Colorado Reefs
here fishy fishy ::…
H&S 90 Calcium Reactor first thoughts.
Thanks to an AWESOME Friend, I made a trade, and we both got what we needed 
. That said, this post will be about the H&S 90 Calcium Reactor I just received. The H&S 90 Calcium reactor is rated for a 100 Gallon tank, which should fit my tank quite well at a combined size of 95 Gallons. The system consists of a 4′ long 75 Gallon Acryllic tank, and a 14 Gallon Biocube, modded to allow for inlets and returns from the shared sump. The Calcium and Alkalinity requirements are quite low currently, so we’ll get to see how this reactor does with the growth of the tank, having started out from a small load. Since this was a freebie(in relative terms) to me, I had to supply a few parts of my own, that were missing or not included with the original reactor. There are a few accessories that help quite a bit in running and maintaining a calcium reactor:
H&S 90 Calcium Reator (90CRX-01)dfds
The reactor feels solid, and is built well. It came very well recomended, and the ease of use is very pleasing. If anything it’s more accomodating to a beginning user, as there are few things that can go wrong. The reactor features a built in bubble counter, which as can be seen in the picture to the left is mounted higher up on the side, making it easily viewable.
Effluent is fed off of the top of the reactor, and the provided valve is makes for easy control of the drip rate. The only minor gripe I had was that there is no re-circulation of co2 built in, but in this configuration, would be hard to do.
The reactor also features a built in pH probe inlet, which, when not in use, seals well. I’ve opted to run a Milwaukee SMS122, and the probe installation was very simple, and made setting up the reactor a breeze.
The Reactor has a twist lock top which is very sturdy, and makes mainenance and resupply of ARM on the reactor very simple. The base is also very sturdy, consisting of an upside down T, which the pump of the Aquabee 500 pump mounts to. Once set up and running, the system seems quite quiet and matches the hum of the rest of the pumps in my tank’s cabinet.
The only reactor I had before this was very hard to work with, and did not have the probe slot, which I think, besides the sturdy build to be it’s best point.
Tags: 90, Ac Voltage, alkalinity, Amp, calcium, calcium reactor, Calcium Reactors, Circulation, Co2, Co2 Reactor, Dfds, Drip Rate, Effluent, First Thoughts, Freebie, Gallon Tank, HS, inlet, Inlets, Milwaukee, Modded, pH, pH controller, Ph Probe, probe, reactor, Relative Terms, Seals, Shut Down, solenoid, Twist Lock
Reefcentral is not gone!
Earlier this morning, I posted regarding Reefcenral being down for good, apparently this is not the case, and they’re currently restoring backups to bring the site back up.
Tags: Admins, Backups, Damn Shame, Lack Of Intelligence, Original Article, Reef Central
Seaclone 50 & 100 Skimmer Mod: Air stone implant
SeaClone 100
In an effort to boost the production of skimmate with the seaclone series of skimmers, I followed and posted up the following article(suggested mods for the seclone skimmer). Since then, I had read about the benefits and possible problems with adding an air stone to the Seaclone 50 or 100, in order to help with fractioning(the making of the bubbles). I went ahead and modified the one on my show tank to see what the outcome would be. This mod is rather simple to do, requires following:
- Air pump
- Air hose
- Lime Stone for bubble generation
- Drill
- Drill bit the size of the air hose
All you need to do is simply drill a hole in the collection cup cover, feed the air tube through, attach the limestone, and feed it down to the bottom of the riser tube. Easy enough. Hook up the air pump, and plug it in. This worked GREAT. I had great dark skimmate, and had to clean the cup the next day. What I didn’t realize(or check for) was that the salinity of the water was slowly but surely dropping from 1.025 to 1.020 SG. I’ve just noticed this the other day, and will now revert to the original set up, and try again, seeing if the same thing persists. If not, it was another culprit(maybe some bad replacement water). More to come on this front, though the skimmate produced was pretty damn good.
Tags: Air Hose, Air Stone, Air Tube, Airstone, Bubbles, Culprit, Drill Bit, Drill Drill, Hook Up, Lime Stone, Limestone, Riser Tube, Salinity, Seaclone, Seaclone 100, Seaclone 150, Seaclone Skimmer, show tank, Skimmer, Skimmers
Update on the Milwaukee SMS-122 debacle
I originaly posted a while ago regarding my issue with my Milwaukee sms-122 (link)
After speaking with support and being told to test the unit without a powerstrip in the way, I did, finally, after a month or so of being busy. Unfortunately the result was still the same, so now, I’m back at stage one, sending the unit back to Milwaukee to be fixed.
Tags: alkalinity, calcium reactor, Carbon Dioxide, Co2 Pressure Regulator, Co2 Regulator, Debacle, Milwaukee Sms 122, Powerstrip, Sms, Stage One
Milwaukee SMS-122 Reef pH controller bites the dust
It appears while we were out on vacation over the weekend my Milwaukee SMS-122 pH controller for my calcium reactor bit the dust and appears to have shorted at the relay to supply power to the solednoid on the co2 tank. Pretty lame, but it’s better to be safe than sorry with concern to co2 and calcium reactors… Nothing harmed, except low alkalinity. Considering it’s only a few months old, I’ll be claiming warranty on it and getting it fixed by Milwaukee.
Tags: alkalinity, calcium reactor, Calcium Reactors, Co2 Tank, Lame, Milwaukee Sms 122, pH controller, Reef, Saltwater, Sms, Sms-122, Tank, Warranty
Suggested Modifications for the Seaclone Skimmer
SeaClone 100
Given my cheap budget(in relative terms), I’ve stayed with the skimmer that came with my 75G Show tank, since I got it. Main reason, it didn’t cost anything, and has worked, very well actually. I originally got my 75G Show tank from a friend who works in the aquarium business, and had a customer who wanted his out. I took it, with the low low cost of moving it out of his house. Not a bad price, given I’d have to do that w/ a used tank anyways.
I should preface this page with first, by saying that there is a little bit different setup to my skimmer: It’s not setup HOB(Hang on Back) style. I’ve taken off the necesary pieces, and connected the Maxi-Jet 1200 directly to the skimmer body. While this reduces the bubble’s contact time with the water, it hasn’t seemed to make any difference in the performance of the skimmer. The skimmer sits in the bottom of my sump, in about 4″ of water. I should also mention, this is the SeaClone 100, not the Seaclone 150. Here we go:
- Pump/Impeller: If you’re not using a Maxi-Jet 1200 with this unit, get one. Take out the impeller and drill three tiny holes(1/16″) in each blade of the impeller. Even better, make a mesh wheel for the maxi-jet 1200. I haven’t done this, but I would expect it would help even more with performance, by making the bubbles even tinier, creating more surface area.
- Inner riser tube: I cut mine down by 3 1/2″ – 4″. There have been other pages which say you can pull this out, after taking out the inner column, but I have never been able to get either of mine out(I have 2 of these skimmers). I have a dremel with the flex shaft attachment, which made cutting this pretty easy using a smaller size cutting wheel. Given my big hands, I did putz around with it a bit, but with a little patience I got this done pretty easily. Take your time here, as breaking this would render the whole skimmer pretty much useless.
- Collection cup riser tube: Reduce the height of the riser tube in the collection cup by about 1/2″. Given the total height the foam has to go to get into the collection cup, this can only help, as it allows it to flow over into the collection cup easier.
- Replace the provided “air adjustment” valve with a real air adjustment valve. The one provided with the Maxi-Jet just doesn’t have enough control over the amount of air you want going into the skimmer.
These are the four changes I have made to the two of my SeaClone skimmers, and it has made all the difference. On average I’d say both pull out about 1 Cup per week from my Show tank cluster and my frag cluster of tanks.
Tags: Aquarium, Big Hands, Blade, Bubbles, Coral Tank, Dremel, Flex Shaft, Hob, Little Bit, Patience, Preface, Reef System, Reef Tank, Relative Terms, Riser Tube, Saltwater, Saltwater Aquarium, Seaclone 100, Seaclone 150, Seaclone Skimmer, show tank, Skimmers, Surface Area, Tiny Holes, Wh, Wheel
Spirograph Scolymia LPS Coral is BEAUTIFUL
Spirograph Scolymia - LPS Coral
Tags: Beautiful, Coral, Lps, Reef Builders, Scolymia, Spirograph
Sketchup Drawing of my 75G mixed reef
48Wx18Dx21H
I just finished sketching up my 4 foot 75 Gallon Mixed Coral Reef tank, drain in the middle chamber in the back, to returns, one on each side. This drawing doesn’t include the canopy, which currently is built to hold 4 46.5″ VHO Bulbs, two Super Actinic and two Actinic White, run off a IceCap 660. Whole tank is made of 1/2″ acryllic. The sump that this tank drains to is a 20 gallon acryllic, with a seperator in the middle, no room for fuge, skimmer in first partition and calcium reactor and header in second partition, before water hits return pump.
Tags: Actinic, calcium reactor, Canopy, Coral Reef Tank, Drawing, Icecap 660, Partition, Seperator, Skimmer, Tank Drain, Vho Bulbs, Water Hits
New Apex aquarium controller looks sick!!!
Just got done reading an article on http://www.reefbuilders.com regarding the new Apex controller from Neptune Systems. Considering the price point for the value, this should sell like hot cakes for the larger systems!
Tags: Apex, Apex Systems, Aquarium, Aquarium Pics, Aquarium Systems, Controller, Hot Cakes, I Want One, Larger Systems, Monitoring, Neptune Systems, Orp, pH controller
BioCube 14 Plumbed into 75G Show tank
Recently I got tired of topping off water on the only reef system in my house that didn’t have an auto top off system set up. That would be the nice little BioCube 14, which has remained mainly stock, with the exception of upgrading flow, and creating a fuge in the 2nd rear chamber. My requirements for the plumbing of the tank, were mainly to share the great water qualities of the 75G, as well as benefit from the 75G’s auto top off, reduceing my weekly workload even further.
To the right is a nice little google sketchup drawing showing the estimated heights of where I wanted the bulkheads to be added. Originally I planned on 1/2″ bulkheads, and during the build out, upgraded them to 3/4″ bulkeads. As you can see in the picture, the bulkhead in the second chamber is lower than the bulkhead in the third. I set the one in the third higher, incase the flow was too strong, and needed directing, as well as to mitigate any issue of backflow if either of the pumps were shutoff. what also is not pictured is that the bulkhead in the third chamber, is positions way left of center, due to the outlet into the display of the tank, I wanted to keep from having any restrictions of flow, etc.
Unfortunately this is the only picture I have, as I did this mod on the fly, with about 1/4 of the water still in the tank’s display. To keep glass dust from getting into the back chambers, I cut pads, and wrapped them with filter floss to give a nice tight fit in the back chambers while I dremeled. When working with this glass, it’s imperative that you go very slowly, and keep vibrations and heat down to a minimum. Cutting the holes for the bulkheads to size took about 1 1/2 hours total. Better to be safe than sorry. After the bulkheads were cut and everything fit, I bolted the bulkheads down, inlets on the inside.
Fitting the bulkheads after that was simply a matter of figuring out how flow would be entering and exiting. I decided on 1/4″ water tubing for the water into the BioCube via the third chamber bulkhead, and 3/8″ water tubing for the water return to the sump of my 75G. My decision on this was solely based on the fact that I already had 1/4″ tubing run for the calcium reactor, and it was quite simple to throw a T in place and a ball valve after.
My 75G has a Blueline Aqua 20 as the return pump, which feeds to the tank, the calcium reactor, and now the 14G Biocube. At the current rates, this rotates out the water volume 320 times every 24 hours, as well as always keeping the level correct in the 14G as well, and saving me time running up and down the stairs with a gallon bucket every day(Colorado is a very dry climate). The drain from the Biocube returns back to the Refugium, so corals, water quality and all benefit immeditately from skimmer, calc reactor, etc.
Tags: Auto Top, Backflow, Biocube, BioCube Mods, Bulkhead, Bulkheads, Chambers, Floss, Fuge, Google, Google Sketchup, Holes, Inlets, Plumbing, Pumps, Reef System, show tank, Tight Fit, Vibrations, Water Qualities, Water Tubing, Workload
Something special can go here, HEEEE!.