Now that you have had your system running for 8+ months, would you change any of the decisions you made? Are you having success growing acros under the Hydra LEDs? I'm looking at the same RS 500 Peninsula and thinking about lights, refugium, skimmer, pumps, etc.
Sorry for late reply. Unfortunately I had to take the tank down a couple months ago. It was a combination of external influences (mobility requirements of working in the oil and gas industry) and a Dinoflagelate problem.
What would I change?
1. First and foremost the time I had to put into the tank. I was always just getting by with the bare minimum of maintenance due to time constraints and it showed at times.
2. I wish I had tested more often for nutrients. I believe (not 100% certain) that my dino problem was due to long periods of zero or almost zero phosphates and nitrates. I tried adding a lot of food, increasing bio-load, turning off skimmer and/or Refugium for varying periods but nothing worked. I think the Dinos just got out of control with nutrients being too low for too long, then were taking in any/all the nutrients before anything else could and eventually overran the tank. I decided I needed to tear it down and restart to get rid of the problem. Just as I started to breakdown the tank I pulled the trigger and decided to get rid of the tank. Partially to make moving easier, partially because I felt I was failing the tank inhabitants without the proper time needed to maintain the tank.
3. Overall, I wouldn't have changed my setup all that much. In fact I wish I had gotten everything from the start. I waited to get a ReefKeeper Lite for dosing. Having it earlier would have prevented the need manual dosing in the early days.
4. The lights were great, I never felt like they were an issue. I only had a couple of acroporas in the tank and they seemed to do fine; neither were high end or difficult to grow though. I never had a chance to start ramping up the lights to get the colors to come out.
5. I would have added a chiller. Even with my house at 74 degrees constantly, the tank would get hotter than I liked some days. it never seemed to impact the corals, it was just something that bothered me. I would have added one if I hadn't taken it down by now.
6. A larger top off reservoir would have been nice. preferably with a lid to prevent it from evaporating.
I sold the tank, lights, and light stand but still have the skimmer, Reefkeeper lite w/ BRS Dosing Pumps, DC return pump+spare , Kessil H380, RODI system and more. Message me if you are interested in buying.
