CMO - man usually we talk about 'The Tank' but man that Sump Area Rocks to the Max! Great layout, really dig the 'Electro cabinet area' for the controllers and the cables behind! By the way your Tank looks great as well.
CMO's SPS Dominant 165G Mixed Reef Build (Triton)
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H2Ocooled
Active Member
Your setup I amazing, I'm just getting back into the hobby after a 6 year break and I'm starting on a full Triton setup. What are you dosing in your system to keep the PO4 and NO3 up? Thank you!
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CMO
Valuable Member
Thank you!CMO - man usually we talk about 'The Tank' but man that Sump Area Rocks to the Max! Great layout, really dig the 'Electro cabinet area' for the controllers and the cables behind! By the way your Tank looks great as well.
Thank you! I came back from a long hiatus with this tank as well. I'm dosing NeoPhos and NeoNitrate from Brightwell.
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CMO
Valuable Member
Well, I learned a very expensive lesson changing out my T5 bulbs which resulted in some of the first corals losses in my system to date. I changed out only 2 bulbs at a time to limit the shock but I think where I went wrong was trying to do the burn in over my tank. I usually do a long ramp up and ramp down with my T5s but changed that to 100% power without ramp up and down for the 6 day burn in. Over this time I lost my long establish Margarita Hammer and Koji Wada Pink Nepthea (which was growing like a weed!), in addition to my new super nice Trachy brain coral. Lesson learned!
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Itsander
Community Member
Great system, nothing like kessil, my cheeto grows like weed with that light, congratilationsArid has been removed and replaced with a traditional refugium with Kessil grow light. My fuge is about 6% of my display volume so undersized from Tritons 10% recommendation. I also re-routed the dosing lines to dose into the filter sock area (I'm not running socks) so the algae fuge in the 1st chamber has first exposure to dosed elements as recommended by Triton. For my setup I find a traditional fuge will be easier to manage than the Arid that was needing drained at least weekly to remove detritus.
A few weeks later... great results with the Kessil!
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CMO
Valuable Member
Thanks! I was supper close to pulling the trigger on a CA reactor but things just track so well with Core 7 it's hard for me to switch. I'm worried that I'll be needing to do a whole lot more element tweaking with a CA reactor without water changes on a regular basis and don't love the idea. My Core 7 usage has finally stabilized and somewhat reasonable so as long as it doesn't get crazy high I'll probably just keep going with Core 7 on this tank. I'd also have to manually dose for the fuge with a reactor which sounds like a pain.
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CMO
Valuable Member
Yup, I have a flow meter on the return. I'm only getting about 625 gph at full power on my Varios 8 (plumbing is very restrictive with the small cad lights bulkheads and return plumbing) which is pretty darn low for Triton but everything still works very well. I have a gyre in the fuge and a small power head in my return chamber for added flow to keep detritus suspended which works very well.
Thanks, I am running a Varios 8 on my system and my flow meter reads at 780. I have it set fairly low (level 2) and was wondering if I should turn it up a notch, next step is like 960. I have a second varios 6 that runs a my manifold and helps to circulate the sump.
I was just curious what you were running since it seems to be working well for you.
Thanks again
J
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CMO
Valuable Member
A few more updates to sump / dosing from original setup. My Triton dosing on this tank is pretty significant at this point so larger dosing containers were needed (100 ml per day of each solution). I had custom reservoirs made by Advanced Acrylics that hold 10L in each chamber in addition to a smaller supplement dosing container for thinks like NO3, PO4, Acro Power etc. Both reservoirs have 2 connections in each chamber for use on my display and frag tank.
I also added a Trident to the tank a few months back and have it managing my Alk dosing automatically which is working out really well. Tridents and dosing containers are in fish / frag room behind tank now for additional space.
I also added a Trident to the tank a few months back and have it managing my Alk dosing automatically which is working out really well. Tridents and dosing containers are in fish / frag room behind tank now for additional space.
Javamahn
Active Member
Nice Job CMO. I am revising my Nutrient dosing as well. Moving from brightwell to a DIY KNO3 for Nitrates and K2HPO4 for Phosphate dosing. I am struggling with color and cyano right now because of NO3 ~1.0 and PO4 ~0.01. FYI Greenleaf Aquariums has high grade fertilizers at great prices used in planted aquariums. You can calculate your own solution concentrations. What are you keeping NO3 and PO4 at now? Your colors look amazing.
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CMO
Valuable Member
Thanks! Yeah I think I'm going to switch to something like that too now since I go through so much of it. Thanks for the reference. I run NO3 about 1-3 ppm and target PO4 of about .05 but it typically fluctuates between .02 and .10 (I mostly control PO4 with fuge light cycle length).
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CMO
Valuable Member
Finally getting the hang of reef photography so here are some of my SPS collection in the display. All photos are unedited. Blue photos were taken with an orange filter. All grown from frags in this tank using Triton from day 1. Total water changes to date have been only two 20-30% in nearly 2 years now. Triton works, don't let anyone tell you otherwise...
BC Rainbow Brite:
BC Morning Star:
ASD Rainbow Milli:
No Name Austera:
BC Chemical Bomb:
Dales Purple Unknown:
Pink Lemonade:
Farmers Red Robin:
Vivid Confetti:
RR Excalibur Milli:
Fox Flame:
Baby Walt Disney:
No Name Purple Tort:
BC Space Laser:
Green Slimer:
PC Rainbow:
BC Ken Berry and Baby Home Wrecker:
Matt V Jelly Bean:
BC Secale:
BC Rainbow Brite:
BC Morning Star:
ASD Rainbow Milli:
No Name Austera:
BC Chemical Bomb:
Dales Purple Unknown:
Pink Lemonade:
Farmers Red Robin:
Vivid Confetti:
RR Excalibur Milli:
Fox Flame:
Baby Walt Disney:
No Name Purple Tort:
BC Space Laser:
Green Slimer:
PC Rainbow:
BC Ken Berry and Baby Home Wrecker:
Matt V Jelly Bean:
BC Secale:
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CMO
Valuable Member
Well folks, this will be the last installment of CMO's 165g as I have made the tough decision to take down the display for now. However, I'm not getting out, just getting in a little deeper. I'm currently focusing on building out an aquaculture facility as a local hobby business in Orange County and once that settles down will rebuild a display bigger and better to replace this one.
This has been the most successful reef I have ever had thanks to Triton - @Julian@Triton. I see so many people dosing endless amounts of supplements to achieve the colors Triton will give you without much of any additional supplements (besides maybe some aminos and nutrient dosing if needed). This tank had precisely two 20-30% water changes in the 2 years it was running and I have no doubt it would have continued to thrive with limited maintenance. All grown from frags with Triton from day 1 and clean dry rock to start. Needless to say, my next tank will be run on Triton as will my aquaculture facility...
As of 12/3/2019
/
This has been the most successful reef I have ever had thanks to Triton - @Julian@Triton. I see so many people dosing endless amounts of supplements to achieve the colors Triton will give you without much of any additional supplements (besides maybe some aminos and nutrient dosing if needed). This tank had precisely two 20-30% water changes in the 2 years it was running and I have no doubt it would have continued to thrive with limited maintenance. All grown from frags with Triton from day 1 and clean dry rock to start. Needless to say, my next tank will be run on Triton as will my aquaculture facility...
As of 12/3/2019
/
Scurvy
Pirate Reefer
Can't belive I just found the thread and you're going to be making a change. Very well done and I'll look forward to whats next!A few more updates to sump / dosing from original setup. My Triton dosing on this tank is pretty significant at this point so larger dosing containers were needed (100 ml per day of each solution). I had custom reservoirs made by Advanced Acrylics that hold 10L in each chamber in addition to a smaller supplement dosing container for thinks like NO3, PO4, Acro Power etc. Both reservoirs have 2 connections in each chamber for use on my display and frag tank.
I also added a Trident to the tank a few months back and have it managing my Alk dosing automatically which is working out really well. Tridents and dosing containers are in fish / frag room behind tank now for additional space.
My Triton setup (1st Run at SPS Dom) just cleared a year old. Still learning of course and seeing moderate success. I was finally able to snag a Trident last week and have been reading conflicting reports on Triton elements dosing simultaniously when the DOS was controlled via the Trident reading. Did you have to do anything outside the norm to get that working for you with any offsets in dosing schedule?
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CMO
Valuable Member
Thanks! The first year was definitely a leaning curve for me as well but year 2 things really took off so hopefully you will see the same. I was ultra concerned with the simultaneous dosing thing in the beginning as well but after trying all sorts of different dosing configurations I've arrived on the following for best combination of ease of management / precipitation concerns from simultaneous dosing. I have 2 dosing locations separated from one another, one location has Cal and Mag (Core 7 1/2) while the other location has my alk lines (Core 7 3a/b).
Since Cal and Mag don't change quickly I just have one staggered interval for each as follows to prevent interaction from simultaneous dosing from the same location.
For Alk, however, I dose continually throughout the day as shown below. The alk dosing lines are separated from the cal / mag lines to prevent interaction. I've done plenty of testing and you do not need a 5 min gap between dosing solutions if there is enough water flow / space between the lines (and your dose is sufficiently small per interval). You can see with my display setup that the lines are actually quite close but there is so little dosed at a time with this configuration it is immediately mixed and precipitation is not an issue (I've tested consumption rates with various spacing, staggering etc). If you are dosing a lot at once that would likely change things and be more of a concern (but the above schedule result in .7ml per dose which dilutes very quickly). I have one of my alk heads setup to be auto controlled by the Trident with night / day differential dosing which works well.
Cal / mag on left and alk on right. There's a lot of water flowing through a very small space here that instantly mixes the very small doses with the above schedules.
This would be a preferred setup, however, with even more space between the solutions. Cal / mag on left and alk doses into the return.
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