1000gal DT build

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Looks great! I’ve enjoyed reading this thread and following along. I also think you’ve done a great job discussing the issues that you’ve had to deal with along the way. I think there is this misconception in the hobby that when you have a huge system with high end equipment, that problems don’t happen. Great job dealing with those issues. I look forward to continue following this project.
Thanks I appreciate it! I feel like it’s always up hill battle with tank chemistry. If you let it go for a while, it’s like a runaway train. Specially with large system
Here are few things I’ve added to filtration system, to help fight phosphates:
I’ve replaced my refugium lights (2 kessil halo h380) these haven’t worked for few months now with new h160s. Now refugium back up and running

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I’ve also added another algae reactor pax bellum c36
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And also with help of @anit77 set up diy algae Scrubber. He let me borrow his scrubber until we build another for the time being.
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I’ve also being dosing Vodka, on day 8 (12.3ml)

Between all that and fresh bucket of GFO I think phosphates will be in control for at least 4 weeks. I’m testing daily and currently at .09ppm

nitrates at 20ppm

thanks for tagging along!
 
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For the last couple of months I’ve been battling phosphates issue and forgot about nitrates. My nitrates were always between 10-20 so Ive stopped testing for about a month. All this algae issues I was having, my thoughts were it’s definitely phosphates. Stupid assumptions and no testing cost me dearly.

Four days ago I’ve decided to test out this new Hannah nitrates kit. Prior to this test I was using reefbot for nitrates with Red Sea kit. Results would come at 20ppm, I didn’t think much of it.

Anyways I did Hannah nitrates test and it came over 50ppm. So I tested two more times thinking it was an error. Same result...
At this point I realized that this was main main issue why a lot of my coral were browning out..
First thing I did was massive water change. Unfortunately having 1400 gallons system and 200 gallons premix salt, water changes were limited. Over the next 48 hours i did around 409 gallons change. While doing these water changes I looked around to see what could possible be the source of these nitrates and phosphates, after all skimmer is running wet and full power, additionally have refugium, algae reactor and a scrubber. I couldn’t figure it out, all my tank are bare bottom.

So while doing water changes in refugium I was doing some cleaning. On the bottom of refugium (75 gallon tank) very little flow, all detritus was settling in over last 17 months. I never cleaned it once... There was about 1” thick layer of detritus. When I started vacuuming it was clear to me that this was the source of all problems with phosphates and nitrates.

it’s been about 24 hours since I vacuumed it. In addition to water changes I’ve set up another reactor, sulfur reactor. Hope after this nitrates will never be a problem again.
I‘ve been dosing vodka to combat nutrients also, I’m on week 6 of doing. Upto 16.2ml per day

My tank has been running for almost 19months now, fighting nutrients has been the biggest challenge so far. One thing for sure, with big systems unless you have huge amount of water on hand ready for emergency water change, very hard to flatten the curve. It’s like a freight train..

In the near future I’m planning to invest in 6-700 gallon wall/water tank for the emergencies purpose.
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little bit of vacuuming left to do here, this picture is after I vacuumed 1” thick of detritus from the refugium.


Here is a picture of calcium / gfo and a newest addition sulfur reactor that I could fit all together side by side. There isn’t much space left here.
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Here are some pictures of casualties. I do hope some of these colonies will recover. Most expensive corals seems to always die first...
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Currently phosphates are at 0.06ppm
Nitrates last test was at 50ppm. I’ll be doing one more water change of 75gal to clean refugium completely out then test again. D80725C9-D862-429B-B5B3-41815EE43879.jpeg
 

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Well, the fish look fat and happy! If you have a limited supply of fresh saltwater on hand, you have to be efficient in how you use it. Taking the water from the dirtiest part of the tank is your best bet as the nutrients are not going to be very concentrated in the water itself, but bound in rock or sediment. When I do water changes, this is my only focus. Remove the sediment from the sump and (since I have sand) vacuum the substrate a small patch at a time. In this way, doing 10% water changes once per month or so does a decent job of keeping nutrients in check for me.
 
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Things are starting to pick up, I did a few water tests today
Phosphates .02ppm 1st test 0.03ppm 2nd test
Not use to number that low, had to verify it

nitrates 40ppm (went down from 50ppm)
Vodka dosing seems to be working along with everything else...

alk , solid 8.5dkh (I’ve got my calcium reactor dialed in to where 35 dkh coming out of it)
Dosing and kalkwasser are still secondary

Magnesium 1380ppm, I’m gonna to raise it to 1440 over next day or two. Higher magnesium helps with less algae growth
calcium - 450ppm

Here is a short video of my diy algae clip

 

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Great build thread. I'm galloping along.

I've found my nitrates spiking recently as well. I wonder if built up detritus is my culprit as well.
 
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Great build thread. I'm galloping along.

I've found my nitrates spiking recently as well. I wonder if built up detritus is my culprit as well.
Yep had to clean out all the detritus built up over 18 months. Definitely learning experience for me. I’m getting it slowly under control. Vodka dosing and ATS seems to be helping a lot.

thanks for tagging along!
 
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I’m doing some maintenance today
-Refill two-part 5gal buckets (every 50days)
-premix kalkwasser (weekly)
-clean ATS (weekly)
-symphony / water changer refugium ,rinse off chaeto (monthly)
-dosing vodka (daily, 24.2ml)
-replace GFO (every 4 weeks)
-replace carbo (as needed)

-water testing :
Alk - 9.3dkh (daily)
Salinity - 34.7ppt (daily)
Phosphates - .03ppm (every other day)
Calcium - 440ppm (weekly)
Magnesium - 1600ppm (weekly, going to retest tomorrow)
Nitrates - ...50
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Happy 2021 Everyone!
Here is what I’m planning for this year.
1. I need to redo aquascape on my tank. What I would like is to create a floating reef with nothing touching bottom glass. This will require some interesting shelves that would be mounted on the back of the tank. Logistics needs to be figured out.
One main reason for doing this besides how cool 8-900lbs of rock floating is getting rid off an detritus and dead spots that collect it.

2. I am planning to add sand filter. Tired of dealing with filtersocks. Logistics of installing it needs to be worked out. Idea is to install 1000gallon barrel in the garage where fresh water will be stored. Plumbing it to sand filter for flashing out / cleaning periodically. Just like they do with swimming pools. Then once it’s cleaned out reconnecting to the mai filtration system of the tank.

I would like to get some assistance from someone who has done that on public aquariums or swimming pools before. Any recommendations/ tips would be appreciated!

3. Need to built and install ATS, I’ve been borrowing one from a friend and love how its working so far.

Cheers and looking forward to more updates !
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Well I just had a true disaster happened with tank. One of the unions started to leak so I decided to tighten it and ended up breaking union in main manifold. Now I did think it’s possible to do that so I did not take step precautions steps like turning off one of the pumps and shutting part of the manifold off...
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When I cracked it, between two main pumps it’s about 8-10k gallons of water per hour pressure. So much splashing water comes out.. I immediately turned off main valve and shut off on the pumps.
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I then cut off the pipe and cap sealed the manifold part. Anyways in two years I have never turned off main part of the tank manifold, so all water that was going to the one side of the tank was redirected to other side and everywhere else. After I finished sealing I’ve looked at my reactors and both calcium reactors were leaking from all the water pressure.Fixing that was as big of a deal but that’s definitely the down side of having manifold. When one thing is adjusted, everything had to be adjusted as well.
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running my tank on one pump at the moment while cap is curing over night...

crazy crazy plumbing ... glad I didn’t get electrocuted with all that water splashing.

the water pressure was almost as bad as this guy
 

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Oh no !! Glad youre on top of it
 
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