Need Ideas.. Who has a reef as big or bigger than 700g, or a system over 1200g

nitrox36 · Apr 5, 2013

Needing some ideas from some one who has a reef as big or bigger than 600g, or a system over 1200g. BUT, by all means input is great no matter what size your tank.

Live stock list
Coral lists
Salt usage( what Kind and why)
water changes
lights
pumps
dosing
plumbing

thanks

Servo · Apr 5, 2013

I have a 400 gallon and Im upgrading to an 800 soon. You will need a calcium reactor. Dosing for that size system is impractical. You sould supplement with a kalkwasser reactor hooked to your RO/DI. Your water changes should be designed to turn a couple of valves. Stick with a salt that has worked for you. I use reef crystals. Its cheap and dependable. When you are doing 200 gallon Water changes price becomes a major factor. IMO flow in that size system for is so important. Im considering a surge with an actuated ball valve. Closed loops are a waste iMO. They never quite turn out the way you want them.

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nitrox36 · Apr 5, 2013

Servo said:
I have a 400 gallon and Im upgrading to an 800 soon. You will need a calcium reactor. Dosing for that size system is impractical. You sould supplement with a kalkwasser reactor hooked to your RO/DI. Your water changes should be designed to turn a couple of valves. Stick with a salt that has worked for you. I use reef crystals. Its cheap and dependable. When you are doing 200 gallon Water changes price becomes a major factor. IMO flow in that size system for is so important. Im considering a surge with an actuated ball valve. Closed loops are a waste iMO. They never quite turn out the way you want them.

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Nice well said, ya i have a 1300g system im putting in, ya i have 2 BRS reactors i am using GFO, Calcium. As for water changes yup , one valves and one switch lol.I love reef crystals had themm for ever, but i really am looking into Salinity buy Aquavitro, looks like it has potential, but i guess dont fix what isn't broken lol. Thanks for the great advice Servo. keep it goin!!

nitrox36 · Apr 12, 2013

Ok people we can do it...ideas lol

Aqua fire/medic · Apr 12, 2013

Sorry, wish I could help..... Way out of my league! Lol! Free bump!

OurReef · Apr 12, 2013

I've used the aquavitro, stuff hisses at you as you pour it into the water. Leaves a residue in the mixing bucket and any cords you have in there as well. Other than that it kept my sps heavy tanks parameters at or above desired lvls. I would do one wt with that to 3 wt with reef crystals. I use Red Sea pro now though and I like it, plus little bit cheaper than rc for me. I have to agree that flow in big tanks is the hardest part, I'm trying to figure out how to address this issue for my 400g that I'm planning.

Squishie89 · Apr 12, 2013

This dude has a 1200 gallon set up. Still in the works, but he is almost finished. Dave's 1,200 gallon double reef drop off - UltimateReef.com

OurReef · Apr 12, 2013

Servo said:
I have a 400 gallon and Im upgrading to an 800 soon. You will need a calcium reactor. Dosing for that size system is impractical. You sould supplement with a kalkwasser reactor hooked to your RO/DI. Your water changes should be designed to turn a couple of valves. Stick with a salt that has worked for you. I use reef crystals. Its cheap and dependable. When you are doing 200 gallon Water changes price becomes a major factor. IMO flow in that size system for is so important. Im considering a surge with an actuated ball valve. Closed loops are a waste iMO. They never quite turn out the way you want them.

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Could you go into more detail as to why closed loops are a fail? I was planning on doing a closed loop coupled with mp60s and 40s spread out and hidden. I'm trying to avoid having anything non natural looking visible, as much as possible at least.

nitrox36 · Apr 13, 2013

Nice, ya mps is the only way IMO, Aqua where are u a ff @

nitrox36 · Apr 13, 2013

Thanks for input all is welcome.

kyle1284 · Apr 13, 2013

kalk reactor will not be needed until your calcuim reactor effluent or the ph needs to drop in the reactor even further to break down the media. if you are on a budget i would focus more so on other things and gt the kalk Rx at a later time. a calcium reactor is a must though!!! i was dosing my 300 gallon system and it was costing me 35.00 a month and the dosers were putting in some overtime! i had to start looking for larger dosers becuse the 2 i had were not keeping up with my demand. did a ton of research on Ca Rx's and landed on a GEO 818. I plan on upgrading to a larger system with multiple grow out tanks to over 700+ gallons and it would be able to handle that easily. Geo also makes a larger Ca Rx than the 818. It states on GEO's website "handles large commercial systems" lol. Can not go worng with GEO. Ca Rx's are built like tanks and their customer service is amazing!!

Mrfresh · Apr 13, 2013

I personally don't have a system over 700g but I did set up a 11,000 gallon system.

Water change.
So I don't know how ur set up is but if u can have an extra water resvoire to how water. What ur going to do with that is have ur salt water mixed and stored in there. (so ur rodi will just always top it off) I would put a pump in there to keep the water constantly flowing around, also up need to add salt ever now and then to keep it at right gravity...bulk reef supply has 50mL dosing pumps. Ull need two of those. One will pump water from the water storage tank into ur sump. The other will take water from ur sump and run it into a water drain. Before u do this ull have to run both of them at the same time for the same amount of time,with the same water levels in 2 different buckets to two different buckets. If in 30 mins they both moved the same amount of water ull be good,.. If one doesn't that mean that one is working fast then the other and this will cause ur water level to change over time. With the system I helped set up we ran the pump that drained first to dump about 5 gallons then shut off and then the fresh salt water would turn on to add 5 gallons of water. Thsi way ull never have to do a true water change and ur system will always have good water coming in the system...important u will still need to have ur own separate auto top off for fresh water to makeup for the water that evaporates.

I have more info I can give u but I have to run. I will post more later. Let me know what else u have questions about and I will address them on the next post

Good luck