SuncrestReef

Happy Reefing Valentine's Day!

Here are the randomly selected winners for our 2nd annual For the Love of Reefing raffle:

• @Paratore
• @WestSideReefer
• @Lifer

Congratulations!  Each of you have won a $100 gift certificate to the LFS of your choice.  I will send you each a PM to coordinate which store you'd like.

There were 129 Supporting Members eligible for this raffle.  Thank you all for your continued support!

Happy reefing 🙂

2 hours ago, Lexinverts said:

That was a great game!

I agree!  It was a nail-biter.

Bump...

There's still time left to qualify for tomorrow's raffle by becoming a Supporting Member.  You have until midnight tonight to sign up, and then raffle winners will be announced tomorrow at noon!

How many of you plan to watch the Super Bowl today?  If so, who are you rooting for?

Since I'm originally from Detroit, I'm rooting for the Rams with their former Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford.

44 minutes ago, Brittany said:

How many members do you have?

We currently have 124 Supporting Members eligible for the raffle out of a total of 4,192 forum members, though many of those are dormant accounts.

17 minutes ago, waldoz said:

Glad I got finally signed up. It's great you guys do this! Thank you!

Thanks for signing up!

FYI, last fiscal year (June 1, 2020 - May 31, 2021) PNWMAS gave away $4,405 worth of raffle prizes.  A $24 Individual or $30 Family membership has pretty good odds of paying off in prizes!

EDIT: To clarify, some raffles are open to all members of PNWMAS (not just paying Supporting Members) through the sales of raffle tickets, while other raffles like this "For the Love of Reefing" raffle are limited to paid Supporting Members.  So not all $4,405 worth of prizes went to paying members.  I just wanted to make that clear...

Looking through our Supporting Members list, I found there are only six people with memberships expiring before the end of February 2022:

@badxgillen

@mattv 

@Knuckledragger

@Lexinverts

@Kenshin

@suru

If you want to be eligible for the raffle, please renew your memberships by February 13th at midnight. 

Follow these steps to renew:

In celebration of Valentine's Day, we will be holding our 2nd annual "For the Love of Reefing" raffle.  Three lucky winners will each receive a $100 gift certificate to the LFS of their choice.

Rules:

1. The raffle is open to paid Supporting Members of PNWMAS only.  If you are not yet a paid Supporting Member, sign up here before midnight February 13, 2022 to be eligible for the drawing:
2. Your Supporting Membership must be valid through the end of February 2022.   If you are unsure of your Membership expiration date, send me a PM and I can look it up for you so you can renew before the Feb 13, 2022 midnight deadline.
3. There are no raffle tickets to purchase.  Instead, all Supporting Members will automatically be entered into the drawing.
4. The three winners will be randomly selected on Monday, February 14th at 12:00 noon.  Winners will be announced in a new thread at that time.
5. I will send each winner a PM and/or email to coordinate on which LFS they choose for the $100 gift certificate.

Good luck to all, and Happy Reefing Valentines Day!

Slightly off topic, but watching how this guy repairs Apex hardware is impressive:

https://www.youtube.com/c/FixReef/videos

9 minutes ago, obrien.david.j said:

Fair.  I'm a pretty abusive of my EB832 ports.   My understanding is they're much more robust than older EB8's.   Maybe @SuncrestReef observations or experiences to make.

I have my EB832 control my CO2 solenoid for a CaReactor Ph setpoint.   Switches 40-100 times a day (over month of Dec'21).    I also used it for my heaters, as shown.   It's been setup this way, on the same eb832 for years.

This has been a common debate for years.  Neptune states the relays are rated for “over 1 million cycles”.

I had a conversation with the guy from fixreef.com who repairs EB832’s and other reefing electronics for a living.  Here’s what he had to say:

“Zettler relays installed in all EB832s are rated for 10m cycles mechanically and 100k cycles electrically at max load:

Unless your heater is near 2400w, you are nowhere near the max 20A load. 

EB8s, on the other hand, did have an issue, specifically with outlets managed by solid state relays (6 out of 8). They failed frequently. There was no mechanical wear, but electrically they were weaker than the larger mechanical relays. I think Neptune eventually realized their mistake and did not include them in the EB832 design. But the history cannot be erased, which may explain where the legend started.”

According to DownDetector.com (a service that monitors reported problems for major Internet services) there are a lot of people in the Portland and Seattle area reporting problems with Ziply today:

Have you tried the basic step of rebooting your Internet modem, just in case?

I'll take them.  I've been meaning to beef up my CUC because I still have a bit of an algae issue.

12 minutes ago, Yourmedic said:

I think I’m going to be on the lookout for an Apex/trident system! 

Just be aware, if you want the Trident, it is not compatible with the Apex Classic or older models.  The Trident requires the current model Apex 2016 or Apex-EL.  See my Apex Hardware Overview article for details on all the available Apex modules:

Apex:	Apex-EL:

https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/apex-hardware-overview.775/

2 hours ago, Yourmedic said:

I was thinking of getting the Apex/trident pack, but I don’t have a computer currently. You need a computer to set up and use that system, right?

The Apex can be monitored & controlled from any smartphone (iOS or Android), PC or Mac.  At a minimum, it can be controlled & monitored with no smartphone or computer by using the optional Apex Display module (a small LCD screen with push buttons to navigate its menu structure).

Love it!

I made a similar time lapse video back when I first started my tank.  It's fun watching the snails.  Also, notice the hermit crab on the right side that hitchhikes on 3 different conchs:

17 minutes ago, nkaihani said:

Curious, was your tank on autopilot with Apex or someone was taking care of it? Looks like a very cool trip!

Totally on Apex autopilot!  I checked it this morning once I had an Internet signal and everything looked good.  I have the AFS fish feeder full of pellet food for when I'm out of town.  I'm sure the fish will appreciate getting some frozen LRS food tonight!

I spent a wonderful week in the Amazon jungle of Ecuador with my wife.  Did I miss anything good here?  I was 100% off the grid, but checking my Apex this morning I see that everything in my tank appears normal.  Here are some photos of the amazing wildlife I saw on my safari:

I'm on my way to the airport for a 9 day trip to Ecuador, so not really in a position to help right now, and won't have Internet for about a week.  Sorry.

You might want to reach out to @obrien.david.j because he has MP's controlled by his Apex.  Maybe he has some ideas?

1 minute ago, John Vinson said:

That's exactly what I needed....I added that code in for both Alkalinity and Calcium....many thanks!  (to be clear, I need to set them back to "auto" from "off" in order for the new code to be used, correct?) 

Yes, leave the DOS dashboard sliders set to AUTO, and the code in the Advanced tab will take care of stopping the DOS when that condition is true.  The slider will still be set to AUTO, but at the upper right of the slider it will say "OFF" instead of "TBL".

34 minutes ago, John Vinson said:

Yeah, I'm still figuring things out with this Trident and the doser.....for some reason it still doses 0.1 mL per hour, even if it's gone over the upper limit that I set (seems this is just how the unit works, my LFS said they just turn the doser off manually and let it settle before turning it back on).  I've started doing the same thing and it's now down to 513

The Trident will never completely stop the DOS when the test results are out of range.  It only increases or decreases the dosing up to the percentage you specify, and when outside of the range, it will revert back to the base DOS amount without any adjustments.

You can automate turning off the DOS instead of doing it manually by adding a line of code into the Advanced tab from the DOS Schedule screen:

If Cax3 > 500 Then OFF

It will remain off until the next Trident test result is lower than this value.

Read Neptune’s guide for Trident Controlled Dosing here:

https://www.neptunesystems.com/getstarted/trident/tridentdos/

What are the specs on that 3-way adapter, and how many watts are your heaters?  I agree with the above comment that it's probably not due to salt, but just too much load for that adapter.

31 minutes ago, The ReefBox said:

Yeah John was weird.  It’s new apex.  Finally got it connected.  Is there any way to get all of my old programming back from bad base unit 

If the old Apex is still in your Fusion Apex List, you can click the disconnected Apex, then click Configuration Summary.  This document will contain all the programming, and Input/Output names.

Which model of Apex?  A token is only needed for the Apex Classic, Apex Jr, and older models.

The current model 2016 Apex and Apex-EL don't need any token.  If you follow the Neptune Getting Started Guides it will walk you through each step for all the available models: https://www.neptunesystems.com/getstarted/

Congrats to all the 12 Days winners!  Thank you all so much for continuing to support PNWMAS.  I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, and I hope your reef tanks are thriving.

On the Twelfth Day of Giving my reef club gave to @Algaewarrior ... a ReeFi UNO LED light!

Congratulations!  Your prize is available at Cuttlefish & Corals.