Arid c30 & e24

[pecan2phat]

As the Chaeto grows in a little, the light spillage will decrease substantially. When I prune and clean the tube, I use an extremely simple and crude thin cardboard like what you would find on the back of a notepad. It's cut circular and then another two hole cuts for the heatsink opening & return barb, then scissored from the outside edge down to the center cutout so you can flex the cardboard to get it over the obstacles.

 

[Gotfrogs]

I came home to find a slow leak in my ARID. Some of the chetomorpha worked its way into the outlet which restricted the flow and increased the pressure in the chamber causing the leak. Is this a common problem? I cleaned the blockage and reduced the flow on my Vectra pump but the situation still makes me worry.

 

[prattreef]

I have not had this issue. Anyone else?

 

[Widdy]

No leaking issue here. The outlet does get a little clogged up from loose chaeto. But I just take off the outlet and clear it as part of chaeto harvesting maintenance. Where is the leak? I do re-apply plumber's tape every so often.

 

[Aquabacs]

No leaking issue here either.

Mike

 

[Gotfrogs]

It leaked somewhere on the upper portion, I think around the large O-ring. I am not 100% sure as I shut off the pump and removed the trapped chetomorpha as soon as I saw the leak.
How close to the outlet is the top strainer on your ARID 30? Mine seems really close to me (~1/4" from the top) which lends chetomorpha to easily get sucked into the outlet.

 

[pecan2phat]

I've had this happen and I attribute this to the o-ring selection. I have mentioned to Tristan before that I think he should source out slightly thicker o-rings for the reactors.
The lid tightens down too much hence why I think the supplied o-rings should be thicker.

 

[Gotfrogs]

Here is a photo I took today that shows the chetomorpha pressed up against the strainers. You can see the light bleed through in the open spaces and that it is dark where the chetomorpha is. There is no light bleed through at the top as the chetomorpha goes almost completely up to the top of the chamber. Is this how yours is built as well?

 

[pecan2phat]

Your flow might be a tad too high.
I believe the recommended flow is 500~600 gph.

 

[Aquabacs]

Here is a photo I took today that shows the chetomorpha pressed up against the strainers. You can see the light bleed through in the open spaces and that it is dark where the chetomorpha is. There is no light bleed through at the top as the chetomorpha goes almost completely up to the top of the chamber. Is this how yours is built as well?

How often are you cleaning the chaetomorpha? Found that it would press up against the strainers when it is not clean. Even if the chamber was not full, pull the chaetomorpha out, rinse it when I do a water change, then put it back in. Try to make it a habit to rinse it after every water change. Using a smaller reactor than the C30.

Mike

 

[robbous]

How are you all doing with your systems and the ARID? please share

 

[JBNY]

I have had a C30 since December 2014. I have not used GFO or any carbon dosing for the same time as well. I currently dose about 0.3 ppm of NO3 daily to keep nitrates at my target level of 5 ppm. I have no algae in the DT at all, I have been slowly adding more fish into the tank and have around 65 in my 270 Gallon SPS tank. So for me, things are doing pretty well.

Here is a quick vid of me feeding the tank from about a month ago.
[youtube]09p10xnTiNQ[/youtube]

 

[aaron23]

65 fish? Jesus lol awesome video

 

[robbous]

My 500 Gallon i will be adding a ARID to my system so i can stop using Gfo and biopellets

https://youtu.be/mPpnMu2QSxQ

 

[aaron23]

wow @ 500 gallons thats seriously very nice awesome vid too!

 

[robbous]

wow @ 500 gallons thats seriously very nice awesome vid too!

Thank you here is a vid of me actually putting the GoPro camera into the tank
http://youtu.be/9vtJ84Dav6o

 

[pecan2phat]

How are you all doing with your systems and the ARID? please share

Hi robbous,

I took down all my tanks a few months ago due to a temporary move.
C30 is in storage and I'm using the E24 on a new startup CadLight 70 (skimmer less from day 1). I started this tank using the ARID E24 basically 5 days after adding water, salt & rock. So far it has grown Chaetomorpha exceptionally well, had to prune the growth after 8 weeks
It's taken my N03 down to zero but the P04 is sky high (tank is heavily stocked with wrasses & fed 3x a day) so I am guessing that I need to start dosing N03 in order to facilitate the removal of P04. I'm first thinking of using GFO temporarily to bring the P04 down to workable numbers first.

So based on my experience with the ARID reactors, the problem in the past with the previous systems has to be due to the years of using both sulfur denitrators and bio-pellets reactors in the 2 separate systems. While the E24 kicked in towards the end before I took the system offline, this system never used bio-pellets but did have a sulfur denitrator for years. The C30 system ran large amounts of bio-pellets prior to the C30 and that system never caught on with the Chaetomorpha. Possibly something that the bio-pellet polymers leave behind in the system, go figure.......

In summary,
The newly restarted E24 works well in growing Chaetomorpha, faster & better then an average refugium IMO but.................you need to understand the nutrient removal process with macro algae to effectively keep P04 to a minimum in an enclosed system. Just slapping an ARID onto a system and growing/pruning Chaeto will keep N03 at bay, so much that you might not be able to remove any P04 and that's a no no if your trying to keep any type of SPS.
Follow Joe's practices of dosing N03 in order to export P04, then the ARID will work as advertised

 

[pecan2phat]

Also as an update, I had to replace the power supply for the E24 after approx 13 months of use (at least the new replacement is a Meanwell PS) and the polycarbonate light sleeve on the C30 at about the same time. The light sleeve showed what Pax-Bellum described as crazing, it has not failed yet but I wanted a have a replacement just in case.

 

[robbous]

My N03 is at zero whereas My N04 is at .03 I am wondering if I should slowly raise up my PO3 before starting up the arid ( taking the biopellets offline) i'm a little nervous starting this up because my system is doing so well and his finally stabilized where is my corals are growing very quickly now and I'd hate to jeopardize it my starting up this arid reactor but I truely want to use this product on my system so I no longer have to buy GF phone or bio pellets