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Johnseye
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Man! That's a beautiful tank! Following along.
Thanks for the compliment. I need to learn how to take better pictures.
Johnseye's 260g Reef
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Thanks for the compliment. I need to learn how to take better pictures.
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Johnseye
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I've always looked for ways to reduce the noise created by the system. My old tank had a Durso drain I converted to a Herbie which helped considerably. For this one I put in a Bean and it's been the quietest and easiest drain of them all. Even with the larger water volume and flow it's still quieter. It's also nice to have most of the noise isolated into the fish room. Now that the Lifereef is essentially silenced by the venturi drawing air through the co2 scrubber instead of the skimmer cup the loudest noise was the water falling into the filter socks.
As Advanced Acrylics made my sump I reached out to them for a solution. Looks like I wasn't the only one with this issue as they had already designed something they call the Diamond Filter Sock Silencer. This thing is great. it's essentially a disc with a lot of little holes allowing the water through. A larger hole in the middle has a pvc pipe stuck through it. If at anytime the little holes were to get clogged and the water level rises it can get through the top of the pvc pipe. Occasionally I'll get a larger chunk of food or some nori on top but I've never had the water level rise much above the disc itself. Flow doesn't seem to be inhibited by the discs. It's nearly silenced the noise created by water flowing into the socks! Now the loudest thing in the fish room is the water flowing through the sump which isn't loud at all.
http://advancedacrylics.com/collections/other-products/products/filter-sock-silencer
As Advanced Acrylics made my sump I reached out to them for a solution. Looks like I wasn't the only one with this issue as they had already designed something they call the Diamond Filter Sock Silencer. This thing is great. it's essentially a disc with a lot of little holes allowing the water through. A larger hole in the middle has a pvc pipe stuck through it. If at anytime the little holes were to get clogged and the water level rises it can get through the top of the pvc pipe. Occasionally I'll get a larger chunk of food or some nori on top but I've never had the water level rise much above the disc itself. Flow doesn't seem to be inhibited by the discs. It's nearly silenced the noise created by water flowing into the socks! Now the loudest thing in the fish room is the water flowing through the sump which isn't loud at all.
http://advancedacrylics.com/collections/other-products/products/filter-sock-silencer
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Johnseye
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When I "make water" through the RODI system I do it manually in large amounts as opposed to automatically with floats. The reason for this is the DI filters last longer. The only problem is it takes hours to make it all. I'll often start it at night and it will be done in the morning. Unfortunately I forget about it sometimes and my family will be alerted by the Watchdog leak detection alarm, or we've left the house and hear the alarm when we get home. I also have a Neptune ALD near the Watchdog to shut off the RODI pump, but the water would still continue to flow at a lower rate.
After so many of these incidents I decided I needed something that would shut the water off completely if a spill happened. I installed a Floodstop which is designed for bathrooms, kitchens or laundry rooms. It has a solenoid which connects to metal plates with sensors, similar to the ALD. Because I can connect multiple sensor plates and position them in various places the water shuts off completely much earlier than before. It works great, problem solved.
After so many of these incidents I decided I needed something that would shut the water off completely if a spill happened. I installed a Floodstop which is designed for bathrooms, kitchens or laundry rooms. It has a solenoid which connects to metal plates with sensors, similar to the ALD. Because I can connect multiple sensor plates and position them in various places the water shuts off completely much earlier than before. It works great, problem solved.
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Johnseye
Reef Addict
Miracles gave me a pair of screen tops that inserted flush with the eurobracing. While they did the job and looked decent, when I saw the ClearView Lid from Artfully Acrylic, I thought man that looks sexy. The added acrylic helps prevent the splashing from lapping on top of the eurobrace I get when the current from the SeaSwirls hits the MP60 current. Everything is clear on this lid including the screen, while the DIY screens from Miracles were all brown. I have a feeding portal so I don't need to lift the screen all the time to feed, and I put in an autofeeder portal so the autofeeder food goes right into the tank and doesn't get stuck on the screen.
The only caveat is that this screen is all one piece so it's big. Putting it on and taking it off is cumbersome but not difficult. If I need to adjust anything in the tank I need to take the entire top off where the DIY screens from Miracles were two and I could just take one off at a time. But they didn't fit perfectly as the inner dimensions of the eurobracing weren't exactly square. I always had to squeze one side down hard to get it in flush. It's the opposite for the ClearView Lid. The entire lid fits in loosely. I wish the dimensions were a little bit tighter to the eurobracing, but that's my only complaint.
The only caveat is that this screen is all one piece so it's big. Putting it on and taking it off is cumbersome but not difficult. If I need to adjust anything in the tank I need to take the entire top off where the DIY screens from Miracles were two and I could just take one off at a time. But they didn't fit perfectly as the inner dimensions of the eurobracing weren't exactly square. I always had to squeze one side down hard to get it in flush. It's the opposite for the ClearView Lid. The entire lid fits in loosely. I wish the dimensions were a little bit tighter to the eurobracing, but that's my only complaint.
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Johnseye
Reef Addict
I knew I had a mantis shrimp who had hitch hiked in on the TBS rock. I had seen him once around the right side rock work and two cleaner shrimp mysteriously disappeared. I had considered taking out all the rock and dipping it in fresh water or seltzer water. I did that to two pieces of rock where I originally saw the mantis. The seltzer worked great as crabs and baby pistol shrimp came out, but no mantis. Either he moved or he buried himself in so well that he outlasted my efforts.
The final straw came when a baby clown fish disappeared. I knew it must have been the mantis. Then I saw him on the left side of the tank. He had found a hole in the rock which faced the front of the tank. Big mistake on his part. I kept an eye on him for a couple days, put a bottle trap near that rock with some bait, but he never took it. I could shine a flash light into the hole and see him so I knew he was in there. I pulled the rock out, which happened to be on the bottom, and set it in a bucket of cold fresh water. Small crabs and a baby pistol came out but the mantis stayed inside. I could see him pop his head out but he never came out entirely. After hours of soaking the rock I decided to take some needle nose tweezers and grab at him. I got his head off first, then after a lot of digging finally got the entire body out. Stubborn jerk.
The final straw came when a baby clown fish disappeared. I knew it must have been the mantis. Then I saw him on the left side of the tank. He had found a hole in the rock which faced the front of the tank. Big mistake on his part. I kept an eye on him for a couple days, put a bottle trap near that rock with some bait, but he never took it. I could shine a flash light into the hole and see him so I knew he was in there. I pulled the rock out, which happened to be on the bottom, and set it in a bucket of cold fresh water. Small crabs and a baby pistol came out but the mantis stayed inside. I could see him pop his head out but he never came out entirely. After hours of soaking the rock I decided to take some needle nose tweezers and grab at him. I got his head off first, then after a lot of digging finally got the entire body out. Stubborn jerk.
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Johnseye
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Over the holidays I finally got my new Pacific Sun Calcfeeder AC2 Pro up and running. This is my first calcium reactor so I have been learning how calcium reactors work in general. I have been dosing calcium and alk for years, and more recently mag as well. With this new tank my dosing requirements have been very high. I have been dosing about 300ml of alk per day using BRS sodium bicarbonate. A little less calcium and for the first time having to dose magnesium. It's possible these increased requirements are partially due to switching from Red Sea Pro salt to Tropic Marin (regular). I do like how much cleaner the Tropic Marin salt is, but having to dose more is an added cost and effort.
So I looked at several different reactors before deciding on the Pacific Sun. I looked at various used models as well as the Geo and Dastaco. I liked what I had read and heard about the Dastaco so was leaning towards that until I found out that Pacific Sun was going to release a new reactor based on the same principle. This reactor doesn't use PH as it's primary method for dissolving the media, but instead co2 level in a chamber. I researched Pacific Sun's reputation in the hobby as I had never purchased a product from them, and found no reason not to. I was concerned about buying a product so early in its life cycle, as well as getting support internationally, but after some email exchanges with Pacific Sun's President, Przemysław Cybulski, I decided to make the purchase. Przemek has been very communicative from the pre-sale until now, and I expect in the future. This goes a long way for me when making a purchase. It shows me he is personally behind his products.
I finally got around to setting everything up with some spare time over the holidays. First I had to get the regulator working and had never used a co2 reg before. I learned that the needle valve is very sensitive and needs to be opened quite a bit before any gas comes out. I don't have a bubble chamber so I just stick the end tube in a glass of water to count the bubbles. Right now I have it set for about 5 bubbles per second.
I was a pre-order and so received the degassing chamber for free. The degassing chamber is critical for me as low PH is a concern. I placed the order in October and received the reactor in early December. I had expected the wait so no concern. It gave me time to find a regulator and a local co2 distributor. The packaging was excellent and since it was an international shipment much appreciated. The entire box itself was wrapped in bubbles and inside there was plenty of packing material not to mention everything was wrapped in cellophane.
Here's a picture of the controller so you can get a look at the interfaces. It's a solid build, made of metal except for the attached pump.
Here are some of the accessories. Some tubing, holders for the tubing into the sump which is a nice add on, and the solenoid valve.
Setup was fairly easy. As this was my first calcium reactor I expected a learning curve. My only wish is that the instructions were a little clearer. I first needed to determine which tubes went where. There were some pictures in the instructions and I was able to figure out the rest. Once I got the tubing correct I filled up the reactors with media. Based on some research I went with Two Little Fishies Reborn as well as Remag media. Then I filled up the canisters with water, closed them up and started the Aquabee re-circulation pump. The Aquabee pump is extremely quiet.
The next part for me was a little confusing but after reaching out to Przemysław he quickly cleared it up and it made perfect sense. When you first turn on the controller the solenoid valve will open. You have a certain amount of time for the co2 to flow into the co2 chamber and if your co2 isn't flowing fast enough to push the water level down below the sensor, the controller will throw an error. To first get started either turn up your co2 flow or unplug, and plug back the controller until there is enough gas to fill the chamber down to the eye. Once the co2 chamber has enough gas no error is thrown and the reactor will begin to work. I set my effluent level to about 145ml per hour and am changing it as needed to match the tank's requirements.
So I looked at several different reactors before deciding on the Pacific Sun. I looked at various used models as well as the Geo and Dastaco. I liked what I had read and heard about the Dastaco so was leaning towards that until I found out that Pacific Sun was going to release a new reactor based on the same principle. This reactor doesn't use PH as it's primary method for dissolving the media, but instead co2 level in a chamber. I researched Pacific Sun's reputation in the hobby as I had never purchased a product from them, and found no reason not to. I was concerned about buying a product so early in its life cycle, as well as getting support internationally, but after some email exchanges with Pacific Sun's President, Przemysław Cybulski, I decided to make the purchase. Przemek has been very communicative from the pre-sale until now, and I expect in the future. This goes a long way for me when making a purchase. It shows me he is personally behind his products.
I finally got around to setting everything up with some spare time over the holidays. First I had to get the regulator working and had never used a co2 reg before. I learned that the needle valve is very sensitive and needs to be opened quite a bit before any gas comes out. I don't have a bubble chamber so I just stick the end tube in a glass of water to count the bubbles. Right now I have it set for about 5 bubbles per second.
I was a pre-order and so received the degassing chamber for free. The degassing chamber is critical for me as low PH is a concern. I placed the order in October and received the reactor in early December. I had expected the wait so no concern. It gave me time to find a regulator and a local co2 distributor. The packaging was excellent and since it was an international shipment much appreciated. The entire box itself was wrapped in bubbles and inside there was plenty of packing material not to mention everything was wrapped in cellophane.
Here's a picture of the controller so you can get a look at the interfaces. It's a solid build, made of metal except for the attached pump.
Here are some of the accessories. Some tubing, holders for the tubing into the sump which is a nice add on, and the solenoid valve.
Setup was fairly easy. As this was my first calcium reactor I expected a learning curve. My only wish is that the instructions were a little clearer. I first needed to determine which tubes went where. There were some pictures in the instructions and I was able to figure out the rest. Once I got the tubing correct I filled up the reactors with media. Based on some research I went with Two Little Fishies Reborn as well as Remag media. Then I filled up the canisters with water, closed them up and started the Aquabee re-circulation pump. The Aquabee pump is extremely quiet.
The next part for me was a little confusing but after reaching out to Przemysław he quickly cleared it up and it made perfect sense. When you first turn on the controller the solenoid valve will open. You have a certain amount of time for the co2 to flow into the co2 chamber and if your co2 isn't flowing fast enough to push the water level down below the sensor, the controller will throw an error. To first get started either turn up your co2 flow or unplug, and plug back the controller until there is enough gas to fill the chamber down to the eye. Once the co2 chamber has enough gas no error is thrown and the reactor will begin to work. I set my effluent level to about 145ml per hour and am changing it as needed to match the tank's requirements.
Daniel@R2R
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My Tank Thread
A very nice new toy!! I really like their Cal Rx. Very cool!Over the holidays I finally got my new Pacific Sun Calcfeeder AC2 Pro up and running. This is my first calcium reactor so I have been learning how calcium reactors work in general. I have been dosing calcium and alk for years, and more recently mag as well. With this new tank my dosing requirements have been very high. I have been dosing about 300ml of alk per day using BRS sodium bicarbonate. A little less calcium and for the first time having to dose magnesium. It's possible these increased requirements are partially due to switching from Red Sea Pro salt to Tropic Marin (regular). I do like how much cleaner the Tropic Marin salt is, but having to dose more is an added cost and effort.
So I looked at several different reactors before deciding on the Pacific Sun. I looked at various used models as well as the Geo and Dastaco. I liked what I had read and heard about the Dastaco so was leaning towards that until I found out that Pacific Sun was going to release a new reactor based on the same principle. This reactor doesn't use PH as it's primary method for dissolving the media, but instead co2 level in a chamber. I researched Pacific Sun's reputation in the hobby as I had never purchased a product from them, and found no reason not to. I was concerned about buying a product so early in its life cycle, as well as getting support internationally, but after some email exchanges with Pacific Sun's President, Przemysław Cybulski, I decided to make the purchase. Przemek has been very communicative from the pre-sale until now, and I expect in the future. This goes a long way for me when making a purchase. It shows me he is personally behind his products.
I finally got around to setting everything up with some spare time over the holidays. First I had to get the regulator working and had never used a co2 reg before. I learned that the needle valve is very sensitive and needs to be opened quite a bit before any gas comes out. I don't have a bubble chamber so I just stick the end tube in a glass of water to count the bubbles. Right now I have it set for about 5 bubbles per second.
I was a pre-order and so received the degassing chamber for free. The degassing chamber is critical for me as low PH is a concern. I placed the order in October and received the reactor in early December. I had expected the wait so no concern. It gave me time to find a regulator and a local co2 distributor. The packaging was excellent and since it was an international shipment much appreciated. The entire box itself was wrapped in bubbles and inside there was plenty of packing material not to mention everything was wrapped in cellophane.
Here's a picture of the controller so you can get a look at the interfaces. It's a solid build, made of metal except for the attached pump.
Here are some of the accessories. Some tubing, holders for the tubing into the sump which is a nice add on, and the solenoid valve.
Setup was fairly easy. As this was my first calcium reactor I expected a learning curve. My only wish is that the instructions were a little clearer. I first needed to determine which tubes went where. There were some pictures in the instructions and I was able to figure out the rest. Once I got the tubing correct I filled up the reactors with media. Based on some research I went with Two Little Fishies Reborn as well as Remag media. Then I filled up the canisters with water, closed them up and started the Aquabee re-circulation pump. The Aquabee pump is extremely quiet.
The next part for me was a little confusing but after reaching out to Przemysław he quickly cleared it up and it made perfect sense. When you first turn on the controller the solenoid valve will open. You have a certain amount of time for the co2 to flow into the co2 chamber and if your co2 isn't flowing fast enough to push the water level down below the sensor, the controller will throw an error. To first get started either turn up your co2 flow or unplug, and plug back the controller until there is enough gas to fill the chamber down to the eye. Once the co2 chamber has enough gas no error is thrown and the reactor will begin to work. I set my effluent level to about 145ml per hour and am changing it as needed to match the tank's requirements.
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Johnseye
Reef Addict
The concept of measuring a set amount of co2 in a chamber is unique to PacSun and Datasco with Datasco using a float switch and PacSun using an optical sensor. Time will tell how it works out but I like the concept. I'm excited about using a reactor instead of dosing. The dosing requirements have increased to where mixing has become cumbersome.
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Johnseye
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I had pre-ordered so was one of the first to get this reactor. That said, it's still brand spankin new from a life cycle perspective. I had never owned a caRx before and had a slight learning curve. The challenge I had was that I couldn't keep my PH down low enough to dissolve the media. I checked all my tube to john guest insert seals, checked my silicone seals, flushed the gas chamber several times over the course of two months only to find PH rise, and Alk drop every time. I eventually found two issues. First, there was a leak in the controller pump's tubing. It split longway, along the tube. PacSun recommends using grease with the tube as their replacement tube came with it. I'm not sure if it's necessary to keep it greased up, or even if grease is necessary, but regardless this split in the tubing caused air to get in and replace the co2.
With that problem solved I gave it one more shot and still found my Alk to drop. I didn't check PH. I had been using TLF Reborn media, and even with the air leak resolved it still wasn't dissolving. So, I swapped that out with ARM and now for the past few days my Alk has been steady. I've got at least a month to go before I'm confident my issues are resolved. It's a shame we'll be limited to only ARM media. I should be able to get PH down to around 6.1 which should dissolve Reborn. Hopefully this is it and I can begin to enjoy the reactor and stable elements. My corals were not happy with the up and down ride.
Janci
Staghorns will prevail
I guess it makes sense to keep the tube greased. In the end it is a mechanical movement that is in constant motion.
Good to hear you sorted out the problem.
These failures are due to small things and not always that easy to find.
Good luck and thank you for the information.
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Johnseye
Reef Addict
Except every other peristaltic pump I own, GHL, Spectrapure, Neptune DOS, doesn't use grease. Or if there was grease applied to the tubing it was never reapplied and the tubes never split. In fact when troubleshooting an issue with GHL, they recommended cleaning the tube of any lubricant.
Probably just a quality issue and that's what happens when you're one of the first to get a new product. As long as it doesn't happen again any time soon, and my elements stabilize, I'll be happy with the reactor.
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Johnseye
Reef Addict
Some helpful information for anyone with an AC2, although this could apply to the other models as well. I have been in communication with PacSun and provided a video of what I was experiencing. Even after removing more than 50% of my media flow still appeared low. After viewing my video Prezmek pointed out a few things.
First, my diffusion plate (that's what I'm calling it for lack of a better term) wasn't below the water output or reflow tube. The reason is that there is nothing to keep it in place and the bio balls which tend to float, would push it up. My solution was to use a zip tie to keep it in place. So far it's holding.
Second, because the diffusion plate was above the output tube, some pieces of media had fallen into the co2 chamber. One of those pieces made its way to the opening of the Aquabee pump and this significantly reduced the flow. I thought the flow was low and so removed over 50% of my media to see if it increased. When it didn't I knew something was wrong. The pump also started making a clicking noise for a couple hours which was in my video. With Prezmek's advice I had to empty the chambers of water and disconnect the Aquabee pump. There's no easy way to do this. Worth noting, when you are removing the Aquabee from the base you will need to unscrew the union connector from the pump itself, not just unscrew the union. The reason for this is that the side mounting of the pump onto the mount will catch at the pump's cover. There are no instructions on how to do this, so once they are made this would be helpful to include. When I opened the pump I found that one piece of media stuck in the inlet to the pump.
After removing that media, and the other piece from the gas chamber, and removing 5 bio balls so I could zip tie the diffusion plate to the center tube inside the gas chamber, and adding back the ARM media I removed a couple days ago, I was back in business. The flow is much, much faster and is hitting the diffusion plate creating a good amount of bubbles. Now I wonder whether the Reborn media will actually be ok, and it was just the other issues raising the PH.
There is only one diffusion plate in the AC2 and that's used at the top. If that plate is moved and allows media into the gas chamber and down to the pump you could experience the trouble I had. Clear instructions need to be made for this line of reactors as well as something provided to hold the diffusion plate in place. I'll now find out how much of an impact this has had on the element output of my reactor. I've been battling a slow PH increase combined with Alk decrease for months. With this issue out of the way I can now better determine if there is an air leak, which is the line of troubleshooting I had been following with the controller tube issue.
At this point I think the controller pump tubing is the wrong size or there's an issue with the rollers. What looks to be happening is the rollers are wearing away at the tubing. The new tubing I recently swapped out showed signs of wearing away in the same place within about a week. It doesn't appear to be worn all the way through to allow air to enter, but it's hard to tell and it's close. No water had leaked out so that tells me it probably didn't wear all the way through yet.
I greased up the second newly provided tube and put that in line. I don't know if the grease has any impact, perhaps causing the tube to slide around on the rollers and rub the wrong way. My controller is also sitting on its back as opposed to being attached to a backboard. This could cause the tube to slide toward one side if it's not properly sized. If in fact this controller must be mounted to a wall in order to avoid this issue, it's something that needs to be communicated. I'm not sure if the others experiencing this issue have their controller mounted or sitting on its back but would appreciate the feedback.
First, my diffusion plate (that's what I'm calling it for lack of a better term) wasn't below the water output or reflow tube. The reason is that there is nothing to keep it in place and the bio balls which tend to float, would push it up. My solution was to use a zip tie to keep it in place. So far it's holding.
Second, because the diffusion plate was above the output tube, some pieces of media had fallen into the co2 chamber. One of those pieces made its way to the opening of the Aquabee pump and this significantly reduced the flow. I thought the flow was low and so removed over 50% of my media to see if it increased. When it didn't I knew something was wrong. The pump also started making a clicking noise for a couple hours which was in my video. With Prezmek's advice I had to empty the chambers of water and disconnect the Aquabee pump. There's no easy way to do this. Worth noting, when you are removing the Aquabee from the base you will need to unscrew the union connector from the pump itself, not just unscrew the union. The reason for this is that the side mounting of the pump onto the mount will catch at the pump's cover. There are no instructions on how to do this, so once they are made this would be helpful to include. When I opened the pump I found that one piece of media stuck in the inlet to the pump.
After removing that media, and the other piece from the gas chamber, and removing 5 bio balls so I could zip tie the diffusion plate to the center tube inside the gas chamber, and adding back the ARM media I removed a couple days ago, I was back in business. The flow is much, much faster and is hitting the diffusion plate creating a good amount of bubbles. Now I wonder whether the Reborn media will actually be ok, and it was just the other issues raising the PH.
There is only one diffusion plate in the AC2 and that's used at the top. If that plate is moved and allows media into the gas chamber and down to the pump you could experience the trouble I had. Clear instructions need to be made for this line of reactors as well as something provided to hold the diffusion plate in place. I'll now find out how much of an impact this has had on the element output of my reactor. I've been battling a slow PH increase combined with Alk decrease for months. With this issue out of the way I can now better determine if there is an air leak, which is the line of troubleshooting I had been following with the controller tube issue.
At this point I think the controller pump tubing is the wrong size or there's an issue with the rollers. What looks to be happening is the rollers are wearing away at the tubing. The new tubing I recently swapped out showed signs of wearing away in the same place within about a week. It doesn't appear to be worn all the way through to allow air to enter, but it's hard to tell and it's close. No water had leaked out so that tells me it probably didn't wear all the way through yet.
I greased up the second newly provided tube and put that in line. I don't know if the grease has any impact, perhaps causing the tube to slide around on the rollers and rub the wrong way. My controller is also sitting on its back as opposed to being attached to a backboard. This could cause the tube to slide toward one side if it's not properly sized. If in fact this controller must be mounted to a wall in order to avoid this issue, it's something that needs to be communicated. I'm not sure if the others experiencing this issue have their controller mounted or sitting on its back but would appreciate the feedback.
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Johnseye
Reef Addict
It's been a while since I've posted any pictures of coral growth, or posted anything at all. I've been finishing up my MBA which sucked a lot of time from me. I'm looking forward to putting more time into reefing. If you refer back to post #6 you can see my last photos and compare to where things are now. It was time for some major trimming as I found certain corals restricting flow and others restricting light. I thought it would be a good time for some pictures before the trimming was done. I ended up pulling out a few colonies as I am planning on adding some new coral.
Overall growth has been good. Polyp extension is hit or miss. Some colonies are better than others and some days are better than others. This is something I need to work on. Some coral has taken off and grown like a weed, others have hardly grown at all and a couple colonies like Sanjay's beard crashed and died within a couple days.
Some challenges have been keeping the CaRx completely stable. This is mostly due to not being as diligent in monitoring alk, calc and mag since a CaRx doesn't need constant maintenance like dosing. I've also run into minor issues with the PacSun reactor. One of which I've been dealing with over the past couple days. Sediment can build up as the media breaks down, clouding the water, creating a film and causing issue with the sensor.
In the fish realm I added a beautiful Regal Angel only to have my PBT kill it. It took a couple attempts to get a Regal that made it through QT. Acclimating it in the new tank was a problem because of the PBT. I tried many different methods. Ultimately the PBT was relentless. I've been prepping another tank to pull the PBT out so I can begin introducing other fish. My plan is to catch him tonight or tomorrow. This Sunday I'll be introducing a Magnificent Foxface, male Blue Throated Trigger, an Ornate Leopard Wrasse and a Midas Blenny.
BC Secale
Tyree Blue Matrix
Jason Fox Bitter Sweet
Shawn Bennett Yellow Tort and ORA Red Planet
Overall growth has been good. Polyp extension is hit or miss. Some colonies are better than others and some days are better than others. This is something I need to work on. Some coral has taken off and grown like a weed, others have hardly grown at all and a couple colonies like Sanjay's beard crashed and died within a couple days.
Some challenges have been keeping the CaRx completely stable. This is mostly due to not being as diligent in monitoring alk, calc and mag since a CaRx doesn't need constant maintenance like dosing. I've also run into minor issues with the PacSun reactor. One of which I've been dealing with over the past couple days. Sediment can build up as the media breaks down, clouding the water, creating a film and causing issue with the sensor.
In the fish realm I added a beautiful Regal Angel only to have my PBT kill it. It took a couple attempts to get a Regal that made it through QT. Acclimating it in the new tank was a problem because of the PBT. I tried many different methods. Ultimately the PBT was relentless. I've been prepping another tank to pull the PBT out so I can begin introducing other fish. My plan is to catch him tonight or tomorrow. This Sunday I'll be introducing a Magnificent Foxface, male Blue Throated Trigger, an Ornate Leopard Wrasse and a Midas Blenny.
BC Secale
Tyree Blue Matrix
Jason Fox Bitter Sweet
Shawn Bennett Yellow Tort and ORA Red Planet
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Johnseye
Reef Addict
It's been nearly a year since my last update. In that time I've made a few changes and some more significant ones lately which leads me to this post.
I mentioned my PBT had killed the Regal Angel I introduced sometime last year. Some more detail on my introduction methods. I have a clear acrylic box that suctions to the glass, and I kept the Regal in it until the others in the tank lost interest. The PBT did end up going after it again after re-introduction, so I put in an egg crate divider. This kept them separated but at night the divider must have shifted and the PBT got at the Regal. He was dead when I found him.
After many months of attempts and methods of pulling the PBT out I ended up using a very tiny hook with some of his favorite food on it. I caught him right away. Before the hook I tried partitioning off the tank, nets, a liter bottle with the end cut off and food inside. I spoke with a lot of people about tricks and ultimately the hook did it. I was able to unhook him very easily because I had filed off the barb first. Then I kept him in a 55 gallon by himself for probably 8 months.
In that time I added a Blue Throated Trigger, Leopard Wrasse, Gold Midas Blenny, Lyertail Anthias and more Dispar Anthias. Then finally about 2 months ago I added a Regal Angel with no problems. A month ago I added a juvenile Blue Face Angel and a juvenile Emperor Angel. The Regal picked on the Blue Face for a few days to a week then let it go. He'll still chase him a little but the Blue Face has no torn fins and appears health. In time the Blue Face will outgrow the Regal. The juvenile Emperor was tiny when I got him. Probably 2". Sadly I found him sucked against an MP60 one day. I don't think he was strong enough to withstand the pull of that fan. I now have a new juvenile Emperor in QT. He's probably 5" or so and a voracious eater. He will enter the DT on Sunday and will be the last large fish I add. 3 years of patiently waiting, building up the less aggressive fish population so that I could add these final two Angels. Fingers crossed he holds his own and everyone learns to get along.
I have had to increase my feeding substantially while adding these fish. This has led to challenges with maintaining phosphates and some algae. Recently I have seen some cyano which has never been in this tank before. I'm going to get the sand bed cleaned up well with multiple water changes and see if it goes away.
3 years in this tank and 2 years in my previous 120g and I have some large coral colonies. I haven't added any new coral in over a year. I've been doing a lot of pruning and have removed entire colonies over the past year. I removed the green star polyps which not only blanketed the entire back of my tank but began moving across the sand into my rock. I had to pull a few rocks out, scrape the polyps off then leave the rocks in the 50G tank with the PBT until I knew they were all dead. That's an invasive coral species I'll never add back. I also removed the green leather coral as that began to grow beyond the few rocks it was attached to. There are now 2 very small growths that have come back from the cutting. I pulled out the purple plating montipora in the back of the tank. There are still remnants of it growing back here and there which I trim off.
I've trimmed most of my SPS down and on the right side of the tank trimmed a colony to less than half its previous size. As these colonies grow they will A. grow into other colonies and blend with them and B. shade out other colonies causing them to die. I will be pulling the Red Dragon SPS colony out completely. I also have a rock completely covered with Superman and Red Bullseye mushrooms that I'm going to give to my LFS. They're another invasive species. Then I'll be pruning the SPS on the left side of the tank back down. It's time to trim back enough so that I can add some new SPS.
I mentioned my PBT had killed the Regal Angel I introduced sometime last year. Some more detail on my introduction methods. I have a clear acrylic box that suctions to the glass, and I kept the Regal in it until the others in the tank lost interest. The PBT did end up going after it again after re-introduction, so I put in an egg crate divider. This kept them separated but at night the divider must have shifted and the PBT got at the Regal. He was dead when I found him.
After many months of attempts and methods of pulling the PBT out I ended up using a very tiny hook with some of his favorite food on it. I caught him right away. Before the hook I tried partitioning off the tank, nets, a liter bottle with the end cut off and food inside. I spoke with a lot of people about tricks and ultimately the hook did it. I was able to unhook him very easily because I had filed off the barb first. Then I kept him in a 55 gallon by himself for probably 8 months.
In that time I added a Blue Throated Trigger, Leopard Wrasse, Gold Midas Blenny, Lyertail Anthias and more Dispar Anthias. Then finally about 2 months ago I added a Regal Angel with no problems. A month ago I added a juvenile Blue Face Angel and a juvenile Emperor Angel. The Regal picked on the Blue Face for a few days to a week then let it go. He'll still chase him a little but the Blue Face has no torn fins and appears health. In time the Blue Face will outgrow the Regal. The juvenile Emperor was tiny when I got him. Probably 2". Sadly I found him sucked against an MP60 one day. I don't think he was strong enough to withstand the pull of that fan. I now have a new juvenile Emperor in QT. He's probably 5" or so and a voracious eater. He will enter the DT on Sunday and will be the last large fish I add. 3 years of patiently waiting, building up the less aggressive fish population so that I could add these final two Angels. Fingers crossed he holds his own and everyone learns to get along.
I have had to increase my feeding substantially while adding these fish. This has led to challenges with maintaining phosphates and some algae. Recently I have seen some cyano which has never been in this tank before. I'm going to get the sand bed cleaned up well with multiple water changes and see if it goes away.
3 years in this tank and 2 years in my previous 120g and I have some large coral colonies. I haven't added any new coral in over a year. I've been doing a lot of pruning and have removed entire colonies over the past year. I removed the green star polyps which not only blanketed the entire back of my tank but began moving across the sand into my rock. I had to pull a few rocks out, scrape the polyps off then leave the rocks in the 50G tank with the PBT until I knew they were all dead. That's an invasive coral species I'll never add back. I also removed the green leather coral as that began to grow beyond the few rocks it was attached to. There are now 2 very small growths that have come back from the cutting. I pulled out the purple plating montipora in the back of the tank. There are still remnants of it growing back here and there which I trim off.
I've trimmed most of my SPS down and on the right side of the tank trimmed a colony to less than half its previous size. As these colonies grow they will A. grow into other colonies and blend with them and B. shade out other colonies causing them to die. I will be pulling the Red Dragon SPS colony out completely. I also have a rock completely covered with Superman and Red Bullseye mushrooms that I'm going to give to my LFS. They're another invasive species. Then I'll be pruning the SPS on the left side of the tank back down. It's time to trim back enough so that I can add some new SPS.
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OP
OP
Johnseye
Reef Addict
Now on to a hardware update.
Lights:
Steady as she goes. The Spectra has been a stable and consistent fixture. In hindsight adding the Kessils was a very good idea in that it helps to bring a little more of that blue fluorescence that helps corals pop, but they are a bit small. Their output can't compete with the MH and T5s so when those are on the effect is very minimal. They do help with a dusk to dawn effect.
I have been thinking about going back to Radions to get a better viewing color. Everytime I go into Reefwise, where I donate all of my trimming, I can see what my coral looks like under eye popping LEDs. Plunking down several grand for some new lights when the Spectra works so well to grow coral is not appealing however and I always talk myself out of it. The Radiums do emit a nice color and I have played around with the T5s for more pop, but nothing can do that like LEDs. For now I'm sticking with the Spectra. I will also say that whenever I get the ComEd bill it sucks seeing my usage waaayy above my neighbors.
Return Pump:
This past December I went to Thailand for 3 weeks with my family. We go every couple years and I have a routine setup with 3 of my neighbor friends to feed and watch the tank. My LFS, Reefwise is on standby in case there's an emergency. Brian, the owner of Reefwise is extremely helpful in times of need. I had an Apex failure a few years ago about an hour before I had to leave for the airport on another trip and he had someone out to my house right away to work with my wife and help replace it with my spare.
On this trip to Thailand he came to the rescue again. One of my friends found the return pump had failed. He immediately called Brian who knew another reefer in my area who uses a Royal Exclusiv Red Dragon RD3 230. That person happened to run two and so he shut down one of them and brought it up to my house that night. It turns out the controller of the Red Dragon had failed. The warranty on the RD3 is 2 years. My controller was about 2 years and 8 months old. While I did get a 25% discount on the replacement I still had to pony up $411 for a new one. While we don't know the cause of the controller's failure they point to a surge. My entire house is on a whole home generator and my RD3 is plugged into my Neptune EB8, which apparently is not a surge protector. Until now I didn't think I needed one. I've since added a UPS large enough to support a decent load, but not everything on the EB8. I'll explain more on that later.
Here was Royal Exclusiv's response regarding the issue: "The EB8’s don’t have surge protection so all we can do is speculate. That said, most of the failures of the RD3 230’s have been surge related and there have been very few 230 failures in total. As it sits right now, the only repair option for the 230’s is sending them back to the factory in Germany and the shipping is expensive back and forth. Likely in the neighborhood of $200 for UPS total shipping both directions with insurance plus the repair costs. This is one of the reasons why we offered you the discount on the new controller. That said, I inquired with Germany as to whether we can get the internal boards for the 230 watt controllers so we can offer a repair service in the US. I will update you once I have further info on that as your failure prompted me to inquire about that. In the mean time hang on to your 230 controller. "
So no option to replace the controller board yet, only the full controller if I want an immediate replacement. My backup pump is an offline Reeflo Hammerhead, which I've only used the first couple weeks of having the tank up. I can get it in place and working in an hour or so, but it would have been very difficult for someone else to do that. In hindsight, if I were to do it all over again, I would use two return pumps inline with one on standby ready to go. It's worth the insurance. I'm extremely grateful and indebted to Brian at Reefwise and the individual who helped me out, saving my tank.
Ecotech Vortech powerheads:
The only comment on these pumps is that my wetside cages fly off often. I think the cause might be soaking them in vinegar too long which may cause the rubber O ring to degrade. I'm going to be pulling the O ring off and clean it before soaking the pump.
More to come shortly...a big CaRx change!
Lights:
Steady as she goes. The Spectra has been a stable and consistent fixture. In hindsight adding the Kessils was a very good idea in that it helps to bring a little more of that blue fluorescence that helps corals pop, but they are a bit small. Their output can't compete with the MH and T5s so when those are on the effect is very minimal. They do help with a dusk to dawn effect.
I have been thinking about going back to Radions to get a better viewing color. Everytime I go into Reefwise, where I donate all of my trimming, I can see what my coral looks like under eye popping LEDs. Plunking down several grand for some new lights when the Spectra works so well to grow coral is not appealing however and I always talk myself out of it. The Radiums do emit a nice color and I have played around with the T5s for more pop, but nothing can do that like LEDs. For now I'm sticking with the Spectra. I will also say that whenever I get the ComEd bill it sucks seeing my usage waaayy above my neighbors.
Return Pump:
This past December I went to Thailand for 3 weeks with my family. We go every couple years and I have a routine setup with 3 of my neighbor friends to feed and watch the tank. My LFS, Reefwise is on standby in case there's an emergency. Brian, the owner of Reefwise is extremely helpful in times of need. I had an Apex failure a few years ago about an hour before I had to leave for the airport on another trip and he had someone out to my house right away to work with my wife and help replace it with my spare.
On this trip to Thailand he came to the rescue again. One of my friends found the return pump had failed. He immediately called Brian who knew another reefer in my area who uses a Royal Exclusiv Red Dragon RD3 230. That person happened to run two and so he shut down one of them and brought it up to my house that night. It turns out the controller of the Red Dragon had failed. The warranty on the RD3 is 2 years. My controller was about 2 years and 8 months old. While I did get a 25% discount on the replacement I still had to pony up $411 for a new one. While we don't know the cause of the controller's failure they point to a surge. My entire house is on a whole home generator and my RD3 is plugged into my Neptune EB8, which apparently is not a surge protector. Until now I didn't think I needed one. I've since added a UPS large enough to support a decent load, but not everything on the EB8. I'll explain more on that later.
Here was Royal Exclusiv's response regarding the issue: "The EB8’s don’t have surge protection so all we can do is speculate. That said, most of the failures of the RD3 230’s have been surge related and there have been very few 230 failures in total. As it sits right now, the only repair option for the 230’s is sending them back to the factory in Germany and the shipping is expensive back and forth. Likely in the neighborhood of $200 for UPS total shipping both directions with insurance plus the repair costs. This is one of the reasons why we offered you the discount on the new controller. That said, I inquired with Germany as to whether we can get the internal boards for the 230 watt controllers so we can offer a repair service in the US. I will update you once I have further info on that as your failure prompted me to inquire about that. In the mean time hang on to your 230 controller. "
So no option to replace the controller board yet, only the full controller if I want an immediate replacement. My backup pump is an offline Reeflo Hammerhead, which I've only used the first couple weeks of having the tank up. I can get it in place and working in an hour or so, but it would have been very difficult for someone else to do that. In hindsight, if I were to do it all over again, I would use two return pumps inline with one on standby ready to go. It's worth the insurance. I'm extremely grateful and indebted to Brian at Reefwise and the individual who helped me out, saving my tank.
Ecotech Vortech powerheads:
The only comment on these pumps is that my wetside cages fly off often. I think the cause might be soaking them in vinegar too long which may cause the rubber O ring to degrade. I'm going to be pulling the O ring off and clean it before soaking the pump.
More to come shortly...a big CaRx change!
OP
OP
Johnseye
Reef Addict
Nearly 3 years ago I purchased a Pacific Sun Calcfeeder Pro AC2 with degassing chamber. At the time I debated between it and the DaStaCo. Two factors led me to decide on the Calcfeeder; cost and elements. Cost is pretty straight forward, it was less. At the time I also saw the two reactors potentially doing the same thing, so why pay more? Then there's the fact that the DaStaCo effluent is calcium and alk only. When dissolving coral skeleton or aragonite you get the benefit of some magnesium and other elements like strontium, etc. That was the most important factor for me at the time. My thought was, what the coral takes in it most likely needs, so it's best to provide that to my corals through effluent. I decided on the Calcfeeder and it was a love hate relationship. A couple weeks ago my Calcfeeder had a problem which I had spent a few days working on. Tomasz at PacSun helped me out, but not well enough and not fast enough. It wasn't working properly yet and I didn't want to follow his suggestion as a next step. It was time for a divorce from PacSun.
Enter the DaStaCo. I ordered it from Unique Corals and they shipped it with a bucket of media to me overnight air freight for $50. Unique offers free standard shipping and I just paid the difference. Joe at Unique was extremely helpful, responding to my voicemail from his vacation and texting me at night over the weekend. Donna at Unique was awesome and found a cost effective method of overnighting me the package on Delta air freight. UPS wanted something like $300. Ridiculous.
The truth is this CaRx was so simple to setup that rinsing the media and cutting the tubing took the longest of any step. I had it up and running in no time. You're probably wondering, why the change? What didn't you like about the Calcfeeder? What kind of problems did you have? I'll get into all of that, every issue, over time. Subscribe and stay tuned, there's a lot to it. First I'll talk about the DaStaCo.
The DaStaCo reactor has 3 chambers. The co2 chamber is small and attached to the main media chamber. An Eheim pump attached to the co2 chamber circulates the water between the first media chamber and the co2 chamber. There is a float switch at the bottom of the co2 chamber that tells the controller when to add more co2. I think the DaStaCo could use the same type of sensor the Calcfeeder uses with better results because of the clean media. I was told the DaStaCo media doesn't break down in the same way as aragonite so there should be no mushy mess with cloudy water to block the sensor. The float switch seems to work just as well so I suppose the other sensor wouldn't be much of an improvement over it. I was told to fill the main media chamber 1/2 full with media. There's a final chamber that is like a degassing chamber. I was told to fill that 2/3 full with media, however someone in the DaStaCo Facebook group told me to fill it higher than that.
All it takes to get the flow working correctly in this reactor is to set the co2 output to fill the chamber within a large time window and have just enough co2 flow continuously enter that chamber when the solenoid is on. Then you set the alk/calcium dial to your aquarium's need and check the alk level in the DT regularly to make sure you're getting the right amount of effluent. The controller automatically vents to release gasses that aren't co2 so the reactor is working as efficiently as possible. The number of vent occurrences per day should be half the number on the alk dial.
I set the alk level on the controller to 2 and the alk level stayed around 9, then slowly rose toward 10. I dialed it back to 1.5 an it's stayed steady around 9 since. I had been concerned that the aquarium's PH level would drop because of the low PH in the reactor. So far I've found that my PH level has risen. The Calcfeeder had lowered it more. I had been doing things to help raise the PH like kalk in my ATO, keeping a window open in the basement for better co2 exchange and I attached a reactor with lime media to the air intake of my skimmer. All of those things do help to raise the PH of the tank. I've since taken off the lime media reactor and I'm monitoring PH which is around 8.3 at peak and lowers to about 8.1 at night.
Here are a few pictures of the reactor and the fish/sump room. I'll take some more soon as well as a video of my entire setup, from the aquarium back into the fish room.
Enter the DaStaCo. I ordered it from Unique Corals and they shipped it with a bucket of media to me overnight air freight for $50. Unique offers free standard shipping and I just paid the difference. Joe at Unique was extremely helpful, responding to my voicemail from his vacation and texting me at night over the weekend. Donna at Unique was awesome and found a cost effective method of overnighting me the package on Delta air freight. UPS wanted something like $300. Ridiculous.
The truth is this CaRx was so simple to setup that rinsing the media and cutting the tubing took the longest of any step. I had it up and running in no time. You're probably wondering, why the change? What didn't you like about the Calcfeeder? What kind of problems did you have? I'll get into all of that, every issue, over time. Subscribe and stay tuned, there's a lot to it. First I'll talk about the DaStaCo.
The DaStaCo reactor has 3 chambers. The co2 chamber is small and attached to the main media chamber. An Eheim pump attached to the co2 chamber circulates the water between the first media chamber and the co2 chamber. There is a float switch at the bottom of the co2 chamber that tells the controller when to add more co2. I think the DaStaCo could use the same type of sensor the Calcfeeder uses with better results because of the clean media. I was told the DaStaCo media doesn't break down in the same way as aragonite so there should be no mushy mess with cloudy water to block the sensor. The float switch seems to work just as well so I suppose the other sensor wouldn't be much of an improvement over it. I was told to fill the main media chamber 1/2 full with media. There's a final chamber that is like a degassing chamber. I was told to fill that 2/3 full with media, however someone in the DaStaCo Facebook group told me to fill it higher than that.
All it takes to get the flow working correctly in this reactor is to set the co2 output to fill the chamber within a large time window and have just enough co2 flow continuously enter that chamber when the solenoid is on. Then you set the alk/calcium dial to your aquarium's need and check the alk level in the DT regularly to make sure you're getting the right amount of effluent. The controller automatically vents to release gasses that aren't co2 so the reactor is working as efficiently as possible. The number of vent occurrences per day should be half the number on the alk dial.
I set the alk level on the controller to 2 and the alk level stayed around 9, then slowly rose toward 10. I dialed it back to 1.5 an it's stayed steady around 9 since. I had been concerned that the aquarium's PH level would drop because of the low PH in the reactor. So far I've found that my PH level has risen. The Calcfeeder had lowered it more. I had been doing things to help raise the PH like kalk in my ATO, keeping a window open in the basement for better co2 exchange and I attached a reactor with lime media to the air intake of my skimmer. All of those things do help to raise the PH of the tank. I've since taken off the lime media reactor and I'm monitoring PH which is around 8.3 at peak and lowers to about 8.1 at night.
Here are a few pictures of the reactor and the fish/sump room. I'll take some more soon as well as a video of my entire setup, from the aquarium back into the fish room.
Last edited:
Lorenzo Angotti
Active Member
Lovely setup, you certainly did your homework well done. It shows, if you put the hard work in you get great results. Keep up the good work.
OP
OP
Johnseye
Reef Addict
Thank you. I do plenty of reading and research. Even so I've learned a lot over the years through trial and error. Experience with a smaller tank helped. Then breaking that down and starting over gave me a fresh opportunity to apply what I learned until then. I could probably put several hours in every night doing maintenance, improving things, upgrading or expanding.
It is a lot of hard work, but very rewarding and fun doing it. I once thought about opening up a store, but I think doing something like that would create endless hard work and I might stop enjoying it so much.
For the past 3 years I haven't added any coral. I just let what I had grow, trimming here and there, and that allowed me to see what happened. I also expanded my audiophile equipment which is where I funneled a lot of my funds. Audio and reefing are two expensive hobbies. Now that my audio equipment is where I want it to be I've been making some improvements with my aquarium.
OP
OP
Johnseye
Reef Addict
I've been waiting for an automated testing system for a while. Specifically the Trident. While waiting for the Trident a lot of auto alk testers have come on the market, but it's very nice also knowing calcium and mag. Not that testing those two are critical. Mag is typically covered just fine with most salts. Some salt falls short however. I was using Tropic Marin salt for years and had to dose mag. I've switched to Reef Crystals and the mag is just fine. The only thing I don't like about Reef Crystals is the grayish clay sediment. I'm concerned it adds something to the tank that I don't want and am considering changing to Aqua Forest soon. I just don't want to make too many changes at once and I've made a few recently. Calc usually falls in line with alk. I'll test it on occasion to make sure it's not falling below 400 but it's always higher, especially with regular water changes.
So I picked up a Trident the other day. For 6 years or so I've used Hanna for alk and Salifert for calc and mag. My alk readings are consistently lower with the Trident than Hanna. Calc and mag are reasonably close between the Trident and Salifert. After years of trusting the Hanna I'm finding it's about 1 DKH off. Now I don't know whether to trust the Trident or the Hanna. I spoke with Neptune support and you can guess what they said. The Trident is the most accurate. Of course. 1 DKH is a lot in my opinion, but if I keep it around 8.5-9 with the Trident and 9-9.5 with the Hanna I'm where I want it to be. The important thing is that it doesn't bounce around and the DaStaCo Rx is helping with that.
I also don't like the OpEx for Trident Reagents. $45 for 2 months, $22.50 per month, $270 per year is too much IMHO. My plan is to watch stability over a couple months then switch to manual testing once per day, then possibly shift to once per week. 4 tests per day is unnecessary if the parameters are stable. In fact testing only alk once a week and calc and mag once a month is probably fine as long as you know things are stable. But it's extremely nice to have it automated and my ideal auto test would be once per day.
Here's the Trident
So I picked up a Trident the other day. For 6 years or so I've used Hanna for alk and Salifert for calc and mag. My alk readings are consistently lower with the Trident than Hanna. Calc and mag are reasonably close between the Trident and Salifert. After years of trusting the Hanna I'm finding it's about 1 DKH off. Now I don't know whether to trust the Trident or the Hanna. I spoke with Neptune support and you can guess what they said. The Trident is the most accurate. Of course. 1 DKH is a lot in my opinion, but if I keep it around 8.5-9 with the Trident and 9-9.5 with the Hanna I'm where I want it to be. The important thing is that it doesn't bounce around and the DaStaCo Rx is helping with that.
I also don't like the OpEx for Trident Reagents. $45 for 2 months, $22.50 per month, $270 per year is too much IMHO. My plan is to watch stability over a couple months then switch to manual testing once per day, then possibly shift to once per week. 4 tests per day is unnecessary if the parameters are stable. In fact testing only alk once a week and calc and mag once a month is probably fine as long as you know things are stable. But it's extremely nice to have it automated and my ideal auto test would be once per day.
Here's the Trident
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