Midwest 200 Gallon Peninsula

[special-ops-s2k]

Tank looks amazing and very well thought out! I too have OCD when it comes to wire and plumbing management. Would you mind providing the vendor of where you purchased the tubing brackets? I love those, great idea!

Thanks for the kind words!

I purchased the surface mount clamps from BRS here:

Surface Mounting Clamp for PVC Pipe

Gray Surface Mounting Clamp for PVC Pipe Surface mounting clamps help reduce the strain on your plumbing fittings and bulkheads by properly and securely supporting your aquarium pluming. Designed for durability and ease of use, this clamp utilizes a simple clipping mechanism to hold your PVC...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

However, I have since come to find them cheaper at this supplier and they are the exact same thing:

Pipe Hangers

This category contains non-metallic, easy to install pipe hangers.

www.supplyhouse.com

To attach them to the T-slot 80/20 I used Stainless cap head bolts and T-nuts from a local fastner supply.

 

[ChicagoReef]

Just read the entire thread - Amazing job. Envy of many, including me.

 

[special-ops-s2k]

Just read the entire thread - Amazing job. Envy of many, including me.

Thank you! It's a work in progress for sure, and it's been nearly a year since I started laying out the first pieces / running new electrical for the dedicated circuits! I'm finally getting to see some of it come together and growth/progress... It's good to see and encouraging! Thanks for stopping in and checking out my system

 

[special-ops-s2k]

May FTS:

Time for my FTS Update... Not much to mention, most everything has been running smoothly. I have several SPS frags now in the tank and they seem to be doing well! My calcium has sort of skyrocketed in the past 48hrs... For months it's held steady at 450ppm (by Trident dosing) but it just started climbing and I'm not sure why yet? I turned off dosing and am letting AWC bring it back down hopefully... However its in the 550-560ppm range and I haven't dosed any calcium in 2 days! Nothing seems upset by it, but I'll keep and eye on it. I also am sending in my monthly ICP Test to ICP-ANALYSIS.COM as well as my quarterly ICP test to Triton so I'll see what everything else looks like in my water chemistry.

 

[special-ops-s2k]

June FTS:

June FTS update... Added more SPS, the calcium scare last month was all from the Trident misreading the levels because the straw that sucks up the reagent was tilted. Bought some 3d printed holders that force them straight and it's solved! Hooked up the co2 scrubber and now I have rock solid 8.3ph nearly round the clock. Daily consumption of A/C/M all have nearly tripled!

 

[Devaji]

June FTS:

June FTS update... Added more SPS, the calcium scare last month was all from the Trident misreading the levels because the straw that sucks up the reagent was tilted. Bought some 3d printed holders that force them straight and it's solved! Hooked up the co2 scrubber and now I have rock solid 8.3ph nearly round the clock. Daily consumption of A/C/M all have nearly tripled!

man your tank is coming along great!

 

[JBKReef]

June FTS:

June FTS update... Added more SPS, the calcium scare last month was all from the Trident misreading the levels because the straw that sucks up the reagent was tilted. Bought some 3d printed holders that force them straight and it's solved! Hooked up the co2 scrubber and now I have rock solid 8.3ph nearly round the clock. Daily consumption of A/C/M all have nearly tripled!

Could you make a post in more detail about the 3d printed solution? I have a trident but not hooked up yet. Very curious.

 

[BZOFIQ]

very nice!

 

[special-ops-s2k]

Could you make a post in more detail about the 3d printed solution? I have a trident but not hooked up yet. Very curious.

Absolutely! Basically the Trident has SS pick up staws that draw reagent from the bottles in the machine... Nothing keeps these perfectly vertical. So if one was to work it's way to a 45 degree angle inside the reagent container it will after awhile start to draw some air in with the reagent when it's doing the titration... Making the Trident think it took way more than it did to cause the color change, meaning a way higher false reading of your Calcium level.

I bought these:

They keep the straw perfectly vertical and fix the issue with false readings from time to time if the levels in the bottle are lower and the straw had happened to wander.

Hopefully this helps!

 

[JBKReef]

Absolutely! Basically the Trident has SS pick up staws that draw reagent from the bottles in the machine... Nothing keeps these perfectly vertical. So if one was to work it's way to a 45 degree angle inside the reagent container it will after awhile start to draw some air in with the reagent when it's doing the titration... Making the Trident think it took way more than it did to cause the color change, meaning a way higher false reading of your Calcium level.

They keep the straw perfectly vertical and fix the issue with false readings from time to time if the levels in the bottle are lower and the straw had happened to wander.

Hopefully this helps!

Very cool. Thank you that is helpful.

I see when setting up the Zoa garden you used a lot of 3 inch tiles. Kudos there, those tiles are awesome. I'm in between builds right now as part of a 3 hour move to a new home and my "temporary tank" instead of sand or ABS sheet I lined the whole tank with those tiles. Added some surface area, protect the glass, allow for easy fragging, and simple clean up when the tank is moved again.

 

[revhtree]

Beautiful reef!!

 

[ScottW]

Absolutely! Basically the Trident has SS pick up staws that draw reagent from the bottles in the machine... Nothing keeps these perfectly vertical. So if one was to work it's way to a 45 degree angle inside the reagent container it will after awhile start to draw some air in with the reagent when it's doing the titration... Making the Trident think it took way more than it did to cause the color change, meaning a way higher false reading of your Calcium level.

I bought these:

They keep the straw perfectly vertical and fix the issue with false readings from time to time if the levels in the bottle are lower and the straw had happened to wander.

Hopefully this helps!

Thanks for posting those, I just ordered a set from the same guy!

 

[special-ops-s2k]

Beautiful reef!!

Thank you sir! Appreciate the kind words!

Very cool. Thank you that is helpful.

I see when setting up the Zoa garden you used a lot of 3 inch tiles. Kudos there, those tiles are awesome. I'm in between builds right now as part of a 3 hour move to a new home and my "temporary tank" instead of sand or ABS sheet I lined the whole tank with those tiles. Added some surface area, protect the glass, allow for easy fragging, and simple clean up when the tank is moved again.

Yeah that is awesome! The tiles I used under the zoas are a bit smaller but its the same concept. I also alternated a tile with zoas then one without... So far it's working well. As they outgrow their tile I can simply use a razor and sperate the tiles, gives me a nice frag and I just put another blank tile in it's place. Makes getting frags of my zoas easy!

Thanks for posting those, I just ordered a set from the same guy!

Cool! They are super simple in design but really do improve the Trident and make it even more accurate... I love having a trend line with all my element uptake and when I make changes you can see in real time how the corals respond. For instance when I turned on my co2 scrubber and my pH went from 7.8-7.9avg to 8.2-8.3avg I saw an immediate uptake in ALK and CAL... Within 72hrs of the change I had doubled the 2 part I was dosing and since then I've upped it again almost 50% just to maintain stable levels. The corals are definitely consuming more and I can see it happening with the Trident!

You'll love it!

 

[special-ops-s2k]

July FTS:

Quick July FTS update... As per usual lately I added more sticks! After this batch I think maybe I'm going to hold off and let everything settle for a couple months before I keep loading more SPS into the system... (maybe) I'm addicted, what can I say? I also got a little baby TCK Master Torch to add in with my growing torch collection... He's tiny but you can clearly see the colors are amazing! I see what they hype is all about!

I'm still following my fish stocking plan to the letter so that meant next up was the Pyramid Butterflyfish... Unfortunately due to COVID I was unable to source any for the past several months. I finally got a lead on some coming in and got 3 beautiful specimens! They have been in my QT for a couple weeks now and started their 30 days in copper on 6/25/20 All of them are eating like crazy and so far I see no issues.

Last but not least the Co2 scrubber is still working fantastically! I have found the media lasts about a month. Which is a little less time than I had hoped for, being the larger reactor, but the increase in my consumption and the noticable speed up in encrusting by all my SPS is definitely worth it! Can't wait to see what 4-6mo of growth will do!

 

[newbreefer316]

July FTS:

Quick July FTS update... As per usual lately I added more sticks! After this batch I think maybe I'm going to hold off and let everything settle for a couple months before I keep loading more SPS into the system... (maybe) I'm addicted, what can I say? I also got a little baby TCK Master Torch to add in with my growing torch collection... He's tiny but you can clearly see the colors are amazing! I see what they hype is all about!

I'm still following my fish stocking plan to the letter so that meant next up was the Pyramid Butterflyfish... Unfortunately due to COVID I was unable to source any for the past several months. I finally got a lead on some coming in and got 3 beautiful specimens! They have been in my QT for a couple weeks now and started their 30 days in copper on 6/25/20 All of them are eating like crazy and so far I see no issues.

Last but not least the Co2 scrubber is still working fantastically! I have found the media lasts about a month. Which is a little less time than I had hoped for, being the larger reactor, but the increase in my consumption and the noticable speed up in encrusting by all my SPS is definitely worth it! Can't wait to see what 4-6mo of growth will do!

Do you have a pic of your CO2 scrubber setup? I used to run one and found that adding some humidity helped extend the life of the media. I don't have any pictures but I used to run a BRS dual media reactor. The air intake line was plumbed to draw air in from outside the house, first chamber of the reactor had rodi water in it then the CO2 media was in the 2nd chamber and that line was plumbed to my skimmer air intake.

 

[special-ops-s2k]

Do you have a pic of your CO2 scrubber setup? I used to run one and found that adding some humidity helped extend the life of the media. I don't have any pictures but I used to run a BRS dual media reactor. The air intake line was plumbed to draw air in from outside the house, first chamber of the reactor had rodi water in it then the CO2 media was in the 2nd chamber and that line was plumbed to my skimmer air intake.

Sorry for the late reply, didn't get a chance to take any pictures until today.

The 1" PVC runs through my utility room and up to the stand. The air intake of the skimmer breathes through that tube... Which goes through the wall and into my garage. The scrubber is wall mounted in the garage, as of now it doesn't intake air from outside, just from in my garage. I did this to reduce the restriction of air flow as it already is traveling quite the distance. The media seems to last about a month and it keeps my PH pegged at 8.2-8.3 24hrs a day!

 

[newbreefer316]

Sorry for the late reply, didn't get a chance to take any pictures until today.

The 1" PVC runs through my utility room and up to the stand. The air intake of the skimmer breathes through that tube... Which goes through the wall and into my garage. The scrubber is wall mounted in the garage, as of now it doesn't intake air from outside, just from in my garage. I did this to reduce the restriction of air flow as it already is traveling quite the distance. The media seems to last about a month and it keeps my PH pegged at 8.2-8.3 24hrs a day!

Thanks for the reply, that's pretty much how I originally had mine setup but the intake was plumbed outside the house. I liked it but was tearing through media. Bumped up the humidity and the media began lasting 2-3x longer.

 

[special-ops-s2k]

Thanks for the reply, that's pretty much how I originally had mine setup but the intake was plumbed outside the house. I liked it but was tearing through media. Bumped up the humidity and the media began lasting 2-3x longer.

So you used an entire reactor chamber full of water to add humidity? Interesting

 

[newbreefer316]

So you used an entire reactor chamber full of water to add humidity? Interesting

I was using the normal sized reactors and only kept the first chamber about 1/3 full of water.

 

[special-ops-s2k]

I was using the normal sized reactors and only kept the first chamber about 1/3 full of water.

Cool idea, I might pick up a normal sized BRS reactor and plumb it in front of the intake to my double unit, fill it 2/3 with RODI and see how it effects media lifespan. Cool idea! Thanks