Red Sea Filter Roller Paper Usage

[Treefer32]

I have had the Red Sea Reef mat 1200 setup for going on a month now. When I first started it, I didn't realize there was a paper shortage. It took me close to a week to get paper after I went through my first roll in about 8-9 days. I also didn't think I'd go through it that fast. Now I've been running paper for about a month and am going through a roll every 10-14 days. I have a 340 gallon, with 75 gallon sump and am running around 2000 gph through the roller mat. I also have a 25 micron cannister filter plumbed off my return that feeds back into the sump to help polish the water. I clean that cartridge every 2-3 weeks.

The paper on the roller mat is just solid brown. I've read for about a month or two it'll go through a lot of paper and once the water is clean it'll slow down. However, mine isn't slowing down on paper consumption yet. Going through 2-3 rolls a month isn't my goal...

I don't do water changes and my phosphates are finally down to .03 (from .4 two months ago) and nitrates down to 23. I run an oversized skimmer that pulls out black / brown gunk everyday, and an algae turf scrubber that's been growing more slowly. I dose around 70 ml of vodka per day to fuel nitrate eating bacteria. Which has reduced my nitrates from 47 to 23 in the same 2 months.

I'm open to suggestions on using less paper, or just hoping that it uses less over the next 2 - 3 months as it cleans the water up.

 

[SlugSnorter]

a WC might help. Or switch to socks

 

[Floyd-]

Not sure. I have my 1200 reefmat on my 175 gallon tank and im going on my 6th week on the first roll. Looks like 2 rolls will last me about half a year.

 

[Sleepingtiger]

i just setup a rs xxl 750 (160g). After putting in the sand, the water was cloudy. I recently acquired a Bubble Magus large roller mat (200mm mat). It managed to clear the dust storm in 5 days. Skimmer was pulling out tons of crap. I only used maybe 2% of the roller. if I didn't see the brown used mat, I would of thought the roller was brand new. Its been running now for 2 weeks. Maybe you bought the wrong size roller mat for amount of food you put in?

that dust storm was nasty too. I am constantly stirring up the sand to pull out all the debris I can.

oh yeah, I also found out i installed the float on the float valve upside down and it caused the mat not to roll. Maybe there is an issue causing the mat to prematurely run?

 

[C_AWOL]

There isn't a really good way to reduce your paper usage considering the red sea reefmat alreqdy uses a 200 micron roll over the 50 micron ones a lot of others do. At best reducing feeding if thats even a reasonable option along with cutting on the stock list is the only sure fire solution.

Frankly as your fish get bigger the consumption will likely hasten as well making something like socks more economical via rewashing (albiet defeats the entire point of a roller), or washing and rerolling your previously used rolls (a likely very tedious task)

I've seen a number of builds that employ the use of dual roller mats of various kinds but thats a significant addition to cost and likely adds up the same as far as roll consumption quantity assuming the same micron rating.

 

[Treefer32]

Yeah, I have a male creole anthia that's approaching 10-11" in length and he's just getting bigger all around. He'll eat close to 2 ounces of frozen food in a single sitting. I could feed him twice a day and he'd eat that much. . .