Isaac's CADE 1500s2/ Peninsula Reef Build

[Fasthandsslowmind]

Honestly, the plumbing is working out well and I’m finding it easy to use. Maybe I wouldn’t have heat flexed the piping and just bought joints— but it’s working fine.

Only thing I would do is, nothing to do with the Cade, is that I would have made the piping that pushes water to my outside drain connected to a secondary pump and not just to my return pump —-doing this would make super easy to immediately drain down my sump volume.

And finally, no, I did not purchase new plumbing. The tubing included with the ReefMat allowed easy connection with the return pipe.

Ok gotcha. Thanks!!

I'm trying to figure out a source for the same size metric piping that they use so I can cleanly reroute the gate valve and secondary dump.

I was under the impression that all the included plumbing was pre-glued, but I guess if you were able to relocate the gate valve without buying anything, I assume you were able to disassemble that section?

 

[Isaac Alves]

Ok gotcha. Thanks!!

I'm trying to figure out a source for the same size metric piping that they use so I can cleanly reroute the gate valve and secondary dump.

I was under the impression that all the included plumbing was pre-glued, but I guess if you were able to relocate the gate valve without buying anything, I assume you were able to disassemble that section?

Hi @Fasthandsslowmind -- I did need to cut the plumbing because the Cade plumbing is pre-glued (except for the manifold joints in my case). And I already had some metric sized pipe from my previous build that was also metric. So, unfortunately you will need to get some metric transitions couplings or unions. @AlgaeBarn may even supply them if you speak to them when you order.

 

[LiverockRocks Verified Sponsor]

I received “Live Rocks” from
Tampa Bay Saltwater (@LiverockRocks ) yesterday.


Unfortunately I’m bummed that the images of “Premium Live Rock” from their website do not resemble the rock I received yesterday. And as of this morning, still appear gray.

Just for reference I ordered what Tampa Bay refers to as:
TAMPA BAY SALTWATER Treasure Chest – Box of Rox – 8 pounds premium live rock


I know it’s my first time ordering live rock and I probably should be patient with it. Maybe in a week the sponges, feather worms, and any critters will color up and start crawling around. But as I was looking at the pair of gray rocks this morning I’m still feeling disappointed. It’s likely that it’s bad luck that I got a bad batch, even more likely they had to address import issues into California. Of course, it’s not like this build has been smooth sailing. I’ve had issues with everything since the start. The more recent – before this order – have been issues with Ecotech’s MP60s (I’m on my 3rd replacement).


Here are some pics:

A nicely laminated guide sheet. I have to say that they do seem to be working with a very smart marketing-minded person. They’re ‘Customer Experience’ is good and they’re marketing story and visuals are well done.

I was very excited about opening up the box.

Seemed to be packaged well. But note that there was moisture all around the inside of the styro box.

They included a couple of freebie snails…(?)

The 8lbs consisted of only 2 round’ish rocks:

I did get a pack of Pop Rocks.

There was a slight smell…but nothing overwhelming. I was expecting more water in the bag since the rocks were not completely submerged.

Smaller of the two rocks in the display:

There’s just nothing on this rock.

Second rock is a bit larger and has some growth and what looks like an aiptasia…but I’ve been told on my instagram feed by Tampa Bay that it’s actually a “Light Bulb” anemone common to the Gulf region. I did some searching here on R2R and this does seem to be a common confusion with individuals receiving live rock. I'm not sure...

I’ll keep an eye on it and see how it goes…

Overall I’m ‘meh’ too unsatisfied with the order. These pieces resemble the “Base rock” package which is a bit cheaper on their site. Admittedly I didn’t know what to expect and my enthusiasm was influenced by those gorgeous pictures on their site as well as their instagram feed — so, again, great marketing. I should have tampered my own expectations.


For due diligence I checked ammonia levels last night, and this morning, and it remains at zero. So any die off, if there was any during shipment, is being handled by the display.

Good morning-
Really liked the review until the part about the rock which is the most important part.
Lots o' variables here to talk about. We really do want to please our customers and do our best at grading rocks which are extremely varied in exterior appearances. We don't guarantee specific hitchhikers in each order, but there is a note section in the cart where folks can request specifics. It is also tough to get all the variety in a small UPS box. Any rock with a Florida coral growing on it fall into premium grade, the first rock has a nice Florida tube coral, has it opened up for you?
Another thing, the farm is located in nutrient rich waters and rock is normally covered in a layer of silt, to see all the goodies it needs to be turkey basted or well shaken. Rock used for photos appear brown/grey/dull in our holding system (there is no fluorescence on rock), we give it a good shake and then take photos in natural light, the rock looks amazing whether it is base or premium. While folks love the macro sized eye candy, there is a ton of micro sized goodies there too.
I'd be happy to send you a few nano premium rocks, but you'd need to cover UPS, lmk.
Wen

 

[Isaac Alves]

Good morning-
Really liked the review until the part about the rock which is the most important part.
Lots o' variables here to talk about. We really do want to please our customers and do our best at grading rocks which are extremely varied in exterior appearances. We don't guarantee specific hitchhikers in each order, but there is a note section in the cart where folks can request specifics. It is also tough to get all the variety in a small UPS box. Any rock with a Florida coral growing on it fall into premium grade, the first rock has a nice Florida tube coral, has it opened up for you?
Another thing, the farm is located in nutrient rich waters and rock is normally covered in a layer of silt, to see all the goodies it needs to be turkey basted or well shaken. Rock used for photos appear brown/grey/dull in our holding system (there is no fluorescence on rock), we give it a good shake and then take photos in natural light, the rock looks amazing whether it is base or premium. While folks love the macro sized eye candy, there is a ton of micro sized goodies there too.
I'd be happy to send you a few nano premium rocks, but you'd need to cover UPS, lmk.
Wen

Thank you for taking the time to provide an informative reply. I was of course hoping for the colorful sponges and other colorful variations shown on the website. In any case, LIVE ROCK is LIVE ROCK and the shipping process your team uses is great -- I experienced no die off or any issues whatsoever.

I did use your suggestion and turkey baster the rocks a bit. So hopefully in a week or so I'll some growth and expansion of things that I see slightly poking out or even retracting when I disturb the surface.

 

[Isaac Alves]

72 Days since water filled the Cade –
Status update


The aquarium has been humming along since the tragic ammonia spike event on Nov 22 2022 – you can read about it earlier on this thread.

Since then the tank has stabilized and its ecosystem has been maturing. Nitrates are hovering around 12-16ppm and phosphates were reading zero using the Hanna ULR Checker but are now (January 17) around 0.06.

I slowly added my surviving fish back several weeks ago. They are doing well in their new environment. The FoxFace seems to love doing laps.

I started to see pod populations around on the glass. So I’ll consider that as a positive step towards maturation of the system.

You’ll notice that I have cyano growing on the sandbed and rocks. I’m waiting this out to see how it progresses. A bit unsightly but I’m not too worried since it’s early on.

The livestock right now is mainly fish, 3 Conches and a couple of soft corals to help consume some nutrients. The liverock seems to be showing some interesting life peeking out from the surface:

NOTE: The Red nem is not from the live rock but moved from another location in the tank. I moved in a couple of anemones early on to give my clowns something to host but they don’t seem interested yet.

The larger RBTA seems happy in it’s spot…that red one (shown below) moved about a week after putting it into the tank:

 

[Longatto]

looking good! thanks for the updates!

 

[Isaac Alves]

CO2 Scrubbing

I attached a CO2 sctubber to the Typhoon skimmer. It’s the same one I used on the previous Artisan Cadlight.

i did this because my trending pH has been low —> 7.79-8.09

Because I have live rock, nems, etc., I’d love to push the pH up to 8-8.3. And I can’t do this solely on Kalkwasser and I’m not dosing DIY Randy’s high pH formula yet since there’s no demand.

I Velcro strapped it above the fuge

The pH started rising over the next few hours.

The average over the next couple of days is positive:

I have two pH probes next to each other in the chamber after the skimmer and they show pH improvement.

I’ll probably run an external air line at some point. But this seems to be working well at the moment.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Tank is looking great!!

 

[Isaac Alves]

Sump Refugium Conversion Update

I haven’t done much since seeing the system up in the Refugium conversion from the ATO chamber. Except throw a ton of sponges from my office tank and some “real” sponges under the sponge.

This week I started seeding this section.

I got my tunze Refugium (full spectrum) light on a schedule.

I also got my order of some copepods from @hollback here on R2R. They are nicely (but interestingly) packed. Full of critters.

Before adding the pods I dropped in my Nero 3 into this section for some pulsing flow.

not too much to push into the over flow:

Mounted the Nero 3 controller on the front of the tank. Used the 3M tape to mount.

I hate wires. Wish I had the time and patience to come with something. But using the tape again I just mounted the end of a short extension —from the EB8– into the main supply/dosing cabinet:

Not so bad.

Added copepods and phyto after temp acclimating the two copepod bottles.

A lot of activity:


Also added some clean chaeto

I’m hoping this helps with the cyano outbreak.

 

[Isaac Alves]

Replacing a ReefMat Fleece Roll

FIrst some quick thoughts on the roller —— If you’ve read earlier posts in this thread then you’ll know that I have a Redsea reefmat 1200 unit in the sump. It was a bit of an effort to get it to fit but it literally fits like a glove and I’ve got no regrets about making modifications to the Cade sump to make it fit. I believe now that the use of a fleece roller has made it easier and more enjoyable to keep a saltwater tank.

I’m now on my 3rd Fleece roll. It was easier this time around to replace but I was not looking forward to doing it.

There wasn’t much fleece left though and today was the day reefbeat app said was ZERO day…

After taking the rolls out I recorded how much flow was going through the chamber. See below:

​

And the above video is showing most of the overflow water going into ReefMat. I have the Vectra L2 set to 32% and I have the water in the overflow box reaching just at the emergency pipe with a little more than a trickle going into it.

In any case…

The first time replacing the fleece roll was very frustrating. Mainly because the used up roll needs to have the center pole removed, but that center poll is actually split into two plastic pieces. Imagine a long cylinder sliced down the middle.

The split allows for a pretty simple install of a new roll. But removing a wet and soiled used roll is a different story. It’s like trying to pull two salt buckets apart after they’ve been sitting stuffed together for weeks.

There’s barely any leverage to use…

The first time I did this I had to basically unroll the entire used fleece — gross and messy. This time I decided to see if I could leverage the plastic slots on the split pole and use a flat head screwdriver to help me pull on it.

This method definitely made it easier. And it did make it easier to pull one side of the roll pin out. Of course I’m afraid that I might break the plastic the whole time. I wish there was a more obvious way.

But it worked. It was nice to see the ReefBeat app was pretty accurate. I only had about a foot and a half left of fleece…

Still worth it.

 

[Isaac Alves]

CUC purchase to help balance the ecosystem


I put my first order of an official cleanup crew for this system at www.reefcleaners.org -- I picked up specific species to help target different cyano bacterias and algae. My order list is below:

 

[nuxx Verified Sponsor]

Tank's looking great!

Thanks for the update

 

[RBarth]

Got my first order from John last week. Very pleased!

 

[Fasoole]

Thumps up keep us updated man!!

 

[Isaac Alves]

I had to empty and clean the UKD-200 skimmer cup. I really appreciate how the center neck is easily removed for cleaning.

​

 

[Isaac Alves]

Quick update:

I'm increasing my inhabitant count soon and felt I needed more places for fish to bed down, as well as have safe "blinds" to hide in case they are stressed from visitors coming in from the front door. I pulled some pieces I had sitting in my garage and added them to the aquascape.

I still wanted to ensure the aesthetics of the structure worked, and was pleasing to my eye — I just have to stomach the white rock mix with the CaribSea Life Rock structure.

I added pieces mainly to the back of the peninsula thinking that it provides visual balance and gives the illusion that the aquascape is protruding from the back--At least that was my intent. I think I was relatively successful.

If I look down from the front of the Peninsula I still maintain the thin structure in the center:

The first piece was built using broken up Marco Premium and Rubble rock. I used the Aragonite dust/liquid cyanoacrylate method to get the curved arch and create gaps or holes where I hopefully can easily add branching corals.

The next pieces were used as is. These were Marco premium shelf rock. I positioned these to the back of the tank. The layout happened to allow for a nice shelf structure, as well as stopping the whirly sand vornado the MP60 create – big plus.

And from the other side of the peninsula I think the aquascape retains visual balance. There are plenty of swim-throughs and hides while allowing for the front of the tank to be open water for free swimming and feeding.

Regarding livestock additions I will be acquiring a Chocolate Tang and a Klein’s Butterfly. These will be the replacements for the Kole Tang and Kleins I lost in the move to this display. I’m getting these guys from https://fishotel.com/ -- I’ve purchased from Jeff Dierkhising a few times before and the animals always arrive healthy, active, and best of all ready to just plop into the tank after temp acclimation. Jeff only offers a complete QT and the protocols are verified by Humblefish over at the humble.fish forum.

I currently have a super fast growing Powder blue and Six line in the tank from Jeff. The kids named him Bluey and he’s such a gorgeous animal. He’s grown a good 1.5-2” since getting him to the tank around January 1st – I got him on November 22 and was almost a casualty of my ammonia spike but was pulled out pretty quick to avoid any issues.

I’m also going to move my Melanarus into this Cade from my office 40 gallon breeder system. He’s too big for that tank now and I think would love the increased flow and deeper sand bed.


The clowns still don’t seem to realize they have a home behind them…

And it’s a beautifully colored specimen of a rainbow anemone:

 

[Isaac Alves]

pH issues and Alk issues.

As the tank is stabilizing and maturing I’m experiencing that odd phenomena where Alk depletes quickly and I need to dose. I am using a Kalk Reactor but it’s not enough to compensate for the drop in Alkalinity without dropping my salinity. I also need to punch my pH a bit so I hooked up a CO2 reactor some weeks ago. Challenge now is that with the addition of a sodium hydroxide DIY Alkalinity supplement my pH is going too high according to my two pH probes. I’ve calibrated my probes so I know they are in range.

You can see my skimmer’s airline is attached to a CO2 container below…

The setup is simply a silicone line attached to a Two Little Fishies Phosban reactor I had in storage. The intake of the reactor has a ball valve with which I can regulate the air intake amount.

In any case, I've connected a line splitter that will have the air intake split between room air and CO2 scrubbed air. My thinking was that I can adjust the pH, slow co2 media depletion, and give me room to dose hydroxide.

I can’t use silicon for the y fittings so I used some vinyl lines that I can use with some spare coupling nipples.

I have a valve on the air intake on the other side now; so I can adjust the mix of room air and scrubbed air:

The vinyl line to the room was long enough that I have it pulling room air from outside of the sump area.

RESULT:

The pH over the last couple days has stayed down to 8.3 and 8.2 which is perfect. Prior to doing this I was hitting 8.55 and didn’t feel this gave me any leeway in case I needed to bump up my hydroxide dosing.

So far the alkalinity seems to be stabilizing at 7.5dkh since January 30th.

 

[lubeck]

Nice fix. My ph has been hovering around 8.55 as well at the end of the photoperiod and I dose kalk. I’ve been wondering if I should back off. I don’t get Fresh air yet because it’s too cold out.

 

[Longatto]

Great write up on your methods. I’ll likely adopt a few!

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Quick update:

I'm increasing my inhabitant count soon and felt I needed more places for fish to bed down, as well as have safe "blinds" to hide in case they are stressed from visitors coming in from the front door. I pulled some pieces I had sitting in my garage and added them to the aquascape.

I still wanted to ensure the aesthetics of the structure worked, and was pleasing to my eye — I just have to stomach the white rock mix with the CaribSea Life Rock structure.

I added pieces mainly to the back of the peninsula thinking that it provides visual balance and gives the illusion that the aquascape is protruding from the back--At least that was my intent. I think I was relatively successful.

If I look down from the front of the Peninsula I still maintain the thin structure in the center:

The first piece was built using broken up Marco Premium and Rubble rock. I used the Aragonite dust/liquid cyanoacrylate method to get the curved arch and create gaps or holes where I hopefully can easily add branching corals.

The next pieces were used as is. These were Marco premium shelf rock. I positioned these to the back of the tank. The layout happened to allow for a nice shelf structure, as well as stopping the whirly sand vornado the MP60 create – big plus.

And from the other side of the peninsula I think the aquascape retains visual balance. There are plenty of swim-throughs and hides while allowing for the front of the tank to be open water for free swimming and feeding.

Regarding livestock additions I will be acquiring a Chocolate Tang and a Klein’s Butterfly. These will be the replacements for the Kole Tang and Kleins I lost in the move to this display. I’m getting these guys from https://fishotel.com/ -- I’ve purchased from Jeff Dierkhising a few times before and the animals always arrive healthy, active, and best of all ready to just plop into the tank after temp acclimation. Jeff only offers a complete QT and the protocols are verified by Humblefish over at the humble.fish forum.

I currently have a super fast growing Powder blue and Six line in the tank from Jeff. The kids named him Bluey and he’s such a gorgeous animal. He’s grown a good 1.5-2” since getting him to the tank around January 1st – I got him on November 22 and was almost a casualty of my ammonia spike but was pulled out pretty quick to avoid any issues.

I’m also going to move my Melanarus into this Cade from my office 40 gallon breeder system. He’s too big for that tank now and I think would love the increased flow and deeper sand bed.


The clowns still don’t seem to realize they have a home behind them…

And it’s a beautifully colored specimen of a rainbow anemone:

Looking awesome! Whole build is great!