Exodus

I'm not sure what you mean by a chalice "Receding" ? Is it losing tissue with parts of the skeleton showing? If so your most likely looking at an Alk swing as the culprit if nothing with sweepers didn't touch it. Otherwise if it's loosing color and fading out, lighting or lack of food is most likely the issue.

The AI SOL is a powerful fixture, and the settings you are running would be what I would set that fixture for Moderate lighting, (Also how high off the water in consideration) Try dropping your White channels to 25% to start off with and "Very Slowly" begin raising them if needed (you didn't mention all types of corals in your tank) Set Fixture 8"-10" Above the Water Surface. If you can use live rock to create shaded areas or caves, that would be a great place for introducing LPS into your tank.

I was in fact given a business card with the offer to reach out to them, if any of the board members are interested, just have them PM me for details. I have the card and their brochure.

So for those that didn't attend Macna this year, I'm sure you have been caught up with the latest news from Neptune, EcoTech, etc. As it has been broadcasted everywhere. I just figured I would make a few honorable mentions for things I found to be interesting at the show, that others might have liked to see. JBJ Many of you are already familiar with this company, for their AIO tanks and a few other miscellaneous products. JBJ is actually a decent brand for what they are but has been a bit behind lately as the last thing that caught attention was the RL series of tanks. In the upcoming months they will be releasing 2 new DC Pumps (A smaller & larger one) So whats the big deal there? Well the smaller one looked to be of excellent quality and best of all it fits into the back of the AIO tanks! So those of you relying on Cobalt's Mj1200 pumps and such wanting DC with no options, the possibility is on the Horizon. The other big news is a new 65G Tank by JBJ that appears to have the same tank & Stand Design as the RSR & Cad-lights, very sleek looking, and you know it will have a lower price point. Nyos Currently being distributed by EcoTech in the US, the last big thing Nyos brought us was the Quantum Skimmers, things have been quite since then. If you were wondering what was next; it is a Reactor known as "TORQ". Opposed to most reactors on the market being a simple chamber with an input, outputs, and a pump of your choosing to regulate the flow, this Reactor includes a Dock that keeps that flow consistent that either of the 3 sizes of chambers easily slide into and can quickly be removed for maintenance. So will it be all that revolutionary? I have no clue, but As many know Nyos is a solid well built product, I thought it was worth a mention. The other big news from Nyos was their debut of a new System, you can see a photo of this @R-3 post at the end of the Macna 2018 post (It is the white Stand Rimless tank that Has a purple Nyos bag sitting on the ground next to it) Dubbed the "OPUS" ekoral A new controller company based out of Taiwan is entering the market of controllers. This controller still has a long road ahead if they plan to compete with the likes of Neptune, and with a questionable starting price tag of $900, the odds are most likely stacked against them. Though it's not the controller itself that interested me but rather 1 particular component of the controller. This particular component is known as the "eK Level Sensor", So when we think of ATO we think of float valves, Optical Sensors, Temp Sensors, or Pressure Sensors but unlike most styles on the market this new eK sensor uses "Sonar!" while it just may just be my inner nerd and love of robots that has me excited for the re purposing for this dated technology, I also can see the awesome benefits of no moving parts, no need to clean or worry about snails, calcium deposits or other crap as it won't even be in the water. Though regardless it will be cool to see if Sonar takes a foothold in the industry with ATO and begin getting an idea of pros and cons when people start using them. Reef Kinetics So another project that has been around for a couple years slated to release in November is is the Reef Kinetics Automated Tester. This particular product starting out with an Arduino and Raspberry Pi had my inner nerd redlining, its obviously home grown, tech, automated, DIY turned into a refined product. The idea is to add your own test kit titrations to the bottles provided, program what bottles contain what, and what test kits are being used, and how often you want the tests performed. You can then check the results via smartphone app keeping track of your parameters and alarmed when things go south. The final product drops the arduino in favor of their own board but keeps the pi 3 for obvious pricing reasons. The price tag is a steep $900 giving little incentive over Neptune's Triton and has several cons that simply position it less than practical for many. Those cons include - Only liquid based titration tests (No Powder form such as Salifert Magnesium) - $900 is more than Triton and similar products on the market - Need an intake of Water from the Tank, RODI Water from a Reservoir (For Cleaning) and a Waste Output making the placement of this particular device difficult for those with limited space, don't forget the extra reservoir for additional mixed salt! Taking tests all day will throw off your salinity if your not replacing it. Though if the price were to come down quite a bit, I can see the product being worth it. MindStream Continuing the topic of testing, many here already know of the 5 year long mindtream project as it has even been brought up on the forums a few times in the past. To those wanting to know whats currently going on, I spotted 2 working demos at Macna this year 1 being on the Demo tank fully loaded with the software running real time, and another on a tank in the CoralVue booth. The project is currently on Beta 4 and slated to release this "Fall" (Heard that before right?) If my memory serves me right the device is an initial $300, the "test cartridges" have slightly changed since the last time we saw an internal cartridge, as to date the cartridge is just the circular face of the mindstream that pops off for easy replacement. They are set on a subscription service in which you will start off with 2 cartridges, 1 to shelve and one to use, every month a new cartridge will be sent to put back on the shelf after you replace your current one. The subscription service is $20/month. With this type of pricing it will be less than 3 years before you have spent over $1k on testing, how many people have spent that on salifert test? Then on the other hand more macro elements are provided for a smaller cost than the triton. Kolar Labs This company is new to me , and had me excited for additional options at a good price point for filter and reactor media, opposed to just BRS. Kolar provides their own brand of GFO, Bio Pellets, DI Resin, and their most popular product Carbon. What stood out to me the most was the representatives interest in our local reef club. They stated they were extremely interested in sponsoring active reef clubs and would love to contribute to club raffles and promotions. The media looks to be of great quality and any additional opportunities for the club is always a positive. Hanna Hanna brought in their "Copper" Checker, promoting that it does in fact work with Marine Tanks, this may not in fact be the news to many but for those not aware of the fact, it may provide to be a valuable tool to those treating fish. In other news I did in fact ask the Representative about the "Magnesium checker" who's development was announced a few years back, and the short answer is "They have no idea as to when or if that will happen" So sorry to all those who are still waiting for it, I'm a bit disappointed myself. Ming Trading You can't have a trade show without the Chinese Imports now can you? Ming Trading most well known for bringing us the Waterproof Zetlight LED, had a wide variety of cheaper Chinese import products. What stood out to me though was an interesting little product branded by Coral Box called the "Magnet Clean Explorer" While obviously not cutting edge by any sense, for those of us with tanks too high of the ground to float a coral viewer or overhead fixtures hanging in the way it makes for great viewing of corals from the side of the tank. I wouldn't put too much hope in the "Cleaning" aspect as its just strong magnets with an inner Velcro side like a mag-float, but the magnifying window actually gives a nice view of your corals. Maintaining Alkalinity Throughout the vendor floor, and within conferences and workshops ICP testing was a big topic (easily understandably so) but also maintaining alkalinity levels consistently at all times. This lead to many criticisms towards Neptunes trident for not having the ability to dose based on regular calculations with the expectation that it also act as an alkalinity monitor. Regardless how individuals may feel about this aspect of reefing, it appears to be headed in that direction. Many of you probably know of if not have heard of GHL a company that has been over seas providing high end controllers for a number of years now but has recently arrived state side. This year at Macna along with their newest controller set they brought with them what they call "KH Director" a fully programmable Alkalinity controller. The product looks well built, is already on the market, and has similar pricing for refills as the trident. If you are in the market for one it certainly starts out at much lower cost than other alternatives out there. As mentioned at the beginning this list does not represent a review on Macna or all the products coming to the market, nor even a quarter but rather a few things that stood out to me personally. If your interested in seeing what else happened at the show including video taped Speeches, there is an abundance of information on youtube, these were just a few of the lesser mentioned things going on.

I do believe Trailermann has a 45 RL AIO if I'm not mistaken, making 3 and 4 a bit difficult, and the only reason I point that out is because of how Important those steps are. I fought dino's for more than a year in JBJ RL AIO. I finally threw in the towel and wish I would have cut my losses and did the reboot from the get go. Had I known the time, effort, and money that would be lost over that year of trying everything; I would have never bothered fighting it with an AIO and it's limitations. In your situation having a sump and all sorts of options available to you, try searching old threads on Dinos here on the forum, @Lexinverts has had experience with them, is extremely knowledgeable with the pest, and gave the steps for ridding yourself of them some time ago, so with a bit of searching i think you will find what your looking for Good Luck to you both!

I was growing Cheato in the back chamber of my JBJ AIO for a few years with an IM magnafuge. It would need pruning every so often, certainly never grew as fast as it does in my sump with proper lighting though.

Thank you for clarifying the specifics, I'm wondering if his ATO reservoir was simply drained by the pump in less than 3 minutes. A good solution might be to swap to an aqua lifter or peristaltic pump if that were the case.

I'm with you scott, I personally like Float switches myself. Though LewisriverFisherman's ATO obviously had some sort of hickup, and we all know Tunze is a solid product with great customer support, so was hoping he had diagnosed the issue so it could possibly corrected to prevent future failures, instead of having to go buy something new.

I was just looking into the specs of what I assume he was talking about and edited my post while you quoted me Thanks for the heads up though! I was thinking of Tunze 3155

Interesting, Well i hate to say it but regardless of the methods we use there's always a chance for failure. Glad it was only a .02 drop and not worse. Did you by chance investigate as to why it may have stuck? Does the glass need to be cleaned, and doesn't the Tunzee have a secondary backup of stopping after "X" amount of minutes or Seconds or an alarm that sounds and shuts it off when hitting a particular level? Just realized the 3152 is a single float switch, though on the powerline there is a box that has a jumper in there that can be used to set the length of time before it shuts itself off. I was thinking of the Optical Tunze that has that annoying alarm

Cheapest you will find is here You won't be able to purchase the endcaps, crimps and wire for that cheap at $7.55 for 50 ft or $10.55 for 75 ft

+1 Scott made my custom light stand, and does awesome work. come to think of it Brian, it's holding that ATI T5 fixture i got from you!

Sounds like you have everything under control, Key is that Rubbermaid you have running for the transition! Just a side note might want to keep a couple buckets of left over water change from the current setup to dump in the Rubbermaid. If you intend to keep the Live rock live, best to transport them up wet, and put them in the rubbermaid as well while the new tank is being setup and filled. That live rock will add to the beneficial bacteria in the meantime. I as well would toss the sand, nothing worth keeping with it, Always start out with new sand and give your filtration the upper hand from the get go. The last sentence is somewhat confusing to me "The idea would be to buy new sand and once it arrives, rescape and fill the tank back up with the live rock and just do water changes till it arrives." So I apologize if I'm misunderstanding something here, but I would start off by filling the tank first, match the parameters to the Rubbermaid, then when the sand arrives add it and make sure things are holding steady, When things match Add all the live rock over and then livestock. I would expect a 3 - 4 day transition from the Rubbermaid to the Tank. Good Luck! Let me know if you want more suggestions, I have done this many of times :)

Nope using it for a doser is a great utilization and a good way to know when to test an alert given a particular variation. Alk doser wasn't mentioned in your 1st post, so had no idea if you were trying to chase a specific number. Had i been discouraging you I would have never mentioned BRS dual Junction probes, or Replacing it for that matter. I was just trying to convey not to make any sudden changes to raise that number based off a probe reading is all. I'll be sure to stay off your threads from now on.

Well the 1st thing to do is not make any wild changes, before investigating the issue further. I would 1st re-calibrate your probe, then continue to watch the variation over the week. Many people don;t even bother with a pH probe and have no issues. It was something we used to concern ourselves with more in the 90's but chasing that number has lead to many tank crashes. If it is in fact 4 years it may be time to replace it, BRS has some dual junction probes for a good price.

See the post directly below yours:

Holly!, Not keeping up with wiping down the glass and equipment during your weekly maintenance routine to prevent such a disaster! As the others mentioned, Vinegar is the go to, though i suggest looking for a type with less of a potent aroma.

yuk city, looks like Dinos.

I have gotten it with Kent, Instant Ocean, and Red Sea. I remember Ryan from BRS mentioned once what it was but i have forgotten. I would consider it to be normal. Though I only get it on the bottom of the bucket.

I think so when i first got mine i put it in the bathtub to try and see what kind of flow i could adjust and it really didn't seem like it was pushing much water, compared to after i calibrated. Though I'm using an S1, and on full speed my Apex Flow sensor after a 45 Degree Bend reads about 850GPH, and I I really don't notice any flow in my sump either.

I was just going to ask if you calibrated it, thats a must when you 1st set up a vectra

If using EcoTech get the backup battery to keep the powerheads going to avoid stagnation, freeze some milk jugs full of water or Ice packs, and keep an eye on the temperature, if begins to raise begin to add ice packs as needed to bring it down, and save your UPS for powering a couple basic house fans on the tank. If everything goes well and 4 hours is all things should go fine.

So 1st, the Prime HD requires it's own software to control its settings. Usually Android or iOS, 2nd, The Korllia Powerheads are controlled by the Hydor Wavemakers. As the old "Aquacontrollers" are long gone and Dead, you can reasonably find a good priced Apex Jr that would in fact control The Heater, Pump & Skimmer. There is a VDM Module that works for AquaIllumination lights though the Prime is it's own beast and only links wireless. As for the Korallia you can control it by turning on and off to create burst waves and using an EB8 plugs 4 & 8 and I believe plug 2 on an EB4 you can control it.

The Lugals solution is Iodine, that does not expire. The Elos Omega Amino Acids will loose there potency over time but wont per say expire, not to mention that stuff isn't even made anymore. The rest of the crap I would toss.

Does this mean we can look forward to another awesome Shop in the Salem Area? 😁