It's always something.

This I think will be a common title.  Today's "It's Always Something" was my sump pump.  I do not have a sink in the basement so I have a sump pump in a garbage can that I use for waste water, and when I went to drain my water change water from yesterday the sump quit.  It might be repairable, but for 5 years and $140 I just replaced it.  Not counting  drive time since I was in Norwalk to buy snow shoes anyways, it took 25 minutes to disconnect and reconnect the pump mostly because I wasted time trying to improve the connection to the drain line with new parts but ended up using the old parts instead.

On another note I got the red LEDs in today.  The 12 x 12 square seems to put out about the same PAR as a VHO Aquasun only it covers a 12 x 12 area.  If you put 4 of these things together it would be like 6 T5s or 4 T12s in output, but the color is only for a frag system and definitely NOT for viewing.  The spot put out about the same PAR, but over a very narrow circle.  I would say it would be usable to a depth of about 12 inches for a single coral head which is kind of what I plan on trying.  Still haven't figured how I'm gonna rig everything for testing, but we'll see . . .

Also found small bags of live sand at Petco.  Perfect for me when I replace some sand.  I had been buying 20lb bags and using a little at a time, but this is really ideal for what I do.

Checked kalk pH again today and it was 11.9.  Looks like when you put in a large amount and it goes bad, adding more doesn't cut it.  Rather I need to clean it out and start fresh.  Seems I need to do some homework on this.  "It's Always Something"  : )