melev

This month has been very busy for Melev's Reef, and I've been building and shipping orders as quickly as possible. With all of that going on, my reef ran on auto-pilot the entire time. Days would go by where I didn't even clean the glass. Once a week, I'd move the sandbed back where it belongs in one patch that constantly shifts.

Last Friday, the calcium reactor needed to be emptied, cleaned and filled with new media. While removing it from the sump, I snapped off a tiny 1/8" nipple that the airline tubing affixes. The part was 10 years old, so not entirely unexpected. While the reactor was offline, I dosed Prodibio's Alki+ and Calci+ to keep alkalinity and calcium in check. After a trip to Grainger, Home Depot and Lowes on Monday, I ended up fixing the problem area with John Guest fittings and RO tubing. Irony, since I build the RO/DI systems I sell. The rebuilt area is working great.

The waste collector I added last fall is super. On Tuesday night I dosed the tank with Phosphate Rx to knock down the PO4 level in the system, and the next morning the skimmer was off since the collector filled up to the top. No muss, no fuss -- after emptying the collector, the skimmer resumed as before.

Everything looks good. Here are a few images.