HighEndOfTheLow's Red Sea Reefer 750 XXL

[najer]

Nice haul, can't wait to see settled pics!

 

[najer]

Oh and how is the piece of equipment that shall not be named?

 

[highendofthelow]

Oh and how is the piece of equipment that shall not be named?

The Calcium reactor? Has been good as gold since we swapped the regulator out but there is a confession to make...its over sized for my current tank uptake even on minimum XD

It net gains approx 0.5 DKH a day, it's quite interesting observing the Alk uptake during day light hours vs night time hours; during the day it uses more then the calcium reactor produces but over night it creeps up.

The Deltec actually has a secondary port for a 12volt input which when on stops the unit from dosing (to be used in conjunction with a timer) which I'm looking into configuring, with the intention of not dosing over night.

But I've also added a bit of stock, upped the lighting by approx 10% and started dosing again which I expect should translate to additional growth.

 

[highendofthelow]

And this is why you should help a reefer in need...

I have a friend who ...bless him has a scary good tank with surprisingly large gaps in his knowledge which runs in Triton.

He's been having some issues recently ( a few dead fish which we just put down to coincidence; alk cal mag and salinity all over the place ) and asked if we could come over and give things the once over.

He kindly gave me free reign on his tank as a thank you.

I actually had a few pieces to give to him but given hes problems I held back until next time.

 

[highendofthelow]

Well on slightly sadder news it looks like we picked up my calcium reactor just in time;

My distant LFS that was good for sps has literally dropped off the face of the earth over the past few days and had a heck of a lot of mud slung at them over the past few days on social media.

It's slightly irritating as they had my 4 KG fire extinguisher bottle and I was missing an adapter to convert a TMC disposable co2 bottle to full sized (anyone off the top of their head know what the adapter is? ). Plus no compensation for the rubbish reg I was sold before.

Could have been worse I could be 1.5K out of pocket in calcium reactors let's face it, liz and I already discussed cutting our losses.

It's a shame but we've had a niggle in the back of our mind for some time but I guess I need to look out for another place to hookup on SPS...

Also our citric acid powder has turned up, so I'll look to clean the gyres probably tonight.

 

[sam.veilleux30]

Happens around here also, last year a friend reserved some kind of new light to a store he was going regularly...
The store closed and the owner never return his calls, he was refunded by master card in the end.
Love the anthias, one of mine went popeye for a week lately, now she's back in good shape.

 

[eran]

the reg passed the overnight pressure test therefore the calcium reactor is now finally online (well at least until 50 bar lasts!)

I also gave the skimmer a reasonable clean as it was overdue.

Question however for you all.

I need to give the gyres a clean as they're caked up with a slow growing but irritating red bubble / similar algae. (Actually on closer inspection most of it is a very fine red scrub/turf algae, looks like the red bubble has more or less died out)

I'm going to order a product but I'm not 100% sure what to get.

Ether bulk buy white vinegar which is my typical go to; alternatively I'm considering picking up some citric acid powder or possibly peroxide (as its predominately algae I need to get off not calcium etc)

I'm intrigued to try citric acid as it has a long shelf life compared to peroxide etc and is quicker than vinegar?





Anyone got any comments?

What did you decide on to clean with? Which version pumps do you have and how quite are they? Thx

 

[highendofthelow]

What did you decide on to clean with? Which version pumps do you have and how quite are they? Thx

Hi Eran,

We ordered some powdered citric acid to clean the pumps but that only came this morning. So cant really comment on the cleaning performance wise.

Equipment wise we have

Red sea reefer 750XXL

4 x Ai Hydra 26HD's as the main lights
1 x Ecotech XR15 gen 3 as a sump light
Skimz SM163 protein skimmer
Maxspect gyre 250 x 2 for primary flow
Maxspect turbine Duo 9K return pump

For Calcium reactor we have a Deltec Twintech 1500
Alkalinity is measured/controlled by an Alkatronic (gen 2)

2x 300 watt schego Titanium heaters are controlled by an STC-1000


Pumps wise the the gyres are excellent at bulk moving water but don't have the chaotic nature of MP40's generally speaking however they suit the tank well and I would happily use gyres again,

theres mixed reviews on if MP40's would stick on the beefy 22mm glass of the 750 and I didn't want to use MP60's they also have an attractive price compared to mp40s/60s but admittedly there is alot more "flow modes" for Ecotech MP20/40/60s.

 

[highendofthelow]

So we tried the citric acid, we used roughly the same measurement that tunze citric acid cleaning solution, admittedly it's a slightly arbitrary value as there was no molar strength listed on my citric acid other then it was safe for human consumption (confectionery, bath bombs etc or cleaning)

We used something like 240g per 4 litres of r.o

After leaving it approximately 30 minutes (in a tub, gyre on) the first gyre was significantly cleaner then when it went in, if I left it over night/longer I'm adamant that it would be like new.

It's probably as cheap/nearly as cheap as white vinegar but far quicker it would seem.

One minor flood and a few adjustments to both the cage orientation and flow strength and we have 1 gyre kicking butt.

I'm slightly concerned of blasting the flesh off an SPS actually but it should be ok I think.

 

[Chris k]

Great thread just read through it I'm setting up a 525xl and just wondering how you find the maxspect duo.

 

[marks1630]

Following, great build! I am starting a Reefer XXL build this year after we get settled into our now house, I really appreciate all the detail you put into post!

 

[highendofthelow]

Great thread just read through it I'm setting up a 525xl and just wondering how you find the maxspect duo.

The Duo has been fine, its quiet and seems reliable and relatively low power consumption, I am however having to run it at 100% on my 750 and combining the two outputs into one.

Would I buy it again? Honestly I'm not sure dont get me wrong it isn't a bad pump.

I heard some horrendous things about the vectra pumps etc and theres nothing wrong with the duo but equally do I feel I'm maxing out its potential, not really,

I'd probably also consider a cor pump or reef octopus perhaps but it was a touch difficult at the time buying a pump strong enough at a reasonable size and power consumption.

 

[highendofthelow]

Following, great build! I am starting a Reefer XXL build this year after we get settled into our now house, I really appreciate all the detail you put into post!

Glad your finding the thread helpful ^^ and good luck with the new build and the new house! Tag us in when you do.

We try and offer as much insight and experience as we can ^^ even if it just helps 1 person with their build it's worth it.

 

[highendofthelow]

So just a quick update I guess, the citric acid worked wonders on the gyres so much so that they're like new, it's quite interesting (and arguably unsurprising) that the few bits of turf algae that I didn't clean off at the time quickly turned white and died off within a week of cleaning, including the internal rotor cages.

The tank is doing well for the most, I was even brave enough to mount some of my long standing sand bed dwelling sps onto the rocks.

All 7 Anthias are out most of the time but still need more to increase the impact.

I'm still struggling a little with the calcium reactor being overpowered for the tanks current use but I may have a solution to that in the coming weeks or so, I'm just waiting to hear back from the deltec UK reps.

I also got a message from my lfs about an Sps piece he was struggling with (bit of strip on 1 branch, but that's now stopped)

in short he offered it to me at cost as breaking even is better then making a loss, plus I cant resist a bit of a bargain

its quite an interesting piece and I'm struggling to work out what it's true colour is.

It's almost bright yellow with a grey base.
But equally it may turn all yellow once ids "happier".

 

[highendofthelow]

Isn't it depressing.....

Liz uses Google maps to create custom maps of places of interest- mainly for our other crazy hobby of bird watching, where she marks sites especially for trips abroad.

I asked her to create a map for Fish shops reasonably close to us (predominately along the M5/M6 corridor for those UK readers). Since I met Liz, one of our things to do as a date was visiting fish shops (she navigated, I drove). Many of those shops are now closed. Even the place where we brought the Calcium reactor seems to have closed down unexpectedly.

Who knows what is just around the corner with the Indo ban still in place with little sign of movement.

 

[highendofthelow]

So we (well Liz) made an interesting discovery today, we have a smart plug wired to the Alkatronic. (IKEA trådfri)

Because on rare occasion the Alkatronic drops offline and the easiest way to resolve the issue is just to power cycle it.

It turns out its Google home app native; this allows us to now restart the Alkatronic away from the house which is quite interesting.

It has however opened up potential other options to control ( including the ability to turn off the bedroom lights via voice control now XD )

I've had a response from the UK deltec rep who's advised me of an accessory for the calcium reactor which will make our life alot easier, it's an additional 10v input into the controller timer port; I just need to find a LFS who can order it me.

We also found a nearish fresh water prominent LFS who can get my CO2 cylinder topped up.

I've also asked my friend near LFS to order some Alkatronic reagent and some Triton test kits.

Finally today I cleaned the skimmer out for the frist time in probably a month; added some more R.O and mixed up some Alkatronic reagent.

 

[highendofthelow]

So mini update time I guess

The tanks been ok for the most, I randomly lost an SPS piece which was highly irritating last week or so, it started in the "shaded" side and then over the course of the week stripped. Tried fragging it into ~6 pieces but only 1 x 3mm bit is left all the 1 inch size frags stripped.

I've also noticed my tank has had a bit of a diatoms/cyrano outbreak since the UK has had a temperature spike. I'm not worried I just cut back in feeding and dosing organics. I personally feel its merely seasonal I've seen a lot of people online report similar and tend to get a bit of cyano at the start of spring + plus the death of the SPS probably introduced some nutrients too.

Never the less given the SPS strip and the cyano I performed a water change yesterday and plan to do a few more.

Guess when the WC was completed... ^^

I've placed my order for the Calcium reactor accessory so I'm just waiting for that to arrive.

I also razored the glass for the first time in ~8 weeks predominantly to get rid of a few spots of coraline algae.

I've had to order some more salt as I'm now out but next water change I may look to clean the sump out for the first time, I've noticed the algae bed is looking a bit tired and as such I'm contemplating redoing it; I suspect the vibrance I dosed to kill a slow but steadily growing red and green bubble algae issue also affected the algae bed (no real suprise, also it definitely works if anyone is struggling with bubble algae)

Interestingly since putting the calcium reactor online full time the tank as a whole has started the next maturation phase, I've seen a significant increase in coraline and an increase in red tough/short turf/fuzz algae in the rock.

Nothing I'm concerned about at this stage but more an observation.

New additions wise I'm trying to behave little at the moment I've got an order in for some Alkatronic reagent, bucket of salt and Triton icp test kits,

Think that's it for now folks

 

[highendofthelow]

Today I also finally dropped off my "backup" 2KG CO2 cylinder to be filled.

I need to get a primary solution sorted once this big old bottle is empty but feel better with a backup bottle filled.

 

[highendofthelow]

So my resolve not to buy SPS lasted all of approx 48 hours.

We were a little bored on our day off so we figured we'd visit an LFS that we dont go very often to see how they were doing (they're pretty new).

Short story is I came out with 3 very nice maricultured pieces however a bit of a wierd scenario occured.

Under the tank lights at the LFS (AI hydra 52's) all the acros they had were a touch pastel/pale but one was a nice blue acro one was a nice yellow acro and one was a nice large clustered tenius, both liz and I gave them the once over etc and were happy. They weren't cheap but they were nice specimens of maricultured pieces.

However upon arriving home and putting the mini colonies in under my lights, they're incredibly pale, they didn't have a rough journey home and were bagged for a few hours tops etc it's just a bit odd, to the point I thought they'd RTN'd in the bags driving home but we dismissed this however as there was zero flesh etc in the bags or blow off on the sps themselves.

There is a hint of colour on the blue and the yellow but they're much paler then i feel comfortable with, the cluster tenius is fine and I do tend to run darker skinned acros it's just a bit .. odd.

Ether way there isnt much we can do but be gentle with them.

As a precaution I've flicked the light acclimatising mode on my AI hydra's to give them 2 weeks break in.

Hopefully I can nurse them up a little slow and gentle.

Theres 3 x acropora bandit crabs (my favourite example od symbiotic relationship) and no nasties etc which is super cool.

 

[Brew12]

So my resolve not to buy SPS lasted all of approx 48 hours.

That is some serious will power in this hobby!

As a precaution I've flicked the light acclimatising mode on my AI hydra's to give them 2 weeks break in.

Hopefully I can nurse them up a little slow and gentle.

Hope it works out for you! Sounds like the best thing for them.