Mclovin is a great name for a reef tank

i_am_mclovin · Dec 26, 2021

I got a nice hydros system for Christmas. The setup was very easy. I am super impressed with it so far. Build quality seems great too. So glad I got this over an apex so far. Can’t wait to add a wave engine to get rid of pump power bricks and also an xp8 power bar for fail safe “brain”.

I was able to also add a water level sensor as a fail safe to kill the return pump in case my drains get clogged.

i_am_mclovin · Dec 26, 2021

i_am_mclovin · Jan 1, 2022

I have a conundrum.

I hate my skimmer. The simplicity skimmer just kinda sucks. It's a very small cup and even with dry skimmate I'm having to empty it every few days. I am also starting to think it's undersized as I don't run filter socks and I rely upon heavy nutrient export. But... it is working at least. It takes about a day after a cleaning to start exporting again, so I'm basically getting 2 days of export and 1 day cleaning, every 3 days. Not fun.

I wanted to buy a bunch of frags at this point as the tank is doing quite well. Coralline is starting to grow everywhere, and the "canary" frags I had bought are doing fantastic. All are growing and encrusting. But now I'm starting to think I need to replace the skimmer before I buy more frags. I'd switch to a tunze 9410 DC skimmer which I have heard are amazing. I've used a ton of skimmers before, and I've used the tunze nano skimmer and it was one of the best skimmers I'd had. And the cup on the tunze skimmer is 3 cups vs the 1.25 cups I have now.

Do I buy the skimmer and wait on the frags? Decisions decisions. Help me out friends.

OR another idea would be to buy a trigger systems platinum sump that has the screen roller and replace the sump that came with this tank. Though that is going to be a lot of work I'm sure.

i_am_mclovin · Jan 6, 2022

Ok so after going through a lot of iterations regarding replacing the sump, I was able to get creative. I found my icecap ATS fit in the refugium section of the sump, freeing up more space in the main area of the sump. I moved the skimmer over and now I have the room to place an in-sump filter roller system.

I went back and forth between bubble magus and clarisea, and finally decided on the clarisea SK5000. I chose that because of the higher quality, and it is actually a lot more compact. I can buy the 6" wide roll SK5000 where as with the BM I could have only gotten a 4" "small" unit. I'm super impressed with the build quality and features of the clarisea, so I'm very excited to get this together.

I bought 32mm to 1" conversion slip adapters to convert my 32mm drain pipe to 1". I'll bring the two together with a T joint and into the 1" input of the filter roller. I bought ball valves to help control and quiet the drain pipes and flow. Will post pictures as I go!

The clarisea will fit in between the skimmer and the filter sock area. I test fit and it is perfect with room to spare.

i_am_mclovin · Jan 10, 2022

Ok so this was definitely an interesting project. I'm going to post this here for anyone else who might have a prostar or proclear rimless aquarium. To start I have the old 140 model (now it's the 150). The drain plumbing in sump is 32mm metric pvc. The drain pipe in the overflow is 50mm metric pvc. One of the design flaws of this cheaper aquarium is that it's basically just 2 standpipes in the overflow for the drain, and they give you some ball valves to try and tune them. However, if you tune them to silent and one of them plugs up, it WILL overflow the tank. So, you basically have to have noisy overflow drains. This is not a tank I'd put in a living room. But for me it's in my finished basement so noise isn't a factor.

That said, what I wanted to do with this clarisea filter roller was have ONE drain be primary and go into the roller, and the second drain be a backup/failsafe with a wide open pipe.

The easiest way to do this was to buy a 50mm to 1.5" pvc slip/slip adapter from BRS, and then cut it in half at the joint. By doing this I now have a 50mm pvc I can put onto the "backup" drain in the overflow to make that pipe just a little higher than the water level. I didn't glue it, it's just sitting there and I can adjust up or down as needed.

So next up, I bought a 32mm to 1" slip/slip from BRS and used that to plumb to my clarisea. The clarisea unit is amazing and gives you the best roller size with the smallest footprint. It fits perfectly next to my Simplicity 120 skimmer. I was able to use my DC return and the ball valve union to tune the drain so I get near siphon and very quiet drain.

Since installing this filter roller my skimmer has gotten very little skimmate. It still pulls some but has clearly slowed down as this filter roller is pulling so much junk out of the water column. I was having to clean my socks every 2 days it was insane.

i_am_mclovin · Jan 10, 2022

Also a fun coral update, I bought a few more corals. Using iphone for pics, but I really miss my DSLR macro lens. I might have to buy one again. Bought all of these from boom corals of course.

Strawberry shortcake acro. Looks ticked, which is pretty normal. They don't like change or dips, but should be ok.

Palmer's blue millie.

RR Rainbow Loom

Hammer coral, purple/green.

i_am_mclovin · Jan 16, 2022

Thinking of selling my reefbreeders photon V2 pro 50. I miss halide and want to get halides instead. If anyone is interested let me know but wouldn’t be available until I get the halides. I have original boxes including shipping box.