TheClark

Beautiful!

FTW buddy! Nice job! I have the same head count as last month, not a single new baby popped out.

So cool! What larvae are you snagging/raising?

Shoot, going to be out of town! Ah well, have fun people!

Dang, brutal, what kind of doser was it?

So many good things this year as the big tank was new in 2014. Going to chalk up my years best to a PNWMAS community triggered upgrade. Met BlueZReef here on the forums, great guy. He prototyped and printed a pinwheel for my DC12000, that powers a big old 5' skimmer. Amazing upgrade, the skimmer is a monster now. I cannot get nitrates or phosphates if I try. I have met so many good people, people I would have not know they existed if not for pnwmas. Very thankful for that.

Yes, exactly, as @Higher Thinking states triton is only testing the water column, not rocks or sand. I have Tin in my water column, trying to reduce it. You can even calculate how much it should be reduced given water changes, bean animal has a calculator. As @Mandinga points out, if the sand or rocks is a sink/source of tin, then the water changes won't do any good. Just like when rocks are embedded with phosphate. In 1 year I have done one water change on this system until now. But the live rock and sand was used, which is common I suppose. So it is possible they are the source. If that is the case, I will slowly start changing out rock/sand as well along with water changes again, and test again. Well it is a fun experiment, thanks for tagging along. I will continue to post in the hope that it is interesting or useful to people and the discussion that goes with it.

Gee those all sound nice! Any pics by chance I am quite interested, love those montis...

Seems every bout of cold weather we hear about RODI freeze ups. Hope that is not it, good luck!

I wish Randy Homes Farley frequented our forum, but he does not. I may post your question over on R2R and take a crack at answering it here. Ultimately though I suggest reading up on Triton if possible in addition to those other articles you are reading. Here goes... Triton uses ICP testing. ICP tests everything down to the atomic level, all forms of tin. http://uniquecorals.com/triton/triton-labs-reef-aquarium-water-test-single-test-vials-with-return-shipping.html Triton Labs founder, Ehsan Dashti has developed customized protocols to utilize Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emmission Spectrometry analysis (ICP-OES) to literally rip molecules apart with plasma that is heated to 10,000 degrees Kelvin for analysis. The ICP-OES machine has been adapted by Ehsan to test seawater for the ultimate in accuracy. Water is tested for precise concentrations of lesser known elements found in seawater that are either essential and missing, or detrimental and building up to high levels in the aquarium. The elements being tested for include Na, Ca, Mg, K, Sr, B, Br, S, Li, Be, Ba, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Al, Si, As, Sb, Sn, Cd, Se, Mo, Hg, P (PO4), Pb, I. That is what makes it so special compared to what we have had available in the past. In the past we had to worry 'is the thing I am testing for organically bound' etc... and how much the test kit can detect, are my reagents good, etc. There is no this form or that form of copper, this form or that form of tin. It is all tested down to the atomic level. The ICP machine heats the sample with plasma to a temperature supposedly hotter than the sun breaking all bonds reducing everything in the water to the basic elements. So based on this I am confident Triton will detect tin that is free floating in the water, no matter what the form. Reefbuilders Article on Triton (explains it way better than me) You will also be interested to know, Triton is a no water change European method. The only time you need to change water is at the start to dilute heavy metals, that is why it is so ironic I am doing a massive water change Oh, last fun fact The Sun is different temperatures in different places. At the center it is around 15 million degrees kelvin It cools down from there to about 5800 K at the surface (the photosphere) and the heats up to over a million degrees in the Sun's outer atmosphere (the corona). Hope that helps!

No problem on the semi-hijack, lots of good side discussions, the reason I love reef forums and our generally/usually friendly group here I did put in the drain myself, I love DIY of all sorts and had access to a drain line under my office to tie into. Not for everyone, but I enjoy that sort of stuff. Otherwise any good plumber should be able to quote it especially if you can locate an existing drain line close to where you want the drain. If my sump overflows, it goes into the basin under the tank and then the drain. It would be a stretch to call what I have an emergency overflow though! Thanks for the thoughts...

Thanks Mandinga, I have more reading to do for sure based on your references. If water changes are not the right solution for reducing the tin, then the next ICP analysis will definitely show it. That is the beauty I guess of having this testing available is the chance to do an experiment and measure the results. Really do appreciate the thoughts and input. This is the value of the community, I value the sharing. Will re-test in about a month or two to see the results. On a side note, I do not expect the lithium levels to go down, it seems most US aquariums are high in Lithium due to salt mixes (leading theory) or 2 part over time (shown by RHF in some article). That salt theory corresponds pretty closely to what you are talking about. Water changes will do nothing to reduce lithium levels if that is the case. They don't worry me too much though, as many amazing tanks are showing an elevated lithium level. 350 gallons on line and ready for WCs starting tomorrow morning, fun stuff!

Good point! a bad box or two of salt, wow that would be a problem. The nice thing about the automatic continuous slow water changes is that the damage is done slowly, so if I keep up with testing any issues should stand out a bit. Indeed, I do have a floor drain! It is used for RODI waste water, and now waste for the water change. It's ultimate purpose in life is to be a floor drain like you see under a washer and dryer, saving the house if something under the tank springs a leak. Here is an old pic showing the drain and basin

Thanks for sharing!

Looks really, really nice! Love the Naso tang too, a favorite around here...

Figured it was time for an update. Well I am about 140 gallons into the water change routine with the goal of reducing the heavy metals. The first 60 gallons were with brutes cans on wheels were a bit time consuming., After a while I could see that my excitement was wearing on the WC. A few events lined up to give a better option: 1) Oxx sold some 425 gallon ace roto mold tanks 2) I remembered that the aquarium purchased from moovinfast came with a dual head perstaltic high end pump. (Cole parmer masterflex 7520-00 with dual pump heads) 3) Jeff at Cuttlefish and Corals allowed me to buy 3 boxes of salt at his dirt cheap price. With that equipment I was able to hook up an automatic continuous water change system. A system that pumps water in and out of the system at the same rate, thus slowly and continuously changing the water at the rate of about 8 gallons per hour. The tank sits in the back of the garage, unheated. The pump is located on top of the tank to try and balance out the head loss (yes, even peristaltic pumps have it despite what you read). I ran a line from the RODI in the office down to the tank to make filling the tank simply reconnecting a 1/4" line. Ah, one last equipment upgrade, the BRS water saver upgrade to the RODI system to halve the waste and up production to 150 gallons per day. The next 80 gallons were done 8 gallons an hour at a time, two times a day without lifting a finger, sweet!!! After this I will change about 3.5% /16 gallons per day for 60 days which should reduce the tin to about .2 ppb from the original value of 2.08. All this is assuming that no new tin is entering the system. So it is kind of ironic, the Triton system that pushes no water changes resulted in me changing almost 1000 gallons of water. In addition I have been running polyfilters and more recently meta-sorb (although Sn is not listed as something removed by meta sorb...) In about 2 months I will send in another sample and confirm the tin has been removed at the rate consistent with no new tin being added. LPS looks tremendously better. Could be the water changes, could be other things. All in all though it feels good to have the automatic water change diluting the tin away. Some resources for those interested Randy Holmes Farley Water Change Article http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/ Bean Animal Water Change Calculator http://www.beananimal.com/tools/aquarium-water-change-calculator.aspx One guys automatic continuous water change article http://www.glassreef.com/basics_water_changes.php

Sounds good thanks!

Cannot wait to see it!!!

Share the news! Here are my two. Not very expensive (from a reef perspective!) and both seem to work great. Tunze Care Magnet Recommended by a knowledgeable reefer (ssappington). I was amazed how his tank was clean down to the sand bed, no corraline, nothing but scratch free acyrlic. So Santa brought one, nice! I needed the strong so it set santa back over 70 bucks, there are cheaper ones if your tank is thinner though. Tunze has reinvented the glass magnet cleaner with the Care Magnet. Special plastic blades made of wear-resistant high performance plastic - plastic blades are recommended for acrylic tanks Plastic Blade life - several months to approx. one year Compact design with large cleaning surface area Inner magnet is more than 3mm away from the aquarium and prevents jamming of aquarium sand Angle of blades against glass, remove more algae than a flat blade Available in Nano, Long, and Strong Eheim Vaccuum KKnights sparking clean tank inspired this one. She has the same aquarium maker as I do and has the challenge of a deep overflow. This baby cleans out the detritus even in such a narrow situation. Yes, I could siphon from the overflow to the sump through a filter sock, but man this is easy. Easy tends to get done more often A bonus, this thing cleans out sump detritus as well. I am happy with it. Sump and overflows are much cleaner. Right now on amazon prime for 38 bucks, tough deal to beat.

I am pretty sure that Ocean In A Box in Vancouver sells it premixed also, if you are in that area.

Wow this is slick, I have been tracking in onenote. This is a big improvement.

Nice, thanks, I am interested for sure! I also have a 425 gallon water tank down there for pickup, that is a stretch but if anyone is driving a truck.... At least the clam is smaller!

If anyone from Vancouver is going down, I would love to get a nice XXL clam. Please PM or let me know if you are!

Nice prizes, looks like it was allot of fun. Thanks for the pictures Randy!