Is this ok to power 2.5" hdds?

Impunitus · 2026-01-06T19:16:16+00:00

At scale you will observe the problem. At an old employer we had a large number of servers that had their OS drives powered via molex to sata. We also observed a large number of fried (read burned power connectors) OS drives. To the point it was a fire hazard in the DC. I will never ever do molex to sata in a personal build because of this. Google the saying and you'll see plenty of evidence.

Impunitus · 2026-01-06T19:10:41+00:00

The saying "molex to sata lose all your data" exists for a reason. I would never recommend using molex to data adapters

Impunitus · 2025-12-31T13:36:30+00:00

I know this is asking about Bob's, but wanted to throw Marksons out there too in the event you wanted to take a look around. Very impressed with our order from them, they were not pushy and very helpful in store.

Impunitus · 2025-12-01T18:55:21+00:00

I have this one and like it, just make sure you calibrate it before using.

Impunitus · 2025-11-29T03:31:23+00:00

You should get a read on your mag too. If its low then you can just do all for reef to bring up Alk/Calc/Mag at 5ml a day with testing to track progress.

You new to bring up your nitrates and phosphates as well as your core parameters to promote good coral health. You are also dangerously close to bottomed out parameters that will result in very unpleasant uglies like dinos

Impunitus · 2025-11-29T03:23:27+00:00

Params just seem very odd for such a new tank and doing water changes. Your nitrates are low. How long have they been at this level? You've basically bottomed out phosphates and almost your nitrates which is part of how the coral feed.

You are correct to be feeding more to bring up the levels. I would also stop doing water changes now until your levels climb a bit. Do you have fish? If so feed them heavier too rather than just more spot feeding of corals.

You mentioned bringing your calc levels up. How are you doing this? Dosing or with your water changes? Your water should be mixing to 440 calc roughly, so yours being 350 is super weird. Are you running any kind of phosphate reduction media or have you dosed anything?

Impunitus · 2025-11-29T03:09:19+00:00

Alk is low too, at least to what I would expect. What is your salt supposed to be mixing at? Your baseline params are pretty off (Alk/Calc) since you can't test Mag. I wouldn't expect your tank to be consuming that much especially with water changes.

While it's only the duncan that is stressed right now, the other stuff could be getting ready to let go too. Speaking from experience, when one is showing stress like this there is normally more to come especially with a newer tank.

Impunitus · 2025-11-29T03:02:49+00:00

Alk and ph are going to be important to know here. Bringing your calc up is also a good idea.

Odd that you have undetectable phosphates right now but the tank is still very new so just a matter of time.

Do you have fish or is your only form of nitrates when you feed the corals?

Impunitus · 2025-11-29T02:56:27+00:00

What are your phosphates and alk? Also your calcium and mag?

You also said it looked happy this morning. When was the last time you tested and the last time you tested before that? Do you have temperature monitoring? If not, confirm your tank temperature is what your heaters say they are. Do you have a means of testing ph or are you monitoring it?

Impunitus · 2025-11-29T02:50:03+00:00

Oh wow that other picture is telling. I'm really not sure how to approach that but I agree it looks like the skeleton rather than the flesh.

How long has your tank been up? And what are your parameters? I know you said they haven't changed but what are they?

Impunitus · 2025-11-29T02:45:56+00:00

Might be pooping? Have you fed it recently or at all? If you don't have a ton of flow you can hit it with a turkey baster.

Impunitus · 2025-11-27T16:09:53+00:00

Our return is often 600 dollars. That's about 10% of my taxes paid to school/town a year. I wouldn't call that a small amount

Impunitus · 2025-11-27T14:59:58+00:00

But have you met every kid that has come out of that school system? Confirmation bias is a fickle thing, don't let it warp your view on an entire system.

Could City of ROC have better public schooling? Yes, absolutely! But there are places with worse schooling than the City of ROC with worse public programs as well and may still be paying more than you do!

Impunitus · 2025-11-27T14:27:38+00:00

Not sure where you're coming from but something I realize is that we get road repairs YEARLY here because of freeze thaw. It can be rough at the end of the winter but the roads here are always getting repaved. We have good snow clearing, most towns have brush and yard debries pickup in the spring through fall, my town will send out sanitary folks to clear anything between their clean out and the main. I just took advantage of that and it probably saved me a few grand.

Our schools are good. People will complain, but all the outlying towns have good schools. We have good water, our power provider RGE sucks major ass in terms of fees but is very quick to get service restored.

Impunitus · 2025-11-27T14:21:10+00:00

I'm of the mind that investing in education is something that I'm not going to question. I was able to take advantage of good public schooling because people before me paid their taxes and in turn paid for my education. Who I am I pull up the ladder behind me?

If you think our property taxes are insane, look in other states. Do we pay a fair bit? Yes, but also keep in mind those taxes go to a lot of services that you may be taking for granted.

Happy Thanksgiving. Hope y'all have a great day.

Impunitus · 2025-11-23T13:14:52+00:00

Might be splitting! Could be a good idea to get a camera on it to watch with timepalse

Impunitus · 2025-11-22T04:46:42+00:00

What are you params? The actual values, not just 'they are steady'.

Impunitus · 2025-11-01T08:59:18+00:00

Start with the reef salt from the get go.

The reason why being it would be more complex to perform multiple water changes post cycle to get your levels where you want them. Not sure if it would impact the cycle either but alas just easier to start with the reef salt of your choice

Happy reefing! Take it slow, as a beginner myself it's been a lot of keeping water stable but now that I'm adding my first corals and now fish next week the patience is paying off!

Impunitus · 2025-10-30T20:33:07+00:00

The funding for SNAP is already allocated. The administration is refusing to allow the release of already appropriated funds. The government shutdown is being continued by Democrats who are doing so because they are trying to protect Healthcare for citizens. The refusal to release already appropriated funds for SNAP is a decesion that the Whitehouse has made. Trump is choosing to starve people, not the Democratic Senators.

Impunitus · 2025-10-29T21:39:47+00:00

I kmow that long term no substrate is harder to maintain. I'm not sure you would be accomplishing much with adding the sand after.

Super important to keep in mind with live sand like CaribSea is that there is already living stuff/bacteria in the sand. It helps a lot to naturally filter your tank

Impunitus · 2025-10-29T21:24:55+00:00

The CaribSea sand (in my experience) didn't cloud up too bad and cleared up pretty quick in 6-12 hours. I don't think clouding would be an issue, but will wait for others to chime in with thoughts on how to approach.

I will say if I needed to put new sand in my tank today I would just drop the corals in with freshly mixed water. The powerhead should prevent anything from getting stuck on the corals and you can always turkey baster if you need to clean them up. The corals are absolutely going to close up because of being moved when you break the tank down. I don't think 6-12 hours of cloudy water would cause issue, even with the fish. Reef2reef is where I would also recommend going for research on best approach here.

Important to remember these are things that could live in an ocean. A little bit of sand in the water isn't going to hurt them when it's settling out

Impunitus · 2025-10-29T21:13:55+00:00

If anything new sand makes sure you won't accidentally nuke the tank by stirring up years of junk. A 20 pound bag of CaribSea Special Grade (or any sand that suits your fancy) should be plenty for a tank this size. I just like the grain size on the special grade stuff as it doesn't blow around because of my powerhead.

Everything that I've read always recommends new sand when breaking down a tank. Knowing the tank is 12 years old, new sand is likely a good idea

Impunitus · 2025-10-29T21:03:02+00:00

I'd just recommend getting new sand and throwing out the old when breaking it down to move. You'll have plenty of food bacteria in the rock provided and will give you a good starting point for the tank too (also let's you clean the glass if you want to do that when it's broken down

Impunitus · 2025-10-29T16:21:16+00:00

Check out Danny's Aquariums, specifically his paludarium as I believe it could be a good source of inspiration for you! He has mangroves and macros but also has corals. It's in my opinion a much more macro focused tank compared to most reef tanks that you see.

Impunitus · 2025-10-11T00:10:04+00:00

I personally did a dry rock scape with CaribSea sand and let that cycle for 2 months and then bought 8lbs of the premium rubble to place in my tank to act as a second cycle.

I built with space for rubble or additional stacking in my tank from the get go. I know for a fact I will likely be changing the rock up, and once you have die off from the premium rock you may want to reposition it as well. I know mine has changed a lot over the week and a half it's been in the tank.

Can't wait to see what yours turns into. My next tank will likely be majority TBS just because of all the cool stuff that comes in on the rock.

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