ReefBum's 225G Peninsula Tank Build

[Mellotang]

Be careful with those Mitras above the aquarium

they are extremely sensitive to slightest amount of water intrusion

I was using a mitras 6200hv with great results
SPS were growing and glowing
Then things got weird and I noticed the violet leds were not firing

GHL informed me the board was fried from water intrusion

I know I never got them wet

the only I could think Of was condensation from evaporation over the open rimless aquarium
Or maybe a fish splashed the fixture

either way, not a knock on the mitras it’s a great light

just be careful with the splashing above the shallow rimless reef

 

[Greg Gdowski]

Could you share some more information on your plumbing? I was wondering if you put Sperry valves on the drains. Are they under the tank? I didn't see them near the sump. I was wondering where it was better to locate them -- near the tank or near the sump. Also... could you share what you did with the returns? It looks like they are hard plumbed direct to the pumps. I usually use a silicone tubing or something not rigid between the pump and the rest of the plumbing to reduce vibration. What size return pipe did you use (1.25 or larger). Did you add check valves on your returns? Sorry to ask, but I'm in the midst of a new build as well and these are things I'm in the middle of thinking out.

 

[ReefBum]

Could you share some more information on your plumbing? I was wondering if you put Sperry valves on the drains. Are they under the tank? I didn't see them near the sump. I was wondering where it was better to locate them -- near the tank or near the sump. Also... could you share what you did with the returns? It looks like they are hard plumbed direct to the pumps. I usually use a silicone tubing or something not rigid between the pump and the rest of the plumbing to reduce vibration. What size return pipe did you use (1.25 or larger). Did you add check valves on your returns? Sorry to ask, but I'm in the midst of a new build as well and these are things I'm in the middle of thinking out.

I don't use any valves on the drains on my tanks.....just let gravity do its thing Yes, the return pumps are hard plumbed from the sump to the tank. I used 1-1/2" PVC for the drains and 1" for the returns. No check valves on the returns....I don't trust them and I make sure when the tank is powered down that the sump will not overflow.

 

[ReefBum]

Well, as you can see, I went bare bottom with this tank, a first for me. The main reason is due to the fact that this is a peninsula tank that will be SPS dominant. I am going to need a lot of flow in the tank for SPS and I want all the re-circulating pumps on the end panel of the tank.

With that much flow on one side I feel like it will be a big challenge to keep sand in place. A bare bottom tank will certainly be easier to spot and siphon up detritus so that is certainly a plus.

And the space I created between the rock and the bottom of the tank will help to flush it out detritus from underneath the rock work.

I am bummed about not being able to have any Leopard Wrasses in the tank, my fav, but I guess I can add some other Wrasses that don't need sand.

 

[Greg Gdowski]

I don't use any valves on the drains on my tanks.....just let gravity do its thing Yes, the return pumps are hard plumbed from the sump to the tank. I used 1-1/2" PVC for the drains and 1" for the returns. No check valves on the returns....I don't trust them and I make sure when the tank is powered down that the sump will not overflow.

Interesting. On my 90, I had to run a Bean system. It was way to noisy draining to the basement. I also couldn't achieve a high enough flow rate on the pipes it had. Same was true for the return. I have a DC "sic-ce" pump (damm editor keeps changing it) as the return on that system and it was also loud. I did manage to isolate it with some rubber tubing and that helped quite a bit. On the new system, it has a ghost overflow that I will rig as a Bean animal. I'm hoping the route to the tank from the basement to the first floor is better and I'll get higher flow rates.

I have a check valve primarily to minimize the drain back to the tank when feeding. 3yrs and it never failed -- knock on wood. I have enough of a sump that it doesn't matter if it fails. It helps on the start up. I think its probably easier on the pump because most of the lines are still filled with water.

I wish I could run it as simple as yours. That is much easier to maintain. Thanks for providing the feedback. I've looked at your thread and picture a lot as I have been making the switchover.

 

[mattgsa]

Very nice build!

 

[vabben]

Coming together, excited to watch the updates on this tank. You defiantly build some beautiful SPS dominate systems.

 

[ReefBum]

The cycle on this tank went very quickly....it pretty much happened in one week. I do believe the live rock was an important part of this process.

To prep for the cycle I made a ton of RO/DI water, enough to fill up the tank and sump. It was a good dry run to see if there were any leaks in the plumbing. Once I was certain there were no leaks I added enough salt to reach my target specific gravity of 1.025. I then heated the water to 77 degrees.

I have used Rubbermaid tubs in the past to cycle rock but I wanted to use my skimmer to move things along to remove as much organic waste as possible before it could break down and release nitrogen compounds.

Rinsing the rock in fresh salt water also helped on this front, although there was minimal die-off since the rock was shipped in water.

Cycling the rock in the display would also make it easier to do the large water changes I was planning to do over the first few days. I ended up doing three 30% water changes over the first three days to try and get ahead of any potential ammonia spike.

 

[ReefBum]

I began testing for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate after day three and fortunately I had zero ammonia, a great sign. Nitrite was tested a few times over the first week and it was only .1 ppm. This was another good indicator that the cycle was progressing quickly.

Nitrate was 25 ppm after day three and by the end of the first week it was down to 10 ppm.

To increase my population of nitrifying bacteria, I added some hermit crabs after day seven. After the tank was two weeks old I introduced four Green Chromis. I find these fish to be very hardy and a great addition to a young reef tank.

Soon after I added a Yellow Tang, Tomini Tang, Sailfin Tang and Yellow Eyed Kole Tang. These herbivores would hopefully keep certain types of algae in check. Fortunately, I did not lose any fish during the cycle. I did have a brief diatom bloom but that was knocked out with a 4 day black-out. Anyway, a good start to the tank!

 

[revhtree]

Any new updates?

 

[John Bolden]

Wow its been almost 30 days. I bet he is going to come back with a finished reef like what David is doing lol.

 

[rtparty]

His YouTube channel has all the updates

 

[VegetaD]

he had an issue with ammonium nitrate siphoning into his sump which killed a bunch of his fish it's on his YouTube channel

 

[John Bolden]

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[ReefBum]

Sorry for the delay in updating this thread. On to the lighting

For those of you who don't know, I have always been a metal halide guy. I have had a ton of success using 400W 20K Radiums with supplemental T5's so I have been hesitant to switch to anything else. But change can be good so I decided to give LED's a try.

I own several GHL products and I really dig them since they are so well engineered and perform great. So I decided to go with their lights, the Mitras.

 

[ReefBum]

What about the light spread? For this model of Mitras, the LX 7206, the spread is thirty inches of coverage on the sides and twenty-eight inches of coverage front to back. Given that my tank is 36” inches wide by 72" long, I went with six fixtures, two rows of three, to make sure I had complete coverage on the sides of the tank.

On a purely observational basis, the coverage of my lights is excellent. There is no shading in the tank and I do like the fact that there is no disco effect, a criticism I have heard about other LED’s.

In terms of PAR, these lights performed really, really well. During my initial tests I was seeing PAR values that ranged from 400 at the lower part of the tank to 500 near the top of the rock. And some of the higher values were registered in between the fixtures, a testament to the great light spread and coverage I was getting with the lights.

Interestingly, the PAR values generated by the Mitras were actually much higher versus the readings of 200 to 300 I was getting under my halides and T5s. As a result, I did crank down the intensity on the Mitras to lower PAR to the 300 to 400 range. This was done to avoid stressing out any frags I wanted to add in the future from my 187 gallon tank.

 

[ReefBum]

Ok, now onto the spectrum. My goal with these LED’s is to find a satisfactory spectrum and then stick with it. I do hear about folks making changes and tweaks to LED’s to chase colors of certain corals so I am really going to try to avoid tinkering with these lights.

Given my success with 400W 20K Radiums, I thought it would be a great idea to try and replicate that spectrum with these Mitras. @telegraham is a Mitras user and also has data he captured on 250W 20K Radium bulbs and 400W 20K Hamilton bulbs. I reached out to him to see if he could create a replica Mitras spectrum based on those bulbs.

Below is the spectrum @telegraham created for the Mitras. The ghosted spectrum behind it is for the Hamilton 20k bulb with an electronic ballast. Note the spectrum for the 400W 20K Hamilton bulb is nearly identical to the one for the 250W 20K Radium bulb.

It is also interesting to note that the spectrum of the 400W 20K Hamilton bulb is very similar to the Ecotech Radion’s AB+ spectrum, a popular spectrum used by SPS enthusiasts. The ghost in the picture below is for the 400W Hamiltons.

So in essence, this Mitras light profile created by @telegraham is a replication of the Radion AB+ spectrum that covers the spectrum you would expect to see from a 400W 20K Hamilton bulb and a 250W 20K Radium bulb.

Yes, the lights do look blue to me but I really like the fact that they mirror the spectral output of 20K Radium bulbs. Hey, at least I can hold on to some part of my metal halide roots.

Of course, it is all about results and time will tell on how well SPS do under this setup.

 

[ReefBum]

he had an issue with ammonium nitrate siphoning into his sump which killed a bunch of his fish it's on his YouTube channel

Yep, that was a bummer. I lost 9 of my 21 fish

 

[Mellotang]

When I ran mitras I designed a spectrum to
Run heavy blue violet in mornings and
Then simulate 65k iwasaki for high noon effect then back down to violet blue or more or more of a 20k spectrum. I definitely ran more Violet that the radium

great results in both growth and coloration of SPS, they were glowing and growing

that’s what I like most about LED is the ability to shift spectrum much like the sun on a reef

if I was going to Just run one color I’d prob just stick with halide

Loved my mitras lights

was just disappointed when they were damaged from water intrusion and I never got any water in them

noticed it when the violet LEDS stopped firing

keep An eye on your violets

there was a noticeable difference in the look and health Of the corals that i couldn’t Pinpoint since I wasn’t looking for the burnt out violet led

 

[chizerbunoi]

Sorry to hear about the loss of fish. Was it in both systems as they are connected now?