New 305 Gallon Build

Sdot · May 1, 2020

TX_Punisher said:
Glad to see i'm not the only one dosing n03 and po4. I stopped the p04 finally. No3 will drop to zero even with 20 fish so I still have to dose sodium nitrate.

Yeah for sure bro... systems run way to clean nowadays.

schaNYC · May 7, 2020

Just curious.. instead of dosing to make the water dirtier, have you considered, running your skimmer for shortened schedule/fuge lights on for less hrs?

Sdot · May 9, 2020

schaNYC said:
Just curious.. instead of dosing to make the water dirtier, have you considered, running your skimmer for shortened schedule/fuge lights on for less hrs?

Skimmer is a no go because of PH stability. I have tried experimenting with the fuge and for the same reasons as previous, it does make an impact on the PH. I do believe i have everything dialed in. Dosing 42ML of sodium nitrates keeps me at a stable 5PPM of nitrate (I think its slowly climbing but we will see). Dosing between 4.6 -5.1ML of Phosphorus keeps me where i need to be on phosphate .02-.04.

Sdot · May 9, 2020

So i decided to catalog my par reading of my reef at noon when the lights peak. Below are the results (Sorry for bad hand writing, not so easy writing on a table screen). The small text in the middle right are 397 and 394 respectively. End result no where in the tank does the par go below 305 unless at the very edges.

Sdot · May 24, 2020

Hey Family, happy holiday weekend! Here is my end of the month update. Reef is going pretty well, no more RTN/STN... lack of available nutrients appear to have been the culprit. Dialing in the nitrate was/ is easy. 42ML of Sodium nitrate gets me to 3ppm constant. For those that are dealing with the same issue or curious, I mix a 50g packet of food grade sodium nitrate to 1liter of RODI water.

As for Phosphate...i was dosing ATI Phosphorous, which works very well. I no longer need to dose as my phosphate was elevated. So much so i needed to run a phosphate remover...i have stopped as of today, curious to see what the levels are in a few days.

Here is the latest:
With Lens filter

Without:

Reefacist · Aug 3, 2020

Sdot said:
Hey Family, happy holiday weekend! Here is my end of the month update. Reef is going pretty well, no more RTN/STN... lack of available nutrients appear to have been the culprit. Dialing in the nitrate was/ is easy. 42ML of Sodium nitrate gets me to 3ppm constant. For those that are dealing with the same issue or curious, I mix a 50g packet of food grade sodium nitrate to 1liter of RODI water.

As for Phosphate...i was dosing ATI Phosphorous, which works very well. I no longer need to dose as my phosphate was elevated. So much so i needed to run a phosphate remover...i have stopped as of today, curious to see what the levels are in a few days.

Here is the latest:
With Lens filter

Without:

Awesome build. Quick question...what brand of ball valve did you use? And what caused the leak in the manifold. I am about to plumb my first tank and also first time ever dealing with pvc also.

Thanks

Sdot · Aug 4, 2020

Reefacist said:
Awesome build. Quick question...what brand of ball valve did you use? And what caused the leak in the manifold. I am about to plumb my first tank and also first time ever dealing with pvc also.

Thanks

Hey! Thanks for following along. For the ball valve, i used true union...easy to turn and heard great things about them. No issue thus far. This was my 1st time plumbing a tank as well, take your time! do as many dry fits as you can...no that when you apply glue, the pvc does move further in the joint than when not glued. That mis-calculation caused stress on the seams which is why they leaked. I had to cut the bad plumbing out and redo it all...no fun. Plan for the future when you create your manifold....give yourself extra ports even if you never use them...

Reefacist · Aug 4, 2020

Sdot said:
Hey! Thanks for following along. For the ball valve, i used true union...easy to turn and heard great things about them. No issue thus far. This was my 1st time plumbing a tank as well, take your time! do as many dry fits as you can...no that when you apply glue, the pvc does move further in the joint than when not glued. That mis-calculation caused stress on the seams which is why they leaked. I had to cut the bad plumbing out and redo it all...no fun. Plan for the future when you create your manifold....give yourself extra ports even if you never use them...

Thanks. Do you remember the brand of ball valve that you used?

Sdot · Aug 4, 2020

Reefacist said:
Thanks. Do you remember the brand of ball valve that you used?

Sorry... here you go:

hollow6210 · Aug 26, 2020

Just read through everything--sweet build. What kind of hinges are you using on the canopy to hold the face up?

Sdot · Sep 5, 2020

hollow6210 said:
Just read through everything--sweet build. What kind of hinges are you using on the canopy to hold the face up?

Well 1st thanks for reading through at this point 7 pages of my build thread! Thank you for tagging along. And sorry for the delay! Please see attached pix below

Zotmurse · Sep 7, 2020

Awesome build. How is it going with the nitrates/phos? I got a little over zealous with my GFO a couple months ago and ended up with dinos... Nutrient export systems are too efficient these days. I agree with skimming + fuge to stabilize pH. Do you run carbon on your tank?

oneilwiz · Sep 7, 2020

Stunning setup brother Any updates on the tank?

Sdot · Sep 7, 2020

oneilwiz said:
Stunning setup brother Any updates on the tank?

Thanks brother! Updates coming soon, finally on the other side of a major tin contamination issue which took a toll on some of my colonies.

Wen · Sep 7, 2020

Sdot said:
Hey Family, happy holiday weekend! Here is my end of the month update. Reef is going pretty well, no more RTN/STN... lack of available nutrients appear to have been the culprit. Dialing in the nitrate was/ is easy. 42ML of Sodium nitrate gets me to 3ppm constant. For those that are dealing with the same issue or curious, I mix a 50g packet of food grade sodium nitrate to 1liter of RODI water.

As for Phosphate...i was dosing ATI Phosphorous, which works very well. I no longer need to dose as my phosphate was elevated. So much so i needed to run a phosphate remover...i have stopped as of today, curious to see what the levels are in a few days.

Here is the latest:
With Lens filter

Without:

Really enjoyed reading your build thread!
Well done and thank you for sharing.

What lens filter are you using? I like it.

Sdot · Sep 7, 2020

Wen said:
Really enjoyed reading your build thread!
Well done and thank you for sharing.

What lens filter are you using? I like it.

Thank you @Wen, i dont use a filter but the pro setting on my Samsung smart phone. I still have so much work to do..... i want to be in the same conversation as some of the reef gods here! So my goal is to let the tank inspire others as well as document the journey so hopefully other aquarist can avoid my mistakes.

Zotmurse · Sep 7, 2020

Sdot said:
Thanks brother! Updates coming soon, finally on the other side of a major tin contamination issue which took a toll on some of my colonies.

What was the source of the tin?

Sdot · Sep 7, 2020

Zotmurse said:
What was the source of the tin?

RO and Saltwater purchased from a local shop.

Zotmurse · Sep 7, 2020

Sdot said:
RO and Saltwater purchased from a local shop.

You don’t have your own RO/DI system for that monster?? You gotta get on that

Sdot · Sep 8, 2020

Zotmurse said:
Awesome build. How is it going with the nitrates/phos? I got a little over zealous with my GFO a couple months ago and ended up with dinos... Nutrient export systems are too efficient these days. I agree with skimming + fuge to stabilize pH. Do you run carbon on your tank?

Hey thanks brother! The dosing is going well....i do not dose phosphate any more as i get what i need from the fish food. Im back up to dosing 20ML per day on the nitrates and so far that keeps me at 5ppm according to my Nyos test kit. I test every few days. You can see in the last month how little my nitrate fluctuate compared to my Phosphate.