Mikedb's 140 Gallon Peninsula

[ReefRDude]

Thanks!

Algae problem beaten? Not quite....

... blue lights and some manual removal can make a tank with major problems look pristine! I'll explain below where I think I went wrong.

'What I would change' s an excellent one that I wish was asked/answered more in this hobby, so I took a few days to think about it. Here is what I have come up with...:

1. Not using live rock- having experienced this myself and having spoken to other more experienced local hobbyists, it seems apparent that the 'break-in' or 'ugly' period is MUCH longer using artificial rock and sand. For the past eight months, with the aid of my ReefBot and Apex DOS, I have been tightly controlling my NO3 and PO4 levels within ideal ranges- 5ppm NO3 and 0.5ppm PO4. Despite this, I have been battling a rotating cast of nuisance algae/bacteria. At one point a few months ago, I had dinos, cyano, hair algae, bryopsis, and bubble algae at the same time! As you can see from the above photo my current challenge is a simultaneous outbreak of hair algae and dinos.
   
   I am now convinced that starting with a stable bacterial population isa big shortcut when starting a tank. On this front there is a lot we don't know, and I look forward to more hobby-grade bacterial tests going forward. I think there is a lot to a tank's bacterial fauna that hobbyists don'y understand. If I were to do it again, I would probably purchase a significant amount of live rock and keep it in the sump for several months (since I love the Caribsea product so much for aquascaping, despite the fact it soaks up PO4 like a sponge)
2. Wiring: I would purchase larger wire duct- 4x4 minimum throughout. I went smaller in some places and have really struggled fitting all the necessary wires and tubing in. This stuff costs a fortune, but there is a reason the professionals use it. Just leave yourself lots of extra space.
3. Plumbing (Red Sea Specific): I used 1-1/2" PVC for my basement sump plumbing, and would probably use 1-1/4" or 1" if I were to do it again. 1-1/2" was quite challenging to work with- larger holes needed to be drilled, and the space between the bulkheads underneath the overflow barely leaves enough room for 1-1/2" unions. I find that the siphon takes a LONG time to fully establish after feeding time- so much so that I have my return pump slowing ramp up over an hour to stop annoying gurgling.
   
   In any event, since the Red Sea fittings are less than 3/4" in some places, 1-1/2" piping is unnecessary- it has almost four times the cross sectional area!
4. Skimmer Placement (Red Sea Specific): I swapped the skimmer and refugium chambers in my sump based on advice I read on these forums, and regret it. Putting the skimmer downstream of the refugium means that little pieces of chaeto clog up the pinwheel on the skimmer pump, and putting the skimmer right upstream of the return pump means that bubbles make it to the display when the skimmer isn't tuned properly. Unfortunately, my skimmer is too big to fit in the skimmer chamber so I am stuck.
5. Coral supply: I'm not sure if this fits here, but one the biggest things I have learned is to get in touch with other local hobbyists and purchase frags locally! I was always under the impression that 'high-end' corals could only be purchased through specialized stores online, only to find several local hobbyists who were selling frags of those same corals for a small fraction of the price. If I had put the legwork into making those contacts earlier, I would have saved thousands.

I hope that helps! Overall I am very happy how things turned out, but being my first large tank, a few regrets were inevitable!

Thanks for your help....... I know you advised against it but I think that I am still gonna use the same CaribSea Rock as you and take my chances with the algae. I learned my lesson 10 years ago with live rock and all the aggravations of unwanted hitchhikers that came with it. I told myself Never, Never again!!! So I guess i'm in a Catch 22 situation here.

Do you think the overfeeding incident spurred all your algae issues?

Also I was up in the air on plumbing so I think you have convinced me to go with 1 1/4" plumbing.

 

[AlAwadhi]

Santa bought the reef a present over the holidays... an Abyzz A100 return pump!

My disappointment with the Reef Octopus Varios pumps is pretty well documented here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/upgrading-my-return-pump-suggestions.662775/ . Summary: the Varios pumps don't meet their performance specifications, and Coralvue will void your warranty for using them within those specifications.

I installed the Abyzz last weekend, and everything went pretty smoothly. It was well packaged, with good instructions. Plumbing the pump into my PVC plumbing required no less than three different glues to go between the ABS pump housing, the ABS imperial conversion ring, my PVC barbed fitting, and a few other modifications to my PVC...

Nevertheless, getting it plumbed into my system was pretty easy. I use true union check valves for both my master and slave pumps, so each pump is somewhat 'modular'...

Then, installing it was as simple as swapping out one of the Varios pumps for the new Abyzz (forgive the salt spray... the flash really brings it out!):

The Abyzz controller is larger than the Varios controller it replaced, so I needed to move some things around to make it fit. One nice feature is that the Abyzz controller has an integrated power supply, so no big brick to hide, and no cheap no-name power supply to fail. One of my Varios supplies failed at about 5 months... if I didn't have a redundant pump my tank would have been toast. Forgive the lack of wire management... I am waiting on some more zip ties.

Noise:

My first reaction when starting it up... dang it! I just spent $1200 on a pump that is just as loud as the Reef Octopus ones! But as the instruction manual says, it takes about 3+ days for these pumps to 'break in' and quiet down. And, as promised, it has. After five days of operation, the pump is now acceptably quiet. It isn't silent (yet), but has a much nicer high-pitched sound that doesn't travel as far- the Varios had a much lower pitched hum that really carried. Standing right beside the tank, you really have to listen for it now. You can no longer hear it from the kitchen across the house, or the baby room two stories above. Mission accomplished!

Power:

This thing certainly has plenty of power for my needs! I am running it at 82% and getting ~430gph. I might be tempted to go a little higher at some point, but right now the gorgonian across the tank (4' away from the return) is getting blown over above that flow rate. I might consider a vortex generator to allow for more, distributed, flow going forward.

Consistency:

One issue I had with the Varios was that it was constantly changing in pitch, making the noise especially unpleasant. The return was also difficult to tune because the flow seemed to be jumping around, although I wasn't sure if that was just the Apex flow meter....

The Abyzz is much better! (Note the different scale on the left side- from a ~30gph variation to a 6gph variation!

In sum, I am very glad I made the upgrade!

Which cable you used to connect The Abyzz APEX Interface to The 0-10v port in your existing APEX System (3.5mm jack on a side and RJ45 Connector in the other side)?

 

[mikedb]

Apologies for it taking almost a month to respond! It has been a very busy several weeks landscaping and installing an irrigation system for our new home. 80 shrubs, 20 yards of mulch, and 80 sprinkler heads later, I finally have some free time again.

I have said it over and over throughout this thread, but automation is invaluable. I was able to let the tank run nearly autonomously (other than a daily feeding) for over a month, with no ill effects.

Thanks for your help....... I know you advised against it but I think that I am still gonna use the same CaribSea Rock as you and take my chances with the algae. I learned my lesson 10 years ago with live rock and all the aggravations of unwanted hitchhikers that came with it. I told myself Never, Never again!!! So I guess i'm in a Catch 22 situation here.

Do you think the overfeeding incident spurred all your algae issues?

Also I was up in the air on plumbing so I think you have convinced me to go with 1 1/4" plumbing.

Glad I was able to help with the plumbing.

As for the live rock, it really is a catch-22. My ‘never again’ takeaway is that I won’t ever try to start a system without live rock again.

If I were to do everything over, I would use CaribSea in the display to get an attractive aquascape, and a reservoir with love rock to establish a beneficial bacteria biome in the system. I realize hitchikers are a risk, but after a year of introducing coral I have gained many of those hitchhikers anyways, so I’m not sure what I really gained

I’m not sure what overfeeding incident you are referring to? I have never had an issue with overfeeding and this system has never had NO3 above 10ppm or PO4 above 0.1ppm.

Which cable you used to connect The Abyzz APEX Interface to The 0-10v port in your existing APEX System (3.5mm jack on a side and RJ45 Connector in the other side)?

Working with 0-10V in this hobby is very frustrating because of the lack of cabling standards. Abyzz doesn’t make it easy, because it sells multiple adapter cords for 0-10V control.

If I recall, the one most online retailers sell has an RJ45 port, which means that if you use a normal cat4 (telephone) cable, it will use up two 0-10V outputs on your Apex.

I purchased the cable from BRS, which has the 3.5mm port. You are looking for a ‘Y module’ cable, which has an RJ45 port on one end, and splits into two 3.5mm ports- one for each 0-10V output.

 

[higorc]

Nice build man. I am in the process of putting together a build plan to move my Red Sea 650P sump to the basement. I am thinking of putting a 40 breeder in the cabinet under the tank where the sump is now ( to use it as a frag tank) and moving the sump to the basement where it's easier to arrange the dosing equipment and easier to do maintenance.

My question is, did you drill the Red Sea sump when you moved it? Maybe to connect it to a fuge or something elses? I am wondering if it's tempered or if it's ok to drill.

I am thinking of connecting it to a fuge to grow macro algae and to a water changing station.

Thanks!

 

[mikedb]

Nice build man. I am in the process of putting together a build plan to move my Red Sea 650P sump to the basement. I am thinking of putting a 40 breeder in the cabinet under the tank where the sump is now ( to use it as a frag tank) and moving the sump to the basement where it's easier to arrange the dosing equipment and easier to do maintenance.

My question is, did you drill the Red Sea sump when you moved it? Maybe to connect it to a fuge or something elses? I am wondering if it's tempered or if it's ok to drill.

I am thinking of connecting it to a fuge to grow macro algae and to a water changing station.

Thanks!

Thanks for the kind words! I never ended up drilling my sump- the piping all enters from the top. I used one of the compartments within the sump for a fuge.

I do plan on using the top-off reservoir as a small frag tank, but it will sit on the glass 'rails' near the top of the sump, so while I will be drilling the reservoir, there should be a need to drill the fuge.

Sorry I can't help much there!

On another note, it has been a while since I have posted a picture. Not too much new, but worthy of an update!

 

[mikedb]

After 18 months, I thought it would be fun to post more progress shots!