326 ReefSys new to marine

Antaguana · Dec 31, 2023

Hello All,

We have had an 80L tropical tank and 12kL koi pond but I am new to the marine world.
I am in Australia so I will use metric measurements.

Here is the setup / Equipment (so far, the list seems to grow every time I go to the shop):

326L Aqua One ReefSys
2x AI Prime 16HD LED Lights
Sicce Syncra Silent Pump 2.5 (2400 l/h)
Red Sea Reefwave 25
300w AquaEl Platinium Heater
1L SEACHEM Matrix in bag
Aquavitro division 125 Protein Skimmer (for up to 475L)
Giant Pacific ReeFill ATO
20kg (1-2mm) Coral Sand
"dead" rock for the main scape with 1Kg of "Real Reef" Rock
Hanna Marine Master Multiparameter with Bluetooth (HI97115C)
Hanna Marine Waterproof Salinity Tester
4 Stage Reef Pure RODI (Sediment, Carbon, RO, DI)

Here are some photos of the initial setup:
The idea is to (down the track after cycling etc and a lot more reading) have some corals and hidy holes on the left with some open swimming area on the right.
Due to the layout of the room, this tank will be primarily viewed from the front right, as seen in the first photo.

If this turns out to be too sparse I will go back and add some more scape to the right hand side at a later date.

Antaguana · Dec 31, 2023

Adding the RODI Water and Salt today and staring to cycle.
Using Vibrant Sea salt, Seed bacteria starter and ammonium Chloride solution.

I have read The Supreme Guide To Setting Up A Saltwater Reef Aquarium by revhtree and Cycling an Aquarium by Brew12, Thankyou for taking the time to write such comprehensive information.

I will be aiming for 35ppt salinity and and ~2ppm ammonia.

Volume Calculations
The 326 ReefSys says it is 326L (86G)
I decided to double check the measurements.

Main tank internals 1.177x0.526x0.460m (to underside of the weir). = 0.2847m3 (284.7L, gee I love the metric system)
Return = 0.115x0.120x0.400 = 5.5L
Socks = 0.335x0.120x0.300 = 12.1L
Refugerium = 0.260x0.210x0.300 = 16.4L
Skimmer = 0.260x0.330x0.200 = 17.2L
Pump sump = 0.260x0.150x0.180 = 7.0L

Total water capacity = 342.9L. To be honest I am suprised that came out to more than 326L. I do have all the baffles set all the way up. Perhaps AquaOne went with middle or minimum baffle settings when the measured it. I am genuinly supprised. I expected they would have taken the outside measurements of the 2 tanks and reported that as the 'total volume' to make it as large as possible... Have I become too synical of modern marketing??

Long story short I will assume 300L of actual water in my system (I kinda wish I had measured the water as I put it in now).

Seachem Vibrant Sea Salt Calc
Packet says 31g/L will get you 1.023 SG (thats only 30.5 ppt, anyone know why they give measurements for 1.020 and 1.023 and say salinity should be 1.020 to 1.025? From what I am reading the ocean reefs are more like 35ppt = 1.026 S

By manufacturer spec that means I need 31/L = 9,300g / 300L for 30.5 ppt
To get 35ppt I guess I will need 9300/30.5*35 = 10,672g

I guess I will start with 9000g and work my way up from there. It is easier to add more salt than water once the tank is full.

Aquavitro Seed Calculation
5mL per 40L = 37.5mL / 300L on first day, half that for the next 7.

Giant Pacific No-Fish Start Ammonium Chloride Calculation
50ml/1000L = 15mL

Wish me luck, it has been a while since this engineer performed any applied chemisty

Gumbies R Us · Jan 1, 2024

Antaguana said:
Hello All,

We have had an 80L tropical tank and 12kL koi pond but I am new to the marine world.
I am in Australia so I will use metric measurements.

Here is the setup / Equipment (so far, the list seems to grow every time I go to the shop):

326L Aqua One ReefSys

2x AI Prime 16HD LED Lights

Sicce Syncra Silent Pump 2.5 (2400 l/h)

Red Sea Reefwave 25

300w AquaEl Platinium Heater

1L SEACHEM Matrix in bag

Aquavitro division 125 Protein Skimmer (for up to 475L)

Giant Pacific ReeFill ATO

20kg (1-2mm) Coral Sand

"dead" rock for the main scape with 1Kg of "Real Reef" Rock

Hanna Marine Master Multiparameter with Bluetooth (HI97115C)

Hanna Marine Waterproof Salinity Tester

4 Stage Reef Pure RODI (Sediment, Carbon, RO, DI)

Here are some photos of the initial setup:
The idea is to (down the track after cycling etc and a lot more reading) have some corals and hidy holes on the left with some open swimming area on the right.
Due to the layout of the room, this tank will be primarily viewed from the front right, as seen in the first photo.

If this turns out to be too sparse I will go back and add some more scape to the right hand side at a later date.

Love the aquascape!

Antaguana · Jan 16, 2024

I added salt last week got up to 34ish ppt and started adding the bottle bac (Aquavitro seed) and ammonia.
Here are my test results so far.

Please let me know if anything there is looking out of the ordinary (and what to do to correct it). My thoughts so far are NO3 is going up so the bac are doing somthing, but the NH3 is also going up so they certainly are not sufficient (also not expecting it to be done in 4 days obviously).

I am supprised that all the number are going up. I was expecting the NH3 to come down as the NO2 and NO3 go up, like in all the graphs I have seen. Perhpas there is more NH3 in the bottle with the bac, but surley they would just convert that... Is it normal to see all the numbers rise when you are not adding additional ammonia. (or NH4Cl) I read a bit about PH playing a large role in the NH3 / NH4 Ratio. Am I seeing the NH4 from the NH4Cl be progresivly converted into the NH3 that the test measures?
Does anyone know if the hanna HI784 test measures NH3 or total ammonia and ammonium? I see that they state the range as "0.00 to 2.5 ppm (mg/L) NH3" and the unit shows it as "Ammonia Marine 1.34 ppm NH3" but then their website says the Method is "Adaptation of the Salicylate Method. The reaction between Ammonia and Ammonium and the reagent causes a blue-green tint in the sample." which implies that it would measure both?? Why are these things not stated clearly?

I also noticed that I needed to use more salt than I was expecting.
I calculated about 300-340L of water which I thought would need 300*35 = 10,500 to 340*35=11,900g of salt to get to 35 ppt
So far I have put in 13,300g to get to 34.2 ppt
(I have recalibrated and tested the Hanna Salinity tester using their 35ppt calibration solution.)
based on that I need to add another 300g to get up to 35ppt

There are a couple of quite possible explanations.
1. The tank holds more than I measured/calculated. At 13300/34.2 = 389L. It seems very unlikely that AquaPro would call it a 326 if it holds 389. Call me a cynic but I feel like a marketing team would want to call that 400L (or at least 390L.
2. I have not taken the weight of the salt into account in the total. (ie the total would now be (340Kg+13.3Kg)=353.3Kg 13300/353.3 would suggest I should be seeing 37.65ppt
3. The salt is not "pure" for example, salt is somewhat hygroscopic. If the salt had absorbed ~3% of its weight in water from the atmosphere (which seems quite plausible) then that would certainly explain the discrepancy.

Now having said that I have done a little hunting and found.

Direct Salt Addition Calculator

Aquarium calculator; Estimate the amount of solid salt required to raise salinity to a target level.

www.hamzasreef.com

Which addresses this exact point.
"All salt mixes contain some water content. If 35 grams of a given salt mix are collected, typically 3 - 7 of these grams turn out to be water."

An interesting little reminder of chemistry and maths, but I will stop overanalysing now, trust the meter (as I have recently calibrated it to a standard that I can only assume and hope is trustworthy), add another 300g and keep adding bac and testing wait for the ammonia numbers to start to drop.

Antaguana · Jan 16, 2024

Oh, I also just saw that the stated accuracy of the test is +-5% of the reading... So the difference in my NH3 readings looking like they are going up could simply be in the expected accuracy tolerance.

Antaguana · Feb 21, 2024

5 and a bit weeks and still waiting for cycling to get under control

Diatoms set up a couple of weeks ago (9th Feb) I was getting a lot of bubbles off them for about a week.
But it seems they have stopped respiration and are much less prominent now.

Ammonia levels are coming down very slowly to 0.25ppm waiting for it to come down and thinking about adding more NH4Cl?

Antaguana · Mar 4, 2024

The cycle took quite a while to get going but its seems to be working ok now.
Based on feedback from members of the forum, Seachem and LFS I have added more rock to the setup. (another 25Kg)

I tried out the "Bond" low temperature melt plastic glue to make the right hand side scape and found it was very difficult to work with. It says to let it go clear in warm water (45C) then take it out and kneed it to shape. I found the water needed to be quite a bit hotter to make it go clear (60C) and as soon as it was clear it was WAY too runny to handle, let alone kneed. It just ran all over my gloves and was almost as runny as the water. Eventually I did manage to pack some around the joins, but it was very brittle and did not hold onto the rock well, as soon as I tried to move anything it all just let go.

So I pulled it all off and tried again, this time using thick CA glue to glue.
First I stuck the large bits together with a little dob at each join. Then using more thick CA to glue small rocks to reinforce the joins. Then I packed very small crushed rock and powder around the joins and used the thin CA to pour over that. It made really good structural bonds and let me pick this whole 25 Kg structure up from the 2 arches and place it into the tank. It was quite a daunting experience and I was worried that the joins would let go and the rocks would crack the glass but it was actually really strong and worked fine.

We put our first intentional multicellular life forms in the tank this weekend. Starting with copepods and the start of a clean-up crew of 4 Nassarius snails and 4 Trochus snails.

One of the Trochus had some small molluscs living on the back of its shell. I have no idea what they are.

Antaguana · Mar 4, 2024

We have also setup a small QT with 33L of water. It just has a 55w heater and a Shark Adv 400 internal filter. I run the filter foams in the sump of the main tank for a week before putting one of the filter foams and a handful of the matrix material from the main sump into the filter. Balanced water to 35ppt and checked the pH, which was 8.6

There are a couple of small (1") percula clownfish in there, I will let them settle for a day or 2 before starting the copper treatment.

Antaguana · Mar 24, 2024

QT is over for the clowns and they are in the 326L display tank. Of course being clowns they are hanging out exclusivly in the back corner behind the rocks. Perhaps they will come out to explore as they become more comfortable.

It was a bit of an ordeal as the oodonex packaging says to dose at 5ml per 40L for 4 days and test for 0.25ppm copper. I have 33L so did 4.1ml for 4 days and it tested at 0.5ppm. I contacted the manufacturer Auqasonic but they were thoroughly unhelpful forwarding my email to a fish wholesaler who said 0.5ppm is toxic. Although the clowns were totally fine in that for 2 weeks. Some websites say 3ml per 50L for 4 days, which is just under half the 5ml/40L so would give about 0.25. So I don't know who is correct or what the correct dosage for Oodonex is. It is a bit of a guess at this stage.

Although the clowns were fine with the 0.5ppm I think I will go with 0.25ppm for the future quarantining.

We got 4 peppermint shrimp, 4 turbo snails and 4 stromb snails to add to the CUC. They have all gone straight into the DT.
The stromb are right little characters, with there 2 beady eyes and trunk. This one has a mohowk.

Today I emptied the QT, washed with vinegar, rinsed and refilled with water from the DT.
We got a West Australian ocellated glider goby and a Foxface Rabbit fish who have moved into QT.

Belieive it or not, this is the best photo I have been able to get of the foxface. He is very much alive, but really enjoys playing dead. Every time I walk in the room he goes from swimming around being bright yellow to hiding at the back or inside the top of the hide lying on its side in this brown grey very decesed looking colour. The LFS assure me is this a temporary stress reaction to look less apertisding for a preditor.