Brian's Red Sea Reefer 170 Build

[firedancer414]

Got the doser hooked up and my WXM module for the MP10. Need to program both. I don't really need to dose my dKH and calcium have been super steady because I don't have any corals.



Purple firefish acting scared



Full tank shot these days. The tank is super cloudy, with what looks increasingly like a bacterial bloom. Immature tank life. Compare to the full tank shot from March 26 2 weeks ago, water was super clear.



The pH didn't swing last night but my ORP hit an all time high. Nitrates testing at 0. So guess I just need to wait it out.



8pm yesterday - 8pm today:

 

[firedancer414]

Added an orange spotted goby pair and a pistol shrimp today.

 

[beachsider]

Can you take a pic of how you have your skimmer set up

 

[beachsider]

Scratch that. I see it now.

 

[firedancer414]

Another fun week of updates!

Tons of livestock, it's so alive now!

• Swimmers
  • 2 Ocellaris clowns
  • 2 Orange spotted gobies w/ red banded pistol shrimp (shrimp currently MIA)
  • 2 Purple firefish (one currently MIA - I think it's just scared)
  • 1 Green chromis
  • 1 Midas blenny
• Inverts
  • 1 fire shrimp
  • 1 cleaner shrimp
  • ~10 hermits, ~15 snails

Feeding time!



Got through the massive algae bloom that developed when I was traveling. Turned off the lights for a week and added a bag of carbon, came back from traveling for 10 days and it was gone. Just the new tank things!

I'm now planning an SPS dominant tank, with some zoas on islands in the bottom and maybe a cool acan + torch LPS. So my parameters that I'm hoping to hold are
Salinity [35ppm] / Calcium [430ppm] / Alkalinity [8] / Magnesium [1280ppm]

Starting to dial in my dosing. Have been doing daily alk testing with my Hanna tester. The tank was consuming ~0.1 dKH / day. I started dosing on 4/23, and have been steadily raising the alk (targeting 8).




Getting the GHL Doser set up to Wifi was super frustrating, it was clearly intended to be done with USB and a Windows machine. I had to install Parallels on a Mac and it was super fussy. Instructions really unclear tons of Googling. It took me ~4 hours of fussing with it, and I dosed an arbitrary (~1-3 mL) of each Triton reagent as I was setting it up.

I moved my Apex probes out of the refugium and into the return area, and the salinity was really different (~10%, eg. 1.022 -> 1.025 spg). That was a bit surprising.

Had a spare firepad floating around, and now have a touchscreen dash for the tank.



I bought a quarantine setup at Petco for my corals that I'm really unsure I want to use. If I'm going to be buying from WWC/Battlecorals/Austin Aqua Farms, sort of hoping that I could get by with just CoralRX/Bayer dips. I'm worried that I don't have the time to maintain two tanks, especially if one needs manual dosing + care.

I ended up keeping the Vortech and getting the wireless module. It's really really nice having it on a schedule now, and being able to dial it way back at night so the fish can sleep.

 

[SoundwaveOiA]

that's one impressive setup you got there! I was thinking of using a tunze 9004dc skimmer aswell but hanging it in the tank next to the overflow. Ofcourse that would be a bit of an eyesore...you have it now in the back area, is it easy to reach and is the water level high enough there standard without modifying the sump to house the 9004?

anyway great job! I'll be folllowing your triton journey with a lot of interest

 

[firedancer414]

that's one impressive setup you got there! I was thinking of using a tunze 9004dc skimmer aswell but hanging it in the tank next to the overflow. Ofcourse that would be a bit of an eyesore...you have it now in the back area, is it easy to reach and is the water level high enough there standard without modifying the sump to house the 9004?

anyway great job! I'll be folllowing your triton journey with a lot of interest

Hi - thanks!

I love the skimmer. I adjusted the water level in the "main" sump area for the refugium for more water volume, but didn't change the height in the back compartment and it's fine.

I wouldn't describe it as "easy" to reach, or "hard" to reach =) The biggest pain is getting your head around the H380 hanging in the middle of the tank.

I'm very happy with its placement back there.

 

[firedancer414]

Decided to go for it and set up a small 10G coral quarantine tank. Using a 10G setup with a hood, heater, and power filter from Top Fin, ~$50. It came with a hood, which I'm hoping will help some evaporation/stability. I added a Tunze NanoStream 6015 to get some flow, set the cheap 50W heater that came with the kit to 76, and added a 25W NeoTherm I had lying around to 78. Built some frag racks out of egg crate I had lying around. Added a block of MarinePure from the display to get the cycle going (although I don't have a source of ammonia, and I'm not sure if I want to add it? Since there never will be a source of ammonia?

I need to get some blue strip lights to add since this will carry some SPS frags.



In a closet in my office



Planning to order corals this week! Initially flooded my display about 2.5 months ago.

 

[Hughesy]

Hi there, love your build and am in the process of setting up a 170 myself.

Thank you for sharing the baffle design - I can see you've removed one of the walls but how were they previously fixed together, was it just a silicon join? Was anything else used to secure it in place in the sump? Did it raise the water level within that area of the sump?

Thanks again and keep up the great work work, look forward to seeing how this one progresses.

 

[firedancer414]

Hi there, love your build and am in the process of setting up a 170 myself.

Thank you for sharing the baffle design - I can see you've removed one of the walls but how were they previously fixed together, was it just a silicon join? Was anything else used to secure it in place in the sump? Did it raise the water level within that area of the sump?

Thanks again and keep up the great work work, look forward to seeing how this one progresses.

Hi Hughesy - yeah so I just needed the large wall in front of the bubble trap, so the entire "front" of the sump would serve as the refugium. It did raise the water level in that compartment as high as I thought it could go (I think from 7" -> 8"), since I removed the filter sock.

I drained the sump while it was cycling, and yes just used some silicone.

I need to update the first post on this thread to more accurately portray the state of the sump!

Brian

 

[firedancer414]

Got a couple of zoa frags from a local fish store, yay! A WWC Twizzler, WWC Blondie, and a Fiji Rainbow.

I can see tons of hitchhikers and other crap on them, boo. Guess that's why I have the quarantine. Wish me luck with dipping.

Tiny sea star

Spider

 

[firedancer414]

So, post-dip. Found it to be a bit horrifying, TBH. Used 5 min Coral RX (5 mL in 1 L tank water), followed by 15 min Bayer (40 mL in 1 L tank water), two rinses, and into the quarantine for at least a month maybe 2. Had a turkey baster so blowing off as many pests as possible.

Soooo many nudes, sort of horrifying, left in the CoralRX dip

All closed up and in the quarantine. Not sure what next steps are. Guess because of all the nudes I should dip once a week for the next month, because eggs? Thoughts?

Should I be disappointed with the LFS? Is that a normal # of nudes, etc.?

 

[firedancer414]

Good news was they opened a few hours later, even under my ridiculous Home Depot LED strip lighting

Left to right, Fiji Rainbow, WWC Blondie, and WWC Twizzlers.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

I would definitely dip again, but maybe not that soon. I would wait a week so that you don't stress the corals to much. I'm not sure how long after hatching that a nudi can lay eggs. I would want to dip before the hatchlings could reproduce.

 

[firedancer414]

Big order from WWC came in today. So exciting to see the quarantine in my office filling up! Everything is open and happy.

Lastly need to get a bunch of acros. Trying to decide between getting a Battle Box, Acan pack from WWC, or trying to pick and choose. There are just so many I find it very overwhelming.

 

[Hazenight]

nice frags

 

[firedancer414]

Got a ton of things in the quarantine, things are growing and it's sucking down alk like crazy and little bits of growth! Dosing 1 mL of Triton a day to it.




Some macro shots - Jason Fox Seriatopora





Rainbow acan from the LFS





Jason Fox Cry Babies





WWC Grape Watermelon Chalice



Some of the acros aren't really opening but basically everything else is doing great. One of the acans got stung and two of the polyps - sections of them turned bright white. I cut them off. Have some hair algae (really apparent on the macro of the chalice). Also have some small feather duster worms that have appeared (also pretty apparent on the right side of the base of the chalice) that I think would be OK in the display?

2 more weeks until the first group of corals hit 45 days and I plan to move them over to the display. Exciting!

 

[firedancer414]

"Unhappy" acros? I don't know enough about them to know if this is good polyp extension for my quarantine.

WWC Christmas Mirabilis Acro





WWC Grizzly Adams





ORA Kelly Green Psammocora just because it looks cool =)




WWC Firepower Chalice with feather duster worm in macro on bottom left.

 

[firedancer414]

Just realized that the Grizzly Adams _is_ really doing poorly - it's got burnt tips. I swung the alk in my QT tank pretty aggressively in prep of some travel (one day 7.8 -> 8.7, next day 8.4 -> 9.3) and it looks like it took its toll on this acro. Some of the others have been affected but not nearly this much. Alk currently sitting at 8.4 in the QT and going down 0.25 / day. Will keep observing. Oops.

Looking back at some older pictures - realized the burn has been going on for some time I just didn't know to look for it. Another learning I've had - I have been using Red Sea black bucket as a salt mix and have constantly been fighting some of the insane (11 dKH) alk it has. I was still in the 9s when I added this to my QT. In retrospect, should have been using blue bucket and will make the switch at some point. For all the BRSTV I watch, never realized that there was a such thing as alk burn.

Otherwise - any advice?

 

[Mattrg02]

Sorry to see the damage was done. Only thing you can do is learn from your mistake, and try again. This is an expensive hobby that is very hard to quit. I’ve also got a new Red Sea reefer 170 setup, glad to see some other new ones. It’s an outstanding tank!

As for the high dkh in the your mix, you can drop it using some HCL and then letting the water aerate until pH comes back up. I use about 1/2mL per 4G of water if my dkh is over 9.