Looking for help to redo my equipment

[ruppertb]

Hello everyone I have been a member on here for a few years and have been reef keeping for maybe 7 years. We have had a few different tanks and haven't really ever gotten our newest tank that was set up when we bought our house almost three years ago to actually thrive. I have problems with everything I think like flow lighting filtration and my overall sump design. I am looking to see if I can maybe get a few fellow seasoned reefers with similar setups to offer there assistance in re-designing my sump and helping me get things back on track. I don't have a computer with Internet access but have an iPhone. If I can get a few ppl to tag along I will post my tank piece by piece and try to list my issues with each area and see if you all can offer me some good advice to make changes. I am willing to change just about anything as far as how I have my sump setup but would rather not have to buy new lights or pumps. Thanks Brice

Current tank info

180 with corner overflows and built in coast to coast overflow.

Four mp40 for flow
2 32inch reef breeder style LEDs
Dry pukani Rock bare bottom
Reef octopus skimmer
Filter socks
Cheato ball area
Mag 18 Or 24 I can't remember
Kalk doser
Apex
Heaters

Like I said I will post photos of all aspects of my tank to try to get help. Again thanks

 

[Kershaw]

I had a 180 with a similer set up. 4 mp40 should be plenty of flow . I'm curious to see your sump. What are your water peramiters?
What are you trying to keep in tank?
Mag 18 might be a little under powered for a 180. I have never had the reef breeder leds. But if you want the lighting to just work get MH. With some led actinic. Or a t5 set up. But pictures and peramiters is the best place to start

 

[Lowstorm]

To get more help, we'll need the piece by piece shots. But why isn't it thriving is the question. My answer is another few questions...

Daily and weekly and monthly maintenance?
Rodi water?
All the pesky test levels? Include ammonia and trite for fun, if you have the kits. And check the dates on the kits.

Inhabitants? Both corals, fish, inverts.

 

[ruppertb]

Ok I will start with the piece by piece tonight.

Current inhabitants include.
Sailfin tang
Caribbean blue tang
Chromis
Fire fish
Royal flasher wrasse
Midas Benny
And an engineer blenny zebra stripped

photosynthetic goggorian (sp)
Pipe organ

These have stayed alive for a year but don't seem to grow

I will also test today as I have not in awhile.

My reasoning for saying that it isn't thriving is that if I were to keep up on water changes every two weeks and when my water parameters were perfect I still had issues with either flow or light. Corals wouldn't open or stay open for long or would slowly die away. Detritus builds up no mater how much flow I have going not sure if it is because my return pump is underrated. I can never get coralline algae to grow in my display. It grows a small bit on frags in frag tank but never in display. Not sure if my Leds are to low or high or on too long or what but u never really have dialed them in. Thanks. Will get photos up tonight

 

[Brandon42]

are you dosing at all? type of salt? if you are not doing regular water changes with a salt with calcium or dosing of some sort you may be depleting the calcium and alk.

 

[mcmc1717]

ಠ_ಠ

 

[Kershaw]

Are you light acclimating corals ?

 

[ruppertb]

Ok so I didn't get to testing today as I was with my kids all day due to spring break and had doctors apts as well as getting our old couch out for the new one to come Thursday.

I use rodi that I store in large 55 gal plastic bins. And I have two for fresh and two plumbed with the rodi that i mix salt in. I use reef crystals and mix at a salinity of 1.026 tested with refractometer. Like I have mentioned I didn't have issues with my old setup so I assume there is an issue with either how I have my flow or filtration or return or something that's why u am going to have you all pick apart my system. I have currently been terrible with water changes and such. I was changing out 50 gal every week for a few months and then even though I had all parameters on point corals were not doing well and I was having issues with detritus showing up in every part of my sump and all carbon gfo reactors.

Yes I light acclimate the corals but I am unsure if I have them turned too high or what because even when I place zianthids in the tank they will be open for a day or two and then close and stay closed. I always assume it was too much flow or too much light but I have a pipe organ and photosynthetic gogorian and they are both in the upper third and doing fine. Don't seem to grow but doing fine. And all the corals that I have tried to place in my DT have come from my frag tank which is in my basement and is plumbed into the same system with the same water but is under t5 with two koralias.

I will get parameter tests tomorrow and get a few photos up for you all

I don't dose anything. Just run a skimmer filter socks carbon reactor gfo reactor and a third reactor with seachem purigen and a filter bag with cuprisorb

 

[zoa_addict]

Boyfriend asked for me to post these. Been busy with Easter and all but here are some photos from tank to basement up to return pump. Any suggestions are welcome. He will post his issues!

Coast to coast overflow with bean animal pipes to basement. Couldn't take photo of them in corner overflows because artwork covers up the sides of the tank

 

[zoa_addict]

20g tank that all three drains lead to in basement. This tank then drains with one pipe to filtersock box here

 

[zoa_addict]

This is just a middle section that drag plugs are sitting in now. Kinda an area for pods to hang out. Not sure how else I could use this space

 

[zoa_addict]

This is the final tank in the sump. Cheato tumble area and then bubble trap and return pump.

There is a pump here that feeds a frag tank to the left. Also the return pump feeds off the back the three Carbon gfo reactors. This will be changed when a new return pump is decided on.

 

[zoa_addict]

So I don't really know if the filter socks are useful or not. They hang half in the water which I think makes the crud just dissolve into water. Any suggestions?

I have never really got the skimmer to work deeper in the water. There are marking for max and min water level but if I put it any deeper it overflows. Always no mater if the gate valve is open all the way. Any one else have an reef octopus xp2000sss able to help out?

And then There is the issue with the return pump. I don't think it is powerful enough to provide enough flow to my display. It doesn't come out with much force but I don't want to go external. I saw a jeabo brand (sp) that said it was variable and had slow start and looked better but wasn't sure if it would be good enough.

I have a kalk King mounted right before the filtersock a and a power head in there to move water around. Seemed best place furthest away from return pump and reactors but I still get a lot of kalk buildup inside reactors and in return impeller. Any ideas. Don't use this at the moment due to no reason to be adding kalk but it was used in the past. And will be when the need arises again

Thanks in advance

 

[Lowstorm]

Alright, pics look good.

Is there any way to cover the tanks in the basement a bit? Make sure nothing is accidentally getting into them (mold, mildew, cleaning supplies)
The filter socks look fine, although I'd put them directly onto the downflow pipes, before everything else. But that really is just my opinion. They aren't too shallow or deep from what I can tell. But what I can't tell is if water is actually going through the socks, or just around them. Do they ever fill out like the other one, that's deeper in the water? It sort of looks like the water is just bypassing them and trickling through.
I used to have a reef octopus, but never had that issue, and now I have a knock-off, so still can't help you

I have a huge return pump for my tank, in sump kind. But I'm not pushing up as far as you are. It is a jebao also. There is likely something that would work to push the water more.
What's the temp at in the main tank vs the sump?

I see a LOT of things going on down there in the sumps. I've never seen someone use three tanks in a system like that before. Not that its wrong, just.. different. So maybe post those pics in the hardware/plumbing section of the forums, and people with more general knowledge of that would beable to comment?

 

[ruppertb]

It used to have all these tanks set up when my tank was a 75g and I was trying to make more water volume. Plus I didn't like the crammed sump I used to have. The filter socks do work I will post better photos. The idea was the two in the front filter first and when fill the water flows over to the back and I can visually see them full and change them vs them just clogging and overflowing into sump. The reason I had the 20g first was this is how I did a weekly water change in my 75. I would drain this tank via a second hole on the right side and then just pump water through a pipe back into this tank. I now just use it for a extra 20 g space. It holds my probes and is a meeting place for all three drains. It doesn't even accumulate detritus though so the flow though must be good enough to not settle in there. Also which I have had this happen before if a fish were to somehow go down my drain I wouldn't find them in my filter sick they would wind up in this tank. I like to see it being useful but as long as it isn't causing problems. I will check on temps in all five tanks tomorrow.

 

[Lowstorm]

sweet, now I get it lol. It makes sense, I just hadn't seen it before. Great idea for water changes

 

[ruppertb]

Yeah it used to be very easy about five minutes for a water change. Now it's not enough water volume to make any difference and with a tank that's bare bottom I always seem to do my water changes by syphoning crud from display.

 

[ruppertb]

So I am currently running a mag 18 in sump with head pressure of 11.55 ft and is says I should be getting 713 gph. What would be a better option as far a submersible pumps go. If I have to get an external I am unsure if I could even get the side of the sump drilled as my local glass shop cracked a tank trying to drill it. And using a plastic Rubbermaid trough or something is foreign to me as I do not know how I would attached baffles to a plastic sump.