Devoted Reefer 250

[pelphrey]

I just pulled my Vertex reactor off of my manifold in the 525xL because a bag of carbon does the same thing for my setup. I realized I have this big manifold under my tank now and I literally have nothing running off of it! Funny how when we plan for all the things that we might need, it never ends up working out quite that way! :D Im still fighting some algae issues, but the tank is young - it'll work itself out eventually, especially with some focused maintenance. Looks like yours is about in the same place. These tanks should be gems in the months to come :)

I will be hard piping the return and using a wye connector going up next to the return, I just need to simply the manifold. Especially with the limited space I have to work with, with the current setup I will plan to run at least one reactor. I may look into another reactor with a smaller foot print, the BRS single reactor is a little bigger than I need for 60 gallons of water. I am currently dosing 3ml of the red sea nopox and that added to my algae/bacteria bloom, which has settled down. I know at some point I will add a doser to the system, manually dosing is fine for right now but I will eventually grow tired of the manual dosing.

 

[revhtree]

That's a purdy ATO container!

 

[pelphrey]

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[pelphrey]

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[pelphrey]

Took a small road trip down to Nashville TN yesterday and visited Aquatic Critter. This place was suggested by a guy I know locally. I was not disappointed, the shop was really nice and the guy I spoke to while there was friendly and very helpful!

 

[pelphrey]

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[revhtree]

The thing I don't like about the goose neck is that it's hard to keep it looking straight and clean. Does that make sense?

 

[pelphrey]

The thing I don't like about the goose neck is that it's hard to keep it looking straight and clean. Does that make sense?

Makes perfect sense! I tried the goose neck with the 90 adapter and it worked out okay, but still wasn't "perfect"!

 

[Scurvy]

Looking good Pelphrey! I have the 90 adapters which make it look a little cleaner but I really can't get the lights any closer to the surface than 10" because of them. Your mount wasn't out when I purchased but I'd have gone that route as well.



I'm now debating selling my 360we, grabbing a 4 bulb ATI using my 160's to supplement. Problem is eveytime I think I've decided I read something that makes me rethink it!

 

[bknapp]

Hope you enjoyed Nashville! The Critter is pretty awesome.

 

[pelphrey]

Hope you enjoyed Nashville! The Critter is pretty awesome.

We love Nashville! It is only a 2 hour drive for us, we don't visit as often as we would like! We did come down there right before Christmas and went to the Opry Mills hotel to look at all of their Christmas displays!

This was my first trip to Aquatic Critter and I loved it there! The store was amazing and the staff that I spoke to were very nice and very helpful, can't wait to go back!

 

[pelphrey]

Wanted to try out an Algae Turf Scrubber, when I got the chance to grab the @SantaMonica RAIN2 I jumped on it. I haven't got it installed on the tank just yet!

GEM5 lights

Currently there is 1 GEM5 light installed in the ATS. I do have all 4 lights and will install them as needed!

Test fitting the ATS in the sump of my Red Sea Reefer 250. Still not sure if I will install it here, but I wanted to see how well it would fit!

The ATS with the hood on for test fitment-

The Nyos 120 skimmer have proven to be a work horse and is still dead silent!

After a Week -

Cleaned and ready to return to service-

Be sure to always do your research when buying fish! I decided I wanted to try a Butterfly fish, the fish was beautiful no doubt. Shortly after introducing the fish into the tank I noticed that my zoa's were closed up. I knew the Butterfly was responsible, I wasn't worried about the zoa's as they are one of my least favorite corals. But when the Butterfly decided to start picking my my scoly and acan's it was time to go!

Luckily for me getting the rock out of the tank is simple. Since I used the Emarco 400 to bond my rock work together to make 2 large structures I removed both structures and trapped the Butterfly!

This seemed like a good time to flip the rocks around. I used to have the large structure on the left, I decided to put it on the right and see how it looked -

 

[revhtree]

Looking good man!

 

[bknapp]

@pelphrey if you're ever in town again and have time I could show you some other places. If you haven't been before you should plan on attending the Middle Tennessee Reef Clubs Frag Swap in early April.

 

[pelphrey]

@bknapp I've been wanting to attend some swaps, I am not sure that 2017 will allow that. I have two kids under the age of 2 and they keep the wife and I pretty busy. I won't rule out the possibility of attending just yet though, I got a few months to plan and save some money! haha Has the location and time been finalized, what is the entry fee?

 

[bknapp]

It's going to be on April 8 in Nashville at the Fairgrounds, last year it was $10 total to get one ($5 to park and $5 entrance fee.) Also last year there was a child's entertainment area with movies and coloring to help keep the kids entertained.

 

[pelphrey]

Frag's that I put into the tank over a week ago are doing well!

Can you help me identify this frag? It looked amazing in the display at Aquatic Critter and I had to have it, I did look at the name and as soon as I got home I forgot what it was!

 

[pelphrey]

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[pelphrey]

In an effort to take charge or my equipment I picked up this cabinet from Amazon. I initially had plans to keep all of my equipment inside the stand, since I added the Apex things got out of control quickly.

My overall objective is to keep the inside of the tank stand "wet" and move all of the hardware into this cabinet. Doing this I hope will make cable management a lot easier and when it comes time to remove equipment as needed for cleaning it won't be much of a hassle.

I have a little work to do on this cabinet to make it work for me, I hope to have all equipment moved into this cabinet in the next few weeks!

 

[pelphrey]

Got to work on the "Equipment Cabinet" a little over the weekend. I thought this cabinet came with a wooded back, but it was cardboard. So I cut the bottom off to run cables in!

Added brackets to the stand, this will hold the ply wood going onto the back to screw in equipment as needed -

Plywood added to the back of the cabinet -

Next up will be reserving some time to get all of my equipment moved over. I figure it will take me about 2 hours to be on the safe side.