Jenyphur's Red Sea REEFER MAX 300 G2+ Build

[Jenyphur]

Gosh, I'm really bad at photos. I turned the blues off to try and get some better pics. These little guys are FAST. I have ordered the orange filter for my phone so hoping that helps some.

Also...I am finally seeing some 'stuff' on the rocks. I know it was inevitable...you can clearly see the brown/redish patches starting to show. I had left my lights off for the most part during my cycle and now I'm kind of regretting that decision. I read both ways so I wasn't sure which to go with. I'm hoping this is just regular algae and not something more nefarious.

The mushroom is so beautiful in my tank and really adds some much needed color.

I have been testing my parameters quite a bit and the one thing that is pretty low is my alkalinity. It was 4.7 one day ad 5.1 the next. I did start dosing yesterday and it came up to 6.3 today. Did the same dose today so hoping it will be in the 7 range tomorrow and to the 8 the next day. Not exactly sure why it would be so low so early on but Ben (my fav guy at the lfs) said it was probably due to the new rocks/sand pulling all the elements out, which makes sense.

 

[flfrosty]

Beautiful fish!

Is that an automatic feeder I see? What kind if so?

Will the kraken work with the automatic feeder?

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

That alkalinity sounds very wrong, like impossible wrong for a salt water aquarium. Please mix up a fresh batch of salt water, doesn’t have to be a large amount. Test that. If your alkaline is still way off, you have a problem with your test kit or reagents.

 

[Jenyphur]

Beautiful fish!

Is that an automatic feeder I see? What kind if so?

Will the kraken work with the automatic feeder?

Thank you! And yes, it is...it's called the Avast Plank and it's super cool. I've yet to try it out but I needed to fit it on there for the lid request.

Yes..Kraken already has the measurements for this feeder and they have been great about creating a perfectly customized lid including the feeder. I placed my order with them a few days ago. Excited to get the lid.

 

[Jenyphur]

That alkalinity sounds very wrong, like impossible wrong for a salt water aquarium. Please mix up a fresh batch of salt water, doesn’t have to be a large amount. Test that. If your alkaline is still way off, you have a problem with your test kit or reagents.

That's what I thought...I use the Hanna Master Test kit as well as the Red Sea test kit and they are both reading the same. The good news is they are both reading at almost 8 now.

 

[Jesse Sunday]

Also, wanted to post some photos of the Kasa power strip app....you can even customize it to show pictures of the plugs/equipment. I thought this will be helpful for my husband and anyone minding my tanks since they might not know what each piece of equipment is.

Ohhhhhh, those are nice! I have been using Wemo smart plugs for my equipment, but I just ordered the 6-outlet Kasa that you linked to. Love love love your clean cable management and labeling! OCD dream!

 

[Jenyphur]

Ohhhhhh, those are nice! I have been using Wemo smart plugs for my equipment, but I just ordered the 6-outlet Kasa that you linked to. Love love love your clean cable management and labeling! OCD dream!

Ahhh thank you. It was a labor of love. I find as I get older, I need things in their place. How weird is that?

 

[Devisissy]

I would imagine using a Python would be rather expensive on your water bill.
I use a small brute trash can on wheels. Mixes 15g really well. I have my tanks on a rotation and I do 5g water changes in each. I also use a Sicce style sump pump to pump water back into the tank. But the secret is this remote I picked up at Depot for $10. you can turn the pump on and of with a push of a button.
amazon link sump pump

Commercial Electric Wireless Indoor/Outdoor Remote Control YLT-42B - The Home Depot

Plug in holiday decorations and landscape Lighting to the Indoor/Outdoor Remote Plug and use the included keychain transmitter to easily activate Lights from a remote location. This remote plug offers

www.homedepot.com

Dude I love my python. Once you start the suction you can just detach the hose into the sink, tub, toilet if you are fancy. Then I use one of those cheap ACE hardware pumps, that you use in a septic, to pull water from my garbage can full of salt water. I turn my pump off with the clapper. It was mee maws before she lost her sight. She didn't need it anymore. So clap on, clap off.

 

[Jenyphur]

Dude I love my python. Once you start the suction you can just detach the hose into the sink, tub, toilet if you are fancy. Then I use one of those cheap ACE hardware pumps, that you use in a septic, to pull water from my garbage can full of salt water. I turn my pump off with the clapper. It was mee maws before she lost her sight. She didn't need it anymore. So clap on, clap off.

lol....this entire reply made me giggle. The septic, the clapper. mee maw. I just love it.

Thanks for making my day.

 

[REEFRIED!]

What’s funny is I used the brute trash can on wheels. Getting the new fresh sw back into the tank was easy it was getting it out of the sump that was the hard part.

Because I made the mistake of not researching beforehand the guy from the lfs (super nice guy) didn’t rinse the substrate.

For the past 2 weeks I have been dealing with a very fine chalky film over everything. I have been turkey basting the sand every day to create a huge dust cloud and let my Reefmat do its thing.

I finally got it to be almost clear and so I decided to take all my equipment out and do a nice rinse and wipe down to start fresh. To be honest the film was driving me nuts. Here I have this brand new system and it was covered in the while film. Much of it landing in the sump.

So I bought a power controlled vacuum and tried to suck as much as I could out with that. It kind of worked. Until it literally came apart on me and stated shooting water everywhere. Luckily it had a little remote in it and I was able to turn it off quickly. It seemed like a lot of water. .

So it was all a learning lesson.

at least my sump is looking much better!!

If you have a reefmat how would your sump be dirty with the sand dust? Wouldn’t the sump be “after” the reefmat?

I also agree that there’s no way your alk could be that low. Unless your salinity is really low.

I think leaving the lights off is a great idea. Even now with a couple of fish I would leave them off. Keep them off for the next two months as you add some fish.

 

[Jenyphur]

Hey Reefried...maybe I'm using the wrong terms. I consider the sump the entire bottom tank. I have 3 compartments ..the water from the overflow comes down and then into the front half chamber where the reefmat is so yes, it hits it first. However, that sand dust permeated seeped out (I guess) from that area. I think it was due to the fact that I was literally stirring up the sand during the day to essentially rinse it and it was overwhelming the reefmat. It wasn't anything major but it got in all of my chambers. It was all over all of my equipment.

It's all good now...mostly cleaned up down there although there is still a bit in the back return chamber that I couldn't get to but it's not being disturbed.

 

[X-37B]

Oh...not sure if I ever posted my new ATO from Advanced Acrylics...here it is. I love it. It's slim and sleek and lets me keep all the room in my cabinet for other stuff. I have ordered new black tubing as the red draws too much attention to the unit. I'll be changing that out tomorrow hopefully.

Nice!. I have a white AA 15g ato for my 150.They are pricey but buy once. Now I need one for my IM 50 frag tank too!

 

[Jenyphur]

Oh crap...did I just screw this up?

I ordered and received my reef tank lid from Kraken Reef. However, when I put in for the measurements ...I guess my need for "everything needs to be even" got in the way. I told them to center the light mounts between the end of the tank and the overflow box. And the did just that. Ugh. However, of course, now my lights are not 1/3 of the way...they are both more to the outside edge of the tank. Clearly I wasn't thinking.

What have I done?

So first question..is this going to matter? I think it will as there is definitely less light now in the middle of the tank.

Then...how do I solve it?

1. Buy another LED 90 to put it in the middle? Is that too much light?
2. Order a new lid with the proper locations?

UGHGHGHGHHGHGHGHG

I definitely feel like I'm blonde right this moment.

 

[Devisissy]

Oh crap...did I just screw this up?

I ordered and received my reef tank lid from Kraken Reef. However, when I put in for the measurements ...I guess my need for "everything needs to be even" got in the way. I told them to center the light mounts between the end of the tank and the overflow box. And the did just that. Ugh. However, of course, now my lights are not 1/3 of the way...they are both more to the outside edge of the tank. Clearly I wasn't thinking.

What have I done?

So first question..is this going to matter? I think it will as there is definitely less light now in the middle of the tank.

Then...how do I solve it?

1. Buy another LED 90 to put it in the middle? Is that too much light?
2. Order a new lid with the proper locations?

UGHGHGHGHHGHGHGHG

I definitely feel like I'm blonde right this moment.

I'm going to need a photo. I'm also getting a kraken. No light mounts tho cause I just used the holes from where mee mah had a velvet painting of the Lord Jesus and a wood carved painting of a magnificent buck. Papa said he was the one that got away.

 

[Kraken Reef]

Oh crap...did I just screw this up?

I ordered and received my reef tank lid from Kraken Reef. However, when I put in for the measurements ...I guess my need for "everything needs to be even" got in the way. I told them to center the light mounts between the end of the tank and the overflow box. And the did just that. Ugh. However, of course, now my lights are not 1/3 of the way...they are both more to the outside edge of the tank. Clearly I wasn't thinking.

What have I done?

So first question..is this going to matter? I think it will as there is definitely less light now in the middle of the tank.

Then...how do I solve it?

1. Buy another LED 90 to put it in the middle? Is that too much light?
2. Order a new lid with the proper locations?

UGHGHGHGHHGHGHGHG

I definitely feel like I'm blonde right this moment.

A REEFLED 50/90 would work in the overflow without any modifications to the lid. Otherwise check your email for alternate options we've offered.

 

[Jesse Sunday]

Oh crap...did I just screw this up?

I ordered and received my reef tank lid from Kraken Reef. However, when I put in for the measurements ...I guess my need for "everything needs to be even" got in the way. I told them to center the light mounts between the end of the tank and the overflow box. And the did just that. Ugh. However, of course, now my lights are not 1/3 of the way...they are both more to the outside edge of the tank. Clearly I wasn't thinking.

What have I done?

So first question..is this going to matter? I think it will as there is definitely less light now in the middle of the tank.

Then...how do I solve it?

1. Buy another LED 90 to put it in the middle? Is that too much light?
2. Order a new lid with the proper locations?

UGHGHGHGHHGHGHGHG

I definitely feel like I'm blonde right this moment.

This is a great video to watch about lighting!



You might want to watch from the beginning, but your setup might be acceptable. If you could mock-up a drawing of where the Kraken has the light openings, we could see better.

But, if you have the option, another 90 in the middle, mounted as @Kraken Reef suggested might be best!

 

[Kraken Reef]

From center of her light to center of the tank is 11.26". We have customers who request similar layout, with the plans to place a third light in the future. That is why we did not question the location, as it was very specific.

So in regards to spacing and that video, if her light are centered front to back, the center of the light would be 11.3" from the front/back, which is more distance than the side to side.

@Jenyphur if you don't see our email, feel free to shoot us a message.

 

[Jenyphur]

HI!! I got the email! Thank you! Amazing customer service....I definitely know I made the right decision going with you guys. I am now trying to figure out if I should just get that new light and mount it in the center or get a new lid. I have to watch the video above to find out what the right thing to do is.

I will say this again...

@Kraken Reef .....Thank you!!!

 

[Devisissy]

HI!! I got the email! Thank you! Amazing customer service....I definitely know I made the right decision going with you guys. I am now trying to figure out if I should just get that new light and mount it in the center or get a new lid. I have to watch the video above to find out what the right thing to do is.

I will say this again...

@Kraken Reef .....Thank you!!!

Yes you did. I ordered a clearview lid for my JBJ 45 curved glass and it was supposed to be custom. It was just a square that didn't fit right so it shifted around. Gaps where the curved glass was. The acrylic scratched very easily. It was heavy and bowed. After a month or two the cheap spline they used got brittle and began to mold, the lid for feeding didn't fit right so it would fall into the tank. It was the second worst reef product I have ever bought. That's when I contacted kraken for a quote.

 

[Jenyphur]

Well I went and did it now.

I went and bought the Neptune Apex and the Trident. Why did I do that? Well, it's all about testing. I want automated testing and this is one way to get it. I checked out the others but honestly there is more customer base on this system. I set it up on Sunday and the apex part took me about an hour..it was super simple. Then I set up the Trident. Also pretty simple. I know it can do a LOT more than what I'm using it for but honestly having it do my PH/Temp/Alk/Cal/Mag tests for me is worth the $$$. And I can get the data immediately through the app.

But here's the thing. I'm a nerd. I'm actually a software developer and technical instructor. I've been teaching the past 4 years so haven't done much of anything too exciting recently. I thought this was a great opportunity to do some 'stuff'.

So I checked out the interface for Apex. No real API (boo...hisss...boo). But they do expose their extract through a simple web request.

I work for a company that is pretty well known in the industry for metrics/logging and observability. So I figured what better way to show my students what you can do with our product than to get my reef tank data auto ingested into my cluster (you can probably figure out which company I work for now).

And so the past 2 days I have automated the metrics coming in and I've started building out my dashboard. I can then set my own alerts and machine learning on my data.

Here's a VERY rough draft of my first take at a dashboard....keep in mind I have a LONG ways to go. This is 2 days of work lol and the dashboard part took me about 30 minutes. The hardest part was getting the data INTO my cluster so I can start analyzing it. The more interesting part is the data. It spits out metrics every 10 minutes and its doing 4 ALK tests in a 24 hr period day right now. Going to be changing that soon...however..it's interesting to watch my ALK plummet over the course of a day after I dose.

Anyways...nothing else new and exciting. Oh wait..yes there is. I have a new conch snail named 'The Dude'. He's super cool. He's cruising around trying to help with the uglies. My CUC gets here tomorrow thank goodness. This brown algae isn't fun.

I'm trying to get some good pics and I really suck at that part. I have my 3 corals and so far so good...they seem to be all doing well. The BEST one by far is the black light torch...he's AMAZING. I'll try and get a pic/video of him.