Gilroy 425g Build Thread (All Apex, all the time)

ReeferBean · Dec 2, 2016

Keep the Coral Care posts coming Terrence! Great thread sir. I want them now dang it! I hope they keep the price point down when they hit the US. Now that youve seen the spread and noted the par values... would you think 6 units over my 300... 72 x 36 x 27 t would be sufficient?

Cody

Terence · Dec 2, 2016

ReeferBean said:
Keep the Coral Care posts coming Terrence! Great thread sir. I want them now dang it! I hope they keep the price point down when they hit the US. Now that youve seen the spread and noted the par values... would you think 6 units over my 300... 72 x 36 x 27 t would be sufficient?

Cody

Six would be too many. You likely could get by with three. I have two over a 48"x32"x32" section of my reef and it seems great. If you managed to get six of them over the tank in a 3x2 matrix, that would be a heck of a lot of light and most likely a waste of $ IMO.

ReeferBean · Dec 2, 2016

Terence said:
Six would be too many. You likely could get by with three. I have two over a 48"x32"x32" section of my reef and it seems great. If you managed to get six of them over the tank in a 3x2 matrix, that would be a heck of a lot of light and most likely a waste of $ IMO.

Thanks yeah and that sounds better on my wallet.

Terence · Dec 3, 2016

So it has been an interesting week setting up and working out some kinks with the Alk monitor while at the same time using it in a real life scenario to help correct a low-alk situation in the tank. As you can see in the graph below, once I got the device online and set up correctly, I was able to monitor the alk (first at 30 min intervals and then just recently at 6hr intervals) and then fine tune (lower) the set point of my pH in the Calcium Reactor and raise it as the alk started to get closer to normal. This allowed me to get it to climb but also to be able to slow it down as we got closer to my desired level of 10dKH. This will keep it for overshooting and doing a yo-yo. Very cool to be able to not just watch your alk, but actually use it to fine tune it to correct a negative situation on the tank.

Oh, and the uptick and repeating down-ticks are just a little software glitch. It is, afterall, a prototype.

Terence · Dec 6, 2016

Here is a 30 day side by side on a frag from my tank on the Philips Coral Care light side. This coral is approximately 24" from the fixture. Do not pay attention to the coloration because I took these at totally different times of the light cycle and I have not really done any adjustment. I have rotated the one so you can see better the alignment and the growth. This frag is still getting happy with encrusting so it is just now starting to take off.

Terence · Dec 7, 2016

Another view this morning under the spotlight of a reef-flashlight from @MarineDepot - so cool!

MarineDepot · Dec 7, 2016

Terence said:
Another view this morning under the spotlight of a reef-flashlight from @MarineDepot - so cool!]

Thank you for sharing! Those flashlights are pretty darn handy. I added some copepods to my tank a few weeks back and didn't really see much increase in the population until I shone the light into one of the back chambers of my tank and saw lots of activity. Plus, my 4-year-old totally digs it for nighttime viewing!

Jeff @ Marine Depot

RamsReef · Dec 7, 2016

@Terence How long before a PID firmware update for apex

Terence · Dec 7, 2016

Ramasule said:
@Terence How long before a PID firmware update for apex

PID?

DLHDesign · Dec 7, 2016

PID
@Ramasule - I'm pretty sure this is possible with the current stuff, wouldn't it be? It takes a bit of programming , but you should be able to set up things like (sudo code) "if <unit> is less than <value>, then turn on dosing pump for <volume/time>". That would give you a simple proportional control. You could, in theory, hook up a larger (or multiple) dosing pumps and have the same type of code trigger that (or both) instead - which would give you some derivative control. The integral control is a bit more difficult to achieve without a memory store (database). Does Apex code have access to the history of a sensor?
To be honest, our reefs should be stable enough that a PID seems like an overkill to me. Just a simple proportional control (eg; bit of code) should work for most things. I suppose you would want to ensure that the dosing pump only came on if it's not been on in a certain amount of time (to allow the addition to circulate), but I think that's possible to do as well...

Anywho; sorry for the divergence @Terence. Tank is looking great and the growth comparison is fun to see. Your picture has given me an idea of what to get with a soon-to-expire gift certificate from @MarineDepot... ;-) (EDIT: Gift cert was not from MarineDepot, sadly.)

Terence · Dec 7, 2016

Ah, OK, now I understand better. All these acronyms are hard to keep straight. We have a lot of options with this tech, we still do not know the complete direction we will take them.

For now, I am going to continue to keep you all informed here on my little slice of the ocean while at the same time sprinkling in some cool products and such from us as well as others.

Get one of those flashlights - I use it EVERY day.

revhtree · Dec 7, 2016

So overall you're really like the new light?

Terence · Dec 7, 2016

revhtree said:
So overall you're really like the new light?

The CoralCare light is pretty amazing so far. It was super easy to install. Connected with ease to the Apex. Was simple to program. It is growing coral great. And the look is fantastic.

The downside for some is there is no tweaking and playing with the colors and such - but for me that is an upside. I know I can get the right spectrum and still get the blue to white shift I want with just two easy graphs in my Apex.

And, I did some PAR readings with the lights on 60/40 B/W at peak. I have great PAR at the sand and over 400 at the peak of my rock. And it is really even across the tank - no hotspotting - no disco.

This is a winning light in my book so far.

RamsReef · Dec 7, 2016

DLHDesign said:
PID
@Ramasule - I'm pretty sure this is possible with the current stuff, wouldn't it be? It takes a bit of programming , but you should be able to set up things like (sudo code) "if <unit> is less than <value>, then turn on dosing pump for <volume/time>". That would give you a simple proportional control. You could, in theory, hook up a larger (or multiple) dosing pumps and have the same type of code trigger that (or both) instead - which would give you some derivative control. The integral control is a bit more difficult to achieve without a memory store (database). Does Apex code have access to the history of a sensor?
To be honest, our reefs should be stable enough that a PID seems like an overkill to me. Just a simple proportional control (eg; bit of code) should work for most things. I suppose you would want to ensure that the dosing pump only came on if it's not been on in a certain amount of time (to allow the addition to circulate), but I think that's possible to do as well...

Anywho; sorry for the divergence @Terence. Tank is looking great and the growth comparison is fun to see. Your picture has given me an idea of what to get with a soon-to-expire gift certificate from @MarineDepot... ;-)

As it is something that is very very slow I agree it would just be PI, but hey the PID acronym sounds cooler. Besides anyone who is at this point probably already has an arduino/pi project ready to take the 0-10v output of the alk monitor to dose anyways.
0-10 Alk
0-10 out to variable pump/valve

I dont even see the use for it anyways besides maybe doing a water change and / or you dump a bunch of large corals in at once.
Probably 100x more hassle than it's worth.

MarineDepot · Dec 7, 2016

DLHDesign said:
Your picture has given me an idea of what to get with a soon-to-expire gift certificate from @MarineDepot... ;-)

Gift certificates @ MD don't expire (or shouldn't, anyway). Please contact me if you have any trouble with redemption: [email protected]

Thanks,

Jeff @ Marine Depot

Mr. Gamecock · Dec 11, 2016

Hi! I have question for you, how do you keep critters such as crabs and snails and fish from knocking over frags that are not glued into the rock? I seem to have that problem too often!

Terence · Dec 11, 2016

If you use rock with lots of nooks and crannies like the real reef rock you can cut them from their plugs and jam them into a crevice.

If that is not possible, get some of the frag glue from two little fishies. It is super thick. Plan ahead where you will put it and how you will orient it. Again, especially for acros, cut the base and Just use a small amount of glue. This will let the frag stick close to the rock and start encrusting faster than if you use some big glob of glue. Within a week or so it will have started encrusting and then the fish cannot dislodge it (but big fish can still breaks them unfortunately)