rsumner's 450gal Home Office Reef
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OP
OP
Thanks for checking-in. Overall, things are going pretty good. A few updates:
Cabinet
- I've dropped the ball on reaching out to a few carpenters in the area, so I still haven't gotten the skin for the cabinets done.
- It's been over 3 months and I still haven't done a water change. I got my first ICP test from Triton back at the beginning of Aug and it showed everything was good except the micro nutrients that are typically stripped out by Chaeto.
- Potassium 50ppm correction spread over 3 days using DIY solution of Potassium Chloride
- Started 9ml daily dosing of Brightwell's ChaetoGro
- Did some daily testing my Nitrates using an old Red Sea Nitrate test kit (that had expired reagents) and it was showing flat zero's. Did a few daily doses of a DIY solution of Potassium Nitrate and was still not able to get a reading. Time for new reagents or maybe I'll get the Hanna tester.
- As a result of the increased nutrients, I've got some BHA on the sand and the rocks are finally going through their ugly stage. See lighting and flow below.
- Calcium and Alk demands seem to be met by using my old small 6" Reef Octopus CA reactor and doing a constant drip of 5ml/min of Kalk through an Avast Marine kalk reactor and Kamoer FX-STP pump.
- Coral are still sitting on the rock and sand and haven't been mounted to the rock yet. Gosh, I'm lazy!
- I finally took my Apogee MQ-510 out of the package and tested PAR around the tank. The 5 x Orphek iCons mounted at 16" off the surface running at a max of 50% are producing solid 200's everywhere in the tank and low 100's at the sand bed despite my tank being 30" tall.
- I plan on increasing PAR but appreciate how silent the lights right at 50%, so I may try lowering the light fixture a little. With the increased nutrients in the tank, I know I need more light and flow to increase uptake.
- I'm currently running 2 x MP60's mounted on the left and right sides of the tank (towards the top of the tank). I bought a Neptune Systems MXM to control them because I absolutely hate the Mobius app. It seems to be working out quite well.
- I've got two spare Neptune WAV pumps that I'm going to add lower in the tank this week to see if I can control some of the dead spots. If they help, I may order a few MP40's as permanent solutions.
- I'm quite happy with having give return lines and using the 1" random flow generators. My current turn over rate is about 5.6 times per hour.
- As a reminder, I have five 4" sock holders in my sump. I'm changing the five 4x14" socks about once a week right now. I have about 30 socks that I cycle through and storing the dirty sucks between washes is becoming a pain.
- I recently bought some of the disposable Reef Diaper socks and I'm trying those out. It will definitely be more expensive than standard socks, but maybe I'll appreciate not having to deal with washing them enough to offset the costs.
- Oxygen microbubbles produced by my Chaeto coming out of the fuge section of my sump are a pain the butt right now. The followup section of my sump holds my probes, so my readings are usually always off. I've added few sponges in between the baffle and that's helped a little, but I'm just dealing with the bad readings for now.
- The skimmer is dialed in and my automated flush schedule keeps everything running efficiently. I still clean the neck manually about once every two weeks.
- I sometimes turn the skimmer completely off during the day. Since I still don't have my cabinet skins done, It's really loud and I need relief from the "air sucking" sound. In addition, the skimmer will quickly strip the iron out of the water column after I dose the Brightwell ChaetoGro, so I turn it off for at least two hours after I dose. I know this to be the case because the skimmer cup will be caked with brown gunk that can't be cleaned by the auto-flush kit. I have to manually wipe the cup to remove it.
Any reason you chose socks over say a reefmat?
I am still weighing up both options for my current build.
OP
OP
I will definitely try to get some updated pics soon. I chose socks for a few reasons:
- I didn't want to be married to proprietary fleece replacements. I know, I know -- I just said in my last post that I'm trying proprietary Reef Diapers now.
- With over 2500gph going through my sump, I was too concerned I would go through fleece like my teenage daughters go through toilet paper.
- I have a substantial amount of alternate filtration in my system
- the fuge section in my sump is about 82 gallons and has a chaeto ball growing in it the size of a kindergarten child
- my skimmer is MASSIVE and will strip anything it doesn't like out of the water in a little over an hour
- the chemical filtration section in my sump is about 20 gallons and can house GAC and GFO reactors capable of 2 gallons of media each if I find I need them
- the biological filtration section in my sump is also about 20 gallons and filled to the brim with Seachem matrix and liverock that has been in an active system for over 5 years
Makes sense to me!
I chose socks for a few reasons:
- I didn't want to be married to proprietary fleece replacements. I know, I know -- I just said in my last post that I'm trying proprietary Reef Diapers now.
- With over 2500gph going through my sump, I was too concerned I would go through fleece like my teenage daughters go through toilet paper.
- I have a substantial amount of alternate filtration in my system
- the fuge section in my sump is about 82 gallons and has a chaeto ball growing in it the size of a kindergarten child
- my skimmer is MASSIVE and will strip anything it doesn't like out of the water in a little over an hour
- the chemical filtration section in my sump is about 20 gallons and can house GAC and GFO reactors capable of 2 gallons of media each if I find I need them
- the biological filtration section in my sump is also about 20 gallons and filled to the brim with Seachem matrix and liverock that has been in an active system for over 5 years
The flow going through the sump is the part that concerns me, its about $50 a roll in Australia, and i dont want to be replacing that every month as the cost would become excessive - that saying, i would like to be able to go away for 2 weeks at a time and not have to expect someone to change out socks for me...so i cant decide.
Not sure what others have done in this regard, i have read about some dialing back the flow and setting the reefmat to its longest setting for this.
Would you suggest in your system that you could run it sockless then with all the other filtration avaliable?
OP
OP
If you want to keep a higher turn-over rate through your sump, you could plumb it in a way where only a portion of the drain goes through the roller (ie. 50/50). Given how fine the fleece material is on these roller mats, I'm seeing some people take this as a general strategy so their water isn't "too clean". This, of course, assumes you have other filtration filling in the gap.
As far as running no socks: If you follow the "Triton method" to a tee, they say you don't need socks at all. Their system assumes you've got a ton of macroalgae thriving in your fuge and an efficient skimmer -- and that's it. I took a similar approach to this on my last tank where I had the overflow going directly into my fuge and I didn't like having to clean up detritus from the fuge once a week -- it was an absolute pain. So, I won't run sock-less again.
You could always pull your socks for the few weeks that you are gone. I think that's better than having them clogged for two weeks with a bunch of trapped nutrients.
OP
OP
To beef-up my clean-up-crew and now that the temps here in Texas have started to drop, I placed a huge order of various snails and hermits from Reef Cleaners last week. It arrived the next day, I put the bags in the sump to acclimate to temperature and then dumped them all on one side of the tank so I could keep an eye on any DoDs. I had a great survival rate and I can see the "horde" slowly starting to make their way through the tank cleaning up the hair algae on the sand.
While I was in Vegas a few weeks back, I had an issue with my central AC causing the temps in my office to shoot up to 83. My wimpy chiller couldn't keep up and temps in the tank went up to 81. When I got home, I fixed the AC (condensation line was clogged) and the temps dropped back down to 77 overnight. I woke up the next morning to find my Flame Angel was sitting in the sand dead. The issue was either the high temps, the quick drop, or a lack of dissolved oxygen (I turned off the skimmer for 2 days to reduce the amount of heat I was adding to the system). About a week later, I lost my largest (female) Blue Caribbean Reef Chromie. I don't think the two were related.
As a result, I went out this weekend and bought 4 new fish from the LFS. To put my money where my mouth is, I decided to put them in the display without any QT letting my massive UV's do all the work.
I added:
I still haven't glued my coral to the rock or gotten the wrap done on my stand, so excuse the mess, but here's a pic from this afternoon.
While I was in Vegas a few weeks back, I had an issue with my central AC causing the temps in my office to shoot up to 83. My wimpy chiller couldn't keep up and temps in the tank went up to 81. When I got home, I fixed the AC (condensation line was clogged) and the temps dropped back down to 77 overnight. I woke up the next morning to find my Flame Angel was sitting in the sand dead. The issue was either the high temps, the quick drop, or a lack of dissolved oxygen (I turned off the skimmer for 2 days to reduce the amount of heat I was adding to the system). About a week later, I lost my largest (female) Blue Caribbean Reef Chromie. I don't think the two were related.
As a result, I went out this weekend and bought 4 new fish from the LFS. To put my money where my mouth is, I decided to put them in the display without any QT letting my massive UV's do all the work.
I added:
- Yellow Longnose Butterflyfish
- Four Stripe Damselfish
- Diamond Watchman Goby
- Orange-Back Fairy Wrasse
I still haven't glued my coral to the rock or gotten the wrap done on my stand, so excuse the mess, but here's a pic from this afternoon.
OP
OP
Thanks for the kind words. Things are coming along really well. My coral are growing like weeds. I'm currently working on the following projects:
- Power Control Upgrade. I'm converting all of my Apex EB832's to an industrial-style power control setup. I'll have DIN rail mounted power supplies, relays, and current sensors. No more power bricks or cheap Apex power control and current sensors. I'll do a full writeup on this later.
- Calcium Reactor Upgrade. My old Reef Octopus CR140 isn't able to keep up with the calcium demands anymore, so I'm currently sizing a large Geo's reef reactor with a secondary chamber.
- Cabinet wraps still needs to be done.
OP
OP
Yep, my office is on a slab and is covered in tile. I haven't seen any issues thus far. It's definitely hard to get work done, but I get 3 or 4 compliments a day from web conference attendees on the "best background on the call".
WhyMe?
Community Member
1. Any changes you would make to your sump design now that you are setup and running? read post #142 about the microbubbles.
2. Did you go with Geo Calcium reactor? Consider the DaStaco.
3. Is the "gurgling" noise solved yet via your overflow and fine tuning the Abyzz A200 pair?
4. Did the Spears thread sealant solve issue on Neptune flow sensors?
5. Please provide write up at some point when you have time for POWER CONTROL UPGRADE.
I am slowly getting ready to setup 540g
2. Did you go with Geo Calcium reactor? Consider the DaStaco.
3. Is the "gurgling" noise solved yet via your overflow and fine tuning the Abyzz A200 pair?
4. Did the Spears thread sealant solve issue on Neptune flow sensors?
5. Please provide write up at some point when you have time for POWER CONTROL UPGRADE.
I am slowly getting ready to setup 540g
OP
OP
1. The chaeto in my refugium section produces a lot of micro bubbles and my probes are in the section immediately following the refugium. A small adjustment I would make to the sump would be to add double-baffle instead of a single baffle after the fuge to help those oxygen bubbles to settle out before entering the next section. Today, I crammed a long sponge under the baffle so the micro bubbles would stay off my probes. Alternatively, I would add a very small section immediately after my socks (but before the fuge) just to house my probes. I wouldn't want to put them in fuge section because of all of the algae that would accumulate on them.
2. Yes, I ordered a Geo's Reef CR818 GEN3 Classic calcium reactor and a SMC618 secondary chamber. I have very little space in my side cabinets, so I had some discussions with @geo and we both confirmed this was the best choice for my setup. I also ordered a UMC415 media reactor that I'll use for GAC. This is the only reactor that I could find on the market that allows you to force water into the reactor from the top and doesn't have a tube in it. I plan on using a 80 micron media bag to hold ROX carbon and plop it down in the reactor not only to keep the ROX from coming out, but for easy swaps without having to pull the entire reactor.
3. The overflows are still produce a lot of noise despite tens of hours of tuning and using various stand pipes. If I had to do it again, I would likely choose a different overflow than the Synergy Shadow because I feel this is a design flaw. The bulkheads that connect the internal box to the external box (and go through the back glass of the tank) are too high, so it's very difficult to get them to be completely submerged. The result is that you will hear water trickling as water pours out the bulkheads into the rear box. The solution this would be to lower those bulkheads about 1/4" to 1/2" and the problem would go away.
4. I still had a small leak on the 2" sensors that lasted for a few months. Eventually the salt creep helped mitigate the remaining leaks.
5. I'm still working on the power control and I'll provide a full writeup of that in time. My office is a mess right now with an array of various relays, current sensors, power supplies while I try different options. The Net result will be that I will get rid of all of the EB832's and replace them with industrial grade relays that can be replaced individually.
@rsumner
I sure do love how your tank looks!
Have you reached out to Synergy regarding the overflow. Some tune it quickly and others have some challenges but they typically get worked out.
If I can assist, I am always available. Love seeing your journey.
OP
OP
Thanks for reading along and following up on this issue, @Joe Glass Cages. I'll reach out to Synergy and see if they can provide some pointers.
OP
OP
Here's a teaser image for what I'm working on for my new power control. This is a 32-channel relay module that is controlled via modbus RTU commands. Each relay is pluggable so I can replace it if it fails or change the parameters of what voltage or amperage it can control. Out of the box, all 32-channels can handle 250V AC or 32V DC at 10amps. I've got a RS485 modbus transceiver connected to my Raspberry PI and have written some custom Python code to make it accessible via MQTT. It's mounted on a standard DIN rail to make everything super clean. While I don't normally buy things from China, this was hard sell being able to programmatically control 32 devices for $120 shipped.
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