Aquachristik's Red Sea Reefer 170

[Aquachristik]

4 ml a day? That’s really really low! Not saying its wrong but If you have something like 35 gallons of water that’s adding 0.004dKH per day. I’m just starting kalk and adding 200 ml to 20 gallons and I don’t have any corals, I think Coraline is consuming some and I’m probably just precipitating some dKH so probably not right either. I’m trying to find the right amount to keep dKH constant, work in progress.
Starting slow is an excellent idea, so don’t take my comment as criticism, it just made me go double check my math to be sure I wasn’t doing something crazy.

Yeah it is low. I started Friday, dosing 5 ml a day, when my Alk was 8.6 dKH and tested Monday and got 8.9 dKH. So I dialed back on Monday to 4 ml a day. I'll test tomorrow and see how it is. So far I'm liking how my tank is transitioning from Reef Code A & B with Brightwell Aminos to Kalk and Acro Power. I don't test pH but I'd love to see that increase that comes with kalk.

 

[rishma]

Yeah it is low. I started Friday, dosing 5 ml a day, when my Alk was 8.6 dKH and tested Monday and got 8.9 dKH. So I dialed back on Monday to 4 ml a day. I'll test tomorrow and see how it is. So far I'm liking how my tank is transitioning from Reef Code A & B with Brightwell Aminos to Kalk and Acro Power. I don't test pH but I'd love to see that increase that comes with kalk.

Using a Hanna checker? I don’t think the math would support that your 0.3 dKH change came from the kalk, BUT you are just fine on alkalinity so I would have done the same as you.

I have a pH meter and kalk definitely maintains the pH in my tank when lights are off. Makes a big difference, and was the main reason I started dosing at 50ml per night. I have no corals yet, but Coraline is growing, and I didn’t test for 10 days because I figured it wouldnt really change much. My Alk went from 8.3 to 6.8. I was shocked. I corrected my parameters and now I’m dosing 200 ml at night. I need another 4 days or so to see if I’m keeping it stable around 8.5.

 

[Aquachristik]

The latest! It's been filling in nicely I think.

Added a cooling fan to the display to keep the temps down in this hot Miami weather. I used to only run certain pumps or the skimmer at night when the AC was kicking. Now I can run them whenever, the tiny fan does a great job Colling the tank down. Connected to the InkBird in the cool slot it works like a dream alongside the BRS heater.

Kalkwasser is working great!

Dosing Vibrant to get rid of some hair algae (doesn't seem to be working). Used some hydrogen peroxide yesterday that doesn't seem to have done much, though I have had success with it in the past. Maybe the solution got water in it. I'll have to try again later this week.

Dosed chemiclean last week and it worked great against the bits of cyano.

Added chaeto to the refugium alongside the sea lettuce.

Fallow period for the velvet is finally over. Hoping to get a tiny Tomini tang soon to help with the hair algae.

Tank is hitting it's stride!

 

[rishma]

The latest! It's been filling in nicely I think.

Added a cooling fan to the display to keep the temps down in this hot Miami weather. I used to only run certain pumps or the skimmer at night when the AC was kicking. Now I can run them whenever, the tiny fan does a great job Colling the tank down. Connected to the InkBird in the cool slot it works like a dream alongside the BRS heater.

Kalkwasser is working great!

Dosing Vibrant to get rid of some hair algae (doesn't seem to be working). Used some hydrogen peroxide yesterday that doesn't seem to have done much, though I have had success with it in the past. Maybe the solution got water in it. I'll have to try again later this week.

Dosed chemiclean last week and it worked great against the bits of cyano.

Added chaeto to the refugium alongside the sea lettuce.

Fallow period for the velvet is finally over. Hoping to get a tiny Tomini tang soon to help with the hair algae.

Tank is hitting it's stride!

Looking so good. Congrats. Certainly cannot see any algae issues in your pic.

I tried vibrant on a previous tank and it didn’t fix my hair algae issue. Not bashing the product at all, many people have great results, so stick with it and be patient. Some people have success dosing peroxide to the tank, I never tried it, but I have pulled rocks out and killed the hair algae with peroxide. Following that with aggressive phosphate control worked for me. The trick for me was maintaining ultra low (not zero) phosphate over a period of a couple months with daily testing to be sure I didn’t strip it all out. That seemed to beat the hair algae back and snails, crabs and fish took care of the rest. It challenged my patience but ultimately worked. Once rocks were covered in Coraline algae it seemed like hair algae could not come back even when I got more lax in my nutrients.

cooling fans are remarkably effective!

 

[Aquachristik]

Sumpdate!

Got nitrates solid at 9 ppm thanks to the Brightwell NeoNitro.

Added chaeto along with the sea lettuce and it's got my phosphates under control nicely.

Added a check valve to the return line. Now I can feed and turn off the return pump without a problem. Before I had to pull the outflow nozzles out of the water to break the siphon. I like doing this so that I don't dirty the filter socks needlessly with food that could be eaten by the inhabitants.

 

[rishma]

Sumpdate!

Got nitrates solid at 9 ppm thanks to the Brightwell NeoNitro.

Added chaeto along with the sea lettuce and it's got my phosphates under control nicely.

Added a check valve to the return line. Now I can feed and turn off the return pump without a problem. Before I had to pull the outflow nozzles out of the water to break the siphon. I like doing this so that I don't dirty the filter socks needlessly with food that could be eaten by the inhabitants.

That looks excellent. Who makes the top-off reservoir?

 

[Aquachristik]

That looks excellent. Who makes the top-off reservoir?

Advanced Acrylics

It's a great piece of equipment. Fits like a glove and great quality.

 

[rishma]

Advanced Acrylics

It's a great piece of equipment. Fits like a glove and great quality.

Thanks. I thought so but have only seen theirs in black

 

[MrsBugmaster]

Plumbing done!

Upgraded to 1" red schedule 40 PVC from BRS (have a few 24" pieces left over if anyone needs them). Followed the thread on here about updating Red Sea plumbing from metric to standard. Used the metric adapters on all 3. Upgraded the return piping with a 1" spigot and black vinyl tubing to better fit the Sicce 3.5 pump. Replaced the diaphragm valve with a Spears gate valve.

Painted the bottom of the sump white and removed the factory ATO float valve assembly.

Next up is building a small cabinet on the sides to house controllers and electrical equipment.

I am wanting to hard plumb my reefer 170 return like this. Can you please tell me what plumbing parts to get for this? Links would be great help also. Thannks

 

[Nurse.Reef.Reapeat]

Plumbing done!

Upgraded to 1" red schedule 40 PVC from BRS (have a few 24" pieces left over if anyone needs them). Followed the thread on here about updating Red Sea plumbing from metric to standard. Used the metric adapters on all 3. Upgraded the return piping with a 1" spigot and black vinyl tubing to better fit the Sicce 3.5 pump. Replaced the diaphragm valve with a Spears gate valve.

Painted the bottom of the sump white and removed the factory ATO float valve assembly.

Next up is building a small cabinet on the sides to house controllers and electrical equipment.

Where did you get all your supplies for this upgrade? Might need to do that to mine.

 

[Nurse.Reef.Reapeat]

Got the leveling feet installed. Definitely better than having shims everywhere.

Is this the leveling feet that came with the reefer? Or a 3rd party one?

 

[Aquachristik]

Where did you get all your supplies for this upgrade? Might need to do that to mine.

Sorry for the late reply; not sure why I didn't see this before. The below thread is what I used to convert from Red Sea Plumbing to standard 1-inch PVC.

How To: Convert 32mm PVC pipe to 1" pipe. Red Sea plumbing used as an example.

One question that comes up allot is "How do I convert my metric plumbing to US spec?". Red Sea owners are always asking this. Here I will explain what Red Sea owners need to do to get a clean finish and conversion. Also the adapter I use can be used on any 32mm plumbing to convert it to 1"...

www.reef2reef.com

Also, the leveling feet are from Amazon.

 

[Aquachristik]

A bit of an update....

Good news: I bought a house!

Bad news: the house wasn't move-in ready, so I had to move the tank (nightmare) and not live with it for several months. Needless to say, the tank took a nosedive and, unfortunately, is a shell of what it used to be; not that it was a showstopper before

Luckily, it's back on track and doing really well (besides a cyano outbreak). The corals are looking awesome, and I've never seen my LPS so fat before (not indicative in this pic, trust me lol).

 

[Aquachristik]

Purchased the IceCap Algae Scrubber PRO Small (14 Watt) from BRS. I used to grow chaeto but wasn't getting the nutrient reduction I was looking for and had hair algae issues. I decided to take the plunge, and it's been great so far.

It took over a month to get the screen seeded with algae, but a nice thick culture has grown since. Needless to say, I am happy with the results so far. The unit fits in the sump pretty tightly, but removing the height-adjustable feet allowed it to fit.

The overall build quality of the unit is lacking. Some parts are too long or too big, and others don't fit like they should, but overall, the unit gets the job done. It just hurts to pay what it costs to feel like it was constructed in a hurry in someone's garage.

It is a simple unit, and I would recommend it to someone looking to get into the scrubber game, even considering the build quality.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

A bit of an update....

Good news: I bought a house!

Bad news: the house wasn't move-in ready, so I had to move the tank (nightmare) and not live with it for several months. Needless to say, the tank took a nosedive and, unfortunately, is a shell of what it used to be; not that it was a showstopper before

Luckily, it's back on track and doing really well (besides a cyano outbreak). The corals are looking awesome, and I've never seen my LPS so fat before (not indicative in this pic, trust me lol).

Tank is looking great!

 

[Aquachristik]

It's been a while! Lots has happened in the tank in the past several months. One huge thing was eliminating Brightwell Magnesium dosing, as I suspected the lack of purity contributed to the tank's algae growth. The magnesium container always had a brown residue and eventually began to grow brown gunk in the dosing container! Since switching to BRS Magnesium, the hair algae has been eliminated almost entirely. It really was a night and day difference; I was shocked at how quickly it turned around.

This prompted me to stop using Brightwell Reef Code A for calcium dosing, as it always precipitated even when mixed at the recommended concentration. I have no regrets about switching to BRS Calcium Chloride.

Since then, I sent in an ICP test to Fauna Marin and found that I had crazy high Iodine, elevated potassium, and elevated Zinc levels. Other micros were a bit depleted (nothing I'm really worrying about), so I began to dose 2 drops of Tropic Marin K+ and A- per day. That was after 2 large water changes and not dosing anything but macros for a week. I also changed out the carbon, hoping it would help lower any of the elevated elements.

I'm happy with the tank's turnaround in the past couple of months. I expect to send out an ICP in the next couple of months to see how things have settled while staying diligent with maintenance in the meantime.

The remodel of my home has kept me from adding any fish since moving the tank in and setting up the quarantine tank was out of the question. It's been months of just having 1 clown and 2 damsels in the tank. Needless to say, now that the remodel is almost complete I'll be able to setup the quarantine and add some new finned friends in the near future.

Here are some of the latest pics of the tank: