Shadyraro's Cade 900 S2

krayzie · Nov 5, 2025

hey shady, did you ever try remove the silencer and go from skimmer to the scrubber?

my mantis has 2 intakes and im looking for a c02 scrubber and bypassing that silencer

DarkReefer · Nov 5, 2025

shadyraro said:
That's quite a long hose but I don't know if it's an issue, do you have 2 air intakes on the skimmer silencer like mine does? And if you do, do you have a hose from each intake going to your scrubber? I use tap water for the base it doesn't really matter what you use.

I initially put about a ~4m hose on because I was trying to work out where I was going to place it, but it didn't have enough suction. After trimming it down it definitely improved suction, but it'd probably benefit from being shorter. I don't quite know if I can get away with that though just due to the skimmer being basically in the middle of the sump area.
If I went to it in the cabinet area, it'd still be close to a meter I think but might be a bit less. Where it is now is on the outside of the tank though so maybe it's getting more 'fresher' air.
I didn't have the adapter to put 2 on the silencer and connect it up, so I'm pretty sure I just disconnected it and ran it straight from the scrubber to the air inlet on the skimmer.

shadyraro · Nov 5, 2025

krayzie said:
hey shady, did you ever try remove the silencer and go from skimmer to the scrubber?

my mantis has 2 intakes and im looking for a c02 scrubber and bypassing that silencer

I did try bypassing the silencer and going straight from the venturi to the scrubber but I couldn't get the skimmer to settle and it kept foaming too much, it was also a lot noisier but maybe I didn't set it up properly to start with.

shadyraro · Nov 5, 2025

DarkReefer said:
I initially put about a ~4m hose on because I was trying to work out where I was going to place it, but it didn't have enough suction. After trimming it down it definitely improved suction, but it'd probably benefit from being shorter. I don't quite know if I can get away with that though just due to the skimmer being basically in the middle of the sump area.
If I went to it in the cabinet area, it'd still be close to a meter I think but might be a bit less. Where it is now is on the outside of the tank though so maybe it's getting more 'fresher' air.
I didn't have the adapter to put 2 on the silencer and connect it up, so I'm pretty sure I just disconnected it and ran it straight from the scrubber to the air inlet on the skimmer.

Yeah 4mm is too small, the scrubber recommends a 10mm hose and that's what I'm using but the skimmer silencer is 8mm so that's why I had to put a Y adaptor in to connect the 10mm hose to the 2 8mm hoses. So confusing lol.

shadyraro · Nov 5, 2025

DarkReefer said:
I initially put about a ~4m hose on because I was trying to work out where I was going to place it, but it didn't have enough suction. After trimming it down it definitely improved suction, but it'd probably benefit from being shorter. I don't quite know if I can get away with that though just due to the skimmer being basically in the middle of the sump area.
If I went to it in the cabinet area, it'd still be close to a meter I think but might be a bit less. Where it is now is on the outside of the tank though so maybe it's getting more 'fresher' air.
I didn't have the adapter to put 2 on the silencer and connect it up, so I'm pretty sure I just disconnected it and ran it straight from the scrubber to the air inlet on the skimmer.

I just reread this and realised you said 4m hose not 4mm hose lol.
Did you notice any noise or excessive foam from your skimmer since running the hose straight from the venturi to the scrubber or has it been going ok?
Mine was bad when I tried it.

DarkReefer · Nov 5, 2025

shadyraro said:
I just reread this and realised you said 4m hose not 4mm hose lol.
Did you notice any noise or excessive foam from your skimmer since running the hose straight from the venturi to the scrubber or has it been going ok?
Mine was bad when I tried it.

Slight increase in noise, but nothing too noticeable tbh.
Foam wise, haven't noticed a change at all, the skimmer is still as tricky to tune as it always has been for me LOL

shadyraro · Nov 6, 2025

DarkReefer said:
Slight increase in noise, but nothing too noticeable tbh.
Foam wise, haven't noticed a change at all, the skimmer is still as tricky to tune as it always has been for me LOL

So I tried putting the hose from the scrubber to the skimmer air inlet again last night and it was a big fail, it was way too noisy and the skimmer just wouldn't settle. Even with adjusting the speed of the skimmer I just couldn't quiet the thing down so I put it back how it was.
I am however going to plug one of the silencer inlets so I can just run one hose without the adaptor splitting to 2 hoses.

DarkReefer · Nov 6, 2025

shadyraro said:
So I tried putting the hose from the scrubber to the skimmer air inlet again last night and it was a big fail, it was way too noisy and the skimmer just wouldn't settle. Even with adjusting the speed of the skimmer I just couldn't quiet the thing down so I put it back how it was.
I am however going to plug one of the silencer inlets so I can just run one hose without the adaptor splitting to 2 hoses.

Strange. I know your skimmer is sized properly for your tank whereas I think I worked out mine is now considered oversized after they updated their range details, perhaps that has something to do with it. Maybe my hearing is stuffed a bit or just ambient noise around the tank is higher at mine. I can definitely hear it if I'm next to it, but not so much if I'm sitting back on the couch.

I took a very quick look at mine yesterday to see if I could reposition and shorten the hose (maybe that's also something to do with the noise level), but honestly was a 2 second look and then forgotten about so I'll need to revisit it at some point and maybe consider the cabinet area.

Honestly, with your tank if it's not broke I wouldn't fix it. Yours is working well for you from what I understand.

smiller8516 · Dec 4, 2025

What kind of thread tape did you use? I am running into a very similar issue with my new case s2 900

shadyraro · Dec 4, 2025

smiller8516 said:
What kind of thread tape did you use? I am running into a very similar issue with my new case s2 900

I just used plumbers thread seal tape

shadyraro · Dec 7, 2025

Update:

Over the weekend I did my fortnightly 20% water change and on restarting the return pump I noticed it wasn’t pumping much water out.
I’ve had this issue before where I thought my pump was on its last legs but on further inspection I noticed the return hose above the check valve in the RO reservoir was badly twisted which was obviously causing the flow issue.

I syphoned some RO water out unscrewed the top of the check valve to remove the hose, the kink must’ve happened when I moved house in beginning of the year and I somehow missed it on the rebuild.

The hose was set solid in the kinks shape so I removed the fittings and put it in a container of boiling water for 20 seconds. This worked and the hose went back into its original shape so I reconnected the check valve side of the hose and reinstalled it, then once the hose was in position I attached the return outlet in the display side and job done!

I turned the return pump on and checked for any leaks and it was all good, the flow is so much better now and I’m just happy my return was fine all along and the issue was just the hose which was my fault lol.

Apart from that the tank has been going good, a couple months ago I installed a 23” liquid level sensor in the RO reservoir so I can monitor the water level and this is great.
I never knew where my RO level was at unless I physically looked into the reservoir and sometimes I nearly ran it dry, so now I get an alert when it gets below 8” which is about 9 litres of RO left so I can then sort out a refill with plenty of time to do so.

I also replaced my old aqua medic reactor with a Gen 2 Nyos Torq 1.0 reactor and this is fantastic, the slim body is great for my small sump and I can now run 2 media’s instead of one with carbon in the bottom part and gfo on top.
I've always wanted to run gfo as a more natural way of controlling phosphates but never had the right reactor, but after 6 weeks running this has kept my phosphates super stable at 0.06 so I’m really happy with it.

krayzie · Dec 9, 2025

That’s one thing i dont really like with the cades. You dont know exactly how much RO you have left.

I’m using the res sea ATO+ but it’s slightly inaccurate, hows the apex level sensor? Is it based on optical or float?

shadyraro · Dec 9, 2025

krayzie said:
That’s one thing i dont really like with the cades. You dont know exactly how much RO you have left.

I’m using the res sea ATO+ but it’s slightly inaccurate, hows the apex level sensor? Is it based on optical or float?

The LLS is great and I'm really glad I installed it, from the website it says it's one continuous vertical sensor that can identify the exact depth of a liquid in inches or cm's.
Being able to monitor the RO water level in the apex app is great and means I don't have to look into the reservoir anymore to check where the levels at.

krayzie · Dec 9, 2025

another reason why i need to get an apex!

tbox · Jan 4, 2026

Happy New Year, Shady! I love all of the new enhancements. I'll definitely look at the LLS and reactor for my upgrade. I have an ATO now but it would be so nice to not have to physically check.

I'm planning on the S2 900. I love a few key things in the sump on the S3, but don't think I'd be able to clean well with the eurobrace because it's already a tall tank.

I was wondering if you thought something like this caster cart could work under the 900? On my current tank, I stained a teak board the color of my floor and added a stick on carpet square on the bottom (pic below). It's been really awesome for weight distribution and to allow me to slide the tank when I need to. Plus, I like the aesthetic. I want the new tank to look great, too, but would love to move it a little for cleaning or maintenance on occasion (and someday we will replace the flooring in this room, I'm sure).

https://www.customaquariums.com/pro...YYf7IFimD1KUyM1xYUADqdwLjYzTc8qvf6fDmkJOlbNTc

shadyraro · Jan 7, 2026

tbox said:
Happy New Year, Shady! I love all of the new enhancements. I'll definitely look at the LLS and reactor for my upgrade. I have an ATO now but it would be so nice to not have to physically check.

I'm planning on the S2 900. I love a few key things in the sump on the S3, but don't think I'd be able to clean well with the eurobrace because it's already a tall tank.

I was wondering if you thought something like this caster cart could work under the 900? On my current tank, I stained a teak board the color of my floor and added a stick on carpet square on the bottom (pic below). It's been really awesome for weight distribution and to allow me to slide the tank when I need to. Plus, I like the aesthetic. I want the new tank to look great, too, but would love to move it a little for cleaning or maintenance on occasion (and someday we will replace the flooring in this room, I'm sure).

https://www.customaquariums.com/pro...YYf7IFimD1KUyM1xYUADqdwLjYzTc8qvf6fDmkJOlbNTc

Hey there and happy new year!

I'm not sure about the castors as I had thought about this idea years ago and the consensus was it probably wouldn't move a tank easily on any surface apart from concrete or tiles. The castors would bed into floating flooring like yours over time and make it impossible to move, the 900 isn't a light tank either and I'm not sure I'd be able to move that body of water around easily.

The last time I moved my tank I removed all the doors which are heavy and drained 2/3 of the tank water out, it slid pretty easily but I was also on tiles.
What tank do you currently have?