Hello from Az -=> established 300g sps predominant display tank
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RichtheReefer21
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Welcome!!! I haven't seen too many ZeoVit systems here, looking quite...
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My Tank Thread
Welcome to R2R and your new reefing family. Beautiful reef!
Dsnakes
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MissyTwitch
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Scrubbers were DIY. Acrylic bought on amazon. Don’t know the dimensions off hand. I’m at work for a shift of five days and won’t be home till tomorrow. I know he used 1/8th acrylic. That the clear sections are 24”x 36”, black sheets on side 12”x24” , black sheet on bottom 12x36” => according to my amazon account.
My fiancée he is the all star, he maintains the tank, built the reactors/scrubbers, and did the piping. I’m just the money, researcher of optimizing tank/biology of corals and locator of corals without so many middlemen.
My fiancée built the scrubbers rather than buying them ~$150-200. Rather than buying them.
This was the Second one on day one of it coming online. We ended up putting more grow lights at the bottom for the refugium. Our experience is that sea lettuce and cheato is hardy and survives well in low nutrient environments. Sea lettuce actually outcompeted cheato and won out for a while. Really helped keep phos/nitrates down. We were growing it for trade mainly. We had to stop using sea lettuce cause it grew too fast and was stripping to much with the algae scrubbers online. Use only cheato in refugium now. I always thought we could have taken the scrubbers offline and done just sea lettuce, but they help keep the dissolved O2 up so I’m good.
The scrubber above lasted about a year, before seams started coming apart at top. It could have been fixed if bracing had been placed when first built. This time he has Titan Aquatics help him build the scrubber below. Great team, reasonable prices. He bought the acrylic they helped build it.
My contribution was the purple pipe. We are looking to redo piping in the tank and we have now determined red will be the best color.
Also as promised => the new calcium reactor.
dson78
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That calcium reactor might be a little on the small side and probably wont fit your needs...........(joking), dang that thing is huge. Amazing build and the corals look amazing as well. Keep up the good work.
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MissyTwitch
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Tank evolution :
Startup of SPS tank with Acros from Kupang.
Addition of Fiji Nanos
A month or so after purchase of corals from Bali. Three months before a low potassium and alk disaster which took out all but 1 of our XL Fiji wild colonies. We went on vacation for a week thinking our tank would be stable.....sigh. All other aquaculture survived the event for the most part
Current tank =>
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Can’t seem to get rid of the last two pics
Startup of SPS tank with Acros from Kupang.
Addition of Fiji Nanos
A month or so after purchase of corals from Bali. Three months before a low potassium and alk disaster which took out all but 1 of our XL Fiji wild colonies. We went on vacation for a week thinking our tank would be stable.....sigh. All other aquaculture survived the event for the most part
Current tank =>
——-===============————-
Can’t seem to get rid of the last two pics
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MissyTwitch
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We are likely to upgrade to 500-600g tank in next year or so. In order to do so safely, without too much death during transfer of corals, cycling we are about to cut in half a 400g acrylic that’s seen better days to create two 200g frag tanks. Transfer corals to them, move 300g to front entrance as a predator/swim tank, place the 500-600g tank its previous spot. Transfer coral to display tank. Also we are cherry picking what goes in our display tank, don’t want to kill off corals that have survived a couple of disasters, need a safe place to grow out some of our nicer frags, eventually sell the ones we don’t want, and or trimmings that we have to keep corals fromfighting.......so yeah that’s the reason for the larger calcium reactor.
vanpire
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Nice build and i like the pics.
Why so tall and not wider for the calcium reactor?
Hey, did you find that your corals grew faster after using a calcium reactor from using two parts or it was just more cost effective?
Did you really source your corals directly from Indonesia? Not that we can do that now, but that is awesome and would like to know how you did it.
How well does your maintain Ph at night?
Why so tall and not wider for the calcium reactor?
Hey, did you find that your corals grew faster after using a calcium reactor from using two parts or it was just more cost effective?
Did you really source your corals directly from Indonesia? Not that we can do that now, but that is awesome and would like to know how you did it.
How well does your maintain Ph at night?
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MissyTwitch
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The tubes we got for $75/piece...usually anywhere from 300-500 dollars, more after shipping. They were in the back of a local acrylic shop not being used. $75/piece without shipping is the main reason. Secondary is I got plenty of vertical space in my garage not so much horizontal space. He is adding a second chamber filled with ARM to help with dissipation of CO2. Are current day pH 7.9-8.1, night time pH 7.7-7.8 and that with a small Kalk Reactor => plus effluent going in to Reactor chamber filled with air stones.
He is using one of the tubes to build a kalk reactor of same size, the. Will hook up a dosing pump to kalk reactor set at a constant rate AM(slower)/PM(faster) to help keep constant pH. Having the two algae scrubbers Run at different times and changing the frag tank lighting to go on in evening decreased pH swings in the past 6 mo. Between the two new reactors [Calcium/Kalk] our goal pH is 8.1-8.3 constant. As evaporation is a limiting factor with a kalk reactor, when we cut the 400g into two frag tanks connect it to the system, then adding the 500g tank => more surface area for evaporation => we are hoping that will also allow for the Kalk reactor to contribute more to maintaining a more stable ph/Ca/Alk levels. With as much SPS as we have we are finding it hard to keep up with ALK/Ca+/mag. The larger system will allow us more chances of stability.
To answer the other question: not only was it more cost effective, most of our corals that have a formed/mature base are growing 1/4th to 1/2 inch a month [faster than before]. Those without a formed base are growing faster, but not as fast as those with a formed/mature base. Coral coloration went through the roof with Reborn compared to ARM. Problem with reborn is lower melting point ph 6.0-6.1, which also introduces more CO2 into system lowering pH. With our new changes we are hoping to venture into the Goldilocks zone of ph8.3. Which from what we have read is optimum for sps, mainly acropora coral growth. We may attempt after that to get and keep ALK at 12 to see what happens. Don’t get me wrong it’s already growing faster then expected. Just curious about what it’s like.
He is using one of the tubes to build a kalk reactor of same size, the. Will hook up a dosing pump to kalk reactor set at a constant rate AM(slower)/PM(faster) to help keep constant pH. Having the two algae scrubbers Run at different times and changing the frag tank lighting to go on in evening decreased pH swings in the past 6 mo. Between the two new reactors [Calcium/Kalk] our goal pH is 8.1-8.3 constant. As evaporation is a limiting factor with a kalk reactor, when we cut the 400g into two frag tanks connect it to the system, then adding the 500g tank => more surface area for evaporation => we are hoping that will also allow for the Kalk reactor to contribute more to maintaining a more stable ph/Ca/Alk levels. With as much SPS as we have we are finding it hard to keep up with ALK/Ca+/mag. The larger system will allow us more chances of stability.
To answer the other question: not only was it more cost effective, most of our corals that have a formed/mature base are growing 1/4th to 1/2 inch a month [faster than before]. Those without a formed base are growing faster, but not as fast as those with a formed/mature base. Coral coloration went through the roof with Reborn compared to ARM. Problem with reborn is lower melting point ph 6.0-6.1, which also introduces more CO2 into system lowering pH. With our new changes we are hoping to venture into the Goldilocks zone of ph8.3. Which from what we have read is optimum for sps, mainly acropora coral growth. We may attempt after that to get and keep ALK at 12 to see what happens. Don’t get me wrong it’s already growing faster then expected. Just curious about what it’s like.
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MissyTwitch
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As above
vanpire
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I am amazed at how little CO2 lowers Ph. If I have a guest in the house for 6 hours or so, the Ph drops by about 0.1. Opening the windows also changes my Ph by about 0.1-0.2. The weather in AZ is starting to get better so I will be opening windows in the morning to keep Ph up.
I also noticed that my using a CARx has better growth but I thought that might be coincidental but I am using ARM. Might switch over to Reborn. Glad to have at least one person show the same results.
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