DarkReefer's CADE Reef S2 1800

[JonoH]

Starting to see some kind of algae or bacteria forming on the sand today. I was enjoying the nice clean sand too haha. Oh well, it was a given it would happen.

Did another round of testing also. Happy enough with the levels.
Temp - 25deg celcius
pH 8.1
Ammo 0
Nitrate 3
Phosphate 0.101
Salinity 1.025
Alk 7
Calcium 425
Magnesium 1320

Also added in my doser a couple of days ago and just let it continue at it's previous config.
Will monitor and see how it goes.

Nice! Mine had some algea on the sand for a week then it cleared up!

 

[DarkReefer]

Nice! Mine had some algea on the sand for a week then it cleared up!

lol I hope mine disappears as quickly but I doubt it.
Really should do a bit of a waterchange too...

 

[rsaltzmann]

I just got a delivery notification for my 1800 this week. I have been trying to plan out equipment and space. I have a few questions if there are any answers.

1. Can you fit the Red Sea Reefmat 1200 in the sump section next to the Socks? I really dont want to remove any glass.
2.Can I run a second pump to a UV and then to the return manifold (designated for Chiller). Is there space for a Varios 4 for the UV and Varios 8 in the return area?
3. I got 3 Radion XR15 pro G6 lights, but think I might not be enough.
4. I have a Reef Octopus Real 150-s Hope thats big enough.
5. I am using 2 Maxspect 350 Gyre Clouds for flow.

Using Hydros to run everything, wave engine, dosing, power distribution

Any other considerations I need to consider?

thanks, first reef tank and want to set it up right from the Beginning .

 

[DarkReefer]

I just got a delivery notification for my 1800 this week. I have been trying to plan out equipment and space. I have a few questions if there are any answers.

1. Can you fit the Red Sea Reefmat 1200 in the sump section next to the Socks? I really dont want to remove any glass.
2.Can I run a second pump to a UV and then to the return manifold (designated for Chiller). Is there space for a Varios 4 for the UV and Varios 8 in the return area?
3. I got 3 Radion XR15 pro G6 lights, but think I might not be enough.
4. I have a Reef Octopus Real 150-s Hope thats big enough.
5. I am using 2 Maxspect 350 Gyre Clouds for flow.

Using Hydros to run everything, wave engine, dosing, power distribution

Any other considerations I need to consider?

thanks, first reef tank and want to set it up right from the Beginning .

Congrats on your first tank !

In response to your questions I'll answer with best advice I can provide.

1. Check out cade's website for sump dimensions and also redseas reefmat website for product dimensions and you'll be able to check. I believe it should be okay. Worst case you just take out the removable baffle that's in that section and then you'll have plenty of space. I went for the clarisea so I could keep it the first sock section in case I wanted to use the 2nd area for cheato or something else.

2. Again you'll have to check sump dimensions and dimensions for each of the pumps you want. I've got the vectra 2 in there, and whilst I could potentially fit another (maybe?) it'd be a bit crowded. There's a number of sections you can connect chillers/UV too etc so you'll be able to work something out easily enough.

3. 3x will get you by for a while. 4 seemed 'right' for me, but I think 3 will do you okay initially.

4. I can't remember what these are rated too, just have a quick google/check of their website and it'll tell you what size tank or perhaps stocking they're suitable for.

5. Not familiar with those so unable to comment. I have the 4x mp40's and I could possibly get away with just 2x for a bit if I wanted but eventually as the tank grows in I'd need more so I just got them in the first place.

Only other suggestion would be to make sure you have the right fittings, hoses and clamps you need to get everything plumbed up. I didn't think of this too much when I was buying equipment so it meant I had to fumble around doing another order or two to finish it up.

 

[DarkReefer]

Quick Updates;

The gold tip elegance split from where it was fastened by one of the elastic bands. The piece is doing well after I plucked it from the tank and fastened it to another rock but looks like it might split again. I need to work out how the hell I can fasten these guys without losing them or splitting them. I love this coral but because it lost it's skeleton It's been impossible to keep other than in an isolation box which is ugly and I'm not about to do again in this tank. I think I'd tried glueing it before but because you're glueing the actual coral itself it doesn't really stick.

Purple tang developed ich over the past couple weeks. I've been using polyp labs medic to treat it (yes, yes.. it's just peroxide salts or whatever but it seemed to work previously for me so I'm trying it again). Was looking a bit average for a few days with quite a few small ones but I upped the dosage slightly and seems to have come good. Will continue to monitor whilst finishing the course of treatment (20 days in total I think for memory, so about 10 to go). Will then continue to monitor for another week or so afterward I think to see if it comes back. If it does I'll likely try hypo salinity with it and possibly.

Picked up another couple of corals on the weekend also, 2 lovely Goniopora, one purple which my gf loved and wanted, and I wanted the highlighter-ish one that seemed to have some black or very dark in it as well.
Had been to that LFS only once before, glad to have gone back as I got talking with the guy that runs that section (part of a pet store) and he seems to take some pride in what he does so I'll be eager to check it out again in future to see what stock he's brought in etc and it's fairly local too compared to one of the others I goto.

I've also been having issues with my Gen 3 Clarisea SK-5000. The controller was randomly turning off and I had to power cycle (waiting for over 1 minute) to get it to come back on and go live again, this seemed to correct it but was happening several times. Then it seemed to stop turning off and was working fine for a week or so up until Sunday morning when I woke up to it not in operation again and wouldn't restart after power cycle. Tried various power outlets to double check it wasn't the outlet that was dodgy but nothing.
After some back and forth with the store I bought it from, I took it in and left it there for testing. A couple hours later get a call that it was apparently a faulty controller I went back to pick it up and they have lent me a Gen 1 controller which they said worked and would allow me to continue using it in the interim, great.
Got it home and hooked it back up, worked fine for an hour-ish, but then started beeping at me. Still operates but continues to beep. I notified the store again and they believe it's still a controller issue and will be sourcing me the Gen 3 controller replacement and then we'll see if it's a motor issue after that.
Kind of thinking it's a motor issue personally if this other controller is beeping as well so I feel like we're just wasting time by not ordering one of those as well but we'll see. Fingers crossed it's sorted soon, getting tired of the continuous beeping.

ALSO, had an issue with my temp controller randomly going off and shooting an error msg 'app' - inkbird 306a I think it is. Couldn't find any info on this when I googled but seemed to artificially spike the temp reading and then settle down again, so I need to look into options here, thankfully it seems to be very intermittent currently. This one has lasted about 3 years, so I don't know if I just go another one or look for something a bit more expensive...

Finally did some testing for the first time in just over 2 weeks last night thanks to @JonoH for the reminder, a little lazy I know but everything's been looking alright apart from one coral, a leather that other than opening for the first few days has since stopped and has been closed up, it's possible the water isn't as dirty as it would like as Nitrates have been quite low compared to the previous tank (I'm sure they'll creep up again).

Temp - 26degrees celcius (usually keep it at 25 but it's been a bit muggy/warmish the past couple days and I haven't run the aircon to drop it down).
pH - 8.05
Nitrate - 5.7
Phosphate - 0.092
Salinity - 1.027 (This has crept slightly, but it should be sorted once I do a water change or 2).
Alkalinity - 6.8 (I like to keep this around 8 usually, so I've upped my dosage a little, looks like it's only dropped 0.2 in the past 2 weeks)
Calcium - 400 (I like to keep this around 430, so I've also upped dosage a little as it's dropped by 25 in the past 2 weeks)
Magnesium - 1260 (I like to aim for around 1320-1350 here so I've upped my dosage here also)

 

[JonoH]

Nice! Love the coral choices.
I have been looking at getting an Elegance for one of the darker corners of the tank, and i have a rock that will be dedicated to a flower garden.
There is a coral grower just around the corner for me that specialises in Goni's, so its just a matter of time!

 

[DarkReefer]

Update time!

So the Green Goni I put in isn't doing too well. Seems to be dying off from a couple of the edges. Not sure if the fish are doing it or something else. About a week ago I dipped it (along with a leather coral that hasn't come out for weeks) and doesn't really have seemed to change anything. Did get rid of half a dozen bristle worms from the two corals in total though.
Purple one has been doing well it seems though.

I bought another inkbird temp controller to replace the faulty one as the random beeps were doing my head in. Looks like the new one is a version 4 or something, so must've been revised somehow since previous one but seems to work well. Was within about .1 of the previous temp controller so I didn't bother to calibrate further.
So far it's been goin well.

Got the Clarisea roller controller replaced, and so far so good there. Fingers crossed it doesn't happen again.

Purple tang went into the tank over the weekend also. Got a separation box but after 2 days in it the fish didn't seem too fussed and weren't really going near the box all that much. So we let it go into the tank and it followed some fish around and I think some of the existing fish freaked out initially probably thinking 'what the heck did you come from?!' No issues so far thankfully, but still early days so will continue to monitor.

Tested last night again for the first time in a couple weeks but things seem pretty stable. I was very surprised how low my phosphates and nitrates were. These are always something I've battled or got used to having much higher but now I'm borderline zeroing out so I made sure to chuck a cube of brine shrimp in last night, that should hopefully keep it up slightly.

Temp - 25.3
pH - 8.0
Nitrate - 3.6
Phosphate - 0.015
Salinity - 1.027 - battling with this slightly, only ever put in water that's around 1.025 or slightly under but doesn't seem to be making a huge difference yet - will continue working at it to get it to drop a little
Alk - 6.8
Calcium - 425
Magnesium - 1275

 

[DarkReefer]

For something different I thought I'd do a quick review of a piece of equipment I purchased for the tank.

Having had the Flipper Float previously on my Waterbox 70.2 (which had the 12.7mm glass) that I really loved to use when I upgraded I went for the Flipper Edge Max and unfortunately I've been less than impressed with it.

The Flipper Float was enjoyable as it was fairly light weight so it felt effortless to use to clean the glass on that tank. The Edge Max however feels very hefty to use. I find that it doesn't glide as easily across the glass. It actually takes a some effort to move it around as you're cleaning.
It's possible this might feel better on 1" glass, but on the 19mm or 3/4" that mine has I'm not sure if the magnetic pull just makes it a bit more of a burden to move around the tank.

Not only is the effort required to use this an issue for me but, I've found that cleaning the sides of the tank is an utter pain as well with the MP40's. Because it's such a big bulky unit it doesn't fit nicely in certain places, the handle of the unit is so chunky that it's a little annoying to work around cables that I have for the MP40's also.

This wouldn't be so much of an issue having to buy another cleaner to do those areas perhaps, but as the unit costs nearly $200AUD it's by no means a cheap exercise for just something to scrape your glass or to scrape just the front panel only. If I didn't run my powerheads on the side of the tank this would be a non issue and I'd probably be relatively happy but as it costs $200 dollars and I still need to manually clean or find something else to do the job for my set up I can't help but feel disappointed or that it's not quite money well spent.

If you have equipment on the sides or front of your tank I wouldn't really recommend. If you're all clear then you should be fine, just know that it might take a bit more effort to use it than something like the Float.

If anyone has any other suggestions that might be worth looking at let me know and maybe I can try it out when I can finally bring myself to shelling out more $$.

 

[shadyraro]

I use the flipper float mostly but once a week I’ll use this stainless algae scraper, It works great and gets all the hard to reach areas the flipper can’t reach. It comes in 2 pieces that screw together to extend it.

 

[JonoH]

I use the flipper float mostly but once a week I’ll use this stainless algae scraper, It works great and gets all the hard to reach areas the flipper can’t reach. It comes in 2 pieces that screw together to extend it.

I use this same scraper (fairly cheap on Amazon AU), but also have the flipper float (the smaller one), and find it works well enough.

Had the same issue with the MP40's on the sides, and just actually moved them all onto the back wall instead and have been super happy with this move.

 

[DarkReefer]

I use the flipper float mostly but once a week I’ll use this stainless algae scraper, It works great and gets all the hard to reach areas the flipper can’t reach. It comes in 2 pieces that screw together to extend it.

Cheers for the suggestion, I'll have to look into it. May also try the float on the new tank as well to see how it goes once I get around to shutting down the old one and giving it a solid clean. Doubt the magnet will be strong enough but I'll see.

I use this same scraper (fairly cheap on Amazon AU), but also have the flipper float (the smaller one), and find it works well enough.

Had the same issue with the MP40's on the sides, and just actually moved them all onto the back wall instead and have been super happy with this move.

Yeah unfortunately because I'm using the rear chamber in my tank as an RO reservoir I can't get away with moving it to the rear otherwise I would as I'd rather have the clean sides.
Maybe one day in the future I'll run the RO separately but for now I'm leaving it as is. Lol

 

[DarkReefer]

It's been a minute so I thought I'd do an update (no pics this time unfortunately).

So all the fish are happy thankfully and enjoying the extra space.

I was having issues with getting my sand clean (I even tested it thinking it was dinos, but turned out to be just algae). I added about 4 Strombus snails (making 5 in total) and the sand is looking pretty much almost new now).

One of the rocks (from the old tank) is covered on GHA. I've not been proactive in removing much of it because it added a little movement and figured the ocean has that stuff too so whatever. Pulled a little out yesterday though.

My Xenia is doing well, it's since attached one of it's big arms to some of the rock it sits on so it's spreading a little more. The GSP is spreading a little also on the same rock as the Xenia, but seems to be trying to move away from it a little.
My fireworks clove polyps also seem to be doing well finally, it's taken 3-4 attempts at this coral for it to be doing okay.

I've decided to give up on LPS for now, sick of buying torches/hammers/frogspawn and they just don't seem to last and been a bit of a waste of money. Even lost my elegance coral, perhaps I should've been directly feeding them more but idk.
So for the moment I'm going to suck it up and stick to softies as they seem to be easier, more hardy and even cheaper.

Had to try kill off some Aiptasia yesterday also as there was a couple growing around my zoas and the zoas weren't too happy. Fingers crossed they're gone now but will continue to monitor.

Equipment wise, MP40's are being slightly annoying. Sick of the grill coming off of them by itself, at one stage I even put a dot of coral glue on there which helped hold them on but after cleaning the glass and tapping it with the glass cleaner it dislodged one or two so every now and then one or two will still unscrew and blow off around the tank. For such expensive things, they're not 'wowing' me.

Same can be said for the XR15's. I swear every time you touch the light settings or perhaps have a power outage, within a few days or so there'll be one light that just decides to barely stay on after lights out. Again, for such a 'premium' product it's a bit annoying to have to go manually turn them off and back on to reset it.

Then onto the tank, not overly happy with the power strips. They still do the job (as in work as a switch and provide power), but the amount of lights that have dimmed or gone out on the switches is unbelievable. One of the lights was actually out inside of a month of having it set up.
I did reach out about this and was told to send the strip in and then I would get a replacement sent after the fact which I wasn't overly impressed about as Id have to go without whilst I waited so I have opted not to bother.

Seems paying a premium in this hobby for 'premium' gear doesn't necessarily mean you get what you pay for entirely, the number of issues I've had this time around for various items hasn't been fantastic that's for sure and I'd probably reconsider those choices if I were to do it again.

On the upside, I did buy a large enough Sicce pump so I no longer have to move my 200L drums around to do water changes etc!

 

[shadyraro]

Seems like you’re not having the best run atm, how are your parameters looking?
This hobby can be so frustrating at times, I went thru a bad phase with my old 600 where I couldn’t keep Duncans and frogspawns alive, they always started off great then eventually died.
I thought I’d give a Duncan another shot in my 900 and so far so good touch wood, the only thing I’ve changed is dosing aminos daily and spot feeding reef roids once a week.
As for equipment issues well I think we’ve all been there, one of my xr15’s decided to not work one day and had a mind of its own when it wanted to turn on and off. Annoying to say the least especially when you pay top dollar like u said.
And the power strips, well let’s just say I think everything Cade tank has dimmed or no lights including mine, it is annoying but it’s behind a door so I don’t really care anymore. But yeah you pay top dollar for quality so you’d expect quality right?
Anyway I’m sure your tank will come right just give it time, mine hasn’t been all roses and I’ve lost some $$$$ in coral and it’s a crap feeling.

 

[DarkReefer]

Seems like you’re not having the best run atm, how are your parameters looking?
This hobby can be so frustrating at times, I went thru a bad phase with my old 600 where I couldn’t keep Duncans and frogspawns alive, they always started off great then eventually died.
I thought I’d give a Duncan another shot in my 900 and so far so good touch wood, the only thing I’ve changed is dosing aminos daily and spot feeding reef roids once a week.
As for equipment issues well I think we’ve all been there, one of my xr15’s decided to not work one day and had a mind of its own when it wanted to turn on and off. Annoying to say the least especially when you pay top dollar like u said.
And the power strips, well let’s just say I think everything Cade tank has dimmed or no lights including mine, it is annoying but it’s behind a door so I don’t really care anymore. But yeah you pay top dollar for quality so you’d expect quality right?
Anyway I’m sure your tank will come right just give it time, mine hasn’t been all roses and I’ve lost some $$$$ in coral and it’s a crap feeling.

Parameters have been okay, only testing maybe once a month they're a little low in some areas but overall okay.
Last test 10 days ago
pH 7.9
Nitrate 7.2
Phosphate 0.028
Salinity 1.027
Alk 6.6 - low
Calcium 415
Mag 1200 - low

I've also not been too consistent with water changes, but as my parameters aren't moving a whole lot of not been to concerned. Now that I finally got that Sicce pump, I'll try and make it a bit more frequent like once every 2 weeks.
Yeah any LPS I've put in this tank so far has died off. Most of the time it's not straight away, but over several weeks etc. Maybe I'll have to look at dosing some aminos, I do have some coral essential ones there I could use that I've had for a few years and used to use on my old tank when it was set up the first time around. (Idk if that stuff goes off, I'll have to look).

Yeah just a bit painful at the moment regarding the equipment side of things. I've definitely lost a good amount of money in corals so far, hence wanting to move to the softies for a while at least. Once it's been established for longer then I might start messing with LPS etc again.

 

[shadyraro]

Yeah I’d bump up your alk to around 8 and mag 1350ish, I find my LPS start to recede if my alk drops into the low 7’s.
I do 10% f/n water changes and it seems to work, I mix my own salt so I know the parameters are there abouts even tho it’s a smallish amount.
Anyway it’ll come right, you’ve got an awesome setup and I’m sure in a few months time you’ll be posting some wicked pics of your tank :)

 

[DarkReefer]

Yeah I’d bump up your alk to around 8 and mag 1350ish, I find my LPS start to recede if my alk drops into the low 7’s.
I do 10% f/n water changes and it seems to work, I mix my own salt so I know the parameters are there abouts even tho it’s a smallish amount.
Anyway it’ll come right, you’ve got an awesome setup and I’m sure in a few months time you’ll be posting some wicked pics of your tank :)

Thanks for the info, the alk and mag I definitely prefer to aim for those figures but for some reason (without realising), I've been slow to adjust my dosing to correct. I also mix my own using quantum aqua reef essential mixed macro probiotic salt (pretty much was the first one I started using and kinda stuck with it) but I should probably be changing more often than I am, have been aiming for every 2 weeks but in reality I've probably been doing it every 3-4 weeks. Will try and aim to keep it consistent for the 2 weeks now that I have the pump, I think weekly might be slightly overkill but we'll see.

I ran tests again last night;
pH - 8
Nitrate - 2.1
Phosphate - 0.058
Salinity - 1.026
Alk - 6.7
Calc - 405
Mag - 1230.

I also upped my dosing so fingers crossed that helps gets things in check.

Appreciate the vote of confidence. Sometimes dealing with the troubles clouds your mind a little and you don't realise or appreciate what you have in the midst of it so thanks for the reminder. Aiming to do better with it. Perhaps even go out looking for more softies this weekend now that I had to throw out my torches etc the other day and have a rock island that's sitting bare.

Also, I've been eyeballing some xr15 light shades and trying to find something decent (if anyone has any recommendations?). There's a bunch of light spill and mostly seeing the led shining brightly in the lounge room that you can see when sitting down that's been a little distracting. Wasn't sure if it would do much so I just cut some cardboard up and taped it to the lights on the front side only and it's helped a lot. Still get a bunch of spill but not seeing the LEDs is a lot of relief.

 

[Jmp998]

Nice build. Entire first page makes me very thankful I am on a concrete slab. Only regret so far with my Cade 1200 is that I did not go bigger, at least 1500.

I have also had frustrations with my Radions (XR15 gen 6 x3) with some doing weird things (out of sync, staying on after lights should be out, etc). For me what has worked best is to save my main program, switch to another completely different program, then switch back to my main program. This seems to reset/resync them. Otherwise they were doing weird things, like one being dim and one bright, as if they thought it was different times of day or something. I added shades to my XR15's which were essential to me (tank in family room, otherwise would be a no go), but they are 3d printed by chemisfun11 and I don't know if he would ship to Australia.

 

[DarkReefer]

Nice build. Entire first page makes me very thankful I am on a concrete slab. Only regret so far with my Cade 1200 is that I did not go bigger, at least 1500.

I have also had frustrations with my Radions (XR15 gen 6 x3) with some doing weird things (out of sync, staying on after lights should be out, etc). For me what has worked best is to save my main program, switch to another completely different program, then switch back to my main program. This seems to reset/resync them. Otherwise they were doing weird things, like one being dim and one bright, as if they thought it was different times of day or something. I added shades to my XR15's which were essential to me (tank in family room, otherwise would be a no go), but they are 3d printed by chemisfun11 and I don't know if he would ship to Australia.

Thanks, and I completely agree. I've been on concrete slabs my whole life and only this house which we've had for just over a year now has been on piers so it's a completely new and different experience haha.

Currently I'm pretty happy with the size I went. I think any bigger would've been too much to handle/adjust to at the moment coming from the smaller cube tank. I have my days where I feel I regret doing it, but for the most part I enjoy seeing the fish in a nice big swimming area and they're happy which makes me and the gf happy.

I know what you mean regarding the XR15s, not sure why they do the random stuff but I think usually after I've reset the power to the one that's playing up it usually stays good after that from what I recall.

Ah nice, I think he got in touch with me a couple years ago when I was considering one for my Hydra. I'm just delaying doing it because going by what I've seen on etsy it's going to cost a bit of money to do it which I'm not keen on. I also need to buy/do a bunch more stuff to tidy up the cabinet some more haha.

 

[Jmp998]

3d printed shades are expensive for sure, but for me I would have otherwise had to move my tank to a different room. I think it is important to have my tank in the main living area; I work a lot and otherwise basically would not see my tank much, which would make it pretty pointless.

 

[DarkReefer]

3d printed shades are expensive for sure, but for me I would have otherwise had to move my tank to a different room. I think it is important to have my tank in the main living area; I work a lot and otherwise basically would not see my tank much, which would make it pretty pointless.

I agree that the tank needs to be in a main living area. No point having it locked away in a dungeon/basement somewhere. It's constantly a point of discussion for visitors and they usually spend a bit of time admiring it.
Even when you know it's doing poorly or has issues, it's surprising that most people don't notice and just think it's amazing.

The shades are definitely on the cards, will just need to bite the bullet to sort it and pay for them