Inherited 90

[redfishbluefish]

I’m such an idiot!


It happened again, for the third time!


Since putting in my RO/DI water recovery drum about a month and a half ago, I’ve flooded the basement three times by not noting the water level in the 55 gallon drum. I’d start making water and next thing I’d know is that the basement floor would be flooded. I did it again yesterday.....and my wife discovered the mess. As soon as she yelled my name, I knew what the problem was.


I have ordered a water alarm from the TB Aquatics group buy.....its screech will take the place of my wife's yell (music to my ears ;D).....can’t wait till I can pick it up......hopefully within a few days.

The idea is to somehow attach it to the inside of the barrel so that when the water level gets up to the sensor, the screech of the alarm will let me know it’s time to empty the barrel.

 

[fisheye]

This might be a better option:

Kent-Marine-Float-Valve

No yelling or screech is needed.

 

[redfishbluefish]

This might be a better option:

Kent-Marine-Float-Valve

No yelling or screech is needed.

I was thinking about a float valve, but can you shut off the wastewater line without affecting the membrane? Would the “clean” water stop flowing as well? Not sure if the Auto Shut Off Valve works the same on the wastewater side??? Anyone know?

If this could be done, I'd still do it along with the alarm...a back-up system! I don't want to clean up the basement floor again.

 

[redfishbluefish]

When do I stop being a Newbie? When do I graduate?


Making this week’s 15 gallons of water, a good chunk of “scale” broke loose from the Brute can. So I now had a bunch of flakes swirling around in the water. For a while it looked like a big snow globe. Eventually, most of the flakes plastered themselves to the side of the Koralia 4 that I use to mix the water. I was able to extract the K4 and wash the flakes off, leaving the water with only a few small flakes.

So you ask, where did this scale come from? I figured it out, but being a chemist with over nine years of schooling, I should have realized this in the first place.

What I’ve done a number of times was to add my salt (for 15 gallons) when I only had ten gallons of water in the Brute. I did this to speed things up while the last five gallons of RO/DI were being made. I’d let the salt dissolve and eventually add the last five gallons of water. Unbeknownst to my stupid brain, 15 gallons worth of salt (and other goodies like alk and calc) in ten gallons of water make the concentrations of alk/calc too high, and cause for precipitation. So today I learned something any first year chemist should have known. All that schooling going to waste!

Here’s a mug shot of the Brute were you see the ten gallon line ring, where all the precipitation is below this ring. The 15 gallon mark is were the Brute indents. You will notice virtually no scale.

A little power washing and the Brute should be as good as new.


Lesson Learned: Don’t add your salt until you have all your water!

 

[TanksNStuff]

Yea, adding too much salt can do that, although even with adding the proper amount, I've had the same brown scaling issue with IO Reef Crystals.

As far as your RO/DI overflow issues, Something like this is your best bet. It shuts off both waste and clean water lines at once. There's a nice instruction vid on that page that explains how to set it up and how it works.

 

[redfishbluefish]

When I walked past the fishroom last night, I noticed the lights were out. I have the Reefkeeper set to turn the lights out if the tank hits 85 degrees. Sure enough, the tank was at 85. I noticed the Purple Beast fan was not working.

I checked it in another outlet and it was dead.

To step back, some of you might have remembered the five-fan unit I made from old computer fans.

After making this nice little unit, over the next year of so, I watched as fans would start to crap out….first one, then two, and so on, until I was down to one fan working. At that point I went back to the Purple Beast that I was originally using.

So this morning I picked up two $9.99 clip on fans from Kmart. They are pretty cheesy and don’t put out the air the Beast put out. Anyway, I mounted one over the sump using the clip-on feature.

With the second fan, I cut a hole in the side of my canopy and, using small cable ties, attached the fan through the hole.

Both are attached to the Reefkeeper to turn on when the temperature approaches 79.

Now to wait and see if these two can keep the tank cool.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Today we are having the floors sanded and recoated with oil based polyurethane. This includes the first floor (except the fish room), the stairs and upstairs landing. I posted earlier about my concern to the fish tank. What I did was seal off the fish room with a thick plastic film that is supported by three strips of strapping. The plastic film is taped all around to form a complete seal. Hopefully this will reduce the airborne organics from finding their way into the tank. They're sanding right now so I'll just keep an eye on it.

 

[TanksNStuff]

I like what you did with the cheap Kmart fans (previous post). How's that working out for you?

Looks like you sealed off the fish room about as best you possibly can so good job there. Did you ever do anything to ventilate that room also? I remember the other thread mentioned possibly opening some windows or running an airline outside for the skimmer at least. Did you do anything like that?

Good luck Paul. Hope everything works out ok!

 

[redfishbluefish]

The fans are working out just fine.


As far as ventilating the room, right now I have the windows closed, since they have every window and door open, while they sand. I want to maintain whatever heat is left in the room to keep the tank at temperature. With two 300 watt heaters, I’m not overly concerned. When they get to putting down the urethane, I'll consider opening a window a crack. Just a wait-and-see kind of thing.

 

[TanksNStuff]

Gotcha.

 

[redfishbluefish]

OK….update. I picked up a coral from Herbie (Thanks Herbie) at the meeting today and had to climb through the window to get to the tank to acclimate the coral and put it in the tank. As I approached the window, I noticed the lights on the tank were out…..I have the Reefkeeper set to turn off the lights at 85. Sure enough, the tank was at 85. I can only guess that with the door to the fish room “tented” off, and the windows and doors open on the rest of the house during the sanding and varnishing, the heat in the fish room must have creped up.

However, this tent over the door worked! If anyone is sanding and refinishing their floors, tenting off the door keeps the volatile odors out of the room. Here’s a shot of the “tent” from inside the room:

 

[TanksNStuff]

Paul, with the outside temps dropping lately, it's also possible that your heating system in the house came on... which may have added slightly to the tank temp.

Glad to hear the sealing job worked though!

 

[SHLUZER]

Now to wait and see if these two can keep the tank cool.

Blowing on top of the water will be more efficient in cooling than just suckin air from the cannopy.
However top-off water will be consumed faster and salinity has to be watched.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Both fans are “blowing.” Neither fan is “sucking.” The canopy fan blows air across the top of the tank as well as across the T5 bulbs. The other fan blows directly onto the sump. The water that evaporates (about 2 ½ gallons a day), is immediately replaced by an automatic top off. Accordingly, the salinity remains constant. The exception to that is the salt water that is “lost” to skimming, which is replaced by fresh water from the topoff. However, we are only talking maybe a half gallon a week.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Peace and tranquility has returned to my tank. The Neon Velvet Damsel is in a witness protection program, and has been relocated to an undisclosed location.

It’s amazing how the demeanor of the remaining fish has changed. I am seeing my Coral Beauty for the first time in months. All the other fish are now back to freely swimming about the tank. Unfortunately this miscreant was the cause of two deaths and pretty much every ones tail or dorsal fins being nipped. My wife actually witnessed the tail of a Yellow Tang being bitten off and seeing the yellow piece in the mouth of the Damsel.

By the way, this guy was trapped using the old soda bottle trap. Jon, my son, made the trap and originally trapped the guy a few months ago, but he escaped. I just used it again and the trick was having a hole in the side of the bottle and using a turkey baster, squirting food into the bottle. I actually kept the turkey baster in the bottle and continued to squirt to make it a snow-globe of food swirling around. He soon darted in to eat, and he was caught.

 

[TanksNStuff]

Sounds like things will be more peaceful now.

 

[Fish Brain]

LoL, Witness protection.

Glad things are nice and clam in your tank now.

 

[TanksNStuff]

LoL, Witness protection.

Glad things are nice and clam in your tank now.

Was that a Freudian slip?

 

[Fish Brain]

I think that would be the iPhone autocorrect, but it does work.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Did a little housekeeping.

I was given a little green anemone a while back where I was told it was a GBTA. It was green and had little bubble ends. It looked like a very small GBTA. It was a very nice looking little anemone that had a mild sting. Within a couple weeks there were two….then four….and more and more. I gave away a bunch, telling the recipients that they were GBTA’s….just like I was told. Shortly after giving a bunch away, I was told that they weren’t GBTA’s, but Cribrinopsis crassa, a small anemone from the Mediterranean. I notified all the folks who receive one. This variety of anemones never get big, but divide like rabbits.

Well, more time passed, and maybe about 8 months ago I pulled out about a dozen or so anemones. They continued to divide and wipe out my Nuclear Green Zoas, and so yesterday and today, I cleaned out every anemone I could find….somewhere around 30 anemones.

Now one of the anemones fell behind some rock after prying it free. So I know I’m not done with the cleaning. But these invasive little buggers have to go!