fit questions

Ouch! If I recall correctly, you are running yours remotely? I guess that's the only way it could leak like that.

I think I should go ahead and send you the modified 1" bulkhead and false bottom. I'll get that shipped out ASAP. In the meantime, see if you can rotate the uniseal so that the tear is "up", and see if that keeps the seal, then turn the flow down to minimize contact with the side drain.

 

I encountered some of these issues myself with the loc-line drain, it seems that loc-line is a little too restrictive. That's why I came up with the new wedge valve drain. I'm working on getting these options presented so I can get a "head count" on who wants these mods.

As for the slot pipe, remind me - is yours Schedule 80, or is it the electrical (light gray) schedule 40?

Ideally, you want 35 GPH per inch of width, or 35 x 9 = 315 GPH. This can result in some residual bubbles through the drain, and especially when you get the flow very high. Because of this issue, I have started to include a filter sock for the drain. I was hoping to avoid the need for that, but other solutions were too complex and situation specific. The filter sock is simple, cheap, and effective.

The HF end cap mods will seal up the box a little better, which will give you better cooling flow through.

Where is your scrubber located? Is it above the tank?

Pics would help. I think they might be necessary in your case to make sure the mods will work right for you

Bud

 

I think the issue is that the gate valve reduces bubbles significantly, but it doesn't completely 100% eliminate them. The waterfall action inevitably results in some turbulence, and the air bubbles get quickly sucked under the false bottom or down the drain. What it comes down to is that there is pretty much no way to rid them completely, unless you put a filter sock over the outlet, or make a chamber to allow the bubble to rise to the surface.

This becomes very evident when you run the unit above the tank. I have an L2 on top of the tank and when the growth gets good, the bubbles stop coming out of the bottom drain. But right after cleaning, more bubbles.

Rev 3 mods don't really fix this unfortunately. In your case, the long drop creates a potentially very strong siphon. The gate valve in this case should not restrict the flow to the point of disallowing a higher flow rate through the box, because the higher the vertical drop, the more water you can push through the line when running at full siphon. so your issue becomes balancing flow rate and bubble output. A tiny adjustment to the gate valve will result in more drainage, which lowers the water level in the box, and causes more air to suck under the false bottom.

The lower false bottom and threaded drain might help a bit with this, because it would allow you to have a higher "pool" of water above the false bottom. There is also a way to allow this "pool" to rise to a higher level in the box by placing a restrictor plate inside the side drain, this might help you as well. I'm still working on that part actually, it's in my head right now. It's one of those "fix one issue, create another" things...

 

Honestly, your situation sounds like you need a temporary quick fix to address the issue with your SPS and climbing phosphates. You definitely need to figure out a long-term solution, but I would recommend adding GFO immediately.

My preference for this is Premium Aquatics Phos-blast, which is essentially the same thing as ROWAphos, except dirt cheap. Next would be GFH (granular ferric hydroxide) which is BRS High Capacity GFO, or just plain old GFO.

Do not add a lot, you want to slowly but steadily lower P to a reasonable level and then remove it and monitor. I would use maybe a heaping tablespoon in a fine media bag in your sump, in an area that gets a fair but not strong flow. This will allow it to do it's job but not drop P too fast as this can cause more problems than it solves. Slow changes, always slow changes.

Then I would test for K and see if that is low. If it is, then start adding K, I prefer Brightwell Potassion-P in bulk because it is safer than any other DIY method as far as I know.

I would avoid adding nitrate directly

A small PWC probably would not hurt anything, certainly the old axiom "the solution to pollution is dilution" always applies

I would not wait

Skimmer might be good since you have SPS, also does aerate which has possible benefits, doesn't have to be huge or really efficient.

Temp swings from 75 to 82 are concerning, as at the higher temps the metabolic processes speed up, so if you are having daily or weekly swings like this, I would find a way to get this under control. Consistency on all parameters is really the key for difficult SPS corals, and does really make a difference with all other corals. Fish are pretty adaptable, but temp swings can cause stress to certain species.

hope that helps

 

Percent PWC can be as high as you need it to be, the higher % the more closely matched you want the new water. One local member of our club had a spike due to a blown RO membrane, he didn't catch it for a while and his nitrate went sky-high, he did close to 90%.

As far as matching parameters, the best thing is to match salinity, pH and temp. I don't ever bother to test pH though - sue me .

Temp, I just try to get it close, within a degree if I can, but it depends on the % of change. If I'm doing 20%, and the tank is overly warm (80+), I'll just put it in at 76F. Salinity can vary with temp, but not THAT much.

Salinity you want within one point, so if your tank SG is 1.025, you want at least 1.024 but not higher than your tank water (if you go by ppt, if tank is 35, you can put in 33-35 water). Organisms can take a quick drop in salinity but not a quick rise, it has to do with equilibrium within their bodies, raise salinity too fast and they will go into osmotic shock (cells literally start to burst). It doesn't happen when you drop salinity, which is why you can dump in whatever amount of RODI you need to top off your tank.

Alkalinity matching is a losing battle IMO, because each fresh batch of salt might have a little different chemistry depending on what salinity you mix it to (and sometimes, the batch of salt you bought). Higher salinity, higher Alk. I have had batches of IO Reef Crystals that I've mixed to salinity of 34 and the Alk is over 11 dKH, and I've done 50% PWCs into a tank with 9dKH without any adverse effects. Doing a PWC with an Alk difference seems (to me) to not be the same as adding too much Alk supplement directly to the tank water. The difference is that if you add enough BRS Alk to a tank to raise the alk a full point, your pH will really spike, and this is not necessarily the case with a PWC as the ions will mix as you add the fresh saltwater and thing will balance out.

That's just the way I have experienced it, never had a problem doing a huge PWC, but the larger the PWC, the more matched you want to be, specifically on temp and salinity.

If you can, mix the salt water for 24 hours before adding. There are certain chemical reactions that occur when you add salt to water that do take time to "settle down". Aeration of the water also helps, i.e. mixing in an open container with a power head moving the water surface, at least for a few hours before the PWC.

3 degree temp swing is better than 6

Really, the majority of your phosphate is coming from your food. If your pH is normal (8.0-8.4) it is unlikely that any significant amount is coming from your rocks or sand. I did not mean to imply that your P is rising, but if it's not dropping, then the algal uptake ratio is "off", or you have more P in your food than it being taken out. This is pretty common so don't beat yourself up If you just recently started testing P and have no test history data, I would assume it is rising or at least not dropping. Get it down to an acceptable range with GFO and then remove it and monitor it for a few weeks or so.

Having excess P in relation to N may be causing a different type of growth. Pulling out the P via GFO may get you to the equilibrium stage, where the scrubber takes out all the N and P introduced into the system. This may also encourage the thick green growth, which I am now theorizing is what get once you get N and P under control, instead of what you need to get N and P under control. The thick green growth grows quickly in low nutrients and thus keeps nutrients low.

 

Those temps are a little high by some standards, but not dangerous. Most LFS and many fellow reefers I know keep their tanks at 75-77. That's the range I would shoot for. Putting a fan in the sump/cabinet will do quite a bit, but will increase your topoff needs of course.

 

I searched a bit and found one post that suggested 1 silverside = 5 cubes, but spread that out according to how often you feed also. Plus that term was most likely a guesstimate, but at least you have a general idea. How big is a silverside? I'm guessing that you can get them in different sizes?

 

Yeah, well, it was a guess by SM and was "due to the oil content" so take that for what you will.