SPS Dominant Reefer 170 Full Triton Kessil/T5 Hybrid

[Blitheran]

Tank with the new lights. 2 x Kessil A360x and 1 Giesemann Infinity with 2 coral purple and 2 actinic.

I love how adjustable the Kessils are. Their small foot print means almost no shading of the T5s above.

Wow thats some serious par! Nice!!

 

[Blitheran]

Woah, will this go in conjunction with your trident?

 

[bar|none]

Woah, will this go in conjunction with your trident?

Yeah..quite decadent I know, but I test PO4 daily and leaving on a few trips for long enough that I am worried. Always been ok with automation. Now Im testing alk, ca, mg trident and po4, no3 reefbot. I removed all test kits from beside the tank. That felt good. The reefbot in on floor behind a curtain and invisible. The trident is faster, more tests between fills and less waste. The reefbot uses more tank water, less time between refills but incredibly flexible on the tests can run. Maybe I’ll sell one if I feel can consolidate. Done about 10 tests on it so far and more accurate than what i can do.

 

[bar|none]

Loving the Reefbot right now.

I wake up and don't have to do the Hanna test with the white powder that I keep spilling and can taste in the air when I open the packet and says poison on the side. Although I read the safety sheet and not too bad. http://site.jjstech.com/pdf/Hanna-Instruments/SDS_HI 736-25_2013-01-24.pdf.

I also get my Nitrate in the am as well.

The main reason to do this is not laziness but ability to monitor when travelling, which I do often.

So Trident for Alk, Ca, Mg
Reefbot for PO4, NO3

Still have 3 slots in Reefbot open for something else.

I moved everyone of my tests kits into the garage by the water mix station and the only manual test I do now is salinity and not very often. Only to make sure Neptune is accurate.

I'll do a more thorough review of compare contrast Trident with Reefbot after I have some time under my belt. The differences are interesting.

 

[Etern1ty]

Love your build, following

 

[Markxc]

hey noticed youre using a sicce sdc 6.0. I just got one too for my reefer 250, but the adapters that came with the pump wont fit the return line tube for the tank. did you have to get new adapters for the pump?

 

[bar|none]

hey noticed youre using a sicce sdc 6.0. I just got one too for my reefer 250, but the adapters that came with the pump wont fit the return line tube for the tank. did you have to get new adapters for the pump?

Hi you have a few options.

If you are ok with the stock 1/2" reefer soft return line, which I still use and works fine....

Cut a small piece of 3/4" PVC pipe. Glue it to the Sicce adapter that fits it. Then get a 3/4" ID adapter that fits into the 3/4" PVC and has a threaded insert for a threaded 1/2" barb. All that you can find a decent hardware store. Put it together and attach the standard redsea PVC to the barb.

The other option is to upgrade the 3/4" PVC and change the barb on the red sea fitting. Similar process but need to take apart or get a new red sea fitting.

I can probably a pic later. Just got home from vacation so hectic.

 

[bar|none]

Just got back from 12 days away on vacation. Tested every day with the Reefbot and Trident.

PO4 was a steady 0.08
NO3 was fairly steady 5

I had the WYZE camera setup as well. Pet sitter just cleaned the front glass. Here's a vid capture a couple of days ago from being away. Pretty nice to know what your params are and what the tank looks like when away. Despite not cleaning the side glass at all, things stayed really clean. The snails seemed to take care of the side glass.

 

[Blitheran]

Thats awesome! Tank is really starting to settle in!

 

[bar|none]

Thats awesome! Tank is really starting to settle in!

Thanks! I did lose a few recent additions though, stn'd, but no idea why. The rest looks solid.

 

[bar|none]

Just got my custom Octo Aquatics tank cover. Thing of beauty. Fits perfect as well.

 

[cromag27]

Just got my custom Octo Aquatics tank cover. Thing of beauty. Fits perfect as well.

and that’s how it’s done!

 

[bar|none]

Two projects coming up...

1. Continuous Water Changes - aka see Randy Holmes article and analysis

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php

- [DONE] See further in thread.

2. Neptune Solenoid Controlled Flow to Media Reactor (GFO - Rowaphos)

For #1 I plan to use a Neptune DOS to do Continuous Water Changes on a low scale, aka 20% per month.

For #2 Ability to run GFO for certain periods a day to control PO4

I have all the parts to start, so if you are interested, please follow. I will detail everything here.

 

[bar|none]

I shared this in another thread, but it needs to be documented in the build thread.

I'm still playing with the Kessil Schedule and trying not to **** off anything too much. Interested in everyone else's schedule as well.

I did find that initially I ran them too high off the water and it was cooking my LPS on the bottom. Now I'm running them 6.5" off the water and taking advantage of the wide spread which is making everything happier and helping shading on my SPS. It's also helping not nuking my poor LPS at the bottom. Yes small tank light dynamics are challenging as you can't spread out like in a bigger tank and the glass has a greater effect in the box.

PAR - Pretty much 300s to high 300s at top tier corals.
Mid 200's, mid tier.
150-200 unshaded at bottom, less in shade of course

07:30 1 int, 0v, 0r, 0g
09:00 45 int, 20v, 5r, 0g
10:00 55 int, 20 color, 30v, 5r, 0g
11:00 60 int, 25 color, 50v, 15r, 15g
14:00 60 int, 25 color, 50v, 15r, 15g
15:00 55 int, 20 color, 40v, 5r, 0g
16:00 45 int, 15 color, 30v, 5r, 0g
17:00 10 int, 0 color, 0v, 0r, 0g
18:00 0 int, 0v, 0r, 0g

 

[bar|none]

Last water change 12/5 (5 gallon), that's over 1.5 months ago and corals are happier than ever with some shy frags extending way more.

That being said, I just sent in my monthly ICP today.

I also just got my DOSE unit for automatic continuous water changes. They were out of stock for a bit.

I'll be setting that up then deciding on my monthly water change amount. Right now I'm thinking only 10 gallons a month dosed daily almost continuously during the day. If I can pull that off then doing water changes is just a matter of filling my 10 gallon SW tank once a month.

So I'm thinking 10 gal a month unless ICP issue and 1 ICP a month for the next say 6 months, then changing to hopefully 1 ICP every 2 months.

The other benefit of continuous is I can change input and output amounts to make up for emptying skimmer and reefbot/trident sampling water. Making my salinity rock solid.

 

[bar|none]

Continuous Water Changes. I'm really lucky because my tank is right next to the ranch slider to the deck. I took the handle off the slider and am running the 2 auto-water change lines plus an air line to the skimmer literally through the door.

The 10 gallon salt water tank is outside and it does get below freezing out here, but its salt water, it's not going to freeze solid in our temp range.

1 Neptune DOSE does removal and addition of new water.

I've chosen 15 gallons per month first month or so and then I plan to do 10 gallons a month after that.

With Triton its really important to dose your fresh mix SW to the trace levels you wish to maintain so that additional dosing recommendations are not affected by new SW additions.

 

[bar|none]

Here are some progress photos.

Current params - these numbers have been really stable. Feeding heavy and dosing aminos and phyto daily as well.

NO3 - 10
PO4 - .08
Alk - 7.8
Salinity - 36

Finally getting some good colors.

 

[bar|none]

New fish in the tank.

Blue Spotted Jawfish.

So cool...I took out a large loose rock on right of tank and added some new sand that is large sized rubble, up to 5mm. Added some coral skeletons, some shells etc, In that area so he can have material to build. Within a day, he's architected a house in the spot I wanted. YES!

Also, kind of digging the rougher sand bed area for putting corals down there. Frees up some real estate, like there is so much in a 170.

It's kind of a tiny house situation.

Bad iPhone photo below. I'll take some better ones soon.

 

[bar|none]

Update: end of month 8 since lights on

So my long nosed hawk started to bully the new wrasse and the jawfish. Actually I at first though he had no interest in the jawfish. It built its burrow and everything seemed fine at first. I go to look at the tank after he's been in there 4 or 5 days and the jawfish is laying on the sand with part of his tail fin missing a big patch of scales missing on both sides of tail. At first I thought a powerhead got him, but then I see the hawk come down and grab him by the tail and shake him. That was it, jawfish into acclimation box in DT. Hawk then start being super aggressive with the wrasse who is doing everything possible to stay away. Long story short I got a fish trap and trapped the hawkfish and he is in timeout in QT. Jawfish is out of acclimation and doing well. New wrasse is now cruising the whole tank happily. I think hawk is going back to LFS to find a new home. Feel bad but need to keep a peaceful tank. Through all this, I waaay overfed every day to make sure jawfish recovered and new wrasse was eating. So I have more algae than I want and higher N03/PO4. Corals don't seem to mind.

I'm about to refill my 10 gallon salt water tank for continuous water changes. So far it is really working well. Its outside in this freezing weather but salt water takes a really low temp to freeze.

Current numbers (will being bring down shortly

NO3 - 20
PO4 - .12
Alk - 7.8
Salinity - 36

Here's FTS from today

)

 

[bar|none]

Got some new LPS.

Trachyphyllia
Acantophilia
Scoly - not shown
Acan - not shown

fish with existing Lobophylia


Jaw