Miracles 600 Build Thread - Angels & Acros

[djkms]

What a beautiful build that I found as I was researching the next tank. :). I hope you don’t mind being an inspiration. Had two design / technical questions on the closed loop bottom hole placements. If you did it over, would they be in the same place? Specifically, I have a 250G custom nine year old Elos peninsula tank now that seems to have endless flow stagnation problems at the end of tank. I have long debated of having two end of tank symmetrical closed loop bulkheads on each side to alternate flow (i.e. generating a purposeful gyre, maybe timed with a MP60 or such). Is the placement working for you? Keeping detritus out of the end of the tank? Thanks for your thoughts! (Also, Miracles was high on consideration list - happy with it?).

Thanks. If I had to do it over again I would have placed the closest return on the furthest end another foot back. In theory staggering them 1ft out from each other sounds nice but the return closest to the far end is capped off. its just too close to the far end of the tank and my aquascape is too low to hide the return so I just have it capped off.

My MP60's, Neros (in the middle of the back wall) and closed loops are providing plenty of flow throughout the tank at the moment. As long as the flow path is clear and I keep the MP60's cleaned they push flow all the way down no problem. I don't have a stagnate zone on the far end. On the contrary the undertow pushes the sand towards the back and over time the bottom of the tank begins to show and I have to move sand back over the far end. I do have a heavier sand (crushed coral) on the far end so I dont have to do this often.

RE: Miracles. They are great and I do love the tank. The owner is super responsive through the whole process and was a huge help. No degradation issues over the couple of years with the tank. I will say the low iron seems to be super soft and no matter how careful I am I do have scratches on it. Not massive ones but it does seem to scratch easy. Not an indictment on Miracles, just something to be aware of with low iron glass. Some say this is a myth but my sump/fuge is regular glass and there are no scratches on it and I tend to not be as careful cleaning the fuge.

 

[djkms]

Updated PAR readings . I increased the intensity a little bit since last PAR measurements about a year ago.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Updated PAR readings . I increased the intensity a little bit since last PAR measurements about a year ago.

Thanks for sharing par levels! I always appreciate seeing this as it helps me better understand coral placement and what works for others!

 

[Siasl]

Thanks. If I had to do it over again I would have placed the closest return on the furthest end another foot back. In theory staggering them 1ft out from each other sounds nice but the return closest to the far end is capped off. its just too close to the far end of the tank and my aquascape is too low to hide the return so I just have it capped off.

My MP60's, Neros (in the middle of the back wall) and closed loops are providing plenty of flow throughout the tank at the moment. As long as the flow path is clear and I keep the MP60's cleaned they push flow all the way down no problem. I don't have a stagnate zone on the far end. On the contrary the undertow pushes the sand towards the back and over time the bottom of the tank begins to show and I have to move sand back over the far end. I do have a heavier sand (crushed coral) on the far end so I dont have to do this often.

RE: Miracles. They are great and I do love the tank. The owner is super responsive through the whole process and was a huge help. No degradation issues over the couple of years with the tank. I will say the low iron seems to be super soft and no matter how careful I am I do have scratches on it. Not massive ones but it does seem to scratch easy. Not an indictment on Miracles, just something to be aware of with low iron glass. Some say this is a myth but my sump/fuge is regular glass and there are no scratches on it and I tend to not be as careful cleaning the fuge.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts! Only thing I am balancing is whether to add more randomness to the close loop via an old school oceansmotions. The tank looks great!

 

[djkms]

A couple updates to share.

First off I had a Neptune AFS feeder and found it to be highly inconsistent with how much food it feeds. I replaced it a few months back with the Plank-Mini Feeder. This feeder is AMAZING! I have it set to feed my various pellets for 1min 6 seconds 4 times a day and it feeds exactly 1.6g per day. The precision with this feeder is top notch. Customer service with @AVAST Marine is top notch as well!

I also have their Mutiny v2.1 ozone reactor on order and will update this thread once it is installed. Looking forward to it.

Lastly - I was having my Fresh saltwater feed line getting clogged with my Neptune DOS Automatic water change. The line has been clogging about once every year and unfortunately I wouldn't notice it for a day or 2 which would cause a salinity shift. So I needed to figure out how to shut of the AWC system quickly should a line get clogged.

So I bought these little 2x2 clear acrylic box's and I have my waste and return lines going into them with a Neptune Magnetic Optical sensor in each one to notify me if the box runs dry. This will also shut off the DOS AWC. I drilled a hole on each side and placed a 1/4" quick connect bulkead with a ball valve on the end to drip water out slightly slower then the box fills up. It would be nice to use a gate valve instead of a ball valve for more precise control but its working great! Now if a line gets clogged I will get notified right away and the water change system shuts off

 

[wickedxreef]

@djkms - how loud is the plank feeder compared to the AFS? I hate reloading my AFS and it’s super loud. The AFS design to me seems way over complicate IMHO.

 

[djkms]

@djkms - how loud is the plank feeder compared to the AFS? I hate reloading my AFS and it’s super loud. The AFS design to me seems way over complicate IMHO.

Its dead silent - no noise whatsoever.

 

[wickedxreef]

Its dead silent - no noise whatsoever.

That’s music to my ears. I just emailed avast as they’re out of stock.

Btw… I have a buddy that has their ozone reactor and loves it. I wish I had room for their ozone reactor. Unfortunately I have mine injecting directly into my skimmer.

 

[BZOFIQ]

@djkms - how loud is the plank feeder compared to the AFS? I hate reloading my AFS and it’s super loud. The AFS design to me seems way over complicate IMHO.

The regular PLANK is silent too.

The only thing you hear is the click of the relay on the APEX when it comes on and again when it goes off.

 

[djkms]

Well its been a hot minute since I updated my thread so here we go.

Recent FTS

Tank is doing OK overall. Growth is slow but I attribute that to lots of nippers in the tank stunting growth.

Had a nasty outbreak of Cyano and took the easy way out and ran Chemiclean a couple weeks ago. I also stopped feeding pellets since treatment. I am going to stick with frozen twice a day and 2 Nori sheets twice a day and see if that helps prevent another outbreak.

Still running Captiv8 and its on cruise control.

I’m also making a 45-day lighting transition with my 8 Radion G6 Pros and 8 AI Blade Glows, controlled through Apex Fusion/MXM.

The goal is a more natural daytime appearance with less of the blue/purple “Windex” look, while retaining fluorescence and finishing with a strong blue evening fade.

Radion G6 Pro — daytime peak settings

Setting	Starting	Day 45
Overall intensity	65%	72%
Cool white	50	56
Royal blue	100	100
Blue	100	90
Red	30	22
UV	100	68
Violet	100	68
Warm white	32	50
Green	17	30

These starting values are the 11:30 AM peak point. At 3:30 PM, starting cool white was 48 and warm white was 30. Both peak points finish with the same Day 45 settings.

AI Blade Glow — daytime peak settings

Setting	Starting	Day 45
Overall intensity	50%	27%
Violet	114	60
Royal blue	48	110
UV	114	52

Channel numbers are the actual Fusion slider values, separate from overall intensity.

Daily timing

• 9:00 AM: Blades begin the sunrise ramp.
• 10:00 AM: Radions begin their ramp.
• 11:30 AM–3:30 PM: Full daytime peak.
• 3:30–8:00 PM: Gradually dim with the daytime spectrum.
• 8:00 PM onward: Fade toward a blue fluorescence look.
• 9:00 PM: Radions off.
• 9:30 PM: Blades off.

I’m making one small adjustment per day for 45 days, changing both spectrum and intensity

My February PAR map was measured at Radion 60% / Blade 45%, with upper central readings around 330–384 PAR. I haven’t measured the new spectrum yet, so the final PAR change is still unconfirmed.

I have also had some fish deaths unfortunately over the last 6 months. Can't say for certain on cause:
Engineer Goby Pholidichthys leucotaenia
Green Mandarin Synchiropus splendidus (this one is probably old age, had it since my reef in 2020)
Red Scooter Dragonet Synchiropus stellatus
Tomini Tang Ctenochaetus tominiensis

Coming up on the 3 year anniversary. I will probably do a video and some macro shots with my Sony AIV and macro lens.

More updates to come!