OP
OP
cpllongjk
Active Member
Thanks. I agree the Reefer series of tanks are pretty nice. They do a great job on the silicon too!
Cpllongjk's RedSea Reefer 170
- Nano Build
- Thread starter cpllongjk
- Start date
- Tagged users None
Thanks. I agree the Reefer series of tanks are pretty nice. They do a great job on the silicon too!
OP
OP
cpllongjk
Active Member
So I ran a panel of tests tonight.
SG 35ppt
pH 7.9-8.2
Temp 76.5-78.5
Ca 390
Mg 1400
dKH 8.0
NO3 10
PO4 0.02
I stopped dosing vodka/NO3PO4-X last weekend and have let levels rise. I want to let the tank stabilize itself and see where I am at with normal feeding procedures and my maintenence habits. I am going to shoot for NO3 of 5-10ppm and PO4 around 0.1 Really though, after all the posts I've read about NO3 and PO4 and speaking to Adam at BattleCorals I am a firm believer in keeping a more dirty tank. I probably will scrap carbon dosing all together and just let what happens happen.
SG 35ppt
pH 7.9-8.2
Temp 76.5-78.5
Ca 390
Mg 1400
dKH 8.0
NO3 10
PO4 0.02
I stopped dosing vodka/NO3PO4-X last weekend and have let levels rise. I want to let the tank stabilize itself and see where I am at with normal feeding procedures and my maintenence habits. I am going to shoot for NO3 of 5-10ppm and PO4 around 0.1 Really though, after all the posts I've read about NO3 and PO4 and speaking to Adam at BattleCorals I am a firm believer in keeping a more dirty tank. I probably will scrap carbon dosing all together and just let what happens happen.
OP
OP
cpllongjk
Active Member
Ok.
Switched out the Reefbrite Halide Hybrid for a Giesemann Spectra. OMG I love this light. I should have bought one a long time ago! I don't have the t5s yet, still in shipping, but this thing is just slightly bigger than my old ati sunpower was.
I plan on running a 250w radium for 6 hours (11am-5pm)
2 Ati True Actinics 14 hours (7am-9pm)
1 aquablue special and 1 purple plus 10 hours (9am-7pm)
As of right now the tank looks rather green. There is a tiny bit of hair algae on the bottom left corner on the rock near the frag rack but all that green is coralline algae. It is popping up everywhere. Its on the glass, rocks, plastic pieces, everywhere. This is the fastest I've ever seen coralline pop up.
I added a few tester frags before my mystery pack comes from BattleCorals. I want to make sure I don't have any losses since Adam's corals are the bomb!
I drilled a small hole under my window sill for the skimmer to breath outside air. My pH was fluctuating between 7.8 at night to 8.0 during the day. If I open the window I can get 8.3 during the day and 8.05 at night. With the line plumbed outside I am getting the same results as opening the window. In the future I may place a reactor of carbon and co2 scrubber media on the line to get any chemicals that may be sprayed in the neighborhood and rid my tank of any co2 that may come in. The co2 might not be needed so I will try it but if I burn through media I will discontinue use.
Coming soon...
I decided I will dose Fauna Marin's Ultra Balling Light Method on this setup. I'll post pictures of the dosing setup when I get everything placed and hooked up this weekend. I'm manually dosing Alk right now and having to add 8mL of alk daily since I am depleting roughly 0.4 dKH a day. I actually cannot wait for the stuff to get here so that I don't have to dose manually and things will be a lot more stable.
Switched out the Reefbrite Halide Hybrid for a Giesemann Spectra. OMG I love this light. I should have bought one a long time ago! I don't have the t5s yet, still in shipping, but this thing is just slightly bigger than my old ati sunpower was.
I plan on running a 250w radium for 6 hours (11am-5pm)
2 Ati True Actinics 14 hours (7am-9pm)
1 aquablue special and 1 purple plus 10 hours (9am-7pm)
As of right now the tank looks rather green. There is a tiny bit of hair algae on the bottom left corner on the rock near the frag rack but all that green is coralline algae. It is popping up everywhere. Its on the glass, rocks, plastic pieces, everywhere. This is the fastest I've ever seen coralline pop up.
I added a few tester frags before my mystery pack comes from BattleCorals. I want to make sure I don't have any losses since Adam's corals are the bomb!
I drilled a small hole under my window sill for the skimmer to breath outside air. My pH was fluctuating between 7.8 at night to 8.0 during the day. If I open the window I can get 8.3 during the day and 8.05 at night. With the line plumbed outside I am getting the same results as opening the window. In the future I may place a reactor of carbon and co2 scrubber media on the line to get any chemicals that may be sprayed in the neighborhood and rid my tank of any co2 that may come in. The co2 might not be needed so I will try it but if I burn through media I will discontinue use.
Coming soon...
I decided I will dose Fauna Marin's Ultra Balling Light Method on this setup. I'll post pictures of the dosing setup when I get everything placed and hooked up this weekend. I'm manually dosing Alk right now and having to add 8mL of alk daily since I am depleting roughly 0.4 dKH a day. I actually cannot wait for the stuff to get here so that I don't have to dose manually and things will be a lot more stable.
OP
OP
cpllongjk
Active Member
Small Update...
All parameters are doing well. I still have a bit of algae that the snails are slowly mowing down.
I ordered some 3/16" black acrylic from TAPPLASTICS in order to build a better and taller acrylic shield so I could raise my light a bit higher. My bulb is now 10" off the water surface. The shield was easy to build and only took 3 main pieces and 4 small pieces.
The cuts were:
(1) 24 1/8" x 8" (front)
(2) 10"x8" (sides)
(4) 1"x4" (bracing)
I didn't want the acrylic on the sides to extend all the way to the back because I wanted air to flow in and out from the fan on the back wall.
Left Side View... You can see why I didn't want the "shield" to extend all the way around it would block the airflow.
Right Side View... The air blows across the water and out the other side.
Inside View... The only thing holding it on the tank are (4) 1"x4" pieces. The shield just sets on top of the rimless tank. In order to pull off I just lift off and then take the screen out.
All parameters are doing well. I still have a bit of algae that the snails are slowly mowing down.
I ordered some 3/16" black acrylic from TAPPLASTICS in order to build a better and taller acrylic shield so I could raise my light a bit higher. My bulb is now 10" off the water surface. The shield was easy to build and only took 3 main pieces and 4 small pieces.
The cuts were:
(1) 24 1/8" x 8" (front)
(2) 10"x8" (sides)
(4) 1"x4" (bracing)
I didn't want the acrylic on the sides to extend all the way to the back because I wanted air to flow in and out from the fan on the back wall.
Left Side View... You can see why I didn't want the "shield" to extend all the way around it would block the airflow.
Right Side View... The air blows across the water and out the other side.
Inside View... The only thing holding it on the tank are (4) 1"x4" pieces. The shield just sets on top of the rimless tank. In order to pull off I just lift off and then take the screen out.
OP
OP
cpllongjk
Active Member
Flameback Pair
started reefing 1999
Awesome looking frag pack, I hope that is exactly like the frags they will send you.
OP
OP
cpllongjk
Active Member
I'm sure they will! I've been in constant communication with Adam from Battlecorals and he photographs his frags under the same lighting I have so there isn't any difference. I really can't wait for these to come and I really hope they grow out nicely over the next 6 months to year.
Flameback Pair
started reefing 1999
Are all those considered acropora?
OP
OP
cpllongjk
Active Member
My semi-auto water change setup.
I decided to build a semi-auto water change setup. For safety I did not want to make it fully automatic but it is close.
Pros of Fully Auto Water Changes
1. Can be completed while I am on vacation
2. Keep parameters rock solid and ensure that they actually get done
Cons
1. Requires a very expensive setup; 2 dosing pumps
2. Calibration of the pumps is difficult when pump flows can change
3. Salinity can change depending on how off the pumps are
Now for the setup and why I chose to do certain things...
First off - this is a picture of the unfinished laundry room. My office/man cave is on the other side of this wall and the tank is directly on the other side. For a while now my top off 14 gallon brute container has been taking up a lot of space on the counter top. Since this is my wife's laundry folding table she has wanted it cleared off of my junk. I still have some more stuff to remove but I believe this is much better than before.
I also didn't like the fact that the 14g brute container held too much water, while I could have just reduced the size of the container I also wanted to clean things up. Now there is a 5 gallon top off bucket with a 1 1/2" hole drilled in the bottom to accommodate a bulkhead. I wanted a 5 gallon bucket because incase something goes wrong with the float valve only 5 gallons will empty into my tank. This is not nearly as bad as 14 gallons.
Each bucket has 1/4" OD tubing coming from it that goes to a ball valve and then to the sump into a "Y" fitting before the float valve. I also use ball valves near the "Y" inside the sump but I will talk about that more below. The salt bucket is filled weekly and is only mixed and heated while mixing for the first day or two. Since my water changes only consist of 2-2.5 Liters daily I do not see any point in heating the water after the salt is mixed well.
I ended up placing ball valves near the "Y" because I was having a backflow issue when both valves were open under the buckets. For instance, if the top off bucket was full and the salt bucket empty and both valves were open then the fresh water would go down to the "Y" and back up to the salt bucket. Pressure would force is up the "salt" tubing. While I could just make sure the salt line was closed I wanted to add another safety feature.
After using this setup for the first time today I realized how easy it is going to be to do water changes now. There is only one problem I did not forsee. The float valve replaces water rather quickly at the beginning but then starts to slow down as the level is equalized. You really need to give the valve time. In my case I had to wait 20 minutes for salt water to completely top off. While this isn't a big deal it is worth noting. JUST DON'T FORGET TO TURN OFF YOUR SALT LINE AND TURN ON YOUR FRESH LINE, LOL!
To automate this a bit more, I plan on adding a dosing pump to pull water out of the tank and push it to the laundry room sink. Since all water taken out is topped off I am not worried about pulling out too much water. I can just set the dosing pump up for so many minutes and leave it then just adjust the va
I decided to build a semi-auto water change setup. For safety I did not want to make it fully automatic but it is close.
Pros of Fully Auto Water Changes
1. Can be completed while I am on vacation
2. Keep parameters rock solid and ensure that they actually get done
Cons
1. Requires a very expensive setup; 2 dosing pumps
2. Calibration of the pumps is difficult when pump flows can change
3. Salinity can change depending on how off the pumps are
Now for the setup and why I chose to do certain things...
First off - this is a picture of the unfinished laundry room. My office/man cave is on the other side of this wall and the tank is directly on the other side. For a while now my top off 14 gallon brute container has been taking up a lot of space on the counter top. Since this is my wife's laundry folding table she has wanted it cleared off of my junk. I still have some more stuff to remove but I believe this is much better than before.
I also didn't like the fact that the 14g brute container held too much water, while I could have just reduced the size of the container I also wanted to clean things up. Now there is a 5 gallon top off bucket with a 1 1/2" hole drilled in the bottom to accommodate a bulkhead. I wanted a 5 gallon bucket because incase something goes wrong with the float valve only 5 gallons will empty into my tank. This is not nearly as bad as 14 gallons.
Each bucket has 1/4" OD tubing coming from it that goes to a ball valve and then to the sump into a "Y" fitting before the float valve. I also use ball valves near the "Y" inside the sump but I will talk about that more below. The salt bucket is filled weekly and is only mixed and heated while mixing for the first day or two. Since my water changes only consist of 2-2.5 Liters daily I do not see any point in heating the water after the salt is mixed well.
I ended up placing ball valves near the "Y" because I was having a backflow issue when both valves were open under the buckets. For instance, if the top off bucket was full and the salt bucket empty and both valves were open then the fresh water would go down to the "Y" and back up to the salt bucket. Pressure would force is up the "salt" tubing. While I could just make sure the salt line was closed I wanted to add another safety feature.
After using this setup for the first time today I realized how easy it is going to be to do water changes now. There is only one problem I did not forsee. The float valve replaces water rather quickly at the beginning but then starts to slow down as the level is equalized. You really need to give the valve time. In my case I had to wait 20 minutes for salt water to completely top off. While this isn't a big deal it is worth noting. JUST DON'T FORGET TO TURN OFF YOUR SALT LINE AND TURN ON YOUR FRESH LINE, LOL!
To automate this a bit more, I plan on adding a dosing pump to pull water out of the tank and push it to the laundry room sink. Since all water taken out is topped off I am not worried about pulling out too much water. I can just set the dosing pump up for so many minutes and leave it then just adjust the va
OP
OP
cpllongjk
Active Member
Update.
Added a Frag tank tonight made by Advanced Acrylics. It is lit by a ATI Sunpower 6x24w fixture with 4 Giesemann Tropic bulbs and 2 ATI Actinic bulbs. My goal with the frag tank is maximum growth. Once I am ready to frag, I will cut and transfer the cutlets to a plug on a rack in my display to color them up. I may play with the t5 bulb combo if I can find another combo that will give better color and the same growth. For flow I am using a single Maxspect Gyre 150. Going with the 150 made the most sense because it already supported 3/4" acrylic and the 130 didn't. For now it's running at 40-50% until I tune the outputs so they don't slosh water over the edge.
Dimensions are 30x20x8" with External overflow and (2) 3/4" drains for herbie setup and (1) 1/2" return.
Added a Vortech M1 because the Eheim 1260 wasn't enough flow for both tanks. I currently use the pump on 50% and could go higher but don't really need to and I love how silent things are. I also wanted the M1 for battery backup purposes. I am adding a backup battery next week. I had the power go out for 2 hours a few weeks ago and it scared me. It was literally a few days after I got my coral frags.
I also ordered another backup battery for the mp10s. 1 battery should power both mp10s for 36 hours. In California I have never had my power out for more than 24 hours so I am hoping 1 battery for the mp10s is all that is needed.
Added a Frag tank tonight made by Advanced Acrylics. It is lit by a ATI Sunpower 6x24w fixture with 4 Giesemann Tropic bulbs and 2 ATI Actinic bulbs. My goal with the frag tank is maximum growth. Once I am ready to frag, I will cut and transfer the cutlets to a plug on a rack in my display to color them up. I may play with the t5 bulb combo if I can find another combo that will give better color and the same growth. For flow I am using a single Maxspect Gyre 150. Going with the 150 made the most sense because it already supported 3/4" acrylic and the 130 didn't. For now it's running at 40-50% until I tune the outputs so they don't slosh water over the edge.
Dimensions are 30x20x8" with External overflow and (2) 3/4" drains for herbie setup and (1) 1/2" return.
Added a Vortech M1 because the Eheim 1260 wasn't enough flow for both tanks. I currently use the pump on 50% and could go higher but don't really need to and I love how silent things are. I also wanted the M1 for battery backup purposes. I am adding a backup battery next week. I had the power go out for 2 hours a few weeks ago and it scared me. It was literally a few days after I got my coral frags.
I also ordered another backup battery for the mp10s. 1 battery should power both mp10s for 36 hours. In California I have never had my power out for more than 24 hours so I am hoping 1 battery for the mp10s is all that is needed.
Flameback Pair
started reefing 1999
How do you have all your Apex stuff mounted and routed?
OP
OP
cpllongjk
Active Member
I would take a picture but I am looking to build a better solution. I have 3 holes coming out of the wall for plumbing and I would love to cover them up so whatever I make will be big enough to house the apex controller box, a eb8 box, and possibly all the vortech pump controllers. I plan on doing this in a 12x12 space. I will probably look at IKEA for a premade solution.
