obrien.david.j

2 hours ago, Trailermann said:

 I have done that.  Works well, but the "fan" of the spray is a little wider than I would like, therefore, the base of the frag gets hit as well.

Yes it does, but I haven't had a problem with that.

On 1/4/2020 at 2:25 PM, Flash21 said:

Double Decker 😂

Took a pict tonight of your OME, double decker, and look at the awesome growth.    Not bad for growth since early November.  Thanks again.

I love this stuff, and thought I'd share my whole fragging system.

Start with 18 egg carton, clip the tops of the dividers off.  This is the perfect frag plug holder and glueing rack.

Cut a stash of frags.   Dip each plug in water, and fill then set into the egg carton carrier.

Squeeze gel super glue onto a plug, stick frag into glue and and arrange as desired.   

Spray the glue (and inevitably some of the frag too) with insta-set, wait five seconds.   

I tend to glue up a carton worth of frags.  And, IMPORTANT STEP,  rinse insta-set off by dipping in a cup full of tank water.    I forgot a few times, and put the frags straight into the tank.  first one or two was fine.  But after doing a dozen, the tank didn't like it.   Simple dip is enough rinse for me.

There, That's my system. Egg Carton frag holder.  

EXACTLY!   great idea

OME is looking healthy.  It's been in my frag tank, and over the holidays I gave the tank target feedings almost every morning.   I did glue it to a 2nd frag plug (but left the original plug on).  So it's kind of double decker high right now.  Plenty of room to grow and expand!

It still looks like no-one has a "here's a canned solution."   but I'll investigate getting closer.  Frankly, I'm surprised, given how long Apex has been out and how nerdy some of us users are.   

Two things are motivating me to pick this up again.  1. I want to see trends longer than 7 days.  Even 14 days would help, but I really want to see 30day trends.  2. I want to setup some pre-canned comparison graphs.  I regularly compare my pH, overlayed with my dosing schedule.  Just to watch my Kalk reactor trend.   I regularly watch my Temp, overlayed with Heater and 2ndHeater On/Off, and my fish room T-air overlayed.  

We're out of town this weekend, so investigating this domain will have to wait until next week for me.   

I've got a bunch of nice frags of green pocillopora.   Hardy, super bright green.   I'm happy to share.   Just PM me if you want some.  I'm on west side of town, north of 26 off Murray Rd.

This is the mother colony, big green mass, right above the blue clam.

(And don't ask why I still keep that big ugly Pajama Cardinal.    We have history together.)

You actually TYPE into excel?  Like real numbers?

Okay, I'll work on the article to extract the xml from Apex and reformat it.  Someone else will have to help on the automation to re-execute on a regular basis.  And then based on extracted format, we'll work on graphing.   This is one area I wish someone had put a homebrew solution to years ago. I am a data nerd.

But... Before I do all this, and seeing that you're retired...  Will you go scour R2R and the Neptune community boards to see if someone has done this already?   I know how to get an xml of data out of apex manually.  I'm looking for a more re-executable/automated extractor, and then auto-appender of data together please.

Thanks!

54 minutes ago, SuncrestReef said:

I've been tracking my ORP for over a year. (why?  because I'm a data nerd. 🤓)

Oh Fellow Data Nerd... I might need an post from you on your system to pull and store neptune data, and then favorite way of graphing like this.  I LIKE THIS!

(And SEE, swapping blocks was good for your ORP. 

And my ORP was running low 400's before Xmas, and then I got the grand idea to do more Amino Acid dosing and daily targeted coral feedings while I was home over the holidays - and dropped into the mid/upper 300's.  Doesn't bother me either way.   Higher means I had less organics in the water, lower means I've been adding a lot.   And my skimmer confirms that.

Looks like I'm into tank photography Christmas Eve Day.   December 24th, 2018 and 2019.

Looking at these, I can see my Frogspawn on the left hand side is dramatically reduced over this year.  Two things have changed.   
1. Added MP40 (right side) creating cross front current.   
2. Added Tilefish to eliminate Aptasia.  Unfortunately, it also had a taste for LPS's.   

Tilefish was removed This Week, so I'll have to track if the FragSpawn re-expands in the coming months.   But there was no doubt he was nibbling..   I've had to remove a number of LPS's to let them recover.

Astrena Starfish problems?  Last year I was pulling 25-50 out by hand Every Day from my display tank.   Then added a pair of Harlequin Shrimp...   Happiness for months.   

I returned the shrimp to my LFS instead of letting them starve....  and in the past month they've returned.  I've pulled 1-2 out by hand every day for the past two weeks.   I two will need shrimp again, if I can't manually control these starfish.

And as a fellow K2R user, I'll share my maint for today.  Refilling my reactor.   Switched from ARM to Reborn for the first time, let's see how it does.  Records show the last time I refilled this reactor was July.

Congrats on the light expansion.   I get your paranoia about lights falling into the tank, and about keeping them perfectly level.    If you ever feel the need to modify the mount system, what I did might work well as an option.

I used 2" aluminum bar stock from home depot (~1/8" thick).  Cut it and ran it the length of my lights.  Drilled and countersunk holes, and matched them to the G4 mounting holes.   They stick out beyond the ends of the lights.   In my case, I'm using them as sliding mounting rails so the lights are movable when working on the tank.  But the exact bar idea could work for you.  Maybe run it the Short distance of the light, rather than the long distance I did.   (And that wouldn't cover the power buttons either.  Mine are covered, it's okay with me)

Here's some picts.

20 minutes ago, Willapa said:

Two stage heating, that’s a first! If the Apex gets stuck on, do you rely on the internal heater controller as a backup? I’m using just the finnex elements with no built in controller.
Thanks for sharing.

That's the idea.  For the Jager's I was relying on the internal thermal control as backup.  For my latest Finnex elements I bought an external controller (something like rainbird) as backup.

BTW - I figured out I should be doing two Not-Huge heaters, instead of one largest wattage heater by using my 2nd temp probe in the frag tank.  The temp swings were much larger there when I had a single largest wattage heater.    Amazing what you can learn by monitoring.

7 minutes ago, Willapa said:

... after the first evening of the temperature roller coaster. The BRS controller would change like .1F when heaters were on but Apex temp probe would go up a half degree. So I’d have over 1.5F swings when the Apex has about .5F swing. ...
 

Notice my programming, I'm controlling with Apex to 0.2F swing.   Yes, during cooler nights I'm controlling to 0.5F swing.    

BTW - I'm doing a 0.7F swing on my chiller settings in the summer.  Cycled more often than I liked when I tried 0.2F for the chiller.

I've been a consistent heater redundancy user.   Apex turns them on and off based on Apex temp probe, heaters are set 2-4 degrees higher than desired set point to insure if apex gets stuck I don't get a boiled tank.    It's saved me at least three times in the past 20 years.   (first apex was #201 from 1997)

I used Jager heaters until May of this year, when I switched to Finnex.  Jager were great, but even new ones have been failing more often in recent years - so I've switched.   Yes, I used Finnex through a redundant controller.

My sump is in the garage, so water temp is affected by nightime air temps more than most tanks.  Also, my sump feeds a small garage frag tank AND the main tank (with the temp probe in it).   If I use too strong a heater, the frag tank gets over heated before the main tank gets back to temp.   So I use two stage heating, with setpoint difference.  If the 300W heater (blue lines below) can't get the water temp back up, then 0.3F lower and the 2nd heater kicks in. (black bars below)   I also use a second Temp Probe just sticking into the air of the fish room to get a feel for how cold it got.  It's not a perfect temp reading, just a relative indicator.

Here's the last week of tank temp.  (Orange is T-Tank, Green is T-Air of the garage fish room)

I can't see them either, its not just you.

I'll pay it forward.  I've been getting help on my diversity project, so I'll offer you some.   

I've got a >1yr old Brightwell Dimplebrick I'll share.   Age means a few corners have worn off, but it's still in reasonable shape and well cured.   I'll trade for a nice frag of the yellow tort.   (https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/xport-bio-biological-filtration-dimpled-brick-brightwell.html)

I'm on the west side of town so visiting Sandy is a bit far.   PM me to work out the details in the next couple of days if you can meet half way.

Same for me, I'd be interested in a Seed Rock - or rubble.   (it's going in the sump, shape / prettiness doesn't matter)

How many pounds in a box, or more directly, I'm willing to buy 3-7lbs worth of diversity.

What part of town are you in?

 Diversity Addition #4 completed (yesterday), Thanks MrBret at Paradise Coral.

This is 5 gallons of water and some rock rubble from "rock and live sand collected from the Gulf of Mexico."

thanks!

20 hours ago, MrBret said:

 

 

 

 

 

Would you mind reminding me what kind of fish this is?   Thanks.

Oh, it's a race... Eli, Do you want me to sample Now! 

Diversity Action #3 completed.   Added 9 new frags from Cuttlefish, But unusual for me - I added the bag water to my tank.   So, Diversity source #3.

Thanks for the awesome Mystery Box Jeff.

Eli - New testing kit received.   How long you want me to let all this settle in before testing again, Perhaps Xmas?

Happy Birthday Holly!   You're an an awesome roll model in this hobby.