Definitely time for an update.
My phytoplankton culture has kicked off. I am following Melev's methodology. The containers are quart sized plastic food storage containers I got on Amazon. I like them better than 2 liter soda bottles because they are flat bottomed and have very large openings. I went with an 8 outlet air pump that is rated for 400 gallons. I went this route to prevent using gang valves on the small scale, but allow for sufficient expansion when I upgrade my tank.
Now I need to order my pods. I am looking at AlgaGen Tisbe pods, but I haven't found a cost effective way to get them yet. If I order them from LiveAquaria the cost is double with shipping. I will likely end up two two strains, Tisbe and something smaller, but I haven't selected the other species yet. Shipping is still high relative to the product cost.
Untitled by
Mike Burns, on Flickr
In other news, I took my Tunze Nano out to clean it and when I put it back in it was a lot louder than normal. It sounded to me like the prop was hitting the casing, but when I turned it off and spun the prop with my finger it spun freely. There were no deposits in the shaft or on the magnet. I ended up ordering a 6055 because I figured it was a design issue. However, the 6055 was way to strong and the Apex can't control it below ~35%. So I sent that back and ran my nano in a bucket of vinegar water for a few hours and it seems to have resolved.
I also found that one of my return lines had no water coming out of it. I pulled the loc line out and the flow coming from the return pipe increased so much my return chamber ran dry. Turns out the check valves in the locline on both sides was super clogged. I removed both check valves and now the flow from my return is significantly higher.
With the higher flow from my return, my plan now is to turn my nano off completely at night, have it run constantly at ~35% in the morning and evening hours, and have it generate a wave during the day.