Gabe's Redsea 170

Gchan888 · May 11, 2020

Hello all,
I've been a reefer for a few years now with various experiments/failed tanks but finally decided to do one right and also document/journal everything so that it's easier to understand. I've had it running for about 2 months now, so will try to post some old journals/updates. The plan here is to set up a mixed reef with LPS, few SPS (Montis, maybe a few sticks) and hopefully an anemone like an RBTA, but we'll see - being consistent with water quality is of utmost importance and I'll see if I can run this stably for a few months first... COVID-19 has ironically been great in terms of providing more time to focus and observe the tank. I've had the ability to test more consistently and just enjoy the tank more which is great.

Gear:
Tank: Red Sea 170 reefer white + sump
Lighting: Radion G5 XR 15 Blue + RMS tank mount
Return Pump: ~~Sicce Syncra 3.0~~ Skimz Quietpro 1.2
Skimmer: Skimz Monzter SN127
Powerheads: 2x Ecotech Vortech MP-10s
Heaters: 2x Eheim Jaeger 150W
Fuge: CPR In-Tank Refugium with Chaeto
ATO: Tunze Osmolator 3155
ATO Reservoir: IM Hydrofill Ti 5 gallon
RODI: BRS 7-stage RODI System with 2x 7 gallon Reliance Aquatainer storage
Dosing: ESV B-Ionic 2-part with Bubble Magus doser

Livestock:
2x Clowns (1 gladiator and 1 that I don't know the name of)
2x Blue-Green Chromis
40g Clean up crew from Reef Cleaners (mostly snails; a couple of hermits)
Looking for: Skunk cleaner (every LFS I've gone to has none), Midas Blenny, and Longnose Hawkfish

Corals:
1x Toxic hammer
Various Monti Frags
Various Zoas
1x Orange Funghia Plate Coral
1x Chalice

Current Parameters:
Salinity: 1.025 (refractometer) and using blue bucket red sea salt
Temp: 78-79 (Hanna TruTemp)
pH: 8.4 (Tropic Marin)
Ammonia: 0 (Tropic Marin)
Nitrite: 0.02 (Tropic Marin)
Nitrate: 5 (Tropic Marin)
Phosphate: 0.5 (Hanna Phosphate Checker) >> This seems the most out of whack and potentially uncalibrated. I have the Tropic Marin test that indicates I'm in the 0.2 range; time will tell...
Alk: 8.3 (Hanna)
Calc: 420 (Salifert)

Recent projects:
Phosphates: per my testing, the Hanna checker is showing that my phosphates are really high, so I am going to try to reduce my phosphates. However, with new skimmer and fuge not fully 'broken in' I am hesitant to make any big changes until things settle down a bit more. Plan to add a little bit of RowaPhos to see if that helps. Let me know if you guys have any ideas!

Pump: As you can see I already had replaced my starting pump - I had a Sicce 3.0 from before that I thought would be good for this, but the noise from an AC Pump was too loud. I converted to DC with a Skimz DC pump and it's been amazing - the only thing I hear from my tank now is the occasional whirring of my MP10s! My MP10s are 4+ years old so I'm planning on potentially upgrading to a Red Sea Gyre 25 in the near future.

Light: A lot of you guys provided some great feedback on Radion G5s and despite all of the highlighted issues, I took the plunge. My set up is simple with just 1 light but so far, my experience with Mobius has been positive and I have only had 1 issue on connecting to the lights with multiple devices. Otherwise, it's great to be able to have these programmable modes. The blues really do a good job of actually hiding algae so I find that when I do water changes, it's nice to be able to turn on only the white lights to clean out the spots that I'm missing. I don't think I will switch anytime soon BUT I am sort of itching to try the Pros to see if there's more customizability on the spectrum front. The blues are really blue and since there are only 3 white LEDs, it's hard to really 'overpower' the blue with other spectrum. Not sure if I'll ultimately do this, but definitely thinking about testing out a Pro to see if I like something better. Ultimately plan is to use AB+ and maybe just add a bit more white for viewing pleasure. The Pros are probably much better suited for that particular use case.

Aiptasia: I found a few of the little buggers on my hammer coral! I don't have a QT tank set up (potentially in the works) but I did the glue/epoxy method as they were only on the frag plug. Jury is out on whether they will come back as I just did this last night; I ordered some F-Aiptasia to make sure that I have another plan in case they come back.

Calcium: I had been using a Hanna checker for the first few weeks of testing, but a couple of weeks ago, I ran a test and I got a reading that my calcium was 80-100ppm off from the last reading. I re-tested it like 5 times and got the same result, then used a different RO water sample and saw completely different numbers. This didn't give me much confidence in my prior numbers so with this forum's recommendations, went out and got a Salifert test, which gave me more consistent results - I also like that it's titration and not tied to the source water.

Great to meet you guys and while I know that a post like this isn't good without pictures, I'm not able to right this second. I hope to post pictures soon, maybe tonight!

Bo. · May 15, 2020

Sounds really well thought out, add those pics!

Gchan888 · May 24, 2020

Here are some much delayed photos.

FTS as of May 22, 2020:

Sump setup:
Skimmer is breaking in well and pulling in some green

Full setup: got an ikea Eket to store test kits and plugs.

The evil Aiptasia on my frag! Glued down with putty/glue. Haven’t seen them back yet....

Gchan888 · May 24, 2020

Some coral photos as well:
Aussie gold torch

Jawbreaker mushroom - hes expanding at the bottom. Fingers crossed that it’s a new baby! Orange Ricordea in background

Splatter/toxic hammer - hope to have a Euphyllia garden with hammers and frogspawns someday. Putty over the aiptasia

Monti frags - grafted red/green, ore Ji and purple. I got a grafted one but you Can see a white chip - that happened when my snail escaped the lid and when i put him back I dropped him accidentally and he hit the frag! Lesson learned... don’t drop your snails.
You can see all my fish in the grafted one too!

Duncan and pocillopora.

have a few others I’ll try to post later.

rishma · May 24, 2020

Nice setup. I have a RS170 too. Where did you get the white cabinet next to it?

Gchan888 · May 24, 2020

rishma said:
Nice setup. I have a RS170 too. Where did you get the white cabinet next to it?

Thanks! It’s an IKEA eket cabinet

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rishma · May 24, 2020

Regarding phosphates. I have not had good luck Addressing phosphate in a new tank with a Fuge. My chaeto would just die. I suggest using GFO to get it in the right range. Not worth having an algae outbreak and fighting that now. Fuge wlll probably handle better in the future. A bag of GFO or rowaphos will probably be your friend.

I am actually Fuge-less this time. Tank has been up 6 months since a move and re-start. GFO handling my PO5 nicely. Less hassle in my experience for a small tank.

Gchan888 · May 24, 2020

rishma said:
Regarding phosphates. I have not had good luck Addressing phosphate in a new tank with a Fuge. My chaeto would just die. I suggest using GFO to get it in the right range. Not worth having an algae outbreak and fighting that now. Fuge wlll probably handle better in the future. A bag of GFO or rowaphos will probably be your friend.

I am actually Fuge-less this time. Tank has been up 6 months since a move and re-start. GFO handling my PO5 nicely. Less hassle in my experience for a small tank.

Thanks, I just started adding rowaphos over the past month or so. It’s now down to ~0.3 so still a ways to go but trying to be slow and deliberate rather than drop it drastically.

rishma · May 24, 2020

.3 is pretty high, but you know that.

I have had issues when dropping it too fast with Acros, but everything else seems to not be bothered

Gchan888 · May 24, 2020

Yea In hindsight I should’ve been more aggressive on it before adding corals. Good to know your experience, perhaps I can try to push it down more quickly. I’m trying to test every few days and add to gradually Lower aiming to get to .1 in the next two weeks. Nothing’s acting like it’s dying but testing regularly.

Gchan888 · Jun 27, 2020

Couple of updates since it’s been a while:

Coral:
Added a small yellow Fiji leather frag. Been one of my favorites in the past and it’s crazy hard to find one (at a reasonable price) but was able to get a small frag from a local reefer.

Purple Monti - I have actually been able to rehabilitate my coral - it was showing signs of bleaching which I think was due to too much light. But I moved it back to the sand bed and over the past few weeks the color is fully back and the frag has grown. In my previous experience I’ve only had them get worse and die. So feelin pretty good that this time I was able to nurse it back to health!

Livestock:
Longnose Hawkfish: he honestly reminds me of a dog. Perches everywhere and super active across the tank. Adds a lot of character/fun.
Skunk Cleaner: Tried forever to find one but with all of the shutdowns I don’t think these are getting shipped as often. After a few weeks, though, LFS finally had one.

Parameter Changes:
Through GFO and phosphate-e I’ve gotten my levels down to ~0.15. Still trying to reduce it to below 0.1, but everything is growing and my algae growth seems to be decreasing.
Calcium had dropped a bit to 380. Need to increase dosing but i think that means everything is hungry =D

Equipment:
Skimz Return Pump: 2 months in and it’s malfunctioning - think it’s a faulty controller. Over the past week it failed every day and a half or so and I get this “E-1 message” on the controller which means voltage is too high, but I don’t think It’s from a power surge as I have a power strip and nothing else is stopping. Props to BRS as they immediately shipped me a replacement, which is coming Monday.

Also bought a Tunze 8831 Refugium light To replace the cheap amazon one I had before. My Chaeto has grown a lot faster with this one and it’s really nice that it’s submersible As it sits just above my fuge. However I do need to get a blackout piece of plastic or something as the light is growing algae on my skimmer body!

Added a white LED strip to the sump area to help with visibility. Super bright now!

FTS: