- Joined
- Mar 4, 2018
- Messages
- 134
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- 110
My Red Sea Reefer 170 crashed last January after coming back from a long vacation, and I've been thinking about ways to reduce my maintenance. I was doing a bad job of running Triton with no water changes - not keeping up with dosing iodine / potassium / strontium / boron which were always running low. So have been thinking about what the next thing could be. After a lot of research, I landed on doing a new build of a pico with auto-water changes from the Neptune DOS, inspired by the success of the ULM tank trials series from BRS. Got the tank wet on April 29th and moved over what was still alive from the Reefer and sold it so here we are!
I got the DOS plumbed last night and it's just magic. It changes out 170mL for new salt water every 15 min, so about 1.5 gallons a day. The waste water is plumbed directly into the sink drain in the next room over. Just incredible!
Wish me luck!
Equipment
I got the DOS plumbed last night and it's just magic. It changes out 170mL for new salt water every 15 min, so about 1.5 gallons a day. The waste water is plumbed directly into the sink drain in the next room over. Just incredible!
Wish me luck!
Equipment
- Tank: JBJ 8 Gallon Desktop, ~6 gallons water volume
- Light: Kessil A160WE 40W
- Flow: VorTech MP10 Wireless + Anemone guard
- Heater: 25W NeoTherm (upgrading to 50W) / Cooler: 80mm USB fan from Amazon controlled by Apex
- Filtration: 10 pounds of special grade CaribSea live sand + bag of carbon (BRS ROX 0.8) in overflow
- Water: 5 stage BRS RO/DI system
- ATO: Neptune PMUP V2 with 2.5 gallon reservoir, evaporating ~200 mL / day. Relatively tight custom cut plexiglass lid. WL_TNK to trigger adding water (~0.5 in below WL_EMR) and WL_FW for adding to the reservoir.
- Auto Water Changes: Red Sea Blue Bucket, Neptune DOS + 20 Gallon reservoir of salt water in closet, waste water plumbed into sink drain, 1.5 gallons / day. Two water level monitors, one in the salt water to monitor if I run out (WL_SW), another in the tank to turn off the DOS if it gets too full (WL_EMR).
- Controller: Neptune Apex, FMM fluid level monitoring, WXM for VorTech MP10 connection
- Softies: Ricordia, Many Zoas - large WWC Illuminati colony, purple + rainbow hornets, scrambled eggs, Halle Berry, purple monster, etc
- LPS: Duncans, frogspawn, some acans
- SPS: Green slimer, Bonsai, Bubblegum Digitata
- Inverts: Blood shrimp, emerald crab, electric orange hermit, red-banded pistol + Randall's goby, purple urchin
- Fish: Diamond Watchman Goby, purple firefish, melanurus wrasse, bicolor blenny
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