awhile)

Triton Applied Reef Bioscience are the world leaders in professional sea water analysis.

Empowering aquarists around the world since 2008. Click to view shared sea water analysis.

www.triton-lab.de

Did you have any trouble getting the M1 back together?

My M2 is a pain to align just right. I find that if I don't get it exactly, the impeller won't turn at all. It took me 3 tries the first time before I figured out what was wrong. The cover has a fraction of a mm of wiggle room, and needs to be right in the middle of that slack, then tighten all 4 screws a bit at a time, testing the spin at each stop.

Maybe it is just mine, or just the M2s...

dragon99 · Oct 25, 2020

SkiCatTX said:
Did you have any trouble getting the M1 back together?

My M2 is a pain to align just right. I find that if I don't get it exactly, the impeller won't turn at all. It took me 3 tries the first time before I figured out what was wrong. The cover has a fraction of a mm of wiggle room, and needs to be right in the middle of that slack, then tighten all 4 screws a bit at a time, testing the spin at each stop.

Maybe it is just mine, or just the M2s...

Nope, no alignment issue at all. Just a little tricky to hold the nut on the backside and get the bolt started. Maybe they tightened the tolerances on the 2 series.

Billldg · Oct 25, 2020

Tank is looking great. The corals are looking great as well. Especially the Battlecorals frags.

The issues you have had with the brute cans is the same reason I decided to build a mixing station. Knowing my luck, I would be dumping trash cans full of water every time, LOL!!!

dragon99 · Oct 25, 2020

Billldg said:
Tank is looking great. The corals are looking great as well. Especially the Battlecorals frags.

The issues you have had with the brute cans is the same reason I decided to build a mixing station. Knowing my luck, I would be dumping trash cans full of water every time, LOL!!!

BC is the only vendor I have purchased frags from so far. Otherwise just frags I moved from the old tank and few from Ty and a local reefer.

I really do need to finish my mixing station. Manual water changes are so time consuming. Still need to clear some space out in the garage to fit both brutes.

dragon99 · Oct 25, 2020

Let's try a video

dragon99 · Nov 13, 2020

So a good portion of my acros look like they are on death's door (and some strangely look just fine). I had ordered a battlebox at halloween because I thought things were back in order. I was wrong. So in addition to having existing frags and colonies dying I'm losing half of the new frags I just got in the tank. :mad:

Did two 12% water changes in the last 24hrs. Added 1/2 cup carbon. checked pumps.

Alk is stable ~8.2 (KHD), salinity 35ppt, po4 is still low 4ppb (.01 ppm)
I'll start testing the rest tomorrow.

MERKEY · Nov 13, 2020

Sorry to hear this, maybe a rusty screw somewhere.....

dragon99 · Dec 30, 2020

MERKEY said:
Sorry to hear this, maybe a rusty screw somewhere.....

You were right. Took awhile, but I finally found the rusty screw on the needle valve coming from the CArx. I ignored it at first because it was above the water line. However, I later realized that when the return was shutoff it would end up in the water.

So it's been a pretty rough end of year. Instead of the tank hitting the 1yr mark with great progress it took a hit. Lost 8 frags from the battlebox and 2 colonies (DaM mille and red dragon). I still have 3 colonies that look really rough, but I think will turn around.

On the plus side, I added a couple torches with my wife's permission (sorta, she thought I was buying one ;Happy). She's a fan of "wavy" corals and not the sticks

Aussie gold torch (I paid wayyy to much for this, but they are beautiful)

Indo dragon soul

and a couple acro's that still look good. BC Rainbow Brite and Oregon tort. Strange how some acros are melting and these look fine.

and the final 2020 FTS

Devaji · Dec 30, 2020

I am with your wife. the "wavy corals" are the way to go

revhtree · Dec 30, 2020

dragon99 said:
You were right. Took awhile, but I finally found the rusty screw on the needle valve coming from the CArx. I ignored it at first because it was above the water line. However, I later realized that when the return was shutoff it would end up in the water.

So it's been a pretty rough end of year. Instead of the tank hitting the 1yr mark with great progress it took a hit. Lost 8 frags from the battlebox and 2 colonies (DaM mille and red dragon). I still have 3 colonies that look really rough, but I think will turn around.

On the plus side, I added a couple torches with my wife's permission (sorta, she thought I was buying one ;Happy). She's a fan of "wavy" corals and not the sticks

Aussie gold torch (I paid wayyy to much for this, but they are beautiful)

Indo dragon soul

and a couple acro's that still look good. BC Rainbow Brite and Oregon tort. Strange how some acros are melting and these look fine.

and the final 2020 FTS

Looking great man!

MERKEY · Dec 30, 2020

dragon99 said:
You were right. Took awhile, but I finally found the rusty screw on the needle valve coming from the CArx. I ignored it at first because it was above the water line. However, I later realized that when the return was shutoff it would end up in the water.

So it's been a pretty rough end of year. Instead of the tank hitting the 1yr mark with great progress it took a hit. Lost 8 frags from the battlebox and 2 colonies (DaM mille and red dragon). I still have 3 colonies that look really rough, but I think will turn around.

On the plus side, I added a couple torches with my wife's permission (sorta, she thought I was buying one ;Happy). She's a fan of "wavy" corals and not the sticks

Aussie gold torch (I paid wayyy to much for this, but they are beautiful)

Indo dragon soul

and a couple acro's that still look good. BC Rainbow Brite and Oregon tort. Strange how some acros are melting and these look fine.

and the final 2020 FTS

This is excellent news!!!!!

dragon99 · Jan 6, 2021

Water has been pretty cloudy lately. As in, I can barely make out the MP40 on the opposite end of the tank.

I've tried GAC, but that hasn't cleared it up. So I'm giving ozone a try. I was looking at UV first, and that might still be a better option, but plumbing a UV would be a pretty big undertaking to do properly (likely meaning another pump dedicated). Whereas ozone is plug and play mostly since my skimmer is ready for it.

Starting off at the lowest setting and I may only run it for a few hours a day to start.

Elmer. · Mar 22, 2021

How is your tank doing? Did ozone do anything for you?

dragon99 · Mar 23, 2021

Elmer. said:
How is your tank doing? Did ozone do anything for you?

Short answer, sorta. It definitely helped, but never gave me completely clear water on it's own.

It was a rough start to the year. I had a ostreopsis dino outbreak that wreaked havoc. I was slow to react and it did some damage. Once I realized what I was dealing with I started H2O2 twice daily and cranked the ozone to max. That helped but didn't completely solve things so I ordered a UV unit. That's when the snow hit TX which led to a 2day blackout in the tank which really made a huge difference. Later that week the UV showed up and really finished the job.

I'm still running both the UV and ozone and the water is clear again. I'll probably pull the UV off soon since it's just sitting on the floor outside the stand right now. After watching the recent BRS Investigates on UV units I don't see a reason to keep it running full time.

Elmer. · Mar 24, 2021

Last time i checked a video from BRS about UV, they were praising it and would never take it offline again

I have put on a UV not too long ago to help get rid of some nasties, but it seems a blackout is needed as well to give it the final push. Did you consider Chemiclean for this?

dragon99 · Mar 24, 2021

Elmer. said:
Last time i checked a video from BRS about UV, they were praising it and would never take it offline again

I have put on a UV not too long ago to help get rid of some nasties, but it seems a blackout is needed as well to give it the final push. Did you consider Chemiclean for this?

They did another investigates and kinda came to the conclusion that it's not quite as amazing as they previously stated. It certainly has utility though, but given the challenge of plumbing it in permanently I'll just use it intermittently.

I did briefly considered chemiclean, but was seeing results with just H202 so kept with that. I've used chemiclean in the past for cyano and have nothing against it really.

Pars · Apr 28, 2021

My 7225 comes tomorrow. But I haven’t purchased anything for it yet. Are you still happy with your Gyre/mp40 combo for flow?

dragon99 · Apr 29, 2021

Pars said:
My 7225 comes tomorrow. But I haven’t purchased anything for it yet. Are you still happy with your Gyre/mp40 combo for flow?

I am yes. The gyres still more cleaning than the MP40's, but it's less obstrusive on the peninsula end and it moves it alot of water. I'm happier now that I've realized I could by just replacement cage/impeller and swap them out instead of having to clean the entire gyre next to the tank.

dragon99 · Apr 29, 2021

Overdue for an update. The tank is finally recovering from the dino explosion at the beginning of the year. I'm about 2 months into the recovery and I'm seeing a few acro's that are happy. However, there are still a few that look rough and haven't recovered yet.

The dinos caused a LOT of tips to die off. Case in point is the ASD rainbow mille. I've trimmed off the dead tips and it's starting to regrow, but still looks a little patchy.