Hawkeye's AGA 120

[Phyl]

Re: AGA 120 (very few pictures and lots of dull writing)

Ahhh... the dreaded back siphon. Sorry, Phil. I'm sure that's gotten enough of us that you're in quite good company.

What makes the LaMotte test better? They seem to have a pretty loyal following, but i've never used one (should have while they were here, lol).

 

[mikem]

Re: AGA 120 (very few pictures and lots of dull writing)

Phil. I think your next piece of equipment will be a solenoid valve to prevent backflows?

 

[Baxreefs]

Re: AGA 120 (very few pictures and lots of dull writing)

If the floor ain't wet, you're not reef'n! 8)

 

[JRWOHLER]

Re: AGA 120 (very few pictures and lots of dull writing)

Thanks for the warning....I have to setup my ato this week. Test kit looked pretty professional what makes it good?

 

[Hawkeye]

Re: AGA 120 (very few pictures and lots of dull writing)

The alk test -
Basically it's about as "dummy proof" as possible for people with brain-freezes (like me) when it comes to doing multiplication to figure out where my results are on the dkh scale. The design is straightforward. Add water. Place little pill in tube (Dissolves amazingly fast). Insert Syringe into reagent. Drip reagent from syringe into tube until color changes. Read results on syringe. That's all. Measures in ppm CaCO3.

There's no wait for 3 minutes here or wait for 5 minutes (salifert) and no calcuations to be made.

A nice extra is the container it comes in. I don't have to worry about reagents leaking out of a flimsy cardboard box.

As for the solenoid - I won't need that as long as the ATO tube remains above the water line. I've done that for years with my other tank and I don't know how I just forgot to do that this time. That stated- I may end up needing one to incorporate my kalk reactor. I still haven't quite yet schemed that out in my head.

 

[Hawkeye]

Re: AGA 120 (very few pictures and lots of dull writing)

whoa - i'm on the third page (tank tales)! what happened!!

So a month has passed. I have to say that without a skimmer I really need to stay on top of the water changes - and I'll be blunt - I haven't. I have got major diatoms all over the bottom of the sand. Plus - the worst is I see some bubble algae growin in the middle piece of my feather-duster rock. I accidentally introduced the bubble algae on a piece of coral I received from a sponsor...oh well. I'm pulling the LR out tonight and going to blast it in a separate tube of water and scrape off the bubble/hair algae. I even had a snail with hair algae on it. Unfortunately none of the pics I took of it came out - my wife thought it had a toupee. A skimmer in the form of a tax return cannot come soon enough!

I finally got the nerve to move my jawfish from the QT to the display. After seeing the photos from candi/qwik and others - I really thought the personality would be great to have. The only downside risks were they are known jumpers (and I am not covering my tank) and the possibiility that they hide in the back of my 120. One of the two jawfish was a pig - but the other was real hesitant. I mulled whether to keep that one in the QT longer but I decided (stupidly) that they needed to stick together.

I put them in the display and they dived into LR (ignoring my barnacle/pvc creation for them) and I didn't see them again...until the next morning. One was dried up on my floor. I really regret that. In retrospect I should have brought him back and given up on that one. Sigh. The other decided to park itself underneath a huge piece of LR...almost impossible for me to feed it with the current.

2 days later it went missing...I kept searching the floor.

Day 3 - I found it...living in the bolt hole that my firefish used to live in. I guess when the firefish moved out in the daytime - he moved in. The firefish seems not threatened or upset as it just hovers in the area. The jawfish has dug itself a nice burrow and loves to stare me down for food.

So my track record with known jumpers: 2 out of 3 alive. I'm real bummed about the first jawfish...that was just plain careless of me.

Anyways - i need to go finish gathering my tax forms...

 

[Hawkeye]

Well thanks to everyone that replied to my post about my cuke:
http://www.njreefers.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=26&topic=16414.0

I thought for sure I got rid of him (either via death and eaten by the cleanup crew OR because I sold some LR and thought he was on it) - but sure enough last night I was shocked to see him crawling around checking out the sand.

It's been about 4 months now with no skimmer since I started the tank. I noticed that any time I slouch on the water changes - the algae/diatoms start growing on the LR. I don't think the cheato is doing a lot - (thanks for the macro too JR) but I have to get a different light I think.

Other than that nothing much going on here. My electric bill is about double what I paid last year - so I'm scared to see what it will be like in summertime.

Oh and I forgot to mention - my firefish moved into the PVC home I made for the jawfish. Ironic eh?

 

[JRWOHLER]

Better in the PVC then on the floor.
Cukes are cool, when they get bigger they hang out in plain sight more. Never really pretty or anything but useful.

You going to run a chiller?

How about some pics?

 

[justchad]

this build sounds good but.... can somebody "PLEASE" let phil borrow a camera?pics? pics? pics? pics?pics? pics? pics? pics?pics? pics? pics? pics?pics? pics? pics?

 

[Hawkeye]

No chiller...i'm hoping not to. But if I ever switch to MH then maybe I will. Even a brick of T5s might generate more heat than the current LEDs i have. Don't get me started on that - EOL product. Sigh.

Anyways - first some open top shots for junk.

I'll post more pics of the critters when I get a chance.

 

[junk]

Thanks Hawkeye. Greatly appreciate the top shots. Nice light. 8)

 

[JRWOHLER]

You are such a tease

 

[Hawkeye]

Here's a pic to gross out everyone....

And after torturing me by hiding in the back of the tank, my jawfish finally found one of the barnacles I set up. This particular one has no PVC hiding spot underneath. I might add one of those later. The first one I put in is occupied by our firefish.

 

[JRWOHLER]

Sorry we missed you at the meeting. I guess that is some sort of alien eye ;D.

 

[onefish2fish]

=

 

[Hawkeye]

Situation: nitrates overwhelming my crappy water maintenance schedule.
Result: got tax refund and allocated a portion to finally procuring a skimmer. I had thought about waiting for the GB with PA in June but I just decided I couldn't wait...my LR is starting to look like a green moss pit instead of the purple I had sought. So I purchased a used MRC skimmer. Hopefully it does the trick for now. If not - then perhaps there will be better pickings at MACNA. While i would love a cone skimmer - it just wasn't in my budget right now.

Note to self- use more patience and do not start a tank until funds are ready for a skimmer.

 

[junk]

Note to self- use more patience and do not start a tank until funds are ready for a skimmer.

Note to poster. When patience is found, bottle, sell and retire on revenue stream.

 

[Hawkeye]

LOL.

Ok - minor update today - UPS arrived and once again disappointed by breaking part of the skimmer waste collector I had ordered.

However in this case it appears salvagable.

I bought a used MRC 1 skimmer mod'd with an extra riser. While it's not the fancy cone skimmer I drooled over or the legend of a BK - it was within my budget.

reminder to self: increase budget.

 

[JRWOHLER]

I think all delivery people hate reefers. I had two sumps broken on delivery. One looked like they had drop kicked it. And it had at lease 10 Fragile on the box.

Our group buy deliveries are usually eventful too.

And fish/corals forget about it.

 

[Hawkeye]

And fish/corals forget about it.

Thankfully I can always rely on going to AO/OGII/Smcooler's for fish/corals.

It's not just these retailers. In my company we upgraded the security of our delivery to BRINKS and even they drop-kick our stuff. Ugh the aggravation.