ExperiReef 170

[KoenE]

Hi everyone,

After running a 100L reef tank for almost 2 years now I’m starting a new tank which I will call the ExperiReef 170, which eventually will move with me when I find a new apartment. As you can see in the title the method to run this tank will be pretty experimental, to be more precise, almost all equipment will be build myself or adapted because the goal is to run this tank 100% via HomeAssistant without the use of any apps from the equipment manufacturers. In this thread I will document my progress, including everything related to it like coding, as well as regular updates and goals with this tank.

I will also update this first post with links to relevant posts within this thread to be able to have a quick reference to certain aspects of the build.

Kind regards,
Koen

Index:
The idea and how to be pest free
The scape
The cycle
The equipment

 

[KoenE]

The idea behind the ExperiReef 170:
The journey all started with a few mangroves, having them sitting in a pot wasn’t very pleasing and soon they were placed in a 40L tank with some dry rock. This was the point that the idea of adding corals started. So in October 2022 I got some zoa’s, a caulastrea, a chalice and 2 frags of sps. Those last two were goners very quickly and the others were also not very happy but they were surviving.

In March 2023 I found a used 100L tank with sump in the building next to mine so moving it was easy. This really started my reef tank journey, started with dry rock and live sand and after a month of cycling the first inhabitants were added, a pair of clowns. A few weeks later I added my still struggling but surviving corals to the new tank.

During the first year of the tank I have had cyano, LCA and ostreopsis dinos, and probably a bacterial infection in the tank as well. But despite these battles I didn’t lose any corals except for one plating montipora, probably added it too early when the tank wasn’t mature enough yet. Quick jump to the current situation: A thriving reef tank with over 45 different corals, around 2.2dkh consumption per day and little effort needed to keep things stable. So I’m very happy with how things are going at the moment.

But there are two things I failed to accomplish: Having mostly SPS/acropora and keeping my tank pest free, although I can’t complain too much because the only pests I have are vermetid snails, and it’s just that I don’t like the appearance of bristle worms. Not a bad score if I say so myself for having this tank for almost 2 years now, with corals coming from all over the place.
But mechanically this tank has seen it’s better days, it was already pretty scratched when I got it, and during setting it up the bottom glass at the overflow cracked. So yes, I’m running a tank with a broken bottom for almost 2 years now. But knowing I will start moving in the (near) future, I don’t want to move this tank with me.

So when I ran into a used Red Sea reefer 170 for free in December, I took it home with me to make this my new tank to move with me. It wasn’t in perfect shape and it has some scratches as well, but it is in better condition than my current tank and it is a little bigger, so after cleaning and applying some extra silicone to the sides of the front panel during the Christmas break, I started building the scape and filled it up this week. This Friday I added a little frozen cube of mysis to start the cycle with that. More on the scape and cycling later.

The goal is to run this tank 100% pest free, stocked with mostly acropora and zoanthids and to have control over every piece of equipment using HomeAssistant, without the help of apps of the manufacturers. Why not use Apex, GHL or others but doing it myself? I don’t like to be dependent of manufacturers on the software part of things. Also I like to tinker with things and I have experience with 3D-printers and technology (I also designed and build my own 3D-printer from scratch). HomeAssistant is free, runs locally and is opensource with a large userbase, and therefore lot’s of information, sensors and possible solutions are available. Also I don’t want to have to open 3 different apps to pause all pumps for feeding (yeah, if you buy everything from the same manufacturer that won’t be a problem, but I started out as a student, and I still want to try and do it on a budget).

How am I gonna try to be pest free?
With lots of dicipline and a lot of luck, I’m lucky that I’m almost pest free already and that my corals are growing pretty well. Therefore only newly cut frags without frag plugs will get into the new tank after dipping and inspecting. In the end this new tank will hopefully become just a quarantaine/frag tank for a larger system, which I can then start pest free from this one. That’s the goal, but we will see what the future brings. So eventually this tank probably won’t be pest free anymore, but that would be because it became a quarantine tank for newly bought corals. New bought frags also won’t keep their frag plug and probably will be cut through the flesh as well to remove possible hiding pests in the crevices between the base of the coral and the frag plug, a practice I almost did since the beginning.

 

[Lukes Saltwater Tank]

Hi looks like a great project with some good ideas, we should definitely do something together as I am currently developing custom hardware for home assistant which would be perfect for your use case. Maybe you already have some plans for the hardware?

Im sure you have already seen it but here is the website for my project: www.marine-assistant.com

Im am currently in the testing phase myself, working out some of the bugs and getting build guides built for the website. I'll be in touch with you via email and see about sending you something over if you like.

BTW your tank looks really healthy and Colourfull!!! Nice job!

 

[KoenE]

Thanks a lot @Lukes Saltwater Tank !
The exact workaround is still an idea in the making, currently going over all the functions needed and how to make everything work the way I want it to. I'm also still learning my ways around HA but I already hacked a smart feeder from ali to esphome with some help last year. I am going to build my own doser for this tank as well. Some parts are already on their way, others are already here, basicly most of it has to be wired together and programmed. Just have to make my whole schematics to see if multiple ESP's are the way to go, and which ones will control which parts. This will also include trying to adapt the controllers for my still dumb vastocean fleece filter, DMP-20M's that are in shipping and an A8se reef light.
I'm looking forward to your email, your project looks very promising.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Following along! Can’t wait to see the new tank filled up!

 

[KoenE]

The scape:

As this tank has to move for at least once, the scape has to be moved as well. Combine this with planning on mostly SPS/acroporas and zoanthids, this isn’t the best combination to make a reef from just stacked rocks. I like a more open scape and I need a lot of space in the top half of the water column. So I settled on the idea of a simple base with a large overhang to accommodate for lots of sps and still having the room on the bottom for rocks with zoanthids.

This way I can place the wavemakers (Jecod DMP-20M) on both sides of the overflow facing forward. One just under the highest part of the overhang, and one above the curve of the arch. This to hopefully prevent having corals in the direct flow path of the wavemakers, while having them collide the flow in the open front area of the tank to create some turbulence in the flow.

The scape will have to be glued to be able to make such an overhang, but moving it will be a pain. So we will make the scape in such a way that it can be split in parts. This will be done using 6mm acryl rods and 3D-printed fittings. See the picture above. These will slide into each other and therefore lock the rocks into place. The 3D-printed parts will be fixed using reefscape epoxy. At last everything will be hidden using smaller pieces of dry rock and superglue. Mostly keeping all 4 separate pieces separated and not glued together to be able to split the scape without to much damage. Time will tell if I succeeded in that part of the idea. The base is constructed from 3 pieces of dry rock with one cutted side to make them flat, with dots of silicone to have a soft interface between the rockwork and the bottom glass. The difference and the end result between the bare connections and after hiding those can be seen below:

After filling the tank with water this is the result:

 

[KoenE]

The cycle:​

As I’m trying to stay pest free, I can’t transfer some sand, rocks or biospheres from my old tank, or the tank from someone else. This will mean I will have to start dry. It will be a fishless cycle.

To start the cycle I used some frozen mysis. I added the first cube on January 31th. I didn’t have an ammonia test anymore, so I had to wait for LFS to have it back in stock together with a new nitrite test. A few days later I added a second cube of mysis to get the levels elevated more because I would guess 1 cube is a bit too small to cycle a 170L tank.

On February 1st I added some Microbelift special blend, 2 drops of AF Pro Bio S and around 30ml of AF Life source. A few days after I added some more special blend and two more drops of AF Pro Bio S. I dosed this last one multiple times, around every week 2 drops (just when I felt like it).

I added the sand on February 9th and after that needed to wait for some more. Around the 26th of February I measured my peak of nitrite at around 3ppm, which has been coming down since and last week it plummeted from 1.5ppm on Monday to around 0.15 last Saturday.

The measurements on March 15th were:
Salinity: 35ppm
KH: 6.1
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0.15
Nitrate: 7.4
Fosphate: 0.05
Calcium: 400
Magnesium: 1290

So pretty happy with the current parameters, only KH is on the lower side, but nothing to worry about at the moment. The last 3 weeks also some diatoms appeared, which makes sense, but no mega blooms yet.

Today March 17th I added a fresh frag of red plating montipora, and a freshly fragged single polyp of strathosphere Zoanthus, mostly because I could frag those two the easiest from my tank without chances on hitchhikers. I dipped them with jodine before adding them to the tank as well.

Now it’s just waiting some more and see where it goes from here.

 

[KoenE]

The equipment​

The equipment is another important part of the build, not everything is bought or build yet, but a start has been made. The planned equipment can be seen in the table below (probably I forgot some things that I will add later).

Function	Device
Return pump	Red Dragon Eco 5 (Second hand)
Wavemaker	2x Jebao DMP20-M (New)
Heater	Titanium, wattage TBD (New)
ATO	DIY with minimal 2 optical level sensors
Fleece filter	VastOcean 10cm fleecefilter + printed upgrades (new)
Light	A8se II Max with High intensity lens and my own design shade (New)
Dosing pump	DIY
Skimmer	Deltec 400i (From current tank)
Feeder	Aliexpress with reflashing of the onboard chip
UV	Jebao 11W (From current tank) + ZKSJ BM700 pump (new)
Thermostat	DIY with 2 temperature sensors
Cooler	Aquamedic Arctic breeze 4pack (From current tank)

In the end the plan is to have all this equipment running standalone with feedback from and to my home assistant server and to be able to update values from there as well. A back-up power supply is also planned to be implemented in the future. I already have an basic setup for it in case there is a planned power cut, but it’s not yet sophisticated enough to use all the time.

The first priority right now is to get the thermostat and ATO working well (the tank is heated by a glass heater with build-in “thermostat” right now). Currently those two will be split over two different ESP32’s because the ATO-pump is running on 12V and the heater and cooler on 230V. The first version of the thermostat is build using a 230V relay board with build-in relays, but I will probably switch to SSR’s in the in future for that part, for the ATO-pump it will become a mosfet I think. The first prototype of the thermostat is already build, but wiring is still a mess, and I need to design and print a sensor holder for mounting it in the sump first. The ATO is still on hold because I’m outsourcing a custom build reservoir for it, but the bulkheads where I need holes drilled for are still on their way (which will determine the hole sizes that needs to be drilled).

I already have 6 outlets in use now, while not even having all equipment up and running. Around a week ago I saw a thread here on R2R where they mentioned DIN-rail power supplies, this will probably be the way to go for me, and this way I can also incorporate all the controls in there without it being too messy (I hope). So some parts are ordered already while others aren’t yet. I want to make a good plan to do everything right the first time (even though I know that’s not gonna happen). As it stands now, I need a 5VDC, 12VDC, 24VDC, 32VDC and 230VAC circuit to get everything up and running.

At the moment there won’t be many updates about the equipment, but lots of thinking and planning are done in my head the coming weeks. The updates that will be there will be focused on one or 2 separate pieces of equipment, as the build takes place.