My 300g to 120g Upgrade

[unbereefable]

Read you were having drain issues in another thread? What's up? I've set up a good number of beans. I'd be happy to help.

[davocean]

Looks good Dave! I don't think the reefcam works in Chrome, though.

Yeah its black out for me.

[RussM]

Looks good Dave! I don't think the reefcam works in Chrome, though.

Google breaks MJPEG video support in about every other release of Chrome. It's a vicious cycle... they break it, fix it, break it again,, fix it again.....

Firefox with fine for both of Dave's cameras.

[DaveMorris]

Read you were having drain issues in another thread? What's up? I've set up a good number of beans. I'd be happy to help.

I shut down my return today to do a water change and when I turned it back on, the drain system would not develop a siphon. I am going to trim my drain pipe a little and see if that helps. Its weird because up till now it would restart just fine.

I calibrated my salinity and ph probes along with one of my temp probes that was a little out of whack. I have also been dealing with the folks at Prodibio to diagnose my cloudy water issue. Sounds like too much bacteria and not enough food, which is what I that it would be.

My lighting set up is very near completion. I have a few more wires to connect and then I'll need to test it, fix what doesn't work, and then figure out a way to hang, stand, or otherwise attach it above my tank. Haven't quite figured that out yet.

[DaveMorris]

Well it seems like the drain problem is fixed. Thats good. I finished up the lighting system, fixed a small wiring problem, and now I need to get the setup installed over the tank. Maybe tomorrow.

My topoff is working great and the system is running great so far. Here are some shots of the sump as it is currently set up.


Here's a close up of the top off setup.

The rigid tube allows the water to control the air pressure in it that opens or closes the relay on the other end of an airline tube (the black one). The white line comes from the peristaltic pump that I got from Russ. When the water level drops, the air pressure in the rigid tube drops allowing the relay to open. That triggers the RKE to turn on the pump and refill the tank. It works great.

My skimmer is pulling all sorts of gunk as well.

I also got the probes in a styrofoam float. I like doing it this way because the probes are always at the same level regardless of what level the water is at.

[DaveMorris]

Here are some updated shots of my lighting control setup.

Everything is wired up and ready to go. The box will mount to the side of the stand. I am using CAT5 connectors for the cables going between the power supply/drivers and the LEDs. They are easy to use and work well. Only trick to them is the wiring in them is not straight through. Some of the pins are not in order so you have to be careful of that.

The RCA connector is for the power supply connection to my refugium lighting. Control for that will be on the light itself. I am just pulling power through this connector. I'll show some updates on the refugium light later on.

[unbereefable]

Glad the drain is fixed. I've had that happen to me too. Worked fine for months and then all of a sudden wouldn't start the siphon after a shut down. I cleaned the drain pipes and everything went back to normal. I guess the 2nd channel had a nice slime coat going and was sucking too much water before the siphon had a chance to kick in. Ended up lower the siphon pipe about 1/2" lower than the open channel and it never happend again.

And I'm definitly going to have to pick your brain when it comes time for me to wire up my LEDs. Your wiring skills are The biz!

[DaveMorris]

I have run into some issues with my lighting set up. LEDs are working OK, but when either one of my 150w halides kicks on, it resets my RKE. I think it is because the Chinese ballasts that Coralvue uses emit tons of RFI. I'm going to have to do some testing and figure out a work around.

I transferred my fish into the tank and they seem to be happy now. My naso is swimming around in his new digs. Looks like I may actually keep this one alive for a good while. I am hoping that my RBTA comes back well. He was not happy at all with the change in tanks. My three clowns are looking for him everywhere.

[DaveMorris]

So I completely forgot about the solution to the electronic ballasts nuking the RKE. It involves a lot of grounding (beyond the normal grounding in the power cable), some electronic chokes, and a couple of line noise suppressors. Electronic ballasts put out a ton of EMF and RF noise both through proximity as well as through the AC power line. The line noise suppressor and the chokes will address part of that and grounding the ballast chassis as well as the fixture chassis will eliminate the noise that interferes with the operation of the controller. This is not a problem that only the RKE suffers from. An Apex, Reef Angel or any other controller is susceptible to this interference to varying degrees. Looks like tomorrow I will be doing some more electrical work. Fortunately all of these items are very inexpensive and easy to come by. I will post how it goes.

[unbereefable]

Sound like it be easier to go all led!!!

[DaveMorris]

Sound like it be easier to go all led!!!

That will never happen.

[davocean]

That will never happen.

Never say never!

[unbereefable]

I'm working on a led array that will look similar to MH. It's even more of a possibility with lime LEDs. Lime makes the array brighter, which is one of the complaints MH users have. LEDs are too dim for them. Come on Dave... Come to the dark side.

[pirate2876]

Friends don't let friends go to LED's.

[DaveMorris]

Remember I work with LED lighting every day. I hate the way it looks, especially on a reef tank. I can't wait to get the halides working on my tank.