SuncrestReef

@MrBret What hours are you open during the Tuesday farmer's market? My wife & I might stop in sometime soon!!!

You should put some zoas out next to those blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries. Either that or you should do wine tasting inside you shop!!! 🍷😂

I'm amazed that nobody has come out with a simple water depth probe. They are common in commercial settings like public works and refineries.

You should set up a "Hatch Cam" livestream video!

Here are the two frags I won in the Golden Basket TFT auction: Great additions to my reef. Thanks @goldenbasketreef Rudy!

"Welcome to the monthly meeting. Here's your raffle ticket, and your piece of monti undata. Burgers are on the grill out back..." 🤣

Yes. I have a small 3.5 gallon refugium (originally the ATO reservoir) with chaeto, but it’s not enough to keep PO4 down to acceptable levels on its own, so I also have a GFO reactor. I started my tank with dry Pukani rock and my PO4 levels were extremely high (over 1.5 ppm) for the first month or so, but the combination of chaeto and GFO brought it down to 0.1 ppm. Just recently I increased the GFO flow and ran the chaeto lights 24/7 to further reduce PO4 to 0.01-0.02 ppm.

Anyone want to go in together on this? https://www.forbes.com/sites/billspringer/2019/06/21/billionaire-bucket-list-this-216-foot-long-luxury-support-catamaran-carries-the-subs-speedboats-helicopters-atvs-and-crew-that-every-superyacht-owner-needs/#88b483530aa0

None of my fish or inverts have nipped on corals in the past, and I haven't added any new livestock in the past 6 months. Since I'm retired, I'm looking at my tank very frequently at all hours of the day so I'm pretty in touch with behaviors in my tank and I doubt they're nipping behind my back. 😊

I've been running GFO for a year, but recently turned up the flow through GFO reactor by about 25%, and started running my refugium lights 24/7 to increase chaeto growth. No additives. If I just turn down the GFO and revert back to 12 hour refugium lighting, I'm sure my PO4 will bounce back due to fish feeding and Reef Roids.

No, none of these corals are within reach of any other corals. I feed them at night, so I'm frequently observing them after lights out and know how far sweeper tentacles can reach, and these are all safe from neighbors. There are no corals that could fall on them either. All 3 have started showing problems within days of each other, and they're at opposite ends and the middle of the tank, so it's not isolated to one area.

It seems unlikely. You'd need to expand the cabinet, the vial holder, the stepper motor track, the program logic to know how far to move, and the system to know it has extra vials:

Over the past few days some of my LPS corals have been losing tissue. It started about a week ago with a favia, then my large acan colony, and now my plate coral. I monitor my parameters carefully and the only thing that has changed is phosphate. I've been working to reduce phosphate over the past several weeks to combat a few patches of stubborn algae, and now for the past week or so my PO4 has been consistently around 0.01 - 0.02 ppm. In the past it was between 0.05 - 0.10 ppm: Is it possible this reduction in PO4 could be the cause? I could easily bring the levels back up to where they were before. There has been no other change in lighting or flow, and these corals had been healthy for many months until this week. All of my other LPS (hammers, duncans, gonioporas, lobos, etc.) and SPS seem to be doing fine. I spot feed all my corals Reef Roids twice per week. My parameters are: Temp = 78 Salinity = 1.026 pH = 8.1 - 8.35 Alk = 8.20 dKH Cal = 420 ppm Mag = 1360 ppm PO4 = 0.01 - 0.02 ppm NO3 = 4 - 8 ppm Thoughts?

There's definitely no right or wrong way to run a reef tank (well, there probably are a lot of wrong ways to do it..) and all of us have different methodologies. I'll confess I'm a data junkie and can't get enough input to satisfy me. All of these automated testing systems have pros & cons. I'm just glad to see the industry moving this direction.

Here's that same graph including pH. The daily pH swing didn't really change after adjusting the dosing schedule to smooth out alkalinity.

In my tank the swing wasn't huge, but with frequent testing and then adjusting the dosing schedule to account for the peak and low demand periods, I was able to really smooth it out. Here are some graphs I posted a while back in my Trident Hands On thread: If you only test once per day (the red line below), you may think your parameters are very stable. This shows what's actually happening:

I know a lot of people don’t like the Trident forcing you to run at least 4 tests per day and can understand the cost of reagents is an issue for some people. One thing I like to point out is that things can change even when you’re not dosing anything or trying to dial something in. To me the beauty of having automated testing is that you’ll never get caught off guard and realize a parameter is off after it’s too late. After having the Trident for only the first few days I learned how much alkalinity and calcium can fluctuate over a 24 hour period. Without frequent testing, you’ll never realize the swings you’re subjecting your corals to.

Yes, the Trident will not work for multiple tanks (unless they shared a common sump). If you're not planning to automate changes to dosing, then the Trident's value is reduced to just test results of alk, cal, and mag.

If you already have an Apex 2016 or Apex-EL, it will be of no surprise that I recommend the Trident. I've had mine for over two months now and I absolutely love it. I have completely forgotten how much time I used to spend testing alkalinity and calcium every day, and I rarely tested magnesium but never knew how much it changes daily. I have my Trident integrated with my DOS pumps to automatically fine-tune my 2-part dosing and it keeps parameters very constant. I increased the testing interval to every 3 hours, so my tank no longer has daily swings as it's dosing more during the day and less at night. The biggest challenge if you go with a Trident will probably be the process of finding one in stock. They're still in short supply.

Here's a shortcut to the auctions. You'll find 35 frags to bid on: http://www.pnwmas.org/forums/forum/24-golden-basket/

Mine has branched out and encrusted the plug, but less than 1 cm growth in overall height. Day 1:

The Trident is sort of shaped like a shoehorn anyway, so you may not need anything else to squeeze it in. 🤣

Apparently the process of creating virtual outputs is completely different on the Apex Classic. You need to add a fake module from the http://apex.local console to get the virtual outputs to show up. Go into Configuration...Module Setup: This is described in chapter 9 of the Apex Comprehensive Reference Guide: https://www.neptunesystems.com/downloads/docs/Comprehensive_Reference_Manual.pdf OK, getting back to your question about Apex 2016 vs Apex EL, there are 3 key differences: Salinity probe ORP probe 0-10v variable outlets You can add these missing features in the future by purchasing 3 add-on modules (PM1, PM2, VDM, plus the probes), but the overall cost will end up $129 higher than if you just purchase the Apex 2016 up front, and will take up more space for the 3 modules. Personally I feel the full Apex 2016 is worth it. I use a 0-10v variable outlet to control my Maxspect Gyre, and might use the other variable port for a dimmable T5 hybrid fixture in the future. The salinity probe, while not 100% accurate compared to my refractometer, still shows trends if salinity is drifting due to ATO, skimmate, or dosing. And the ORP is a quick indicator if water chemistry has suddenly changed (like when something dies in your tank). And of course I have alerts set up for these conditions. Hope this helps with your decision. But perhaps you won't need to upgrade if you get the virtual outputs added as shown above.

Mushrooms can look dramatically different in size, shape, and color depending on their mood. I’ve purchased a mushroom in person, and after taking it home it looked nothing like it did in the store for several days. How long has it been in your tank?

This might help: https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/cui-inc/EPS120050-P5P/T983-P5P-ND/1016859 Polarization Positive Center Output Connector Barrel Plug, 2.1mm I.D. x 5.5mm O.D. x 12.0mm