Expensive Devices

I try and keep all ballasts out from inside a hood, no matter how or
what kind they are. Be it a cheap common ballast or a top end ballast.
I have quite a collection of various heat sinks and I have been known
to attach a sink to some ballasts for kicks, and others I enclose in a
cabinet and cool with muffin fans etc. I do not but the so called
rubber water proof or salt creep boots for the light sockets either. I
coat all bulbs and contacts with krytox grease which is non toxic and
will not hurt anything. It will not melt and drip either. Works better
than any rubber boot ever did.



On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 01:43:48 GMT, George Patterson
wrote:

Tristan wrote:
Ballasts are not rocket science, and
even if the parts inside some of the ones like Ice CAp are slightly
different, odds are th eactual cost of th eparts is not that much
different if at all from a common electronic ballast would consist of.

Actually, if you try to come up with a self-starting ballast that doesn't put
out a lot of heat and is small enough to fit in a typical hood, you're into
rocket science territory. The common ballast typically runs too hot to touch and
measures about 10" x 2" x 1.5". It also corrodes easily and has a tendency to
ooze polluting acids when it fails.

George Patterson
Forgive your enemies. But always remember who they are.



-------
I forgot more about ponds and koi than I'll ever know!

William Marsh wrote:
Hi Kurt for one thing the Evaporator in the chiller is Titanium, a very
expensive metal. My 6ft light system was over $1,000 and the light bill
doubled but the tank looks great and ever is growing , Bill

I like to tinker, so I think I'll just start building my own as time
permits.

btw, I'm sure titanium works great, but is it necessary? High grade
stainless won't corrode for years, it's cheaper, and much easier to work
with (titanium is brittle). At least, my tack on my sailboat doesn't
corrode and it's been on the beach for 4+ years. They also use it for
knee replacements that are good for 20+ years.

--Kurt

I think it must be the word "aquarium" that makes things expensive.
Take silicone adhesives. I full tube of a suitable material runs a few
bucks at insert your favorite box harbware store here. If you want
"aquarium sealant" though, get ready to shell out 6 bucks for half the
amount.

I read this group, but only have freshwater tanks (for now, not sure
why I mention that). It doesn't seem to matter what the cost or use is,
if it for aquaria, it is more expensive!


KurtG wrote:
William Marsh wrote:
Hi Kurt for one thing the Evaporator in the chiller is Titanium, a very
expensive metal. My 6ft light system was over $1,000 and the light bill
doubled but the tank looks great and ever is growing , Bill

I like to tinker, so I think I'll just start building my own as time
permits.

btw, I'm sure titanium works great, but is it necessary? High grade
stainless won't corrode for years, it's cheaper, and much easier to work
with (titanium is brittle). At least, my tack on my sailboat doesn't
corrode and it's been on the beach for 4+ years. They also use it for
knee replacements that are good for 20+ years.

--Kurt

Thats my view as well Kurt. Some foks have no clkue as to other
materials out there. Even though a lot of stainless may appear to rust
its nothing but residual ferrous oxide thats on it since it wa not
chemically cleaned after it was cut, drilled sheared , welded or
fabricated as athe design specs did not callfor it, so the transfer of
regular carbon steel on the stainless starts to rush and it makes
folks think the stainless is rusting up., there is quite a varied
amount of alloys. I had a boat I kkept in sal****er for years and it
had a stainless steel prop, yet the only places yu ever seen rust was
in and on the area the wrench hit if I removed the prop. None anywhere
else. I have a pump running with a stainless steel shaft that I made
for it after the ceramic shaft broke, and thats been for 5 years or
more now and its just fine......

The surpluscenter.com which is a surplus for manufact over runs and
obsolkete stuff had chillers that was used to make desk top soda
fountains and provide chilled down drinks. They had chiller / refer
units without the propreietart parts like covers and dispenser nozzles
etc for sale for under $30 each. They all hade working refrigeration
units. The sump area that got chilled was polypropylene. It is
capable ot getting the intended soft drinks down to a temp of 50
degrees if yu set the temp dial low enough. I made a coil assembly up
which pulled SW from a tank and circulated it into the polyprop
resivoir and back into the DT. It worked and worked fine. I had
originally used just the polyprop resivoir to chill the DT water down
and it worked too, but I played since I liked to tinker and used a
coil I made up (foolishily out of Titanium when SS would have done)
and submerged it in the resivoir to be cooled by a mix of RODI water.
I was able to maintain a in out temp difference of close to 22 deg
with that setup and I really did not experiment allthat long with it
or maybe it could have been made to do more but that differential was
enough to chill main DT down to reasonable levels. I sold that home
brew chiller when I went PICO / NANO sized...now I am sort of
migrating back to larger, so I may need to check and see if they
have any of those hciller units left yet.

On Wed, 13 Dec 2006 15:11:28 -0500, KurtG
wrote:

William Marsh wrote:
Hi Kurt for one thing the Evaporator in the chiller is Titanium, a very
expensive metal. My 6ft light system was over $1,000 and the light bill
doubled but the tank looks great and ever is growing , Bill

I like to tinker, so I think I'll just start building my own as time
permits.

btw, I'm sure titanium works great, but is it necessary? High grade
stainless won't corrode for years, it's cheaper, and much easier to work
with (titanium is brittle). At least, my tack on my sailboat doesn't
corrode and it's been on the beach for 4+ years. They also use it for
knee replacements that are good for 20+ years.

--Kurt



-------
I forgot more about ponds and koi than I'll ever know!

KurtG wrote:

Why are some things so expensive?

A 1/2 hp chiller runs over a $1000. The BTU's don't even rival a window
AC unit which runs under $100. Or, an office water cooler that runs $150.

Ballasts over $800.
Protein Skimmer for $250. Seems like a simple plastic device.

Sure they need to be rugidized for a salt environment, but Jeez! There
doesn't seem to be enough competition in these products. Or, am I
missing something?

--Kurt

I just got my skimmer. I'll quit whining now. It's f'n huge! I
thought it would be 4" in diameter, but it's more like 12".

--Kurt

Tristan wrote:
I had a boat I kkept in sal****er for years and it
had a stainless steel prop, yet the only places yu ever seen rust was
in and on the area the wrench hit if I removed the prop.

There's a huge difference in quality of the metal. I bought a stainless
steel grill that promptly rusted. It's ugly (and now covered), but I
have to admit it has lasted much longer then my other grills. I think
this one is going on 3 years, and most fall apart the same day that the
12 month warranty expires. The rust appears to be mostly cosmetic...

Acid, you say? Hm, I have a gallon in the garage to clean cement...
I'll give it a try.

--Kurt

More than likely H2SO4 (Hydrochloric or muriatic acid. Yuo can apply
that in a dilute form 10:1 or so and allow it to dissolve any ferrous
metal deposts on the stainless steel. Its hard to say what alloy
stainless yur grill was made form but generally any stainless used in
a commercial food prep environment or a marine environment is going
to last a long time in sal****er. I can not keep track nor remember
what alloys are what any more and like I said there is a heap of them,
but I do use a lot of 17-4PH alloy and 318


On Wed, 13 Dec 2006 17:03:04 -0500, KurtG
wrote:

Tristan wrote:
I had a boat I kkept in sal****er for years and it
had a stainless steel prop, yet the only places yu ever seen rust was
in and on the area the wrench hit if I removed the prop.

There's a huge difference in quality of the metal. I bought a stainless
steel grill that promptly rusted. It's ugly (and now covered), but I
have to admit it has lasted much longer then my other grills. I think
this one is going on 3 years, and most fall apart the same day that the
12 month warranty expires. The rust appears to be mostly cosmetic...

Acid, you say? Hm, I have a gallon in the garage to clean cement...
I'll give it a try.

--Kurt



-------
I forgot more about ponds and koi than I'll ever know!

Tristan wrote:
More than likely H2SO4 (Hydrochloric or muriatic acid.

H2SO4 is sulphuric acid. Hydrochloric is HCl.

George Patterson
Forgive your enemies. But always remember who they are.

George Patterson wrote:
Joe wrote:

And I don't know you'd need a chiller for (I'm curious)!


Put metal halides on your tank, and the light would come on. :-)

George Patterson
Forgive your enemies. But always remember who they are.

Depends, but usually, yes.

However, I had 130 watts of CF lighting over my 20gal nano. Could not
get the temp below 82 during the day. Just replaced the CF's with a
single 150watt MH, and the temp is staying EXACTLY the same. (82 degrees)

From everything I have heard or read, this is too high. But Everything
seems healthy enough even at that temp. Algea is a bit of a problem,
but no real biggie - ceriths and a conch take care of that well enough -
it doesn't get TOO out of hand.

At this temp, my derasa has been growing at a rate that seems VERY fast
to me - it added like and inch or so to it's shell in 3 months time.
Ditto for my zooanthids - number of polyps has doubled in the last three
months.

Joe wrote:
Ahhhhhh... That makes sense!

George Patterson wrote:

Joe wrote:


And I don't know you'd need a chiller for (I'm curious)!

Put metal halides on your tank, and the light would come on. :-)

George Patterson
Forgive your enemies. But always remember who they are.



Makes sense? No one I know puts metal halides ON their tank. They
usually put them OVER their tank.

(sorry, couldn't resist)