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Jimroth's Big Ol' Tank

jimroth

jimroth

Ecotech was pretty nice on the phone, they clearly have regrets about the old "IceCap" battery unit. They said to send them everything but the wet side and they would likely replace the controller and send it back.

Anyone have opinions on LED systems? I would rather invest the money in a new LED unit then buy yet another 400W ballast. The Ecotech one seems nice, but $750?? I'm going to just replace the blown side for now, I have a space right around 17" X 25" to play with in my light rack.
 
M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
I would look at the mazzarras or if you can be patient, the AI Vegas which are not out yet. There are a ton of options for LEDs right now and that is only growing by the day.
 
D

dougc

With the power saving, no bulb replacement, and less heat, I estimated a 3 year payback on my AI SOLs. Definitely have seen a drop on electric bill. Much simpler and reliable than the MH and VHO I used to run.

Sent from my SGH-T959 using Tapatalk 2
 
jimroth

jimroth

Reefpocalypse 2012 continues, the OTHER Lumatek ballast failed. I will be calling them tomorrow for info on repairs. Maybe I was doing something wrong? The cable to the tank was too long? It shouldn't matter. On the plus side, I managed to round up enough ballasts to get some light on the tank. This led to a huge improvement in my mood. The return of lighting showed not surprisingly that a lot of the algae and cyano had fallen apart. The water was a little cloudy too, don't know why. The new snails and urchins are working overtime. The little black rock urchins really run for it when the lights come on.
I am still switching to LEDS, this just gives me a little leeway to shop it. I am now resigned to spending the money.
In the Biocube, the tiger pistol continues to grow at a surprising rate, he's tripled in size since I got him and I worry he's going to do in the smaller candy pistols.
 
lefkonj

lefkonj

I am running AI Sol Blues, great solution. The new AI Vegas are in pre-order on several sites but cost 1/4 more than the AI Sol Blue. The EcoTech Radion are also getting some nice press but seem very costly, $749 per unit. The other thing is i saw some posts that EcoTech was changing their lenses, but not sure how true that is.
 
jimroth

jimroth

lefkonj said:
I am running AI Sol Blues, great solution. The new AI Vegas are in pre-order on several sites but cost 1/4 more than the AI Sol Blue. The EcoTech Radion are also getting some nice press but seem very costly, $749 per unit. The other thing is i saw some posts that EcoTech was changing their lenses, but not sure how true that is.
Click to expand...

AIs do look cool but also very pricey. I kind of lean towards the Radions because I know a little bit about the company, but I would need two units for $1500, that kind of blows my mind, there has to be a cheaper way.

One thing I saw on RC about AI was that they have been promising the new unit for like a year, and no unit. Why would someone per order something like this and just wait and wait?
 
lefkonj

lefkonj

Couldn't agree more that the delay on the AI Vega is ridiculous, either they need to release it or stop talking about it.

As far as cost goes they are all expensive but do save some money. They are cooler, cheaper to run and don't require replacement like MH. Just something to think about. Another thing to consider is that EcoTech has been around a while with the pumps but they are new to lighting, so not so sure how they are handling that new market from a support and quality perspective.
 
jimroth

jimroth

Marine Depot was very helpful about the ballasts. They are calling Lumatek for me to see what they'll do. The ballasts are just about seven months old so apparently still under warranty. If I do get good ones back, I'm just going to start saving for LEDs. and I'm gonna hook them up right by the tank, instead of in the garage.
 
redfishbluefish

redfishbluefish

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Jim, also check out Apollo's....reasonably priced with great par......and assembled here in the good old US of A.
 
M

Mike S

Ive been running a pair of Apollo dimables over my 120 for a few months and am very happy with them. They may not have all the bells and whistles as the Ecotechs but they are half the price. Do you have a controller? You need one for the dimable units. Apollo was working on their own dimmer but I'm not sure if it is out yet.
 
jimroth

jimroth

I am sending the Lumatek ballasts back to Marine Depot, they are replacing them under warranty. I think with my diminished coral population I can soldier along with 1 1/2 ballasts until I get the replacements, like a week. When I get the replacements, I'm going to go back to running them at 250W while I put together the dough for my big LED purchase. I think the 250s are closer to the strength of the LEDs I'm gonna end up with.

I saw a video of the "demo mode" on the Radions. Turns your reef into a multicolored disco environment.

One other thing I want to add: Programming the Vortechs is TOO COMPLICATED. They let the whole colored LED thing get WAY out of hand. I think a simple numerical setting, or something you could plug into a laptop, would be easier to use. The colors thing went too far (when the slave is in programmable mode, it will flash red-mauve-chartreuse, then when it accepts the command it will blink purple, unless the wireless signal fails, in which case it will blink red and pink and fart the national anthem...)
 
jimroth

jimroth

Getting ready to do a big water change/detritus vacuum. The cyano/dinoflag./brown crap is way down, I'm actually happy to see the hair algae! I turkey baster'd the rocks yesterday and could barely get enough to clog a filter pad. I've been reading about treating hair algae with hydrogen peroxide solution. I am going to try this on some heavily covered loose rocks (a 10% dip) and some tough spots, like the tippy top of my rock structure (a 100% squirt application). Just have to beat it down.
The next step is to try to increasingly clean and simplify the environment while maintaining good parameters.
After that comes the LED conversion. I've almost got enough money. I rolled all my change and collected some debts.
Finally comes the fun part, picking new coral! I will probably wait until nearly September for that, which means I should be able to do some shopping at MACNA!
 
jimroth

jimroth

Combined a 50g water change with a really annoying procedure I'd been putting off. I discovered a while back that my enthusiastic use of two part caused huge calcium deposits In the sump. I tried to work on them manually once while the tank was running and found to my horror they contained enough alkalinity to make the ph shoot up rapidly and a lot.
I ignored the issue for a while, but recently the deposits got so high they began to block the return pump intake! A very messy and annoying task.
I drained the sump and vacuumed the first round of debris with the shop-vac. In went six gallons of white vinegar which fizzed like a giant alka seltzer. . I left it for an hour and a half. Quite a lot dissolved, I got maybe 85% out of the sump, but some of it did not dissolve, it's tougher stuff. That stuff has trapped the cord of a broken heater, which I could not remove. I can't exactly chisel on the glass tank. After an hour and a half, the vinegar was bareLy sour, like it was "used up." I pumped and vacuumed it out, then filled the sump with RO water and pumped and vacuumed that out. Then I refilled with fresh saltwater. The sump looks a lot better, and the return will not get blocked again, but I'm just going to have to repeat the procedure eventually, maybe with a stronger acid, to try and free the heater.
I used the event to do a survey of my motley and encrusted collection of heaters, and found that one no longer works.
The brown gunk seems almost entirely gone now (good), my powder blue tang and Burgess' butterflies have a medium case of ich (bad). The PBT never had anything but a touch when I first got him, the butterflies never.
 
redfishbluefish

redfishbluefish

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Jim, sort of scratching my head as to why you’re getting carbonate deposits with “normal” levels of alc and calc. If you’re also maintaining magnesium, you shouldn’t be getting all this carbonate deposits. Assuming all things are normal, I’m guessing the microenvironment where the alc/calc is added (your sump) experience abnormally high concentrations until diluted….which end up precipitating out.

However, I did like you Alka Seltzer analogy. Good stuff!


As far as something a little stronger than vinegar, check out muriatic acid….it’s actually diluted hydrochloric acid (HCl). It will make your carbonate fizz like crazy. Just handle with care. You can find this in the “concrete” area of HD or at a pool store.
 
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