My RedSea Reefer 300XL

Craig77 · Dec 9, 2021

So as I’m breaking in the tank, I’ve gone through what I expect are pretty typical stage with a sterile rock tank…. My phosphate levels have gone up and I’m having a harder time bringing them down than nitrate. I finally used some phosphate E and that worked wonders to help me bring them down. I can see the few corals that I did place in the DT are already looking better with better polyp extension than they’ve had in weeks/months. I’m hoping that once I get them down I can get my refugium to start keeping up better with things, but that remains to be seen. I’ve noticed that the chaeto really doesn’t tumble in the refugium so I’ve got to keep rotating it and it gets so much air in in when photosynthesizing that it really floats and preferentially wants to stay on one side. I took a look around and saw this interesting potential solution using egg crate to create a sandwich around the chaeto. I think this is a great idea since it will allow me to place that plate into my refugium at an angle and maximize the area of chaeto exposed to the GRO light. We’ll see how this setup works…. Here is a shot from above with the GRO light out of the way.

This is a shot of where all the action is:

Craig77 · Dec 11, 2021

I've been able to drive down the phosphate in the tank with Phosphate E very effectively (from ~0.5 ppm to 0.1ppm). The nitrate level is still pretty low (~1ppm). I started dosing some nitrate to see if I can get the phosphate level to come down without the use of Phosphate E. Its remarkable the difference in the few corals I have in the tank--the polyp extension is much better. Not sure if this is the direct result of reduced phosphate or the result on reduced algae in the tank, but it is great to see. I've got a bunch of frags in QT that I hope to start introducing into the DT now that parameters seem much better.

Craig77 · Dec 28, 2021

At this point, my phosphate levels are my challenge. Nitrate levels stay really low (typically 1 ppm or less). I have been adding phosphate-e (about 2-4 mL a week split into 2 doses during the week). I base the actual amount of phosphate-e on a phosphate test using a low phosphate Hannah checker. I have been adding 10-20 mL of neonitro in an effort to keep nitrate above 1ppm (targeting 2-3 ppm). I have also been adding 5-10 mL microbacter 7, 10 mL chaetogro, and 1 scoop live rock enhance each week. With the phosphate-e additions I have been able to keep phosphate down near 0.1 ppm. I'd prefer to ultimately move away from using phosphate-e and am hoping as the tank matures and any phosphate from the rock or wherever is removed that I can stop dosing it. It seems like the amount I am adding has been going down slightly now that I'm also dosing neonitrate but its a little difficult to be sure. My corals are doing much better now--I can see new growth and better polyp extension. I still have some algae growth on the gravel--looks like diatoms from the pictures I've seen on reef2reef. I'm debating whether I should try carbon dosing at some point to see if that will help with phosphates, but the phosphate e seems to be working and I'm not having any difficulty with maintaining alkalinity at this point.

Craig77 · Dec 28, 2021

In terms of corals right now in the DT I have:
Two green toadstools
Purple Anthelia (trying to get this to grow on the back wall)
A discosoma mushroom
A pink gorgonian
A purple gorgonian
Some purple center neon star polyps
A purple Zoanthid
Shaving brush, halimeda, and pencil cap macro algae (Chaeto in refugium)

In terms of invertebrates:
Trochus, ninja start, nerite, and other snails
A few blue legged hermits
3 Pom Pom crabs (I love those guys)
2 cleaner "skunk" shrimp
2 peppermint shrimp (although I haven't seen these in a while and not sure they're still around)

In terms of fish:
Biota Coral Beauty
2 ora captive bred clownfish
1 ora orchid dottyback

I'd like to get a fish that lays on the bottom of the tank and is captive bred. I was looking at the starry goby from biota. I'd also potentially like to get 1-2 royal gramma basslets (not sure if they'll behave with the dotty back). I'd also like to get a damsel--maybe the biota Pavo blue damsel. I'm interested in all tank raised or mariculture fish. If folks have advice for peaceful fish to fit into this community let me know! This is a a 65 gallon tank with a 15 gallon sump.

Craig77 · May 15, 2022

Its been a year plus and the display tank has settled down a bit. My main area of focus continues to be phosphates. My nitrates are generally pretty low, but my phosphates jump around a bit and not sure why. I monitor them and use Phosphate E which seems to work very well. I'm dosing Kalkwasser and haven't had trouble with alkalinity yet and have a pretty low Ca demanding tank right now. I did make a mistake and let Chaeto from my refugium escape and take hold in my rock work which was a pain to remove. I added two emerald crabs and they absolutely love chaeto--if anyone wants to remove chaeto, I'd try an emerald crabs those guys focus on it like no joke. At this point, I have three toadstools that are doing well, some Zoas, discosoma mushrooms and couple gorgonians. I love the gorgonians. Real easy to keep and give the display some interesting features. I've got a gold hammer coral in the QT with a bunch of other new stuff. I'll add some pictures soon.

Craig77 · Oct 14, 2023

Converting Red Sea 300 XL Reefer from original metric to standard plumbing return and installing redundant DC return pumps

I originally installed a COR-15 Neptune return pump and thought this would be great because of the way it integrates easily into the Neptune apex system and doesn’t require a separate power supply. Right after installation I had a problem with the 24V 1 link cable on the COR-15. Basically, the pump lost power and strangely I got no warning at all about this from my apex despite clicking all the toggles for alerts on setting up the COR-15. After talking with Neptune technical support they sent me a new 24V cable and informed me they had seen some issues with the cable connectors having a manufacturing defect. Fast forward a couple years and I woke up to a similar problem—the COR-15 had failed again, and, again, I had no warning at all from the APEX about this. This caused the temperature in the DT to plummet and upon removal of the COR-15 I found it nearly impossible to remove the 24 V 1 link cable from the EB832. These experiences caused me to completely lose faith in this return pump so I installed a Sicce pump temporarily into the system while I worked on a more robust setup.

I decided I wanted to install two small parallel return pumps so that if either were to fail, I would still have some minimal circulation to ensure the tank stays warm and I wanted to stick with DC pumps if I could afford this option. I didn’t want to have to modify the original Red Sea sump return compartment. I already modified it to install a ReefMat 500 and there just isn’t a lot of real estate left in there so the pumps had to be small. I had not messed with the stock Red Sea return line plumbing (yet) and saw there are several approaches to modification here that people have tried (metric to standard unions, transition pieces, etc.). I generally prefer to keep any non-welded components of the plumbing over the sump in case of a leak. I also knew I wanted to install one way check valves for each pump—not because the sump can’t handle the volume of water in a failure (it can), but b/c if a pump does fail, I want the remaining active pump to be able to push water back into the DT and not back into the sump through the failed pump line. I decided to use a Red Sea 1” adapter fitting which would allow me to build out the plumbing that I wanted to and then easily swap the new plumbing in while preserving the option of reinstalling the old plumbing should I need to revert back for any reason (I don’t like having the sump not running for any length of time).

Red Sea adapter used for the 300 XL Reefer here

I decided to splurge on plumbing that is similar in color to the other red sea plumbing and got all schedule 80 fittings and dual one way valves with unions to make it easy to remove and clean them. The schedule 80 is totally unnecessary, but it makes me feel good to see a nice clean setup when I open the cabinet.

It was challenging to find a small marine DC pump that I could fit two of into the return chamber of the sump. I assumed this would cost me an arm and a leg, but I came across the Jebao DCW-2500 pumps and picked them up for $60/each which seems like a steal. I understand people will have very different points of view on these pumps. Installing two redundant pumps increases my risk tolerance for a pump failure and these are inexpensive enough that I can have an extra waiting to replace them. They are really small and have a nice intake screen and the 3/4” outlet nipple I need. I can also use these to clean out my sump by putting a hose on the intake side of the pump which is a bonus.

The whole manifold looks like this:

After running this setup for a few months, I think the flow rate tends to drift a bit over time. This is based on my observation that the overflow is more challenging to keep adjusted well. Otherwise, I’m happy with the setup. Its quiet and I appreciate the redundancy. At this point, I have one pump plugged into the APEX and the other plugged in directly. I also replaced one of the Jebao DCW-2500 pumps with a Jebao DCP-4000. Using this combination of pumps seems to provide a more stable flow rate and the DCP-4000 can be directly controlled by an APEX if I want to do that down the road.