• Folks, if you've recently upgraded or renewed your annual club membership but it's still not active, please reach out to the BOD or a moderator. The PayPal system has a slight bug which it doesn't allow it to activate the account on it's own.

Dangerdave’s reef

DangerDave

NJRC Member
So interesting night. Tank is still not running. I got some of the plumbing done, decided to take a break and hang the light. Had to lower both DOS to accommodate the light. I used a couple of metal brackets I found at the hardware store and bent them to fit.

168F0D78-2331-47EB-8077-AC93C27EFB5B.jpeg

I dumped 30 gallons of rodi water on the garage floor while trying to multitask. No biggie, just drained and dried. While cleaning up, I noticed that my alk container was low...uh I just filled it. When I put the (now labeled) DOS heads back on I mixed up the AWC salt-in head and the alk head. I dumped 900ml of alk into the tank. Alk was now at 17, ph 8.6. I did a 50 gallon water change (it’s what I had left after the spill). All down to 14.9, ph is 8.45. I’m going to do another water change in the morning, then let it drift down. The corals don’t look bad, but they mostly close at night anyway. The is water still clear. I’ll know more in the morning.

Thanks @hcker99 & @Steven Simon for keeping me off the ledge!

Dave
 

DangerDave

NJRC Member
You can add this code to your Apex dos that if you pH goes above 8.4 it will shut it off just for another fail safe.
If PH > 8.40 Then OFF

Thank you, that is great advise that I'm going to take. I'm going to add that code tonight. Would it be better to reference the PH or the Alk parameters, or should I do both?

Unfortunately it wouldn't have helped in this situation, as I stupidly connected Alk feed DOS head to the Auto water change "Salt in" DOS head.
 
You can put the code in each of your dos heads advanced code menus. Just in case it happens again your alkalinity will cause your pH to go up then the Apex will shut it off. You have to but it in like this or it wont work.

If PH > 8.40 Then OFF
 

DangerDave

NJRC Member
Ok, please use small words and type slowly because I'm not understanding how this would of stopped this one. :) You're saying I should put this in the code for my auto water change also?
 
I would put it in with your auto water change dos also chances are you'll never need it but it's there just in case. If you had it in with your auto water change dos it would of notice your pH increasing from your alkalinity additive and it would have stopped your auto water change dos. Your alkalinity would have still spiked but not as high.
 

DangerDave

NJRC Member
So when I got home today, almost everything in the tank looked good, like nothing happened. I have a nice colony and some frags of candy canes that are real stressed. Some other candy cane frags look great though. I also have a small gold hammer that is struggling. Other than that no issues so far. I hope the cc frags all come back, I was hoping to trade for other corals.

Ph is down to 8.24, alk is down to 13.3. I was happy about the numbers and decided to not do another large water change. I turn the auto water change back on (after checking my plumbing was right) but increased the daily change to 10 gallons. Once I get down down to 12 dkh of the Red Sea Coral Pro mix I will drop the AWC back to 3 gallons a day. And let it drift down to 9 and then start dosing again.

The biggest issue I have is my KH guardian is erroring out since the incident. I’m gonna have to figure this out. As easy as the Hanna checker is, glancing at screen is easier.

Dave
 

DangerDave

NJRC Member
Thanks guys, I’m really stoked about it. I’m going to move all the frags over from the little tank tonight I think. One of my boys has a soccer tournament for school this weekend so not sure if I’ll have enough time.

I need to get frag racks, I’m going to start with what I have, and some egg crate, but I want to get the acrylic racks with the rubber inserts eventually.

Dave
 

DangerDave

NJRC Member
It’s still pretty sparse, but I’ll get there. I built a manifold for the saltwater container. Now I can drop salt water to the tank, a hose, or over at the sink by just flipping a ball valve. I now need to build a manifold to get all these pumps out of my sump.

I also pulled the x3 4 inch filter sock frame and installed the x2 7 inch frame. I’m still running 100 micron nylon. I’m hoping this way I don’t have to clean the socks daily.

883BEABD-8959-43B8-AAEB-BC460431A491.jpeg
 
Top