Blitzkragz' 12ft 375g rimless peninsula with rotary drum filter build

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blitzkragz

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So it has been about a year since my build started. What an adventure it has been. Overall the journey has been worth it - having this slice of the ocean as the beating heart of our home has brought us so much enjoyment.

Probably the most difficult part of the experience so far was getting fish through quarantine. The results though are a tank I believe is completely free of fish disease.

Once out of quarantine, the survival rate of the fish in the display has been stellar. I lost two to jumping, and a few smaller fish like court jester gobies which I believe was from a lack of copepods in my system. Macrofauna is something I really want to work on (more on that later). Here is a stocking list so far:

3x pajama cardinals
6x threadfin cardinals
2x bangai cardinals
5x bluegreen chromis
3x normal firefish
1x helfrichi firefish
1x yellow tang
1x kole tang
1x hippo tang
1x red head solon fairy wrasse
1x Vermiculate leopard wrasse
1x yellow banded possum wrasse
1x melanarus wrasse
1x onyx clownfish
1x snow clownfish
1x normal clownfish
1x royal gramma
1x splendid dottyback
1x orchid dottyback
1x neon dottyback
1x striped blenny
1x starry blenny
1x yellowtail blenny
1x fang blenny
1x coral beauty
1x neon blue goby
1x sleeper banded goby
1x yellow prawn goby
3x cleaner shrimp
7x conches
Misc hermits & snails

As for corals, I have maybe 75+ frags, all from WWC, scattered throughout the tank. Being a noobie, of course I wanted some pulsing xenia and GSP. The xenia was given its own island and has exploded, and I have to say I really like it, it is mesmerizing to watch.

I have several pieces of euphilia that have been doing amazingly well. Also my zoas seem to be doing well too. Anything stony has been so-so. I really need to up my game as far as testing goes. The one confirmed death was an SPS frag. I plan to get a completely different sump, and anticipate some future instability so am going to take it easy on stocking any more corals soon.

The rotary drum filter has been an absolute dream as far as no maintenance goes, and has been working almost too well. At one point I started wondering why corals were looking pale, and used the Nyos nitrate test kit and saw my nitrates were virtually undetectable. I dosed some Loudwolf Sodium Nitrate to raise them to 5ppm, and everything seemed to color up after that.

For dosing I am doing around 2g/day of ato kalkwasser using IceCap Kalk Mixing Reactor, 5g/day automatic water change via a DOS.

Recently I have been seeing encroachment of what I think could be dinos on some rocks. But so far it does not seem to have affected any corals.

20200118_163020.jpg
20200118_163036.jpg
20200118_163054.jpg
20200118_163125.jpg
 

crusso1993

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So it has been about a year since my build started. What an adventure it has been. Overall the journey has been worth it - having this slice of the ocean as the beating heart of our home has brought us so much enjoyment.

Probably the most difficult part of the experience so far was getting fish through quarantine. The results though are a tank I believe is completely free of fish disease.

Once out of quarantine, the survival rate of the fish in the display has been stellar. I lost two to jumping, and a few smaller fish like court jester gobies which I believe was from a lack of copepods in my system. Macrofauna is something I really want to work on (more on that later). Here is a stocking list so far:

3x pajama cardinals
6x threadfin cardinals
2x bangai cardinals
5x bluegreen chromis
3x normal firefish
1x helfrichi firefish
1x yellow tang
1x kole tang
1x hippo tang
1x red head solon fairy wrasse
1x Vermiculate leopard wrasse
1x yellow banded possum wrasse
1x melanarus wrasse
1x onyx clownfish
1x snow clownfish
1x normal clownfish
1x royal gramma
1x splendid dottyback
1x orchid dottyback
1x neon dottyback
1x striped blenny
1x starry blenny
1x yellowtail blenny
1x fang blenny
1x coral beauty
1x neon blue goby
1x sleeper banded goby
1x yellow prawn goby
3x cleaner shrimp
7x conches
Misc hermits & snails

As for corals, I have maybe 75+ frags, all from WWC, scattered throughout the tank. Being a noobie, of course I wanted some pulsing xenia and GSP. The xenia was given its own island and has exploded, and I have to say I really like it, it is mesmerizing to watch.

I have several pieces of euphilia that have been doing amazingly well. Also my zoas seem to be doing well too. Anything stony has been so-so. I really need to up my game as far as testing goes. The one confirmed death was an SPS frag. I plan to get a completely different sump, and anticipate some future instability so am going to take it easy on stocking any more corals soon.

The rotary drum filter has been an absolute dream as far as no maintenance goes, and has been working almost too well. At one point I started wondering why corals were looking pale, and used the Nyos nitrate test kit and saw my nitrates were virtually undetectable. I dosed some Loudwolf Sodium Nitrate to raise them to 5ppm, and everything seemed to color up after that.

For dosing I am doing around 2g/day of ato kalkwasser using IceCap Kalk Mixing Reactor, 5g/day automatic water change via a DOS.

Recently I have been seeing encroachment of what I think could be dinos on some rocks. But so far it does not seem to have affected any corals.

20200118_163020.jpg
20200118_163036.jpg
20200118_163054.jpg
20200118_163125.jpg

I can't believe it's been a year already. Everything is looking great and I'm not surprised, in the least!

And what I really want to know is in how many other projects have you used the milling machine? ;)
 
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blitzkragz

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I can't believe it's been a year already. Everything is looking great and I'm not surprised, in the least!

And what I really want to know is in how many other projects have you used the milling machine? ;)
Thanks man! Yes it is crazy how time flies. The milling machine and lathe have come in handy so many times -- lots of small everyday things but nothing big (yet)!

The next big thing though is the new large sump I plan to implement. I just posted my thoughts on its design to its own thread looking for critique, if anyone would like to chime in on it.
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Baffles on sides of fuge should be black to avoid light in adjacent chambers.
There should be something to catch any Chaeto looking to escape to the pump.
Hard to read dimension on pump chamber, if it's 12" there will be about 12 gallons there, figuring a 9" water level. Enough???
 

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Im loving your build! I have a question about the rdf. Is the drum sealed to the wall so only water flows through the screen? Hows this work? Would love one but i couldnt afford this, may make a diy version. Also any idea what sort of injectors those are called to spray the screen? Thanks.
 

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Looks great
 
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blitzkragz

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Im loving your build! I have a question about the rdf. Is the drum sealed to the wall so only water flows through the screen? Hows this work? Would love one but i couldnt afford this, may make a diy version. Also any idea what sort of injectors those are called to spray the screen? Thanks.
Thanks! Were you able to see the video on post#116? I tried my best to show inside the drum in that video. It is sealed to the wall, yes, all water must pass through the screen. I am not sure what the spray nozzles are. They could be from some sort of irrigation system? They are all plastic as far as i can tell.
 
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Baffles on sides of fuge should be black to avoid light in adjacent chambers.
There should be something to catch any Chaeto looking to escape to the pump.
Hard to read dimension on pump chamber, if it's 12" there will be about 12 gallons there, figuring a 9" water level. Enough???
All great points, esp the Chaeto, I will add notes for the manufacturer to have teeth at the top before the return chamber. I had put 10" for the pump chamber, I measured the abyzz pump width and gave it a couple inches to spare.
 

Cory

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Thanks! Were you able to see the video on post#116? I tried my best to show inside the drum in that video. It is sealed to the wall, yes, all water must pass through the screen. I am not sure what the spray nozzles are. They could be from some sort of irrigation system? They are all plastic as far as i can tell.
Yes i seen that post you did an excellent job showing how it works. What i couldnt really see was how the drum spins against the wall. Is there a seal around the drum or just a tight fit.

About your new sump, i can only say use a different algae than chaeto. Chaeto trapps alot of detritus. May be beneficial or not. I have this red macroalgae that I love but im not sure what its called. Grows fast too and doesnt trap detritus much. Ah i think its called red graciliria.
 
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Yes i seen that post you did an excellent job showing how it works. What i couldnt really see was how the drum spins against the wall. Is there a seal around the drum or just a tight fit.

About your new sump, i can only say use a different algae than chaeto. Chaeto trapps alot of detritus. May be beneficial or not. I have this red macroalgae that I love but im not sure what its called. Grows fast too and doesnt trap detritus much. Ah i think its called red graciliria.
So there is what I guess you could call a flexible silicone rubber flap that lays flat tight against the frame of the drum, which creates a seal so the drum can spin but water cannot get through. You can see it at 1:07 in the video, it is kind of transparent and is affixed with the titanium screws you see spaced out there.

For the last couple months I have been using two of these special chaeto tumblers, and the chaeto stays quite clean when in them. But even without the tumbler, the sump has almost no detritus to catch because of the drum filter. A bigger issue is GHA growing over the chaeto, without the tumbler GHA takes over the chaeto quite quickly.

Having low nutrients, my main reason for growing algae at all is to help keep PH near 8.3 (i am also using the jumbo BRS co2 scrubber on my skimmer). I agree that the benefits of chaeto as a species seem limited. Growing pure GHA with the Kessil actually did a better job of keeping PH up, and was just as much maintenance.
 
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Cory

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So there is what I guess you could call a flexible silicone rubber flap that lays flat tight against the frame of the drum, which creates a seal so the drum can spin but water cannot get through. You can see it at 1:07 in the video, it is kind of transparent and is affixed with the titanium screws you see spaced out there.

For the last couple months I have been using two of these special chaeto tumblers, and the chaeto stays quite clean when in them. But even without the tumbler, the sump has almost no detritus to catch because of the drum filter. A bigger issue is GHA growing over the chaeto, without the tumbler GHA takes over the chaeto quite quickly.

Having low nutrients, my main reason for growing algae at all is to help keep PH near 8.3 (i am also using the jumbo BRS co2 scrubber on my skimmer). I agree that the benefits of chaeto as a species seem limited. Growing pure GHA with the Kessil actually did a better job of keeping PH up, and was just as much maintenance.
If you want to experiment you could try putting the chaeto in a bucket with saltwater and add some hydrogen peroxide. Let it sit for a while to kill the gha. The chaeto has bigger cells and is stronger against h202 than hair algae. Then just rinse it off with saltwater. I use to rinse my chaeto in tap water to get rid of detritus and it did fine that way. If you try the h2o2 you may have to experiment with the dose to not kill the chaeto but kill the hair algae. Thanks for the info on the rdf, makes sense now.
 

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If you want to experiment you could try putting the chaeto in a bucket with saltwater and add some hydrogen peroxide. Let it sit for a while to kill the gha. The chaeto has bigger cells and is stronger against h202 than hair algae. Then just rinse it off with saltwater. I use to rinse my chaeto in tap water to get rid of detritus and it did fine that way. If you try the h2o2 you may have to experiment with the dose to not kill the chaeto but kill the hair algae. Thanks for the info on the rdf, makes sense now.
Added to this be careful because h202 is also toxic to humans
 

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Awesome tank. Did I miss the part where you got white Kessil A360x's? I didn't think they make them in white.

[edit] nm, found it. You painted them white. I hope it holds up.
 
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If you want to experiment you could try putting the chaeto in a bucket with saltwater and add some hydrogen peroxide. Let it sit for a while to kill the gha. The chaeto has bigger cells and is stronger against h202 than hair algae. Then just rinse it off with saltwater. I use to rinse my chaeto in tap water to get rid of detritus and it did fine that way. If you try the h2o2 you may have to experiment with the dose to not kill the chaeto but kill the hair algae. Thanks for the info on the rdf, makes sense now.
That is a fascinating idea -- if i did it though I would want to follow a strict recipe. If I had a standard bottle of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide you can get at the drug store, how much of that would you add per gallon of saltwater, and then how long would you let it sit?
 
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