New Swiss 1900 liter (500G) Build

[dragon99]

Looking good! They are space hogs, but I love a nice big monti cap.

Any problems with losing chromis to fighting? They look good as a group.

 

[Laith]

Water parameters are quite steady:

Calcium at 430-440
Mag at 1500-1600 (I don't dose Mg and it just has always been in that range)
KH at 8 (I'm thinking of changing my target KH to 9)

Nitrates are always between 15 and 25, which I don't mind. As previously mentioned, I'm not comfortable with ULN levels.

PO4 varies between 0.08 and 0.2. It is trending upwards though. Lanthanum Chloride does a great job with PO4 and I've been dosing it from time to time directly into the overflow weir. That way it mixes with the water and straight down into the rollermat. I have seen no issues at all using the Lanthanum Chloride and have been debating putting it on a doser to dose small amounts daily.

However, I had initially planned on get a Tunze Macro Algae reactor to manage nutrient export so I finally pulled the trigger:

It comes supplied with it's own pump and this is the controller for the pump:

I installed it on the 6th of January with a bit of chaeto in it, running the lights 12 hours on opposite times to the DT lights (midnight to noon).

The blue screws at the top hold the lid down. In theory when running the reactor in a sump you don't need them because the lid is held to the main body with magnets. But when I tried that and put the pump at half speed water was coming out between the lid and the body. So I put the screws in to be sure until I figure out why... I might have not seated the lid correctly...

I measured NO3 and PO4 just before installing the reactor: NO3 at 22.67 and PO4 at 0.356 (!). I hadn't measured PO4 in several weeks so hadn't been doing anything about it... but definitely trending up! What is strange is that the corals are doing just fine ;Joyful.

I'll measure again in a week or two to see if there is an impact. I started with a smallish ball of chaeto so it will be more and more efficient as it grows bigger. I have already noticed a slightly higher pH level during the night...

 

[Laith]

Looking good! They are space hogs, but I love a nice big monti cap.

Any problems with losing chromis to fighting? They look good as a group.

Surprisingly no losses. I had always read that they pick each other off over time. I've had these original eight Chromis since June with no losses. I think it's maybe due to two things:

- I feed pretty frequently with the autofeeder (three times a day). As well as frozen once a day.
- They have a huge SPS coral that they live in, just as I've seen in nature. You can see that coral under them in the video in the part where they are together in a group.

 

[Laith]

I've been dosing Easy Reefs Booster and EasySPS to the tank for a while now and am impressed with the results.

I ordered two more bags of the EasySPS from my supplier and accidentally received this:

This is a new "EXPERT" version with double concentration so half the dosage. As far as I can tell, it is very cost effective as it is not much more expensive than the normal concentration...

 

[Laith]

This is a picture looking down the length of the tank. That large coral in the center (just behind the blue one) is where the chromis live. That coral is growing amazingly well. Keep in mind that the tank width (front to back) is 70cm (27")...

 

[Laith]

My lawnmower blenny is hilarious (the kids have named him Wall-e). He likes to hang out on his swing!

Bad picture but here he is:

 

[Laith]

This is one of my four Tunze 6255s on the right wall of the tank. I'm embarrassed to say that I have not yet cleaned it (and the one behind it on the same wall) since the tank was setup; almost 15 months ;Wideyed. They are still running great but I'm sure the flow is not as strong as it would be if they were cleaned. The reason for the lack of maintenance on these two (as well as the two 6155s in Tunze rocks in the central part of the tank) is that they are difficult to access, mainly due to cabling. That's my next project: get the ladder/platform out, mask and snorkel and get those four pumps out and clean them!

Then I need to figure out a way to put them back in a way that makes maintaining them much easier...

 

[SPR1968]

It will be interesting to see how you get on with the Alage reactor Laith

I tried an ALR2 in my Red Sea S650 for a month or so and it wouldn’t grow anything, just turned to a mush eventually so I removed it from the system.

I love the idea and the natural removal of nutrients, and also tried it using miracle mud in the sump, with algae in a refugium but the light just made all sorts of nasty looking things grow so I removed it.

Hopefully you can report better luck and I hope it works,

 

[Laith]

It will be interesting to see how you get on with the Alage reactor Laith

I tried an ALR2 in my Red Sea S650 for a month or so and it wouldn’t grow anything, just turned to a mush eventually so I removed it from the system.

I love the idea and the natural removal of nutrients, and also tried it using miracle mud in the sump, with algae in a refugium but the light just made all sorts of nasty looking things grow so I removed it.

Hopefully you can report better luck and I hope it works,

Yes, I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes as well. I'll probably open it up today to see if I notice any growth so far though it has only been four days. The Tunze LED strips (two of them) that are attached to the outside of the reactor give off a purplish light so I assume that they are the right spectrum.

 

[Laith]

I purchased one of those flat glass dish things that allows you to see into the tank from the surface of the tank and used it to take some pictures (with my iPhone). Here are a couple of that coral that has become the home of the school of Chromis.

 

[Laith]

And some more shots from above...

 

[Laith]

This birds nest coral is growing horizontally more than vertically, I assume due to current. It is starting to encroach on a type of plating SPS that is next to it...

 

[Laith]

Originally I thought I would be cutting back coral frequently to keep the coral "garden" nice and tidy. However, I've decided to be less vigilant about trying to keep it tidy and let nature take its course...

I do cut back the coral from time to time. For example the Green Monti has been cut back in the front several times as it gets too close to the front glass and makes it difficult to clean the glass. I've cut back a red Monti that was starting to overshadow an Acan.

And I'll be cutting back the birds nest that's trying to overgrow its neighbor. And soon I'm going to have to trim that coral that the Chromis live in...

And yes, if you're wondering, one of the reasons is that it is not that easy to keep a coral garden tidy in a tank that is 90cm deep! But I'm really happy with the depth; gives such a different perspective ;Joyful ;Happy.

 

[emvanburen]

Looking good! Good luck sorting the pumps.

 

[Laith]

... Good luck sorting the pumps.

;Wideyed;Wideyed;Happy

 

[Laith]

I really like having a rollermat system for mechanical filtration. It took me a while though to figure out the best way to get the "used" fleece off of the used fleece roll part. The fleece I'm using is 100m long per roll so there is 100m of used fleece that needs to be removed.

At first I was unrolling the used fleece off of the roll. This was a real pain and very time consuming. Now I've settled on this way of doing it:

Cutting the used roll down the center with a cutter. Still takes about 10 mins to cut through the thickness but it's much easier than unrolling it!

If anyone else has a better way of doing this, I'm all ears ;Joyful.

No matter the perceived level of difficulty in doing this, I would never trade this for using socks! Been there, done that (lasted about a month) on my old tank...

 

[Laith]

I have two Gyre FX350s side by side on the left end of my tank (opposite the overflow) as high up as possible. I wanted to make sure that all the surface water was continuously pushed over the overflow and avoid any surface scum buildup on that end of the tank.

I was hesitant about using the Gyre's because I'd heard that they could be noisy and were complicated to maintain. But I was told that the new models were much quieter and easier to maintain. Plus it was the only pump I could find that could do what I wanted. At first I thought I'd made a mistake in measuring because I couldn't fit the Gyres next to each other across the width of the end of the tank (I mentioned this in one of the older posts when the tank was being installed). But I then realized I hadn't placed the magnets correctly.

I must say I've been pleasantly surprised by these pumps. They put out a lot of flow (20,000 l/h each at 100%). And I'm pleased with how quiet they are, though I'm not running them at more than 50% power. I keep planning to turn them up to 100% just to see but haven't done that yet. They keep the surface of the water spotless and add considerable flow to the tank.

The only time they make noise is when this happens:

I have lots and lots of these tiny snails in the tank and they inevitably find their way into the rotors of the Gyres. And then you get a fast clicking sound when the shell(s) start hitting the rotor covers.

This starts happening every thirty days or so.

So, anybody know what I can add to the tank that eats these small snails?

 

[GBRsouth]

I really like having a rollermat system for mechanical filtration. It took me a while though to figure out the best way to get the "used" fleece off of the used fleece roll part. The fleece I'm using is 100m long per roll so there is 100m of used fleece that needs to be removed.

At first I was unrolling the used fleece off of the roll. This was a real pain and very time consuming. Now I've settled on this way of doing it:

Cutting the used roll down the center with a cutter. Still takes about 10 mins to cut through the thickness but it's much easier than unrolling it!

If anyone else has a better way of doing this, I'm all ears ;Joyful.

No matter the perceived level of difficulty in doing this, I would never trade this for using socks! Been there, done that (lasted about a month) on my old tank...

Put your roll of used fleece into a bucket. Get the free end of the fleece and staple to a used toilet roll. jam the toilet roll onto your power drill chuck and drill away on max speed and tell us if it works.

 

[emvanburen]

I really like having a rollermat system for mechanical filtration. It took me a while though to figure out the best way to get the "used" fleece off of the used fleece roll part. The fleece I'm using is 100m long per roll so there is 100m of used fleece that needs to be removed.

At first I was unrolling the used fleece off of the roll. This was a real pain and very time consuming. Now I've settled on this way of doing it:

Cutting the used roll down the center with a cutter. Still takes about 10 mins to cut through the thickness but it's much easier than unrolling it!

If anyone else has a better way of doing this, I'm all ears ;Joyful.

No matter the perceived level of difficulty in doing this, I would never trade this for using socks! Been there, done that (lasted about a month) on my old tank...

I made a device to use my drill to unwind. When my fleece is used up, It leaves me an empty cardboard tube. I attach the free end to that, and use my drill to wind it back up. Takes a minute. I took a 2x4 and mounted pvc spindles to that for the full and empty roll to spin on.

 

[SPR1968]

i just put the roll onto a wooden spoon, and spin it into the dusbin, it only takes a few minutes and the roll is 65m long

The roll lasts around 3 months so no big problem.