The Journey Continues - Mike & Terry's 280g Reef Savvy

Mike&Terry · Mar 27, 2017

We installed a second XF250 Gyre this weekend and have to say it is much quieter right out of the box. We cleaned the original pump and placed it back in the tank and it is now just as noisy as it was when we first put it in on 3/12, sigh... I went ahead and opened a support ticket with Coralvue today - hopefully, we'll here back from them soon.

xaflatoonx · Mar 27, 2017

Umm. Guys. Do you have pics of your sump? Why do I feel like I am missing it? Went through the pages and I couldn't find it.

Mike&Terry · Mar 27, 2017

xaflatoonx said:
Umm. Guys. Do you have pics of your sump? Why do I feel like I am missing it? Went through the pages and I couldn't find it.

Our bad! We kept our existing sumps and frag tank from our previous build and neglected to share that info here.

These are not recent pics, but should give a decent idea of the layout in our garage:

Shallow acrylic sump:

The shallow sump feeds into a 150g stock vat:

The pic below is a bit more up-to-date with equipment as you can see a secondary reactor connected to the GEO 818 ca reactor. We have since added a litermeter dosing pump to dose kalk from the GEO kalk reactor at night to keep pH from dropping too low at night. We also swapped out the Panworld return pump for an Iwaki 70rlt (Japanese motor).

Our water station sits to the left of the frag tank (and behind the Brute).

xaflatoonx · Mar 27, 2017

Thanks for sharing
How are you currently doing water changes?

Replacing water in sump? Or DT?
How much? How frequent?

Mike&Terry · Mar 27, 2017

xaflatoonx said:
Thanks for sharing
How are you currently doing water changes?

Replacing water in sump? Or DT?
How much? How frequent?

We siphon from the shallow sump (since the sink is to the right of it) and pump the new saltwater from the 100g storage vat into the 150g stock vat. We do a 45g water change weekly.

Mike&Terry · Mar 27, 2017

So back to the XF250 Gyre... I got a quick response from Carlos at Coralvue. He had me swap in the spare propellers and cages - no effect. I sent him a link to my youtube video where you can clearly hear the noise and he immediately replied back and said the motor block is bad and needs replacement.

They'll be sending a new one and he gave me a link to a step-by-step video on how to replace it and reassemble the gyre. I'm glad Mike is good at this sort of stuff although it sure would be easier if they would just swap out the unit...

Stylo328 · Mar 27, 2017

Mike&Terry said:
So back to the XF250 Gyre... I got a quick response from Carlos at Coralvue. He had me swap in the spare propellers and cages - no effect. I sent him a link to my youtube video where you can clearly hear the noise and he immediately replied back and said the motor block is bad and needs replacement.

They'll be sending a new one and he gave me a link to a step-by-step video on how to replace it and reassemble the gyre. I'm glad Mike is good at this sort of stuff although it sure would be easier if they would just swap out the unit...

Glad you had such a prompt response and such great customer service. Looking forward to reading how it works out.

Mike&Terry · Mar 30, 2017

Our new fish babies arrived yesterday from Pacific Island Aquatics.
Paracheilinus bellae (Bell's Flasher) pair
Paracheilinus rubricaudalis (Red Tail Flasher) male
Chelmon rostratus (Copperband Butterflyfish)

All were well-packed and arrived in good condition. I did not pay attention to the Copperband's size when I ordered him and was shocked when I saw him in person - he's HUGE! And a Beauty! Hopefully, he won't be too much trouble weening over to frozen prepared foods so that he can be moved over to the big reef in a few weeks. For now, he has access to a plethora of small fan worms so he won't go hungry. He ate a bit of PE Mysis a few minutes ago, so that is a very good sign!

Mike&Terry · Mar 30, 2017

The new XF250 Gyre motor block arrived today:

And changing subjects - The Copperband is eating PE Mysis with gusto!

APLATN13 · Mar 30, 2017

glad u got it all figured out

Mike&Terry · Apr 9, 2017

APLATN13 said:
glad u got it all figured out

It is such a relief to have the problem resolved and so quickly. The pump is definitely running much quieter with the new motor block.

Mike&Terry · Apr 27, 2017

It's been a while since our last update... sorry. Here's an FTS taken a few days ago - just after I got back from a 10 day trip visiting family:

Gonna be busy scraping a lot of coralline algae this weekend, LOL!

Wrangy · Apr 27, 2017

GAWJUS!

Mike&Terry · Apr 27, 2017

Wrangy said:
GAWJUS!

Thank You! We're a bit embarrassed sharing that pic with all of the coralline algae. ;Shamefullyembarrased

Wrangy · Apr 28, 2017

Mike&Terry said:
Thank You! We're a bit embarrassed sharing that pic with all of the coralline algae. ;Shamefullyembarrased

You crazy reefers and your anti-coralline behaviors! You should see my back wall

xaflatoonx · Apr 28, 2017

the perfectionists you guys are - it makes me wonder.

do you also clean the teeth in the overflow boxes of coraline?

Mike&Terry · Apr 28, 2017

xaflatoonx said:
the perfectionists you guys are - it makes me wonder.

do you also clean the teeth in the overflow boxes of coraline?

We do clean the teeth, not as often as we should though. We asked Felix to make us a second set of lids when he has time to make it easier to clean them.