Darkrabbit's Red Sea Reefer 250... reef

[Dub_G]

Sadly came home from work to find our diamond goby in the corner dead. Not sure why all other fish are happy. Corals all look good. I haven't done a full battery of tests but last time I checked on Sunday all my parameters were spot on.

I'll have to get another one because he did such a good job cleaning the sand.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Sadly came home from work to find our diamond goby in the corner dead. Not sure why all other fish are happy. Corals all look good. I haven't done a full battery of tests but last time I checked on Sunday all my parameters were spot on.

I'll have to get another one because her did such a good job cleaning the sand.

Ugh. That is a bummer.

 

[darkrabbit]

Sadly came home from work to find our diamond goby in the corner dead. Not sure why all other fish are happy. Corals all look good. I haven't done a full battery of tests but last time I checked on Sunday all my parameters were spot on.

I'll have to get another one because he did such a good job cleaning the sand.

Oh that sucks.... Sorry to hear!

 

[Flameback Pair]

@darkrabbit Can we get a cabinet shot with all the equipment?

 

[darkrabbit]

@darkrabbit Can we get a cabinet shot with all the equipment?

I'll take a shot when I get back from holiday but it's a mess right now. Cables everywhere. I am going to do a post of my sump change though, that'll give you some idea of what it looks like.

 

[darkrabbit]

So I said I'd post my new sump install, here it is.

Reasons for switching:

- I really wanted a large refugium for a Triton setup and the RSR sump is way too small
- The RSR sump has no mounts for probes, can't fit Neptune ATO plumbing very well
- The RSR250 ATO is useless. You're filling it almost every 2 days and knocking it over at least once a week as it's precariously mounted right smack in the middle of the cabinet.
- Wanted something with a media rack
- Wanted something that looked cool and blocked light from refugium

I did a lot of digging on a sump, and let me tell you if you have an RSR250 you really need to manage your expectations on fitment. While there are lots of options you need to think about how easy it is to access the chambers you'd be using the most, like the refugium, when it is installed. The RSR250 has nearly no elbow room under the cabinet.

In the end I went with a Crystal Reef Aquatics sump, the RSRN250:

Red Sea (new style) Replacement Sump RSRN250 - Triton Reef Sump

Alterations are welcome! We charge a design fee based on the complexity of your specific needs. Custom sumps of any size are also available. Please contact sales@crystalreefaquatics for a quote! Designed for the latest Red Sea Reefer 250, the (new Style) RSR250 has a 18.75 x 16.5 x 15 (20 gallon...

crystalreefaquatics.com

Reasons for going with this one:

- Significant refugium size
- Refugium is across the entire front of the sump, you can see and access everything in it easily. For a nice 'display' refugium it doesn't get much better
- Chambers were well sized for my skimmer and pump (though the pump chamber ended up being a little smaller than I'd like)
- Properly sized probe holders for Neptune Apex probes (this is actually pretty hard to find)
- Plenty of dosing inputs when I am ready to dose
- Media rack that isn't TOO accessible but it's well sized
- Reputation for build quality

What I didn't realize when I ordered it is that what CRA meant by 'new style' is that it's designed to fit the RSR250v3, NOT the v2 (which I have). Like an idiot, I didn't bother to ask before ordering and when it arrived found out all my plumbing was essentially useless as the new style relocates it significantly. Rather than return it and order the v2 one, I kept this one. It's more what I wanted anyway in terms of layout. Plus the plumbing for return and overflow runs on the far left side against the left wall, allowing you to keep it out of the way. This means I need to re-do all my plumbing which, coincidentally, I wanted to do anyway! Well that worked out fine.

SO... this meant I had to order a whole pile of plumbing from BRS and, since I am in Canada, get it shipped to a US box and pick it up. There doesn't seem to be anyone in Canada that sells colored plumbing, oddly enough. I mapped out how I wanted everything to look and then ordered about 2x more than I thought I'd need, just in case.

Once I had everything I needed, I knew I had to dedicate a solid 4 hours to this endeavour or more. So I prepped everything I could, mapped out how I wanted the plumbing, measured 4 times, etc. My basic 'plot' was to keep the plumbing as far out of the way as possible so future equipment would fit. I looked at the RSR250v3's plumbing and loosely followed but they waste a lot of 'air' space so I did some rerouting. I also did my best to avoid P-traps as it would likely just be a debris collector and kill flow, absolutely NO P-Traps on the return. I did have to add one but I placed it where water would NEVER be stagnant for a long period of time, on the overflow. The emergency, if a P-trap was used, would be a real issue if water went in and was allowed to sit for weeks.

Side note: Times like this make me really consider putting my sump outside the tank in a separate room and just getting a massive pump to get water back to the tank. Don't be terribly surprised if that happens in the next 6 months. Anyway....

Because I didn't quite spend enough on the sump and plumbing, I decided to add a few other things as now is as good a time as any:

- Neptune Apex flow sensor for the return, so I can really understand what the pump is actually putting out
- Kessil H80 Tuna Flora to grow out some chaeto in the refugium.

Here's the old sump setup, with the H80 providing light.

The stack of stuff going in, in some form. Not the ball though,.

The start of the install with the return plumbed. You can see there's space for the pump but not a whole heck of a lot...

More plumbing done, this time the emergency drain.

And the rest of it. You can see where I put the valve to adjust the overflow...flow. I really like it here. Out of the way, but easily reached. Note also heavy use of unions, recommended by many including BRS. There's nothing I can't remove with a few turns of my wrist if I need to.

And the final setup, functioning with a minimal number of leaks All of which were fixable. The leaks were my fault for not joining certain parts correctly. But since I used unions and have extra hardware I can easily pop the offending piece off and fix or replace.

All in all for my first plumbing job in a tank I am pretty happy with it! The orange was my wife's idea and was a good suggestion. It really pops when you open the cabinet. Looks like it was done by someone who knows what they're doing, as opposed to me

All the piping was upgraded to 1" everywhere. I see no reason to have different sizes everywhere, makes replacing parts easier as it's one fit for all 3 runs and 1" is pretty easy to get.

A few quick lessons learned:

- Leaks are SO easy to get if you don't fit everything super tight. I had a number of them and once the pipes are glued they are NOT coming apart as they are chemically bonded. Make sure everything is very tight, snug, no gaps. Fit it first, make sure! Then glue it.
- The RSR250 uses metric parts and everything on this side of the pond is imperial (sadly). You must order the adapters from BRS to convert the RSR plumbing to metric, it's an RSR part. I will post the parts list later.
- Plan plan plan! Draw it out, measure everything, and expect issues. I bought 3 4ft (I think) lengths of tubing, should have used 1 if everything went to plan, ended up using 2.25 or so. Buy lots of tubing, it's not too expensive and always better to have more than less when your entire sump is disassembled and your tank has no filtration.

A side note on the Neptune flow meter... it pointed out my return pump might be lying about its GPH capability. I am reading 300GPH when it's maxed out whereas it's supposed to be a 1050GPH pump. I get some difference but 750GPH loss? Uh no.... Something's up. Either the flow meter is way off (and since it's a Neptune product this is HIGHLY likely as they aren't exactly known for accurate anything), or there's something with the pump. We shall see when I have time to investigate.

-J

 

[darkrabbit]

Urchin Update - Goodbye Friend

My black longspine urchin has finally outgrown my tank. He's been too big for it for a while but over the last few months it's been pretty obscene. He's not happy, as he has nowhere to go really, and I do find the odd spine lying about.

I called the LFS and they said they'd take him, so I captured him using a series of ever decreasing size containers until one was small enough to dump into a 1 gallon mason jar which is how I transported him to the LFS. When I got it there, they couldn't believe the size of him much less that he was in a Reefer 250 He's going to a much larger tank, and I hope he gets a good home.

Near when I first got him in, pic taken Feb 1 or so. He's eating an algae pellet for size reference.

Pic taken in June, his spines were about 10" across tip to tip.

Gonna miss this guy!

Next plan is to get another urchin but hoping to find a Tuxedo. One that doesn't get so incredibly massive.

-J

 

[darkrabbit]

Bobbit!!!

Well I honestly never thought I'd get one of these, but I did. Or at least I am 99% sure.

A few nights ago I decided to go downstairs to get something, the tank lights were off so I swung by to see what's going on. I look at the rock closest to me and there's this worm thing sticking out of the rock! what the heck is that??? It darted back into the rock when I approached. So I sat there and waited for him to come out. This is what I got:


Noted the white stripe near his head and all the antenna, did a lot of googling / searching and was 85% sure at that point I had a bobbit worm! Great.

I needed to get rocks out to deal with a GHA issue anyway in some Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2), and this rock just had 3 Gonipora's so they could tolerate some agitation. I pulled the rock out of the tank, put the rock in the H2O2 solution (a 4:1 mix of tank water and 3% H2O2), and gave it about 3 mins. I picked the rock out and he was starting to sag outside the rock! I used some tweezers to get him out, unfortunately he broke apart a bit. But I got him.

Kinda sucks to be honest, I wanted to keep him alive and either see if someone wanted him or maybe even put him in the sump. Definitely didn't want him dead but better him than my corals and fish once he grew.

Now that's dealt with I can continue my GHA / Aiptasia fight.

-J

 

[Flameback Pair]

@darkrabbit definitely looks it. Those things give me the creeps. Like a worm from hell!

 

[NY_Caveman]

Bobbit!!!

Well I honestly never thought I'd get one of these, but I did. Or at least I am 99% sure.

A few nights ago I decided to go downstairs to get something, the tank lights were off so I swung by to see what's going on. I look at the rock closest to me and there's this worm thing sticking out of the rock! what the heck is that??? It darted back into the rock when I approached. So I sat there and waited for him to come out. This is what I got:


Noted the white stripe near his head and all the antenna, did a lot of googling / searching and was 85% sure at that point I had a bobbit worm! Great.

I needed to get rocks out to deal with a GHA issue anyway in some Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2), and this rock just had 3 Gonipora's so they could tolerate some agitation. I pulled the rock out of the tank, put the rock in the H2O2 solution (a 4:1 mix of tank water and 3% H2O2), and gave it about 3 mins. I picked the rock out and he was starting to sag outside the rock! I used some tweezers to get him out, unfortunately he broke apart a bit. But I got him.

Kinda sucks to be honest, I wanted to keep him alive and either see if someone wanted him or maybe even put him in the sump. Definitely didn't want him dead but better him than my corals and fish once he grew.

Now that's dealt with I can continue my GHA / Aiptasia fight.

-J

Nice catch!

 

[ss30]

Well done

 

[Flameback Pair]

@darkrabbit are you liking your Crystal Reef sump? How about a full tank shot?

 

[darkrabbit]

GHA Battle!

My latest struggle, I had to / am dealing with green hair algae! First the sump started to get a lot of it and clog up the chaeto, now it's in the display and there's a pretty decent amount of it. While yes there's ways to deal with GHA, of course I wanted to find the root cause. This is the result:

- Zero nitrates. But never had a good phosphate tester (the API one is junk).
- Light? Couldn't see it being an issue. Using David Saxby's light schedule from AI and the photoperiod isn't that long.
- Got a proper Hanna UL phosphate tester.... registered 0.9!! Well F.
- Noticed as well corals weren't happy. Snails actually dying off though not sure if that is phos related.
- Did some BRS based research, apparently I was WAY overfeeding my tank. The same amount BRS feeds their fully populated 160 is what I was feeding mine. Brilliant.

My fault then, overfeeding and insanely high phosphate as a result. I immediately got that under control by reducing feeding BIGTIME. Half a cube of mysis and only a few pellets a day is what the tank gets now. Monitoring this to see whether it's sufficient, but for now the fish and corals seem to get enough and the scavengers can scavenge. In addition, I added GFO into the media rack in the sump and swapped it one week later, then again after 2-3 weeks.

But the damage was done. The GHA cycle was well underway, so now I had to kill it. Unfortunately it's not as easy as doing the feeding change as the GHA will die which will release nutrients and feed new GHA, etc. I read up about treating it with H2O2, which seems to be the way to go. Pull rocks, scrub, soak in H2O2, back in the tank.

This is the result of scrubbing one rock and hitting with H2O2. For the record, it was a 4:1 ratio of RO water and 3% H2O2.

Try and guess which one

This worked well but of course killed everything on that top rock, including bacteria and pods. As a result, I only did this one rock, then waited a week or so for things to recover. Next time I did the entire cluster of rocks on the right side of the tank.. this resulted in a bit of a spike in nitrates and ammonia, but it went away in a day or so.

The last rock cluster on the left I didn't do outside the tank and instead dosed undiluted 3% H2O2, 10mL a day, using a syringe at the base of the GHA growth. You can see in the pic some of it bubbling away.

While a slow process, it prevented me from having to pull up a rock full of palythoas.

Between the H2O2, scrubbing, cleaning of the glass, and getting that phosphate down, as of today I have very little GHA left. There was one other thing that made a HUGE difference I'll cover in another post below. I basically scrubbed out my refugium of all algae, detritus, and removed the Seachem Matrix.

-J

 

[darkrabbit]

Refugium Changes

To start with, my refugium consisted of:

- a ball of chaeto
- a LOT of crawly looking pods
- Seachem Matrix loose on the bottom

My refugium was a mess. With the GHA outbreak it became a haven of algae which was all intertwined with the chaeto and was growing on everything, including my Seachem Matrix rock. Under the Matrix was a ton of 'dusty' detritus which didn't seem to be going anywhere. I decided I wanted to make some changes to help deal with the algae and keep things working in there:

- tear the chaeto down until there's no visible GHA
- completely scrub the entire fuge, removing all GHA, calc buildup, and detritus
- add a powerhead to keep the chaeto spinning and keep the detritus from settling
- remove the matrix

I accepted that I'd probably lose most of my pods but it would be worth it. I drained the fuge below the skimmer chamber overflow line, then stirred everything up, scooped out the matrix, scrubbed all the sides, bottom, etc and sucked it all out using a pump. What came out was like mud.

I then added a powerhead pointed against the bottom slightly, pulled all the GHA off my chaeto (which left me with 1/3 of it left probably), then filled the fuge back up with fresh saltwater.

This was the result:

Not bad at all. I definitely lost 99% of my pods, the ones that survived did so by clinging to the chaeto. I still haven't decided what to put in there, but I will never use Matrix again without a bag. It's a detritus trap. I may add some rock so some bacteria can grow in it and pods can start to repopulate. We'll see. The powerhead is making a BIG difference in keeping that chaeto spinning! It's now much healthier than it was, and seems to be growing into a tighter ball. I assume it will start to grow 'outwards' soon.

This, FYI, made a substantial difference in the tank. I saw corals look better within 24 hours of doing this. The fuge may have been supplying something nasty, who knows.

Still lots I want to do, now that GHA and water params are a bit more under control I want to add some more corals. I also found some egg crate and may do a makeshift media rack for filter floss for those times when I scrub rock and want to collect what comes down the pipes.

 

[Aaron Shapiro]

Man this is a great build thread, thanks for sharing. Looking forward to more updates!

 

[darkrabbit]

Moar Coralsss!!!

I suck at going into an LFS and not leaving with a new piece of livestock, especially if it's something I really like. While I was battling GHA I stopped completely to ensure I could get things cleaned up and not cause too much stress to a new member. But now with my water params under control a bit more I decided to pick up some new pieces.

First things first, I wanted a frag rack. All the ones I saw were pricey and either too large or too small for what I wanted. So I made my own out of egg crate, twist ties, and a spare scraper magnet I wasn't using.

Here's the result, and the 4 corals I bought:

I know it's not a great picture but I'm going to get out my DSLR and get better ones. I picked up:

Pulsing Xenia: Yes I know it's basically a weed but it's pretty And I am going to isolate him on his own rock around 4" from any other rock. I actually had a hard time finding them!

Acan: Never had one before, and this was a really nice frag! I am still trying to work out his final placement, but he sure seems to like where he is

Rasta Zoanthid: Man I love this frag! Beautiful colors, lots of heads / polyps and they extended as soon as I put them in the tank almost (within 3 hrs).

Plating Montipora: We don't have a good relationship, monti's and I. I've killed 2 or 3 due to poor flow and parameters (I think), but now with my new XF330 gyres and reasonable phosphate levels, I think I can pull it off! Wish me luck!

I bought them Oct 4th, so it's been 12 days and today I moved the Rasta to his potential new location as well as the Acan. The Xenia is ready to go and has already grown a bit but I need to get him a piece of rubble to sit on first. I'll put him low in the sand and he'll be happy. The Monti I am leaving on the rack a bit longer to acclimate him. I am being super careful with this guy haha. Plus I want him up higher and once I glue him to a rock to 'plate' I don't want to take him off. All this time will give me a chance to research his placement. I find him much more challenging because I don't know how to tell when he's happy as his polyps are so small. How to do you tell when a plate monti is happy??

Here's some better close ups.

The Rasta Zoa seems to be pretty happy with his new spot, the Xenia is happy all the time, the plate monti is.... sitting there and the acan doesn't seem too pleased.... maybe because I just moved him. I'll give him a few days and if he doesn't like it there I'll find him a new spot. He was a lot more 'full' on the frag rack.

 

[darkrabbit]

@darkrabbit are you liking your Crystal Reef sump? How about a full tank shot?

I am liking it, though I have to say I wish I had more space in there. If I were to do it again I might consider a larger sump that filled the entire cabinet. The sump BARELY fits my skimmer, and my 2 heaters are basically jammed in there where they can fit. This is a RSR250 issue more than anything, as there's just not a lot of room under there. My other gripe is that the overflow 'screen' between the fuge and skimmer chamber is clear plastic.... why? Why not black? Since it's clear plastic, there's grow light 'leakage' into the skimmer chamber so algae grows in the skimmer sometimes. I am sure it's for appearance. It's weird because none of the other separators are clear.

What is nice is that the build quality is very solid and their 10 gallon ATO container fits perfectly side by side with it.

Here's some inside / whole tank shots.

You can see a few things:

- I added 4 new LEDs for under cabinet lighting which makes a HUGE difference. No more iPhone flash light.
- There's a new media bag in there which has some of my old Matrix. Decided to keep some in.
- There's a shocking lack of equipment in there That's because it's all in a spaghetti mess in the back because of all the changes I've been making. THAT is my next big project... mount all the equipment on a board and then eventually in a cabinet.
- I have new algae Red algae on the middle rock. Honestly don't care, I'll clean it off next water change. It looks a LOT better than GHA does.
- I have two XF330's set up, I haven't posted anything about them yet, but I will. They have made a massive difference in water flow in this tank but they are SO powerful. At 50% they will send my open brain coral flying.

I feel I need to change my rockwork a bit... not a fan of the 'bridge' in the middle only because it's causing a lot of shadow.... places where I COULD put more corals. I need to work out how to rearrange the rockwork a bit without ticking off the residents too much, but I am going to wait until these new corals are well acclimated.

 

[darkrabbit]

I think I am underfeeding....

In my overzealousness to deal with the GHA, I think I am now underfeeding my tank. Once per day I feed:

1/2 cube mysis shrimp
~6 pellets of New Life Spectrum Algaemax (very small pinch)
~6 pellets of New Life Spectrum Marine Formula (very small pinch)
~ 1/4 tsp of Reef Roids

I make my own mix in an ice cube tray and freeze it in RODI water. This makes it easy, and allows me to rinse the mysis shrimp in advance and just drop one ration cube in.

Plus 1/2 sheet of Nori every 2-3 days. My 'algae grazer' prefer meat for some reason (yellow tang).

I don't have a large population of fish and corals but I think this could be quite low. Every time I go towards the tank in the evening the fish and shrimp gather around the feeding station so they must be hungry. Also, the crabs come out to eat in the early or late AM when I feed. When I do feed them, they are ravenous!

I am going to start adding a small pinch of flakes in the evening and see what happens. Then I MAY double the feeding to two frozen ration cubes if there's an overwhelming demand. I just don't want to overdo it like last time.

For the record, my phosphates are at 0.05 and Nitrates are zero. So I have some headspace here to add some nutrients.

 

[darkrabbit]

Quick Updates / Reef Thoughts

GHA just...left?

I thoroughly scrubbed my sump because I thought some GHA might make it back into the display... perhaps that was right? Because the GHA in my tank just evaporated. Gone. No trace. Like I never had it. So some combination of whatever I did seemed to work, and the scrubbing of the sump I think may have had the largest impact. Whatever it was, good stuff!

Dosing Pumps (dangit... $$$)

I believe the time has come for me to dose automatically. Right now I am maintaining:

Alk ~9.0 dkh
Calc ~390 ppm

However I am targeting 450ppm calcium. Alk is fine at 9. To do this, I am dosing 1.5mL / day of calcium and 1mL / day of Alk. As I add more living things it's just going to go up and doing this manually is a pain. I guess it's time for a dosing setup.

PLUS I don't want to do water changes anymore. At least not every week. I want to go Triton, and that means more dosing.

I really don't want to shell out for the DOS but I want a system that works with the Apex so I guess I'll just suck it up. I'm going to schedule this for a mid-November install probably.

Clams!

I went to an LFS when I got my corals and saw some clams. I think I want one! Very interesting creatures. I started research on R2R on what kind to get and what they require, and I don't think I'll get one before Summer or even Fall 2020. I need to have a lot of stability and right now I just don't have it. Plus I want to find the right one with lots of color. But one of these are likely in the cards mid to long term!

My weak pump... well not exactly

My Current USA 6009 is now churning out 340gph after a good cleaning, which is still well below the 1050 advertised. I have a feeling though it is a problem with head pressure, which I didn't think about when I first bought it as a complete reefing noob. The The piping has no less than 4 90 deg elbows plus a few feet of ~5/8 tubing (abysmally narrow) in the back despite my 1" tubing I installed in the sump. Looks like I can either rip the 250 apart to get larger plumbing in or get a larger pump. We'll see what I decide to do about this. I want that 10x turnover and right now I am getting ~6x.

My kenya tree is displeased

He was on a pretty terrible rock to begin with, and with all the changes I've been making to his spots he decided to bail yesterday. He detached from the rock and I found him under the open brain coral. On the advice of others I took him out, used a needle and thread, and threaded him through the stump, binding him to a smaller piece of rock to hold him in place until he grows on to it. Then I have to work and find his ideal spot, which I think might be anywhere where he's not being moved around all the time I might actually leave him right where he is now in the substrate. He's been happy there before...

I hate water buckets

Triton is likely coming, as is a long tube from my RODI system to fill my ATO tank. I am tired, thoroughly, of lugging buckets containing any type of water. Either that, OR an automatic water change system. To be determined.

 

[Aaron Shapiro]

Good luck on the dosing setup, that's in my near future so I am excited to see your journey with it as well. This is easily one of my favorite build threads ;-)