550G Display + Fish Room Frag Tanks = 900G of Fun

[madweazl]

I'm also REALLY jazzed about my newest $20 Amazon.com purchase -- a big ole funnel normally used for oil changes on cars up on lifts. It's huge -- 15" around, but it fits an entire 50lb bag of salt from IO/RC all at once, and the funnel end passes salt through at a slow/medium pace to maximize mixing efficiency. There is even a multi-section divider at the bottom that keeps salt from clumping in the middle and stopping the flow.

Now I can pour in 50lb of salt, go do testing etc. for a few minutes and come back -- the salt is gone and I can add another bag if I choose. No more measuring cups or sore arms from slow pours!

Big Funnel for Pouring Salt

Things like that are certainly handy. Like you, I was tired of measuring out salt but figured out that a bag of IO will make 46 gallons of saltwater at 35ppt.

 

[Blue Tang Clan]

Things like that are certainly handy. Like you, I was tired of measuring out salt but figured out that a bag of IO will make 46 gallons of saltwater at 35ppt.

Right on! A 200G box of IO is a single water change for me. Just dump all four 50lb bags into a 200G water container filled up to the 180ish mark

 

[Blue Tang Clan]

I love love love my Neptune Sky lights and would highly recommend them to anyone, but I'm going to try something new with 12 Ecotech G5 XR30 Blues. I'm going to experiment with a much bluer look in my tank and provide even more coverage in each section of the 10' tank, along with two 4' frag tanks. These lights happened to be cheaper than additional Sky units so I'm going to switch over to G5s and see how things go. I'll head over to the R2R classifieds soon and post my 7 Sky LEDs -- I truly can't say enough good about them and the growth I've gotten.

 

[Zach B]

I love love love my Neptune Sky lights and would highly recommend them to anyone, but I'm going to try something new with 12 Ecotech G5 XR30 Blues. I'm going to experiment with a much bluer look in my tank and provide even more coverage in each section of the 10' tank, along with two 4' frag tanks. These lights happened to be cheaper than additional Sky units so I'm going to switch over to G5s and see how things go. I'll head over to the R2R classifieds soon and post my 7 Sky LEDs -- I truly can't say enough good about them and the growth I've gotten.

Awesome!!

 

[Blue Tang Clan]

Hey gang -- Calcium Reactor tuning question for you. I just got the guts to set mine up after months and months of fear and delay. I was dosing 425mL of Alk and 410mL of Cal every day...yikes.

New setup:

• Geo CR818 Reactor + Secondary Chamber -- filled with ARM Extra Coarse media, and regular Coarse media in the 2nd chamber
• Kamoer continuous dosing pump set to 60mL/min
• New Carbondoser CO2 regulator; about 11 on the pressure, and 3 seconds between bubbles

I've gotten my Alk/Cal/Mag readings fairly even (9, 440, 1415) but the effluent is only about 18 dkh. The pH on my Milwaukee probe/controller shows 6.2 -- and the probe is accurately calibrated. I don't really care what the dissolving pH is -- ARM is a little tougher, but I am scratching my head about the effluent dkh.

Should I lower the pH more to get a higher dkh effluent, and then slow down the Kamoer pump into the sump? My overall tank pH has taken an understandable hit, so if I can get the pH a little lower but double the dkh and cut the amount of effluent flowing into the sump -- should that help keep Alk/Cal/Mag the same, but not crush pH so much?

Thanks for helping me get this thing fine-tuned!

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hey gang -- Calcium Reactor tuning question for you. I just got the guts to set mine up after months and months of fear and delay. I was dosing 425mL of Alk and 410mL of Cal every day...yikes.

New setup:

• Geo CR818 Reactor + Secondary Chamber -- filled with ARM Extra Coarse media, and regular Coarse media in the 2nd chamber
• Kamoer continuous dosing pump set to 60mL/min
• New Carbondoser CO2 regulator; about 11 on the pressure, and 3 seconds between bubbles

I've gotten my Alk/Cal/Mag readings fairly even (9, 440, 1415) but the effluent is only about 18 dkh. The pH on my Milwaukee probe/controller shows 6.2 -- and the probe is accurately calibrated. I don't really care what the dissolving pH is -- ARM is a little tougher, but I am scratching my head about the effluent dkh.

Should I lower the pH more to get a higher dkh effluent, and then slow down the Kamoer pump into the sump? My overall tank pH has taken an understandable hit, so if I can get the pH a little lower but double the dkh and cut the amount of effluent flowing into the sump -- should that help keep Alk/Cal/Mag the same, but not crush pH so much?

Thanks for helping me get this thing fine-tuned!

You can CC lower ph slightly although I keep mine at 6.5

 

[Blue Tang Clan]

You can CC lower ph slightly although I keep mine at 6.5

What did you mean by "CC"?

Since every system is different, I've been advised by the OGs in the hobby to focus on getting the effluent to 20-30dkh -- and ignore the more subjective pH measurements since reactors, media, display pH, etc. are all different from tank to tank.

If I wanted to get closer to a 25dkh from 18dkh right now, but still maintain the Alk/Cal/Mag levels that I'm getting in my display, would the best bet be to decrease time between bubbles to lower the pH a little more - dissolving more media, but raising the effluent dkh AND then reducing the Kamoer pump speed to dose less into the tank? @jda - you've got this stuff down pretty well -- any thoughts for my setup?

 

[vetteguy53081]

What did you mean by "CC"?

Since every system is different, I've been advised by the OGs in the hobby to focus on getting the effluent to 20-30dkh -- and ignore the more subjective pH measurements since reactors, media, display pH, etc. are all different from tank to tank.

If I wanted to get closer to a 25dkh from 18dkh right now, but still maintain the Alk/Cal/Mag levels that I'm getting in my display, would the best bet be to decrease time between bubbles to lower the pH a little more - dissolving more media, but raising the effluent dkh AND then reducing the Kamoer pump speed to dose less into the tank? @jda - you've got this stuff down pretty well -- any thoughts for my setup?

CC is my stupid phone. Omit that

 

[lubeck]

Great thread!!! How do you like the blues?

 

[Blue Tang Clan]

Great thread!!! How do you like the blues?

The Blues are really solid - and there are enough warm white diodes to get a diverse color spectrum during the day. They put out a lot of heat and they are kind of noisy at times. While I am happy with them, I think the Neptune Sky lights were absolutely on par (ha!) with the Radions - and the overall physical design was better. Bigger light, dual fans that run all the time but at lower RPMs so the lights stay cool and there is no noise at all.

If Neptune came out with a Sky v2, I would be tempted to switch back. It is a highly underrated light - mainly because it hasn't been around anywhere near as long as the Gen1-5 Radions.

 

[slr]

And, I picked up a little bit of salt today: $19.99 for Instant Ocean and $29.99 for Reef Crystals. Petsmart had some silly deals going on and I cleared out the remaining stock in my county

Great deal

 

[slr]

Im lurking at

I'm lurking at every pepco now

 

[Blue Tang Clan]

Life has been busy, but the fish and corals are doing well.

 

[JumboShrimp]

Very very, very pretty.

 

[RICKY81]

what was used for this backwall? Do you paint over it?

 

[Blue Tang Clan]

That’s not my tank. But it is pretty.

 

[Blue Tang Clan]

New frag tank going in. It's really just a big hydroponics tub, and it's a lot bigger than the picture indicates. Full dimensions are 84" x 34" x 12"

The stand was hard to build solo because you need 4 hands for this sort of thing, but I got it worked out. Now to get it plumbed and get some frags in there!

66" AI Blade Grow and Glow lights, and I'm going to add a Kessil 360X to one of the sides where I'll have SPS.

 

[Blue Tang Clan]

Also, I have two new/sealed XR30 Radion G5 Blue lights if anyone needs some. I currently have 12 over my tanks and don't need the last two I ordered. $629 (1) or $1229 for both.

 

[Blue Tang Clan]

The 7' frag tank is looking good. I wrapped the 2x4 construction in some PVC from Home Depot and it turned out pretty well. I'm still using my two 60G frag tanks to grow out larger corals.

For lighting, I tried out the AI Blades (66" version" in a Grow-Glow-Glow configuration, with short supplemental Grow Blades on the SPS side of the tank. As everyone else has mentioned --- even par distribution and more power than you'd expect

 

[Zaireguy]

may i ask where you got the frag tub?