Roller mat barely advancing .. am I too clean?

[peterhos]

Hi All. My Red Sea roller mat seems to be working. No fault indication. Manual advance working. Yet the mat is advancing only 1.4 cm a day, roughly 0.3 - 0.4 cm three or four times a day. So, has the mat in conjunction with the skimmer stripped out all the solids from the water? Which begs the question, how to feed more without then bumping up nitrates and/or phosphates.

Anyone ever had a mat move on this slowly? Thanks all.

 

[Reefing Reefer]

Hi All. My Red Sea roller mat seems to be working. No fault indication. Manual advance working. Yet the mat is advancing only 1.4 cm a day, roughly 0.3 - 0.4 cm three or four times a day. So, has the mat in conjunction with the skimmer stripped out all the solids from the water? Which begs the question, how to feed more without then bumping up nitrates and/or phosphates.

Anyone ever had a mat move on this slowly? Thanks all.

How big is your tank, how much fish/coral, and how often/what are your feeding?

I had a roller mat/skimmer setup and wasn’t feeding enough to keep up with the nutrient export and bottomed out my nutrients - I battled cyano issues for a long time, still going through it.

I would say keep an eye on your nitrates/phosphates and make sure they are detectable. Keep an eye on your corals for indicators of stress. Lastly, have some type nitrate and phosphate supplement on deck for dosing in case you need it.

Good luck

 

[SaltyTwigs]

The Roller Mat will only advance when the water in the roller mat gets to the water sensor on the roller mat. How much it advances could also be caused by which model (either the 1200 or the 500) and tank size and load. If you have the 1200 on a smaller tank very likely you could see what you are seeing. I would not feed more just to get the roller mat to advance more and would base feeding on Phosphate and Nitrate levels. I will say though that a good skimmer in conjunction with a reef mat can get your nutrients very low. So keep an eye on both so you don't bottom out.

My Reef Mat 1200 on a 200 gallon system advances about 10 inches a day for comparison. That system has 4 tangs, Fox Face, Coris wrasse and few other smaller fish. My Reef Mat 500 on a 80 gallon frag tank system advances about 8 inches a day. 3 small tangs and six line wrasse. I feed both systems quite a bit and also use Acropower.

 

[peterhos]

How big is your tank, how much fish/coral, and how often/what are your feeding?

I had a roller mat/skimmer setup and wasn’t feeding enough to keep up with the nutrient export and bottomed out my nutrients - I battled cyano issues for a long time, still going through it.

I would say keep an eye on your nitrates/phosphates and make sure they are detectable. Keep an eye on your corals for indicators of stress. Lastly, have some type nitrate and phosphate supplement on deck for dosing in case you need it.

Good luck

Thanks for answering. I have a Red Sea reefer 250 with 6 small fish and 2 dozen assorted SPS LPS and zoa frags. I feed one cube of frozen food a day. Oddly, if the tank is ‘too clean’ I still have phosphates at 0.11 and nitrates at 12. 9 months into this tank now. Fish looking good, copepods disappeared, all frags were bought small and remain small. Fish inverts and CUC all happy. Maybe I need ‘meatier’ food??

 

[blaxsun]

My 1200 advances 60" a day, so enjoy it while it lasts! lol

 

[peterhos]

The Roller Mat will only advance when the water in the roller mat gets to the water sensor on the roller mat. How much it advances could also be caused by which model (either the 1200 or the 500) and tank size and load. If you have the 1200 on a smaller tank very likely you could see what you are seeing. I would not feed more just to get the roller mat to advance more and would base feeding on Phosphate and Nitrate levels. I will say though that a good skimmer in conjunction with a reef mat can get your nutrients very low. So keep an eye on both so you don't bottom out.

My Reef Mat 1200 on a 200 gallon system advances about 10 inches a day for comparison. That system has 4 tangs, Fox Face, Coris wrasse and few other smaller fish. My Reef Mat 500 on a 80 gallon frag tank system advances about 8 inches a day. 3 small tangs and six line wrasse. I feed both systems quite a bit and also use Acropower.

Hmmm. 10 inches a day - compared to my 1.5 - 3 cm recently a day. Maybe the mat and skimmer combined are just too much. What do you think about putting both on a timer?

 

[dschuffert]

It has varied for me. Water flow and quality seem to make a difference for me. I have the 500 on my 90 and the 1200 on my 240. I am averaging about 36.4 inches per day. I have been much higher and lower. I think as long as the ReefMat is installed correctly you should just let it do what it does and not worry about it. If you see detritus on the back roll that it is pulling out of your tank, it is doing its job. I do not think there is any defined amount of daily use that you should target for. Every tank is different and I have found that evey day is different too.

 

[peterhos]

It has varied for me. Water flow and quality seem to make a difference for me. I have the 500 on my 90 and the 1200 on my 240. I am averaging about 36.4 inches per day. I have been much higher and lower. I think as long as the ReefMat is installed correctly you should just let it do what it does and not worry about it. If you see detritus on the back roll that it is pulling out of your tank, it is doing its job. I do not think there is any defined amount of daily use that you should target for. Every tank is different and I have found that evey day is different too.

 

[peterhos]

Thank you. Yes I do see gunk on the paper roll, though mostly of a green colour. Maybe from phyto … maybe I should add phyto more often .. just to liven up the roller lol. Even if I get only a couple of cm per day on the roller, I guess that shows the sensor works.

 

[SaltyTwigs]

Yeah, I would not worry about your PO4 and NO3 numbers. I mean as long as the tank looks fine I would not panic at all with those numbers. Maybe the phyto you are dosing is elevating your numbers. I mean I would not want them higher personally but I would not do anything drastic except give up the phyto. Is there a reason you are dosing it? Also, agree with dschuffert don't sweat how much is being used. Just be happy that it is not burning through the fleece right now.

 

[a.t.t.r]

Wouldn’t flow rate have a large impact on this.

 

[Digitalfirex]

Imo my reefmat is entirely dependent on my pump flow rate. When I first set up my pump, I was burning thru a roll. Literally a whole roll, 90 ft, in maybe a week. Lowered my pump flow... my roll lasts about a month. It's a weird balance between flow and the reefmat.

 

[R-balljunkie]

Imo my reefmat is entirely dependent on my pump flow rate. When I first set up my bump, I was burning thru a roll. Literally a whole roll, 90 ft, in maybe a week. Lowered my pump flow... my roll lasts about a month. It's a weird balance between flow and the reefmat.

agree. i lowered the flow as well more for dialing in overflow to dead silent....now misering on roll usage. seems like a win win.

 

[SaltyTwigs]

Yes flow rate would have an affect on fleece daily use as that is how these things operate. Reef Mat advances when the fleece can no longer handle the flow rate and water rises in the roller mat and hits the water sensor. So higher flow rate would make a less dirt fleece not keep up with the flow faster than a slower flow rate with a dirtier fleece. Also which model you have will affect rate as 500 has much less surface area for water to go through than the 1200.

 

[peterhos]

Thanks all. What bothers me is the roller mat advancing an inch a day … the roll will last about 3 years at that rate .. yet the mat moves 2 or 3 times a day … so the sensor is working … and the water is not reaching the sensor.

Can my water possibly be that clean??

 

[peterhos]

Should I/could I leave the mat off for the water to ‘dirty up’ a little?

 

[SaltyTwigs]

No leave it on. Do you have enough flow in the tank that the detritus is making it down the overflow? Do you have water going down your emergency drain therefore bypassing your reefmat?

 

[peterhos]

agree. i lowered the flow as well more for dialing in overflow to dead silent....now misering on roll usage. seems like a win win.

Ah. Some of your minimal numbers are similar to mine. Thought I was alone here. So, are our tanks exceptionally clean. Should we/I increase feeding slightly in case our clean water is starving corals? Thanks for answering by the way.

 

[R-balljunkie]

Ah. Some of your minimal numbers are similar to mine. Thought I was alone here. So, are our tanks exceptionally clean. Should we/I increase feeding slightly in case our clean water is starving corals? Thanks for answering by the way.

nope, would not make that correlation at all. do an icp test to see where you are at. I've recently add an hourly "purge mode" to my tank where all the pumps ramp up to 100 percent for a minute.....that might be helping to stir the tank up.....not sure if thats related but its the only thing i can think of as different. I used to eat thru a roll a month.

 

[peterhos]

No leave it on. Do you have enough flow in the tank that the detritus is making it down the overflow? Do you have water going down your emergency drain therefore bypassing your reefmat?

Ah … good questions. Thank you. Yes flow is steady and so goes down through the mat. Will check the emergency drain.