4ddiction’s 60g Mixed Reef Build

[4ddiction]

Great looking build!

How's it going?

Does your boatload of siporax keep both nitrates and phos low or just nitrates?

Thanks! The tank build is still moving, I have so much wire management to do in my electrical cabinet. It will get done shortly just been so busy with work. Having a slight problem with some sps in the tank.

I’m starting to believe it’s being caused by my alkalinity.

At current nitrate levels I believe it may be too high. I think 7.8-8.1 are better levels.

Siporax consumes both No3 and po4. However, it consumes No3 at a higher rate than po4. I use rowaphos to keep my po4 stable.

Trying to finish everything up and get the system automated

 

[Vinman]

New reefer to these forums. Starting a new build since I am moving locations of my tank. Decided to start a thread to document and share my progress enjoy!

Background:
Started my addiction to salt water tanks about 8 years ago. First tank was a 6g where I had no clue what I was doing. Slowly I learned via my own mistakes and help from various reefing sites. I ditched the 6g and started up a 40g with a 10g sump.

Over time the 40g became a mixed reef with decent success!

Tank was growing and doing well until hurricane Sandy came around and we lost power for 9 days straighht. 98% of everything died. I had fish die in my hands as I tried to keep the tank warm/oxygenated. The sole two survivors were the black clown fish and one blue reef chromis who are still alive and well today.

I rebuilt the tank with foam rock walls but it was short lived as I soon found out the bottom of the tank was cracked and started to leak. So the project was scrapped.

Finally I purchased a 60g cube rimless tank and it flourished once again.

The tank was up and running for a few years but it eventually experienced a crash most likely due to an Alkalinity swing. I lost some fish, most sps and lps. The zoanthids managed to survive and took over the tank.

The Move

Present day I have moved to a new house and the 60g was still at my parents home. I always wanted to go larger (Red Sea 750xxl) but I had to move the tank to my house. So i began building a fish sump room in the basement and kept the 60g tank upstairs. The entire fish room was designed with the 750xxl in mind as a future upgrade. Hope you guys enjoy the build!

Equipment

Tanks

• 60g 24” Rimless Cube
• Trigger System 39 Sump
• 18”x18”x10” frag tank

Lighting

• Ecotech Radion G4
• Kessil H160 Flora
• Led frag light

Flow

• Ecotech Mp10s
• Iwaki MD55rlt

Filtration

• Vertex Omega 150 skimmer
• BRS reactor w/ Carbon
• 10L of 25mm Siporax Ceramic media
• 3 filter socks
• Cheato fuge

Cooling and heating

• 1/4hp chiller
• Eheim Jagger 150w x 2

Electrical

• Two dedicated 20amp electrical circuits
• Apex Lite
• Apex PH module
• Apex WXM, VDM module
• Avast Marine break out box
• Avast Marine skimmer swabbie
• Avast Marine RO Barrel tender
• Grounding probe
• Custom undersump LED lighting

The Build

Built a monster stand to house the sump tank, equipment and frag tank.

Along the wall I hung up a base to house the equipment feed and return manifold. The return and drain lines are plumbed along the wall as well.

Drilled sump for external filter

Plumbing galore

Used a laundry plumbing line box for the upstairs to keep the plumbing somewhat neat.

Completed the main drain lines for the herbie overflow, and the main return line upstairs.

Picked up a 44g brute trash can to house my fish during the move and while I set up the display tank with its new aquascape.

Waiting on BRS to deliver some more goodies so I can turn my current 4 stage water filter into a 7 stage water filtration system.

Started to make RO/DI water for the sump to run a leak test on the basement plumbing. So far no leaks on the manifold system!

In addition I plumbed in my second RO filter to my drinking water filter system. Probably the best upgrade was the addition of a permeate pump and removal of the stock ASOV which has increased my pressure. Increased pressure at my refrigerator and ice maker which is great! With the addition the system currently sits like so:

• 5 micro sediment filter
• 5 micron VOC carbon
• 1 micron carbon
• 75 GPD RO membrane plumbed in series with anothe 75 creating a 150 GPD permeate
  • Tees into drinking water loop with omnipure filter
• Other portion of tee feeds DI resins
  • Cation DI resin
  • Anion DI resin
  • Mixed DI resin

Town TDS:

• 387 PPM

Drinking water TDS

• 20 PPM

Reef Rodi water TDS

• 0 PPM

Set up my Avast Marine Barrel tender to ensure maximum and most efficient resin consumption.

The Big Move

​

Been a crazy few weekends but the move happened and the tank is all set up.

Temporary holding tank where the fish lived for a day and half. Had to paint the stand along with the back and bottom of the tank.

Thank god for lasers making hanging of the Radion G4 a lot easier

So far I have a carbon filter running along with the skimmer. Waiting on my chaetomorpha to be delivered.

Also have 3 jars of various copepods arriving to stock the refugium and the new rock.


Avast skimmate locker added

Your tank build thread is amazingly detailed with lots of pic and info aswell as progression. So why don't you have a reef builder badge...I still don't think I understand this badge thing yet lol. Great job

 

[4ddiction]

Your tank build thread is amazingly detailed with lots of pic and info aswell as progression. So why don't you have a reef builder badge...I still don't think I understand this badge thing yet lol. Great job

thanks! Not sure I’m aware of the badges. Never really looked into them.

 

[4ddiction]

My GSP is blowing up in my frag tank. Taking over the glass it’s growing on. I’ve never seen a GSP grow in a table format. It’s so chunky; and massive.

Third week of cultivating phytoplankton is going well. Main containers were split today and I put the rest in the fridge and some Into the tank. Need to finish building a shelf for the flasks.

 

[4ddiction]

I was planing on running only Red Sea additives, however, my work schedule was interfering.

I was dosing reef energy a&b manually for some time, however, I needed to automate it. I thought about engineering together a little refrigerator to store the liquids. The dos would have dosed and reversed throughout the day. I found a simpler solution to try first. A new to me product by Quantum.

Quantum bio enhance basically is fatty acids, aminos, vitamins in one. Advertised that it doesn’t need to be stored in the fridge and doesn’t need to be shaken. So today I started dosing the low dose for this product. We’ll see how the tank reacts. Stay tuned.

 

[SliceGolfer]

What’s your verdict on Bio-Enhance?

 

[MaxFlow]

Is that a flex PVC ?

 

[4ddiction]

What’s your verdict on Bio-Enhance?

Too soon to tell to be honest. I had a bad alkalinity drop so my sps died off. Clogged dosing line from red seas foundation b. I was dosing 2ml a day and noticed a white film forming on top of my refugium water. I lowered the dose to 2ml 3 days a week. Seems to have Stopped the film from Forming.

Is that a flex PVC ?

Yes it’s spa flex to be exact.

 

[4ddiction]

Trident Install coming up! Excited to finally be able to hook up one of the last pieces of the build.

 

[4ddiction]

Trident has been up and running for some days. The test period went smoothly. Calibrated after a week of usage. Today marks the day of active control of alkalinity and calcium. The apex system will test and dose automatically my additives. Hopefully things go smoothly.

I’ve upped the tests to 8 on the trident to help it hone in on the appropriate daily dose. The tests will get lowered back to 4 times a day when the parameters stable out to my liking.

Don’t mind the poo

It’s has come to my attention that tridents start to get a little wonky when the reagent solutions start to get low. The reagent needle will float when it gets too low, affecting results. So shout out to @Brasileiro561 for an awesome 3d printed product to keep the needle perpendicular at all times. No problems as of now!

looking forward to seeing the results of the trident controlled dosing.

 

[4ddiction]

Fun tip for people who use chemiclean. After using it, even after doing the recommended % water changes, some skimmers still overflow.


I found the easiest and quickest way to remove chemiclean from the water column is to hook up your skimmer overflow tube into a bucket and allow the skimmer to continuously overflow. Place your auto top off pump into your fresh saltwater bin and allow it to top off. This will keep things replenished as you are skimming all of the chemicals out. It will overflow hard for the first few min. But after the stream will slow and the skimmer will get closes to original operation prior to dosing. Once you are happy with skimmer operation, in my case usually an hour or so. I return my auto top off back into the rodi bin and finish up the rest of the bulk water change

 

[4ddiction]

Been a while since I’ve updated anything here. Most recent update is an automated dosing of reef energy ab+. Since I wanted it to be fully automated dosing I took a small mini fridge to store 450ml of AB+. Running the dos to dose every other day for now. Feeds the tank, then the dos runs in reverse and clears the solution back into the refrigerator.
Happy all the coding works!