BackbayReef’s 550gal: angels, tangs, and acros!

[backbayreef]

Bought some replacement filter rollers from https://preconfilter.com/ to try out first. It’s essentially 60-70% cheaper than Deltec. Steve is a very cool guy - highly recommended.

The rolls come in 2” inner diameter and the Deltec is 3”. Below is the 3D printed cylinder to hold the filter roll.

 

[backbayreef]

Actually I was able to order 75yd rollers since I’m lazy to swap rollers. I can technically go 100yds but possibly wear out the motor sooner so I’ll stick with 75yd rollers as a happy compromise.

 

[backbayreef]

Well - I've been struggling with growth lately, even mushrooms stopped growing! I've sent in for an ICP test so will see what comes back next week.

 

[backbayreef]

Quick update- sent for ICP and detected some metals (tungsten). The canopy’s hinges corroded so likely that’s our culprit. They have been replaced so will see how things go.

 

[backbayreef]

Got bored so asked my son to 3D print some mini-Tridents. ;)

 

[lubeck]

Got bored so asked my son to 3D print some mini-Tridents. ;)

That’s sweet. Looks super clean

 

[MegabiteOG]

Got bored so asked my son to 3D print some mini-Tridents. ;)

They look great! Did he design or pick the file off Maker's world or somewhere else. I've been considering doing the same.

 

[YSreef]

Wow

 

[backbayreef]

They look great! Did he design or pick the file off Maker's world or somewhere else. I've been considering doing the same.

Downloadable - he didn’t make his own. We have AMS so can print whatever color we light. I chose the red & white color to match the rest of the tank.

It’s way better than the stock Trident since you have direct access to the internals and super easy to replace / swap reagents.

You should definitely do it. No tools required to disassemble the old one and install the new one.

 

[backbayreef]

@X-37B fyi, I’ve been struggling to reduce NO3 down to the teens again. With carbon dosing, I’m PO4 deprived to it’s a balancing act. You shut down your sulfur denitrator right?

I’m going to fire up and restart mine since it’s kinda painful to reduce NO3 with such a big tank. The little tanks (sub 150gal) are doing great with carbon dosing.

 

[X-37B]

@X-37B fyi, I’ve been struggling to reduce NO3 down to the teens again. With carbon dosing, I’m PO4 deprived to it’s a balancing act. You shut down your sulfur denitrator right?

I’m going to fire up and restart mine since it’s kinda painful to reduce NO3 with such a big tank. The little tanks (sub 150gal) are doing great with carbon dosing.

I have been dosing vodka. When I took the sulfer reactor offline no3 climbed to 26. I was up to 20ml a day and as it dropped I reduced and am running 8ml to keep no3 around 5.
With the no3 reactor offline and running kalk @ 3.5mlm my night ph went from 7.6 to 8 and a hogh of 8.3 in my 150.

 

[backbayreef]

I have been dosing vodka. When I took the sulfer reactor offline no3 climbed to 26. I was up to 20ml a day and as it dropped I reduced and am running 8ml to keep no3 around 5.
With the no3 reactor offline and running kalk @ 3.5mlm my night ph went from 7.6 to 8 and a hogh of 8.3 in my 150.

My 150gal is doing the same thing- vodka keeps NO3 to under 15ppm but I can’t seem to break past 30ppm with this tank. The bioload on this tank is 10x of the 150gal! If I increase vodka to 70mL, I will get this nasty bacteria film all over the sump, going down to 30mL is the best I can do. Therefore, I’m buying more sulfur to restart. I threw away my old media since I thought I’ll never do sulfur denitrator again - never say never! lol

 

[marcus aurelius]

Well done. I like it.

 

[backbayreef]

So…we are back online!

I can’t get the Apex to read negative ORP though. Will try to figure out tomorrow…

 

[backbayreef]

We’re running at 10mL/min and ORP is -86mV. I believe the sweet spot is -200mV so hope to land there by tomorrow and then we’ll increase flow. My hope is that we’ll start seeing a lower nitrate through the effluent by next week.

It is too bad that the Apex is dumb — it would be cool to set the alarm at -250mV. It would be even better to tell the Kamoer to increase flow based on hitting this value though. Wishing for one of these days…

 

[backbayreef]

Got it to work - I’m such an idiot! Perhaps it was late last night but I’ve enabled the wrong ORP port since there were 2 PM1 modules!$&@

ORP is at +100mV for now. Need to drive slower, like 2mL/min.

Edit: altered the Apex to alert when ORP gets below zero to flip the polarity. Goal is to land at around -150mV.

 

[backbayreef]

Ok - this won’t take long. We’ve already hit zero in an hour! lol

I’ve named it NegORP (Negative ORP) since the stupid Apex can’t read negative ORP. By reversing the polarity of the probe, what we will see here will be inverse, or negative. Will see how things go at 2mL.

 

[backbayreef]

We’re truly at -188mV ORP so time to increase flow; otherwise will create Hydrogen Sulfide.

 

[backbayreef]

Well - nitrate came down from 68ppm to 35ppm. It’s very easy to do this with a Kamoer pulling water, prevent clogging. The challenge is to keep it under 10ppm without bottoming out! That will definitely require some tuning.

PO4 is high but will come down to sub 0.10 by next week. I’m dosing 20mL/day of Phosphate-E.

 

[backbayreef]

Autopilot mode — NO3 is hovering around 15ppm’ish. I’m super happy with the sulfur denitrator. Let’s hope it will stabilize for months without any tuning.