Reef Matt 1200- 109 inches a day

gasperagnes · Jan 22, 2023

Hello,

I am about 6 months in on my a new 180 gallon reef. My Reef Matt 1200 is rolling out about 109 inches a day. It seems excessive. Any recommendations would be extremely helpful.

MACHO · Jan 22, 2023

gasperagnes said:
Hello,

I am about 6 months in on my a new 180 gallon reef. My Reef Matt 1200 is rolling out about 109 inches a day. It seems excessive. Any recommendations would be extremely helpful.

holy crap even on my 200 gallon my 500 rolls about 20 inches a day what other filtration are you using? are you feeding heavy? how many fish. and how long has the roller been installed

gasperagnes · Jan 22, 2023

MACHO said:
holy crap even on my 200 gallon my 500 rolls about 20 inches a day what other filtration are you using? are you feeding heavy? how many fish. and how long has the roller been installed

I don't think I am feeding that much. I have a aqua duo skimmer. The roller has been installed for 6.months....

MACHO · Jan 22, 2023

gasperagnes said:
I don't think I am feeding that much. I have a aqua duo skimmer. The roller has been installed for 6.months....

how far does it roll? in the setting you can set it to different length per roll movement mine is at 1.2-1.4 inches

gasperagnes · Jan 22, 2023

I have been moving it around. I had it on 2 inches for awhile LFS said try 6 inches. It hasn't done anything to change the efficiency.

MACHO · Jan 22, 2023

gasperagnes said:
I have been moving it around. I had it on 2 inches for awhile LFS said try 6 inches. It hasn't done anything to change the efficiency.

does it flucuate weekly cause 100 inches in a day is ridiculous there has to be something that's being fed or used that is making it roll that much

beesnreefs · Jan 22, 2023

Me too. But I think some of it is due to the dinos (and now cyano) I was/am battling.

When I finally got the dinos under control I got it down to about 50 inches a day. Then cyano started and now it’s back up to 90-100 inches

gasperagnes · Jan 22, 2023

MACHO said:
does it flucuate weekly cause 100 inches in a day is ridiculous there has to be something that's being fed or used that is making it roll that much

Not really been steady....

MACHO · Jan 22, 2023

gasperagnes said:
Not really been steady....

no algae outbreaks or anything of the sort? how does the roll look when you replace it does it look like a brownish green or is it still look clean?

gasperagnes · Jan 22, 2023

MACHO said:
no algae outbreaks or anything of the sort? how does the roll look when you replace it does it look like a brownish green or is it still look clean?

I had cyano about 6 weeks ago. Ran chemiclean. Roll looks brown. No green what so ever. My COR20 is at 90 %. My turn over is 9 times

OctaviusBrine · Jan 23, 2023

I have a 500 and was having that same problem. Turns out I had way too big of a return pump. I changed that dialed my sump back in and cut it almost in half.

gasperagnes · Jan 23, 2023

OctaviusBrine said:
I have a 500 and was having that same problem. Turns out I had way too big of a return pump. I changed that dialed my sump back in and cut it almost in half.

How much did that affect the turn over ?

juiceguy · Jan 23, 2023

I recently increased flow within my 290g and scraped some of the back glass and my consumption has jumped from 72in a day to 160! I slowed the progress of the the roller to .4-.6 setting but didn't do much for daily consumption, the roller would just advance more often. I hope that it will settle down to a more manageable rate otherwise 2 rolls a month@ $32 a pop is quite expensive!

gasperagnes · Jan 23, 2023

juiceguy said:
I recently increased flow within my 290g and scraped some of the back glass and my consumption has jumped from 72in a day to 160! I slowed the progress of the the roller to .4-.6 setting but didn't do much for daily consumption, the roller would just advance more often. I hope that it will settle down to a more manageable rate otherwise 2 rolls a month@ $32 a pop is quite expensive!

I agree very expensive.

OctaviusBrine · Jan 23, 2023

gasperagnes said:
How much did that affect the turn over ?

I have it in a reefer 250,which calls for I believe a 660 gph. I had well over 1000 which was an awesome turn over rate. However I was going through so much fleece. I’d look to see what the recommend flow is for those big rollers. I’m down to an average of about 17” a day now which is awesome. Also you can set times to turn it off. Say maybe at night?

LPS Bum · Jan 23, 2023

gasperagnes said:
Hello,

I am about 6 months in on my a new 180 gallon reef. My Reef Matt 1200 is rolling out about 109 inches a day. It seems excessive. Any recommendations would be extremely helpful.

Wow. Yes, that’s definitely excessive.

I have a 164 gal and though my tank is new I’m only going through 24 inches a day. I have my auto advance set to the lowest amount (0.2 to 0.4 inches) and that helps. Dirtier roll but who cares.

Also check to make sure water isn’t cascading over the sides of the Reefmat. Mine will do that for 5 min after I stir the sand, and it burns through fleece a lot faster that way.

gasperagnes · Jan 24, 2023

LPS Bum said:
Wow. Yes, that’s definitely excessive.

I have a 164 gal and though my tank is new I’m only going through 24 inches a day. I have my auto advance set to the lowest amount (0.2 to 0.4 inches) and that helps. Dirtier roll but who cares.

Also check to make sure water isn’t cascading over the sides of the Reefmat. Mine will do that for 5 min after I stir the sand, and it burns through fleece a lot faster that way.

The water only spills over when the chamber is full. Spoke to red sea and they say it's a flow issue. Which brings up the debate about turn over in the system

beesnreefs · Jan 24, 2023

gasperagnes said:
The water only spills over when the chamber is full. Spoke to red sea and they say it's a flow issue. Which brings up the debate about turn over in the system

So if we want to use less fleece we need to dial down the return pumps?

LPS Bum · Jan 24, 2023

gasperagnes said:
The water only spills over when the chamber is full. Spoke to red sea and they say it's a flow issue. Which brings up the debate about turn over in the system

IME the water only spills over when there is a lot of detritus coming down the main drainage pipe. As in when I blow my rocks off with a turkey baster or stir the sand. For whatever reason that causes the ReefMat to overflow over the sides, but it only does that for 5-10 min before it settles back down.

If your ReefMat is properly sized to your system (per the recommendations for the 500 and 1200) then it shouldn't happen on a regular basis. I have the Reefer G2 625 and went with the 1200 over the 500 for that reason. And if you're using a DC return pump, you can always dial that back (I have a Sicce SDC 7.0 and run it at 67%).

Point is, I've only seen my ReefMat burn through fleece when water is spilling over the sides. So I figured that might be part of your problem if you're going through rolls that quickly.

radfly · Jan 24, 2023

beesnreefs said:
Me too. But I think some of it is due to the dinos (and now cyano) I was/am battling.

When I finally got the dinos under control I got it down to about 50 inches a day. Then cyano started and now it’s back up to 90-100 inches

With dinos and cyano why are you running the mat? Get that water dirty for awhile.