Renton's Evolution from 200 to 440 gallons

mattgsa · Mar 6, 2018

Just read all 26 pages, what an amazing tank.

therman · Mar 7, 2018

Wow! Very impressive. I only know so many of the LEAR folks from the quality of their reeftrader listings :)

Awesome to see the tank behind the corals. Thanks!

Renton777 · Mar 7, 2018

mattgsa said:
Just read all 26 pages, what an amazing tank.

Thanks, glad you enjoyed the journey!

therman said:
Wow! Very impressive. I only know so many of the LEAR folks from the quality of their reeftrader listings :)

Awesome to see the tank behind the corals. Thanks!

Hi Tim, thanks! Just trying to keep the tank on par with the reeftrader listings :) !

therman · Mar 8, 2018

I do have filefish envy! Fantastic job. I didn't read through everything...what all does it eat for you?

Renton777 · Mar 8, 2018

therman said:
I do have filefish envy! Fantastic job. I didn't read through everything...what all does it eat for you?

She eats the small Sustainable Aquatics Dry Hatchery pellets, spirulina enriched brine and ova. She also will pick at nori. Very cool fish!

therman · Mar 9, 2018

I just found the SA pellets this year, they are great! Awesome source for fish too, that's where I got my little Potter's angel.

Where did you source the filefish? I have a tank growing out that will have enough polyps for one in a year or two :)

Renton777 · Mar 12, 2018

therman said:
I just found the SA pellets this year, they are great! Awesome source for fish too, that's where I got my little Potter's angel.

Where did you source the filefish? I have a tank growing out that will have enough polyps for one in a year or two :)

Yeah, the SA pellets are awesome, my wrasses eat them, the filefish and even the Achilles.

I got a pair of the orange spot filefish from Divers Den, they had done the hard part of weening them onto prepared foods. They were adults when I got them and I had them for 3 and 4 years before they died.

The current one I have was actually at a LFS, they had her for a couple months and she was eating prepared foods. She was also a small juvenile. As of June 1, I will have had her for 5 years. I will be interesting to see what their lifespan is as no one really seems to know.

Hk45 · Mar 13, 2018

Amazing tank

VSVP bet · Mar 13, 2018

love the fish selection, those acros look healthy too !

Sea MunnKey · Mar 27, 2018

Awesome collections of corals and fish alike!!!

Sea MunnKey · Mar 27, 2018

Eerrr Nathan ... you, yes You need a much bigger Tank!!! Seriously ... the accumulated corals keeps packing up and there's absolutely no way to go but go Bigger!!! :D

I've always wanted to keep a pair of Orange spot Filefish for the longest time but my 90 gallon just isn't big enough .... :(

Renton777 · Mar 27, 2018

Sea MunnKey said:
Eerrr Nathan ... you, yes You need a much bigger Tank!!! Seriously ... the accumulated corals keeps packing up and there's absolutely no way to go but go Bigger!!! :D

I've always wanted to keep a pair of Orange spot Filefish for the longest time but my 90 gallon just isn't big enough .... :(

I have reached the same conclusion as you, I must go bigger! :D I am thinking of a 10ft x 3ft x 2ft tall tank where my current display tank is and moving my current display over to the outside wall and plumbing it all together as 1 system. I want to be able to look down on any new tank I setup up, it is my favorite thing to do when I feed my frag tank.

But.......I have to get permission (or at least minimal resistance) for my grand plan from my wife. My evil plan is to take the family to Hawaii in 2020, making my wife very happy and willing to allow me to go crazy with a new tank. So, first I have to build up the rest of the Hawaii vacation fund, then I can start building my new tank fund.......I should start one of those gofundme accounts!

Sea MunnKey · Mar 27, 2018

Yes ... the wife is the Boss ... regardless :D. If she loves volcano hikes, lots of fruits and different coloured sandy beaches then I'd recommend Kona, Big Island ;)

Oh if she also loves snorkelling .... lots of fish in Kona. Tons of Yellow Tangs, Achilles Tangs and gazillions more .... not a lot of corals (you could see gigantic donut shaped Monti's though) unless you do scuba dive.

Renton777 · Mar 27, 2018

Sea MunnKey said:
Yes ... the wife is the Boss ... regardless :D. If she loves volcano hikes, lots of fruits and different coloured sandy beaches then I'd recommend Kona, Big Island ;)

I will pass that info on. We went to Oahu and Maui on our honeymoon......10 years ago :eek:

Sea MunnKey · Mar 27, 2018

Honestly Big Island is awesome ... lots of activities and not as commercialize too!! Oahu was like 'lil Tokyo as they get a lot of Japanese tourists over there (hey I'm Asian okay :D). We love the traditional & homey type environment as Kona offers that type of atmosphere. We were there last July 4th and it was a blast. Planning to go back this summer for Part 2 of Hawaii islands!!!!

Renton777 · Mar 31, 2018

Working on getting the Alkatronic setup in the next few days.

Pro Tip: Have PH calibration fluid of 7.o and 4.0 on hand for setup. Unfortunately, I do not, so I have this awesome machine but cant put it to work you quite yet :(

Renton777 · Apr 2, 2018

Well, I have the Alkatronic up and running. I am very happy with it thus far.

What is the Alkatronic? It is an automated Alkalinity testing device and dosing device (if you so choose to use that function) desinged by @JonasRoman . More about it here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/announcement-my-own-builded-kh-machine-is-ready.278352/

Was it hard to setup? No, not really. A couple tips, you will probably want to have packs of ph probe calibration fluid, 4.0 and 7.o in case you need to calibrate it more then once. When setting up go to http://www.focustronic.net/manuals for the latest manual. Plan on taking a couple hours to set it up and do not rush.

I currently have it setup to test every 2 hours (with some random tests I run between that interval), I plan to back that down to 6 hours once I have had it up and running for a while. I am dosing Alk with my apex and a dosing pump set on a timer and am now using the Alkatronic to supplement and fine tune Alk levels. Currently my Alk is lower then I would like it, so I am slowly adjusting it back up to 8.5dkh.

Here are the test results as well as how much Alk was dosed by the Alkatronic, as seen on their cloud website. I have also been dosing manually to raise the overall Alk level and then adjusting the Alkatronic to keep stepping up. You can see here where I manually dosed between the 7:13am test and the 7:56am test. Within the week I expect to have the Alk up to 8.5 and holding steady at the level.

It will also relay the Alk reading to 3rd party controllers via the ph probe socket. Here is mine hooked up to the Apex Classic. One of the selling points for me was that I did not have to upgrade to the new Apex to use this device.

A short video of it in action. Note: Alkitronic will be shipping out quieter pumps at no cost to replace the screeching banshee pumps.

bubbaque · Apr 2, 2018

Have you compared your test results for alk and what it gives you?

Renton777 · Apr 2, 2018

bubbaque said:
Have you compared your test results for alk and what it gives you?

Yes, I have two different Salifert Alk test kits. After the initial setup and initial test runs, the machine and test kits have been dead on.

Renton777 · Apr 3, 2018

Alkatronic Update

I dose about (edited because the amount was totally wrong and dont want to lead people astray :) ) ml of Alk solution (the BRS Sodium Bicarbonate recipe) each hour using the Apex and a 1.1ml/minute dosing pump. Then the Alkatronic supplements that dosing with its own adjustments to keep the Alk at my specified targets. The big jumps in the graph below are when I manually dosed and then adjusted the targets up. I am now at a target of 8.4dkh.

Its interesting to see how much more the tanks demand for Alk increases as the lights come on and light intensity increases. Not unexpected, but still interesting.