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...and as it turns out in my tank too.
For possibly the first time ever I was actually happy that my son stayed up late gaming. He woke me at 2.30am on Saturday night to tell me that a tank alarm was activated. I jumped out of bed faster than you can say Jack Robinson and hustled downstairs. I discovered that the water temperature was low. I normally keep it at 24.9 to 25.1 but on this occasion it had dropped to 24.2. Fortunately I have a back up heater but (apparently) it's not beefy enough on it's own to maintain the temperature on frosty nights. I fitted a spare heater (one normally reserved for the water change bucket) and waited to make sure that the temp was going up again and not down. When I got up Sunday morning I checked the temperature controller which worked fine, but the titanium heater was dead as a dodo. I changed the fuse in case the old one had blown but it made no difference, it's not even a year old yet either. I thought these things were supposed to be more reliable, unlucky I guess. I am thankful that my son realised that there was a problem with the tank. It could have been far worse had I not been a; running a temperature controller with an alarm, b; running a back up heater and c; had an emergency spare.
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....probably, lol! After waiting absolutely ages for delivery I was finally able to set up my shiny new GHL Profilux 4 controller over Easter. The hope is that when the time comes I can monitor the tank whilst I'm away, so less worry for me. At the moment I just have it set up with four probes measuring temperature, pH, redox and conductivity. There is just 0.1 degree Celsius difference in temperature readings between the digital GHL probe and the Simplyaquaria temperature controller which is pretty good going considering the price difference between the two. I am going to keep the Simplyaquaria controller running as a backup to the GHL, two alarms are better than one in my books. I may actually move the Simplyaquaria probe to the DT so that I have two separate temperature readings to compare. The conductivity of the tank water measured by the GHL probe was 51.8mS which converts to a specific gravity of 1.0257. My calibrated refractometer measured it to be 1.026, again the values are pretty close which is good. I am happy to know that I've been maintaining a suitable salinity using the refractometer. I never bothered to purchase a pH test kit this time round so I had no idea what the actual pH readings were going to be. The levels are fluctuating between 8-8.2 or thereabouts, I would like to study the whole 24hr cycle but haven't managed to work out how to access data from the Profilux yet (if indeed it's actually possible to do). The redox probe is still bedding in, to be honest I'm not really sure what to expect from the readings as I've never used one before. It came with the set so I thought it'd be interesting to set it up and investigate what it can tell me about the tank.   On the livestock front, Charlie the hitchhiking hermit crab is now on borrowed time after his first tank misdemeanor yesterday. He knocked my prize Acropora gomezi frag off the rock in his quest for food. I supposed I should be pleased that he just wanted to graze off the rocks and not eat the coral but still it's annoying. He's really quite big now so I'm sure that he'll cause more trouble in the future if I don't try and catch him now.
I think the T. nudus gobies have spawned again, Hop has been sequestered in the cave for the last two days and Skip won't let him out to feed, so I'm hopeful that there are eggs hidden inside. I hope I actually get to see some fry this time round, pretty please! The Cardinals also appear to be courting but there's been no further release of eggs. |
AuthorHi, my name is Lisa and I live in Derby, UK. I am a self-confessed reefaholic! Archives
February 2021
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