voltage

[alexwolf]

does anyone have a tool to measure voltage? I just need to use it for 5 min.............my problem could be stray voltage, dying snails shrimp, and wilting soft corals........

[JimD]

What you need is a volt meter, you can get a cheap one for around 5 bucks at an auto parts store. Remove grounding probe from your tank if you have one, select A-C on the meter, set the meter to its lowest potential, one probe in the water, the other to a common ground, you should read next to or right at zero voltage.
HTH

[alexwolf]

I dont have a grounding probe, i should probably get one huh?

[JimD]

uhh, yeah, grounding probes IMO are an essential piece of equipment. Dont pay the $30 LFS price tho, you can get them online for like $12.

[alexwolf]

my LFS has them for $16......i have had problems since i set up the tank with snails falling off th glass, and i cant keep shrimp alive. I do have two Rios, one runnning the skimmer and one as a powerhead, and 2 maxijets. My soft corals are always wilted over also......i think i may stop and get one on the way home........i lost 50 nassarius snails, theyre all gone! :shock:

[JimD]

You should see the Nass snails when you feed the tank, otherwise theyre burried in the sand. Sounds like to me you have other issues going on in your tank. Inverts like shimp and snails are extremey sensitive to perameter fluctuations, leathers like a substantial ammount of light to thrive and a lot of flow. Check for stray voltage first, I doubt youll see anything abnormal because chances are your fish would be reacting also. How old is the tank, gimmee some specs and well get this fixed for ya.

[alexwolf]

Calcium 500
DKH 7
PH 8.4
Salinity 1.024
2 400w XM 20,000k with 2 72" actinic 03's
aqua c protein skimmer

[alexwolf]

they were acting up before though

[alexwolf]

its a 135, with a 25gal sump and a 20 gal fuge being returned fomr a little giant 3mdqx. I have 2 maxijet 1200's and a rio, not sure but a big one. In the tank, 2 yellow tangs, 1 blue hippo tang, 1 scopas tang, 1 bicolor blenny, 1 flame hawk, and 6 green chromis. For corals, 1 lime green leather of some sort, 1 colt frag, several zoo's, and some ricordea. I have lost:4 cleaner shrimp, 6 peppermint shrimp, 3 serpent starts, 100 little hermints, 48 nassarius snails, 2 maroon gold stripe clowns went crazy on me and commited suicide. I have killed a brain and had another colt dissappear on me, also killed several montipora and some acros. I have a rather shallow 2-3" sand bed, with a DSB in the fuge. using sugar aragonite,

[JimD]

Thanks.... duh!

[alexwolf]

oh yeah, temp fluxes from 78-79 to 85-86 after a full day of halides. Ive ben cutting them back though, running VHO in the morning and halides in the afternoon

[captexas]

Temperature fluctuations are not good for the inverts. Your calcium level is incredibly high from before when you weren't dosing anything. What test kits are you using? What are you using to test your salinity levels? Changes in salinity levels can also affect the inverts. Are you doing water changes often?

[alexwolf]

10 gal per week on the changes, im using the red sea test kit for calcium. im using one of those plastic gravity meters.......i followed instructions to raise the calcium, and from whawt i was told it wouldnt affect anything as long as the alkalinity didnt go out of wack

[alexwolf]

those tests were from last night.......i added a bit of buffer from GaryP

[captexas]

Some people will say most of the test kits are the same, but I dissagree. I originally started out with one of those reef/saltwater test kits from Red Sea and always got different results. I changed to Salifert and would never use Red Sea kits again. Also, that plastic hydrometers are very iffy if you don't test it several times. Air bubbles and particles in the water can cling to the swing arm and give you false results. Make sure you test it several times and add water to it slowly to help prevent air bubbles.

As Josh mentioned earlier, there was some bad Instant Ocean salt going around. At one time I thought I had some, even after letting it mix for a couple of days. My alkalinity was way out of wack. Adding a buffer to this and calcium as well will really mess things up. You definately want to have good test kits and test frequently anytime you are adding things to your tank.

[captexas]

LOL, I wanted to say what Josh said, but just was being nice. I think they are crap as well. Other than my RO/DI system, my refractometer was one of the best investments I have made.

[OldSalty]

I've got one, I,d be glad to bring it over since we live so close. PM me and we can set up a time. I'll come tonite if ya want

Kelly

[GaryP]

His Alk, was about 7 before he added the Ca. I told Alex to monitor his Alk, after he got his calcium up, and then work on getting it up to at least 10.

Gary

[GaryP]

Just make sure that you get a GFI that is rated to handle the amperage. I have to split my lights to more than one circuit because of this. I have my VHO's and MH's on 2 seperate circuits. Eventually I'll get around to upgrading the GFI.

Gary

[alexwolf]

i measured last night, after adding the calcium a few days ago

[GaryP]

I get that all the time.

Gary

[alexwolf]

not voltage though, OldSaltycame and tested it, under 1 volt

[Instar]

Alex, Joshua made a good point a few posts back about a bad batch of IO on the market. Are you still using salt from the same bucket to mix new water or is that all gone now? I thought all that bad stuff was gone, but, if you still have issues, I can check it before you use more.

Also, on your wilting softies, move things like that florescent green spag. leather to near the bottom. Softies, other than reef crest things like a yellow figi leather, don't need so much light. See if that helps them some. And, gotta give them from 2 to 8 weeks to recover from that calcium/alk fall out. Snails fall sometimes. Thats the life of a snail. There are times they clean the inside of their shells and loose their footing as well.

[matt]

Maybe it's copper poisoning. Get a GOOD copper test kit; sounds like your inverts are all dying but your fish are not affected. That signals trace copper to me. They could also be starving; unlikely, I guess, but I'm sure it does happen.

Also, I don't know about the effectiveness of a 10 gallon water change in a 135 gallon system with 40 gallons of extra water in the sump/refugium. After testing for copper, I'd consider doing a major water change; make sure you test that water for copper too.

I wish I knew more about stray voltage. A volt sounds like it could be a lot to me, but I really don't know. It's a good excuse to chuck the rios over a cliff and write the terrible company that makes that crap a letter. After I got shocked by my rio, and I'm only the millionth person to experience that, I wrote them a not so nice letter asking for my money back. Funny thing, they never replied....

[wkopplin]

Rio's are the devil of water pumps. They are cheap, so they enitce lots of people into buying them and then they fall apart after a couple of months. I have been zapped by them twice and now have a bucket full of the things in my garage. One of these days, I am going to take them out to the ranch and shoot them all. Anybody want to come?