My new project: 120 Gallon reef with basement fish room!

[tgunn]

Just got back from a short trip to Minneapolis. I popped into Ocean Devotion while there. I gotta say, WOW am I missing out on corals living in Canada! The colors on the frags there were just phenomenal. I've never seen anything like 'em here!

I was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO tempted to get a nice big vacuum thermos and sneak some across the border. But of course I realized that'd be a bad reason to get blacklisted...

[rdmpe]

Hey Tyler, thanks for the info. I'm looking into an hrv/erv. From what I'm reading, an erv isn't really set up to remove humidity in the winter. I guess people are usually trying to keep some humidity in the house in the winter when it's normally very dry out. So I have some research to do.

A while back we discussed an issue that I thought I was having with diatoms. Some people think that it is not diatoms but instead is dinoflagellates and/or cyano. You wanted to see some photos but I don't know if I ever posted any. I have posted some now in my thread if you want to take a look ...

~Randy

[tgunn]

Originally posted by rdmpe
Hey Tyler, thanks for the info. I'm looking into an hrv/erv. From what I'm reading, an erv isn't really set up to remove humidity in the winter. I guess people are usually trying to keep some humidity in the house in the winter when it's normally very dry out. So I have some research to do.

A while back we discussed an issue that I thought I was having with diatoms. Some people think that it is not diatoms but instead is dinoflagellates and/or cyano. You wanted to see some photos but I don't know if I ever posted any. I have posted some now in my thread if you want to take a look ...

~Randy

No problem.

Yes, my understanding is that an ERV attempts to keep the moisture. The big thing to keep in mind with an HRV is that it's just exchanging the air between indoors and out while attempting to transfer the heat between the two air streams.

An HRV works well to keep the humidity in my house EXTREMELY low this time of the year because it's EXTREMELY cold outside right now. The extremely cold air outdoors when warmed up is very dry.

Once spring and summer rolls around and it's warm AND humid outdoors, the HRV isn't going to be able to drop the humidity for me.

I'll be sure to visit your most recent posts...

Tyler

[tgunn]

Mini-update..

Well, the Ca reactor has been working great! The dosing pump is EXACTLY what I needed to help keep things stable. My pH controller should be here in a week, so I'll finally be able to stop tinkering with the bubble count...

My current readings:
Ca 440ppm
Alk 9.28 dKh

RO 5 TDS
RO/DI 2 TDS
Probably time for a new membrane soon...

The algae on the back glass is starting to go down and get replaced with coralline once again.. The rocks are not showing much improvement yet. Once april rolls around I'm going to take out the ones with no corals and scrub them down..

I think I'm also going to remove the T5s from the sump and replace them with a bunch of 5100k CF floodlights.. The T5s from the sump I'll probably add to the canopy for a bit more actinic punch..


The latest casualty of the ozone incident appears to be my millipora. It looks to be slowly losing it's tissue from the bottom up. It had REALLY retracted near the time that all the ozone issues began and I think it's probably on the way out. Darn! This is my second attempt at keeping this coral. Oh well. I am sure I can get another frag...

Tyler

[LittleBlueGT]

mailbox is full!

[tgunn]

Originally posted by LittleBlueGT
mailbox is full!

Whoops! I didn't realize it kept all my sent messages. Cleared it out.

[original-reefland]

Originally posted by tgunn

RO 5 TDS
RO/DI 2 TDS
Probably time for a new membrane soon...

Might not be time for a new membrane, you can't tell without knowing the tap water TDS. As long as its rejecting 98% or better its fine. My membrane is over 6 years old and still rejecting more than 98%.

I change my DI before it reaches 2ppm. Order a new one when it hits 1 ppm.

[tgunn]

Originally posted by original-reefland
Might not be time for a new membrane, you can't tell without knowing the tap water TDS. As long as its rejecting 98% or better its fine. My membrane is over 6 years old and still rejecting more than 98%.

I change my DI before it reaches 2ppm. Order a new one when it hits 1 ppm.

It appears you read my mind!

I've got a new membrane and a bunch more DI resin on the way.

I'm using a 100GPD membrane right now which is half the problem. The new one will be 75 GPD...

Tyler

[LittleBlueGT]

Our tap water here in Winnipeg (at least for me for the past 5 years) has been between 86 & 92 ppm.

[tgunn]

Originally posted by LittleBlueGT
Our tap water here in Winnipeg (at least for me for the past 5 years) has been between 86 & 92 ppm.

Mine's 80 right now. It is definitely higher in the summer when the lake that supplies our water is blooming with algae.

Tyler

[drstupid]

wow, go canada. our municipal water here in philly averages around 300ppm. i try to flush the membrane every time i fire up the system. and you don't want to know what the schuykill river blooms with in the summertime...

my membrane lets through 5-7ppm, the DI usually gets the rest, when it starts reading anything i order new crystals.

[tgunn]

Originally posted by drstupid
wow, go canada. our municipal water here in philly averages around 300ppm. i try to flush the membrane every time i fire up the system. and you don't want to know what the schuykill river blooms with in the summertime...

my membrane lets through 5-7ppm, the DI usually gets the rest, when it starts reading anything i order new crystals.

Well, we're lucky that the city gets it water from a freshwater lake a couple hundred miles away. It's clean enough that it's used pretty much as is except for the addition of chlorine.

The river that run through our city are all horribly polluted though; I wouldn't want to know how bad our water would be if we had to drink that.

[rdmpe]

I bet your membrane is fine. If you let it run a while I bet the TDS would go down by half. As long as the DI is getting it down to zero (or replace the DI) shouldn't be a problem. From what I've read about the RO membranes, if in normal conditions and with decent prefilters and backwashing, they last several years.

Here in Central FL, my water is
tap ~ 180 to 200
post RO ~ 5/6 to start and drops with time
post DI = zero

[tgunn]

Originally posted by rdmpe
I bet your membrane is fine. If you let it run a while I bet the TDS would go down by half. As long as the DI is getting it down to zero (or replace the DI) shouldn't be a problem. From what I've read about the RO membranes, if in normal conditions and with decent prefilters and backwashing, they last several years.

Here in Central FL, my water is
tap ~ 180 to 200
post RO ~ 5/6 to start and drops with time
post DI = zero

You're still using the 100gpd membrane that came with your Aquasafe unit too? (I think I remember you got aquasafe, right?)..

I know what you mean, the RO quality is pretty bad when it first starts. The 5 or so I'm reading is what it generally goes down to. Perhaps around 2-3. Sometimes depends. I find it's a lot easier to keep things stable in winter when the source water is pretty clean and there's not so much silt. Come summer it's a race to replace my prefilters to keep the quality reasonable.

Tyler

[rdmpe]

yeah I'm using the original membrane. It's a little over a year old. I don't think 5 after the RO is all that bad. For me that's about 97% to 98% rejection to start, and after running a while it gets down as low as 2 or 3.

I'm not sure what the best way is to figure when to replace the prefilters except by watching for the pressure drop from before them to after them. I know you have clear covers on yours, but I think they can look pretty bad while still functioning well. How do you decide when to replace them?

[tgunn]

Originally posted by rdmpe
yeah I'm using the original membrane. It's a little over a year old. I don't think 5 after the RO is all that bad. For me that's about 97% to 98% rejection to start, and after running a while it gets down as low as 2 or 3.

I'm not sure what the best way is to figure when to replace the prefilters except by watching for the pressure drop from before them to after them. I know you have clear covers on yours, but I think they can look pretty bad while still functioning well. How do you decide when to replace them?

It all depends on the source water I guess. I've got another membrane on the way so I have it on hand to change it probably in the summer some time. I've been wanting to move to a 75 GPD membrane to save on the DI resin too.

Do you have a pressure guage before and after the filters in your setup? I just have one after.....

I use the look of the first prefilter as a rough guage when to change the paper prefilter. Once it looks dark brown I usually take the three prefilters off and inspect them. Once the second prefilter starts to look light brown I usually move the second prefilter to the first's spot and install a new one in place of the second. The carbon I usually change every 3 months as a rule.

In the summer this means I'm swapping one of the paper pre-filters probably every month or so. I find if I don't do this my carbon prefilter clogs up with the brown silt quite fast and my TDS climbs at this point.

I think it may be time to clean out my pressure tank and RO housings soon; I notice the RO water is getting a slight bit of a swampy taste to it..

Tyler

[tgunn]

So out of curiosity I checked the PO4 of the tap water here the other day (using a cheapie Hagen kit).. The tapwater is around 1.75-2.00 ppm! Guess it's a good thing I use RO/DI for topoff! That's even more incentive to be really diligent about keeping up with cartridge, membrane, and resin changes..

[LittleBlueGT]

Holy crap!

Good thing I got lot sof DI now!

[tgunn]

Originally posted by LittleBlueGT
Holy crap!

Good thing I got lot sof DI now!

Boxfishpoosalot mentioned that the city has started putting PO4 into the water to help cut back on lead leaching into the water from old piping..

Whatever the case this is definitely new in the past few years. I tested my water a few years ago and there was no detectable PO4 in it.

Heh, yeah, I'm REALLY glad to know about this. I think I'll have to test my RO/DI storage bin every now and then to make sure my resin is working well!

Tyler

[GoldStripe]

While we're on the subject, what type of DI resin do you guys use? I've got a refillable cannister and bought a 1.5' bag off ebay a while back which is gone now as of yesterday. Just curious if there are different brands of it, which are better if any. I bought the color change stuff the first time which is what originally came in the cannister.

My RO membrane is going on 3 years old and I'm still getting 1ppm TDS out of it so I think it's still in good shape there.

[tgunn]

Originally posted by GoldStripe
While we're on the subject, what type of DI resin do you guys use? I've got a refillable cannister and bought a 1.5' bag off ebay a while back which is gone now as of yesterday. Just curious if there are different brands of it, which are better if any. I bought the color change stuff the first time which is what originally came in the cannister.

My RO membrane is going on 3 years old and I'm still getting 1ppm TDS out of it so I think it's still in good shape there.

I will let LittleBlueGT answer about the brand. I'm not too sure.

I originally used the color changing stuff, but I know the stuff I've had lately isn't color changing. I found the original color chaning stuff never really changed color too well, it just separated out into the orange and green layers (one is cation, one is anion, not sure which)...

Wow, that's pretty good membrane life! You must have some pretty good water!

Tyler

[LittleBlueGT]

Originally posted by tgunn
I will let LittleBlueGT answer about the brand. I'm not too sure.

I originally used the color changing stuff, but I know the stuff I've had lately isn't color changing. I found the original color chaning stuff never really changed color too well, it just separated out into the orange and green layers (one is cation, one is anion, not sure which)...

Wow, that's pretty good membrane life! You must have some pretty good water!

Tyler

I don't even know what brand?

I don't think it changes color, I just use my dual TDS meter to figure that out.

[tgunn]

Originally posted by LittleBlueGT
I don't even know what brand?

I don't think it changes color, I just use my dual TDS meter to figure that out.

As long as it works, that's all that matters.

I don't even have a clear DI housing any more... So even if it did change color I wouldn't know..

I really do have to get one of those dual inline TDS units.. Testing with my pencil tester is something I'm quite good at not doing regularly enough.

[tgunn]

My Milwaukee pH controller came in the other day so it's up and running on the Ca reactor. Wow, sure know why the reactor wasn't doing much. The pH was at 6.9; not a helk of a lot of dissolving going on there! Now that the reactor is at 6.6 I'm getting around 50dKH effluent. That's more like it!
Current tank params:
Ca: 430ppm
Alk: 10.56dKH
My tank is 8.2pH at night and 8.3pH during the daytime photoperiod.

So Ca and Alk are where I want 'em..

I took an updated full tank shot Mar 1, 2007.. First I'll show the FTS from Feb 12, 2007:


March 1, 2007:


So clearly the algae outbreak from the ozone incident is indeed in full swing!! It seems to have done down a wee tiny on the back since the 1st. The corraline is really starting to come back now that it's not being nuked..

I'm hoping that the milli to the right of the overflow is the LAST casualty of the ozone incident. It's 1/2 gone from the base up now. I'm just going to leave it in hopes that perhaps it'll pull through...

The frogspawn sure has puffed out more now that the ozone issues are cleared up! I'm glad I didn't lose it!

This coral receeded a tiny at the base too but it seems to have stopped:

I'm not sure what that black work is. I'll have to search for an id.

I'm going to be even more ambitious in April when I do my overhaul. Since I have to take a lot of the rock out to scrub the algae, I'm also going to clean out a majority of the sandbed, leaving a much shallower bed.

I'm also thinking I'll completely redo the intank portion of the closed loop. It looks HORRIBLE right now with so many visible pipes. I'll have to diagram some pics of my ideas for the new setup..

Tyler

[gkarshens]

Looks like an arm to a brittle star fish to me.