melev

I'm about to fly out to Maine this weekend to speak to the club. Leaving my temporary holding vats unattended does make me uncomfortable as anything can happen.

I had to repair the calcium reactor today, but it was an easy fix. One of the thumbscrews broke off in the reactor's flange, so I carefully extracted it and installed a new one. The reactor has been off for the past seven days to let the alkalinity in the water drop down from 15dKH, the level it hit due to no sand bed or live rock. Today, alkalinity is reading 9dKH, so hopefully I can judge a good rate for the next few days and not spike it again. I saw an SPS in the holding vat that RTNed last night. It was a tiny guy with pretty blue tips.

I removed the old plumbing that was over the sump now that the tank has been pulled out. Yesterday, we simply cut it where it was and lifted the tank out.

The refugium lighting needed a little TLC as one bulb wasn't coming on, and I think that is resolved.

The skimmer's output plumbing broke free from the reaction chamber, but it's kinda staying wedged. I'm not going to tinker with that until I get back.

I set up the vodka dosing station again, but only set it to run for 50 minutes instead of 2 hours and 25 minutes. I'd like to dose a little bit to keep NO3 and PO4 down. I'm very interested in the new NP pellets (Brightwell's EcoBac), but with everything going on, that's going to have to wait a bit.

I'll have to fabricate a new holder for the Eheim auto-feeder to fit on the vat.