Author Topic: Miles' 150gal build (Read 37689 times)

Steve · « **Reply #75 on:** August 19, 2015, 20:54:44 »

I think I have told that same story with different words! Glad it was nothing serious and all is well and SAFE.

lazylivin · « **Reply #76 on:** August 19, 2015, 23:57:47 »

I bet you were pulling your hair out after gfci trip number 2. Glad you found it

Miles · « **Reply #77 on:** February 06, 2017, 20:57:41 »

I may have done a stupid thing after leaving the February club meeting...

I went to Petco and bought a Purple Tang for $99 and they threw in some ich for free. Justin (merlin3) beat me to the only one that didn't have ich

. While I was there, I also picked up 4 Banggai's and four Peppermint Shrimp for breeding stock (thinking about possibly hosting a meeting in the future and doing a presentation on breeding).

So now I have everything in separate QT tanks. That Purple Tang isn't going to see anything but QT until I am absolutely positive that it doesn't have ich.

I gave the Purple Tang a 10 minute freshwater dip and then put it in the QT tank. I then dosed slightly less than the recommended amount of cupramine. I then realized that the Seachem Copper Test kit is one of the most horrible things ever made, the process allows for so much variation between readings that it is practically useless. So I ordered an API kit (which is also probably junk but at least its easier to use). This morning when I got up I checked on the tang, and the ich cysts were much larger and looked like they were about to "hatch". When I got home from work, most of the cysts were gone from the fish, so I did a 100% water change and then cleaned everything with vinegar. Tang is currently eating both frozen mysis and brine along with nori that I soaked in garlic. So far so good....

Hope this doesn't turn out to be an exercise in how to waste $100....

(Sorry for the blurry pic... the combination of the color and movement make him near impossible to focus on)

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Miles · « **Reply #78 on:** February 06, 2017, 21:34:27 »

Here's a better one...

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Wall_Tank · « **Reply #79 on:** February 06, 2017, 22:47:24 »

Good luck

guynamedfleck · « **Reply #80 on:** February 07, 2017, 11:19:22 »

Fingers crossed for you.

Miles · « **Reply #81 on:** February 07, 2017, 18:23:31 »

Got a few new goodies tonight.... Picked up a Kindle Fire for $40 for a display for my Apex and picked up a Vortech Battery Backup from a club member.

(please excuse the aiptasia... thats what the peppermint shrimp breeding is for)

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thepipbull · « **Reply #82 on:** February 07, 2017, 21:14:40 »

looks good
and your a brave man getting the tang after we talked about ich at the meeting
hope it is getting better

Reef Tank 2.0 · « **Reply #83 on:** February 08, 2017, 09:13:53 »

Quote from: thepipbull on February 07, 2017, 21:14:40

looks good
and your a brave man getting the tang after we talked about ich at the meeting
hope it is getting better

care to elaborate on this, for those that didn't make the meeting? Or was this a private convo?

Miles · « **Reply #84 on:** February 08, 2017, 09:54:00 »

Quote from: crankbait09 on February 08, 2017, 09:13:53

care to elaborate on this, for those that didn't make the meeting? Or was this a private convo?

It wasn't really a formal discussion, we just talked about how tangs are very susceptible to it (especially Achilles Tangs) and were impressed that Brian hadn't had any issues.

IMHO, Ich isn't really a huge deal as long as you are very proactive about treating it and you catch it early.
Basically you need to make sure that you interrupt the lifecycle of the parasite. As soon as you notice that the cysts have dropped off the fish, do a 100% water change to ensure that you have removed as many of the free swimmers as you can. Doing this in conjunction with treating the QT tank with copper which is effective against the free swimming stage and you should be golden assuming that the fish is playing his part properly and continuing to eat and not getting stressed.

So far my tang seems to be doing fairly well, he'd eating and is active. He still have several spots on him but I am optimistic that he will survive. I played around with two copper test kits last night and determined that the dosage listed on the bottle of Cupramine is incorrect... it is way too little. It recommended 20 drops per 10.5 gallons. I am using a 20L for a QT with about 15 gallons of water in it, so I should use about 30ish drops to get to a concentration of about 0.5ppm. Using 30 drops only got me to about 0.25ppm... so I had to add about 15 more drops to get me in the correct range for treatment (this is the reason I thought my SeaChem test kit was bad).

I ordered another SeaChem test kit last night because I'm running low on reagent, but now I know it was working properly because it was giving the same results of the API kit. FYI... The SeaChem kit is more accurate than the API kit, it has a finer scale than the API kit.

thepipbull · « **Reply #85 on:** February 08, 2017, 10:57:30 »

glad hes doing well...you must have missed the part where Brian brought a fish on sale from petco and got ich in his tank and had to quarantine them all.....

Miles · « **Reply #86 on:** February 08, 2017, 11:06:43 »

Quote from: thepipbull on February 08, 2017, 10:57:30

glad hes doing well...you must have missed the part where Brian brought a fish on sale from petco and got ich in his tank and had to quarantine them all.....

Yeah... definitely missed that discussion. QT is the way to go. I usually try for 6-8 weeks.

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Miles · « **Reply #87 on:** February 08, 2017, 22:15:08 »

Tang Watch: Day 4
Tang looked "clean" when I got home from work, no obvious cysts. Performed a 100% water change. Dosed Cupramine to ~0.5ppm.
Tang still eating very well. Eats frozen mysis/brine very aggressively and grazes on nori. Overall it seems to being doing very well.

I plugged the Vortech battery backup in yesterday and let it charge for 24 hours. upon unplugging both the battery charger and the Vortech connected to it, the pump does not continue to run. I actually kinda expected this... Upon getting the battery backup home, I noticed that the date of manufacture was Nov 2010. Since it was still in the original box I figured that the battery was probably shot. It's all good though because I can buy a replacement battery for it and still have less money invested in it than I would if I had purchased it new. I'll post some pics when I get around to replacing the battery in it.

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Miles · « **Reply #88 on:** February 09, 2017, 16:48:45 »

Tang Watch: Day 5
Very little to report. The tang is looking great. I don't see any cysts today (that doesn't mean their aren't any). Tang is just crusin the QT. Still very hard to photograph. I topped off the dosage of the Cupramine and have no plans to do anything but that unless more cysts appear.

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Miles · « **Reply #89 on:** February 10, 2017, 08:39:30 »

Started working on the battery replacement for the Vortech Battery backup last night. This thing is crazy stupid simple... I ordered a new battery for it for $31 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A82A3RK/ odd... it seems the price has gone up since I ordered mine). It turns out there was a voluntary recall in 2010 to replace the cables that run to the pump with ones with inline fuses. I emailed Ecotech this morning to see if they are still honoring the recall (the cables are dirt cheap on their site, but shipping is 3x the price of the cable, so I'm going to see if they can work some sort of deal).

The thing that puzzles me the most about this battery backup unit is that it doesn't seem to have any sort of charging circuit. It has a cheap AC/DC adapter that looks like a cheap one you'd by for a cell phone, but no circuitry in the box that would prevent over charging... anyone have any clue as to how that works without starting a fire?

I think I'll probably make my own unit for my Jebao DC Return pump on the breeding rack.... but I think I'll probably buy a float charger to charge the battery.

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lazylivin · « **Reply #90 on:** February 10, 2017, 10:24:58 »

WHAT! That is all that is in that. WOW! That is nuts. I guess the device it is connected to has to manage the charging/over charging. Surprised they did it that way. Or maybe it is built into the battery itself? Thanks for sharing Miles

Miles · « **Reply #91 on:** February 10, 2017, 10:53:15 »

Quote from: Lazylivin on February 10, 2017, 10:24:58

WHAT! That is all that is in that. WOW! That is nuts. I guess the device it is connected to has to manage the charging/over charging. Surprised they did it that way. Or maybe it is built into the battery itself? Thanks for sharing Miles

It's definitely not built into the battery... I did some looking around on reef2reef and ReefCentral, it would appear that they used whatever 12v 18Ah battery they could find. depending on when they were manufactured, they use all kinds of different brands. I can't imagine that the Vortech is managing the charging either, I guess it is possible, but it seems a little far fetched. There are a ton of people that have build their own DIY versions and they all use some sort of Trickle/Float charger.... This whole thing just kinda boggles my mind... maybe if you have a pump plugged into it, it is always pulling half of its power from the battery (Vortech's run at 24v at max speed but run half speed when connected to 12v) thus the battery is always being discharged so there no need for over charge protection?

Miles · « **Reply #92 on:** February 10, 2017, 11:54:43 »

I was just talking to someone at work about this, and he made a good point... the output on the power adapter is 12v @ 0.5A. So the battery only has 6W charging it. It probably isn't anywhere near enough power to do any damage to the battery.

Upon further research into batteries and how they work, I discovered what is call "Float Voltage". I assumed that a float charger had some sort of special circuit in it that keeps it from over charging a battery..... but all it does is put out a steady voltage that slightly below the rate required to charge the battery. It will charge it to max capacity and then do nothing because a voltage difference is required to charge the battery. I'll have to check the power adapter when I get home from work, but I believe it was ~13V.. and the normal float voltage for a 12v battery is 13.2-13.4v.

The More You Know♒♒♒★

Miles · « **Reply #93 on:** February 10, 2017, 21:58:02 »

Just a couple pics I took tonight...

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Wall_Tank · « **Reply #94 on:** February 11, 2017, 09:04:44 »

Old battery tech is stupid simple. For what it's worth, I use deep cycle marine batteries for my 12v backup. You have to do a little water maintenance occasionally, but more power storage than the small sealed batteries.

guynamedfleck · « **Reply #95 on:** February 11, 2017, 09:40:43 »

Holy montipora, Batman! You weren't kidding at the meeting, haha!

Humphrey · « **Reply #96 on:** February 11, 2017, 10:38:28 »

Love it when a fish gets better. How long you treating the tang? 30 days?

Mussin · « **Reply #97 on:** February 11, 2017, 21:17:56 »

Man that monti is sick.. I'm jealous, I can't even grow any.

Miles · « **Reply #98 on:** February 11, 2017, 21:30:54 »

Quote from: Humphrey on February 11, 2017, 10:38:28

Love it when a fish gets better. How long you treating the tang? 30 days?

I'm going to treat with copper for 14 days (tomorrow will be day

, then I'm going to keep it in quarantine for another 30 days.

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Miles · « **Reply #99 on:** February 12, 2017, 22:35:24 »

Been trying to come up with a way to use filter socks on my drain line for a long time, and today while cleaning up the basement I found a lid and had a revelation....

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Author Topic: Miles' 150gal build (Read 37689 times)