Prostar Rimless 230 V2 Build

[Mandalorian]

Some updates:

So most of my Coral is looking healthy, I did loose 2 corals quickly, both Montipora. My guess is I was not expecting the Alk draw to pick up so fast. Strangely enough, I had 2 other Monitipora frags and they look fine I had been checking once a week. It dropped pretty low. I have sense started dosing 2 part and brought it back up. I am not sure if its the Brightwell NOX plates, or the Refugium light, but I have had undetectable Nitrate and Phosphate on Salifert test kits. the glass stays very clean. I was worried about being too clean for the coral, so I have feed heavier, even with reef roids, turned off the skimmer and dosed Red Sea AB+. I have never had the too clean water problem.

Since fixing the ALK, I bought a Apex DOS and plan on setting it up to dose Calk / ALk, its my next project. I believe I am seeing a dusting of coraline, and some of the coral is encrusting. The Hammer has about 3 new heads sprouting.

Still need to repipe the plumbing, I will probably purchase an extra bulkhead from Prostar, too deep now to cut the installed factory one up if I mess it up. Want to swap the complete repipe with the flow meter.

Lost a chromis too, down to 5, but picked up a yellow tang. They all appear to be healthy.

I purchased a phytoplankton culture kit from Mercer of Montana, had a successful 1st bath, have been happy with the setup. they have pretty good instructions. I am culturing Nanno and Tetra. Got a cheap LED strip light from amazon, has worked well so far.

Spitfire and Indy, both my choices, although was always partial to Rocco boards, and Hstreet.

 

[Shorebreak]

Haven't updated in a while, but tank had been coming along. Most corals are encrusted and seem healthy, the dersa and maxima are showing new white growth. The dersa has doubled in size in a few months. I am down to 6 chromis, went down from 12 pretty fast, but these 6 are holding strong and don't seem to terrorize each other.

I can't seem to grow birdsnest, had 4 different types of frags die slowly over a few month, puzzling as most other stuff is doing well. The tank has pretty low nutrients, that's my best guess. I've been having dosing nitrate and phosphate to keep them above zero. Been a challenge to keep balance, over shooting one without other bottoms the other out. Thankfully no bad algea or dinos, Just a little cyano.

 

[Backtolifemassage]

Hello Everyone,

I have been keeping aquariums off and on for about 20 years, from coral to fresh heavily planted tanks, it has turned into a hobby I share with my wife, she enjoys the tanks as well and helps out with the upkeep. When I proposed few years ago, trying to be creative, I put the ring in our reef tank and told her to look for the new coral. Anyways, this forum was helpful for me to decide on the new tank and setup, so I figured I would add one myself for this new one.

I had a 150 gallon mixed reef that had been running for about 5 years; it survived a move about 3 years ago. Unfortunately I got a little lackadaisical, and recently had a heater put the nail in the coffin. It was downstairs, and by the time I realized it felt weirdly hot and humid on that floor the damage was done, lost half the stock and then hair algae took out most of the rest. So. I had a choice to step away for a while, or rebuild. I decided to go all in! This time with a few more gadgets.

With some research I decided that I liked the look of rimless and wanted to go as big as I could for the new location in my home on the main living level, where I walk by it daily. I also didn't like the shape of the 150, it was only 18" deep and 30" tall, it was annoying to clean and work on being that it was taller than it was wide. I found the prostar rimless it seemed to be more bang for my buck as far as rimless setups with stand and sump.

It is a work in progress but some photos below, been wet about 3 weeks. Haven't replumbed anything as my first attempt at a metric to PVC fitting was a partial failure. I Don't have all the controls set up as of yet either.

Here is a list of the build items:
Prostar Rimless 230 V2
(4) Radion XR15 G5 Pros w/ RMS mounts
Apex ATK with 2" Flow meter, and leak probe
Apex W/ E832 energy bar and (4) probes
Apex COR 20 Return
(3) Apex WAV
IceCap Kalk mixing reactor, large IC-KM-200
Innovative marine Top of reservoir, 15 gallon
AI Prime 16 Fuge w/ mount
(2) Brightwell X Port NO3 Plates. Got 2 to maximize skimmer depth, but might only need one. If so ill add the 2nd to the cryptic zone in sump.
24V strip LED light from Amazon to connect to APEX for under stand light
Reef Octopus RO-PS-3000INT (re-used from 150)
IceCap Probe holder
4 stage 100GPD RO, reused and upgraded to 6 stages from 150 setup
(2) 100 gallon vertical storage for mixing station
Blue Sch 40 PVC to replumb the return line with a manifold
3/4” x 20mm couple JIS COO:USA adapter for the Prostar piping to PVC standard (this one didn't work for return)
(2) 1” x 25mm couple JIS COO:USA adapter for the Prostar piping to PVC standard (this one worked for drain)
Roughly 150 lbs of liverock from 150, at least 7 years wet
120lb aragonite sand

Livestock
Mated pair of Clowns with Anemone from 150
Blue Tang from 150
A few pieces of coral on their last leg from 150
(6) new Chromis 1" or smaller

Hi. I’m purchasing a prostar 230 península. In order to get it cycling, what exactly do I need to purchase? I eventually want to have a fully automated tank. I’m running a 32 biocube and xr radion 15 to grow a mixed reef tank. I want to have a mixed reef with livestock. Thanks in advance for any advice.