Hey everyone, I've followed R2R for a while, but haven't posted much. I figured now was a good time to dive in.
Here's the summary of this post:
Backstory:
I had a well established Red Sea Reefer 450 that crashed a few months ago. After many months of slowly losing about $3,000 in coral, I finally found the culprit. The cause was an ESHOPPES probe holder that had an improperly sealed magnet. One magnet had corroded, expanded, and dropped into my sump where I couldn't see it. It was leaching toxins (selenium, lithium and aluminum) into the water column for weeks/months.
After a month of trying to get the heavy metals out through several methods, multiple Triton tests confirmed there was no improvement. So, I sold off my fish and my LFS is holding some of my surviving corals (mostly mushrooms) and a couple of nems for me.
Everything has sat empty for over a month and I think I'm ready to start over.
Some pictures of my previous set-up:
When first installed, to give perspective of the room.
A while before the crash.
Right before the crash.
Toward the end of the crash.
Plan for tank set-up:
My original set-up wasn't shabby, but since I'm starting over, I might as well pimp this thing out. I love small fish, but I regretted not doing a reef predator tank last time. So, I'm going make the Reefer 450 the predator tank, and add a second tank adjacent to it set up as a display refugium.
Overall system volume will be:
Equipment:
Plan for livestock:
Reefer 450:
Since I want it to flow as one system, I won't be using the sump on the 170. Below is my plumbing concept.
I know it's not ideal to take turns on drain lines, but I'm not sure I have a choice. My hope is that with the emergency drain in addition to the main, I'll be ok. I'm going to make the emergency drain shorter than the water level in the sump so that I will hear water splashing if it's used. That should give me time to find the issue with the main drain pipe and fix it.
I have added a lot of valves and unions to be sure I can fix any issues that come up without destroying the whole system.
Please offer any advice, as screwing this up and flooding my living room would be a worst-case scenario.
Conclusion
Thank you for reading my lengthy post. If you have any suggestions, whatsoever, please offer them. It's not my first rodeo, but there's a lot of knowledge on this forum that I don't want to ignore. Afterall, that's the whole reason for this thread.
-JS
Here's the summary of this post:
- Backstory of why I'm (re)building
- Some pictures of my previous set-up
- Plan for tank set-up
- Plan for livestock
- Plumbing plan and diagram
Backstory:
I had a well established Red Sea Reefer 450 that crashed a few months ago. After many months of slowly losing about $3,000 in coral, I finally found the culprit. The cause was an ESHOPPES probe holder that had an improperly sealed magnet. One magnet had corroded, expanded, and dropped into my sump where I couldn't see it. It was leaching toxins (selenium, lithium and aluminum) into the water column for weeks/months.
After a month of trying to get the heavy metals out through several methods, multiple Triton tests confirmed there was no improvement. So, I sold off my fish and my LFS is holding some of my surviving corals (mostly mushrooms) and a couple of nems for me.
Everything has sat empty for over a month and I think I'm ready to start over.
Some pictures of my previous set-up:
When first installed, to give perspective of the room.
A while before the crash.
Right before the crash.
Toward the end of the crash.
Plan for tank set-up:
My original set-up wasn't shabby, but since I'm starting over, I might as well pimp this thing out. I love small fish, but I regretted not doing a reef predator tank last time. So, I'm going make the Reefer 450 the predator tank, and add a second tank adjacent to it set up as a display refugium.
Overall system volume will be:
- Red Sea Reefer 450 - 92 gal display, 116 gal total with sump
- Red Sea Reefer 170 - 34 gal display, sump unused
- Total system volume will be 150 gallons
Equipment:
- Neptune Apex system (in place)
- 2 Radion G3 XR30W Pros (in place)
- 1 Radion G3 XR15 for the Reefer 170
- Ecotech Vectra M1 return pump (in place)
- Skimz Monzter SM203 DC Skimmer (in place)
- Maxspect Gyre XF150 (in place)
- Heater and back-up heater (in place)
- 2 Reactors that I use from time to time (in place)
Plan for livestock:
Reefer 450:
- Soft corals, LPS and nems
- Clown Trigger
- Rhinopias Scorpionfish
- Colored Angler
- A puffer of some sort
- Maybe a tang or angel at some point, but it would be last
- Macroalgae, especially dragon's breath.
- Mangroves
- Seahorses/pipefish
- Starry blenny
- Maybe a midas blenny, though they are such pigs I'm concerned the seahorses won't get to eat
- Maybe a clown goby, because they're so dang cute
- Maybe some shrimp, etc.
- Bare-bottom, but create a carpet of GSP at the bottom of the tank
- Maybe some other corals that make sense.
Since I want it to flow as one system, I won't be using the sump on the 170. Below is my plumbing concept.
I know it's not ideal to take turns on drain lines, but I'm not sure I have a choice. My hope is that with the emergency drain in addition to the main, I'll be ok. I'm going to make the emergency drain shorter than the water level in the sump so that I will hear water splashing if it's used. That should give me time to find the issue with the main drain pipe and fix it.
I have added a lot of valves and unions to be sure I can fix any issues that come up without destroying the whole system.
Please offer any advice, as screwing this up and flooding my living room would be a worst-case scenario.
Conclusion
Thank you for reading my lengthy post. If you have any suggestions, whatsoever, please offer them. It's not my first rodeo, but there's a lot of knowledge on this forum that I don't want to ignore. Afterall, that's the whole reason for this thread.
-JS
