The Money Pit Reefer 170

[lbacha]

It’s nice to see someone else who has gone overboard with their apartment nano tank. I really like my trigger Crystal ato container. It is nice to see the level, It looks great in the open in my apartment as well.

Len

 

[adrianr514]

Wow 700+ TDS to start with! Gonna give that RODI unit a workout. Ultimately will be good investment for your tank.

Yeah. I've been running the triple DI now for about 2 months and I've been needed to replace my DI resin at least once a month with as much water as I go through. And sediment filters are replaced every two weeks.

Water from the tap.

Post RO water

Post Triple DI Water

 

[adrianr514]

It’s nice to see someone else who has gone overboard with their apartment nano tank. I really like my trigger Crystal ato container. It is nice to see the level, It looks great in the open in my apartment as well.

Len

Yup. A lot of people feel like they are limited to what they can do with fishkeeping in general living in an apartment. Aside from my reef I have two planted tanks that also benefit from low TDS watee. Ones 30G and the other is a 20G long. Only thing that limits what I can do is usable floor space for tank sizes. Granted my apartment is 1,200sqft so I have more room than most smaller apartments but organization is key.

 

[KenO]

Update 5/31/2019

My calium uptake on my tank was more than my weekly water changes could keep up with.

Took a trip down to my LFS to check out my options between a standalone doser for Calc or a Kalk stirrer.

My LFS had been testing out the X1 micro pump and I played with it for a while. It's small, modular with it's rotatable head and can be programed with a phone.

I still haven't decided on an aquarium controller and I'm probably 6+ months out before I buy one so this small single unit for $59 was a no brainer.

Once home 1 drilled a hole into my calcium bottle and added a 1/4 bulkhead. Calibrated the pump and now have it set to dose 20ml across 12 doses throughout the day. So far it's working for it's intended purpose and later when I get a controller and accompanying doser I could repurpose this one for one of my fresh water tanks or have it dose Trace minerals.

Normally you would want to dose Alk and Cal in equal amounts so that the ratios don't get skewed. This can be done by adding kalk to your top off water or dosing 2 part with 2 pumps, one pump for Alk and one pump for Cal.

 

[KenO]

Yeah. I've been running the triple DI now for about 2 months and I've been needed to replace my DI resin at least once a month with as much water as I go through. And sediment filters are replaced every two weeks.

Water from the tap.

Post RO water

Post Triple DI Water

My water TDS runs between 650-700 during the summer months. Since you have the 3 post canisters, use the Cation, Anion and DI resins in that order. Since switching to that combination of resins my Anion resin is getting close to needing replacement, and that is after around 3,000 gallons of RO water. The Cation and DI resins are still pristine. I was burning through just DI resin really fast, not anymore. Word of caution, the Anion resin smells really bad, I mean really bad. When you change it, do it outside especially since you are in an apartment. I didn't know this and did it in my house. It gave my wife an incredible migraine for hours and I needed to open all the windows to get the stink out of the house.

 

[KenO]

Also your post RO water TDS looks way to high. My post RO is only around 11. I would expect yours to be around 15. Did you upgrade to the dual RO membranes or did the unit come that way? Also you may want to reseat your RO membranes to make sure they are in tight and sealed.

 

[adrianr514]

Normally you would want to dose Alk and Cal in equal amounts so that the ratios don't get skewed. This can be done by adding kalk to your top off water or dosing 2 part with 2 pumps, one pump for Alk and one pump for Cal.

My alkalinity has been stable. never goes under 9.6 towards the end of the week prior to water change and sits around 10.4 post water change. My calcium however drops to the low 300s when it starts off around 410 after water changes. Hence the reason why I only dose Cal and not traditional 2 part or Kalk as those would make my already high Alk even higher.

My water TDS runs between 650-700 during the summer months. Since you have the 3 post canisters, use the Cation, Anion and DI resins in that order. Since switching to that combination of resins my Anion resin is getting close to needing replacement, and that is after around 3,000 gallons of RO water. The Cation and DI resins are still pristine. I was burning through just DI resin really fast, not anymore. Word of caution, the Anion resin smells really bad, I mean really bad. When you change it, do it outside especially since you are in an apartment. I didn't know this and did it in my house. It gave my wife an incredible migraine for hours and I needed to open all the windows to get the stink out of the house.

Mine has always been over 700, I guess that's just Avondale water for you. I've already refilled the Canisters multiple times. I have had the system since December and added the triple DI and second RO membrane in March. Also I feel you may be confused with what is what. DI resin isn't its own thing. Cation and Anion are DeIonizing (DI) Resins. What you're referring to as DI after your Anion is actually a mixed DI resin that is both cation and Anion mixed into one canister.

Also your post RO water TDS looks way to high. My post RO is only around 11. I would expect yours to be around 15. Did you upgrade to the dual RO membranes or did the unit come that way? Also you may want to reseat your RO membranes to make sure they are in tight and sealed.

It was originally a single membrane unit and post RO would be in the low 40s for it. When you add a second membrane TDS always goes up but waste water goes down. Right now I'm at a 1:1 clean to waste ratio. Everything is seated properly and fully sealed.

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

Nice setup!

 

[adrianr514]

Nice setup!

Thanks! I hope to get it to the same level as some of you. SW is such a slow process and I am very impatient so I get anxiety just thinking about it.

 

[adrianr514]

Update:

So it was a difficult week for me and my tank. Suffered a small tank crash that left my Flame Angel, Green Mandarin and a couple of corals KIA. Now I'm back to square one, don't quite know what caused my crash but I did notice the Angel nipping at some Zoas. Only thing I can guess is they released their toxin as the ones it nipped died as well..

 

[adrianr514]

So after the crash I finally have been able to recover and keep my parameters stable.

I ended up running a fresh air line from outside to my skimmer. Helping a bit with keeping a stable pH.

I also added a Diamond Goby, a few more CUC members and more coral from @WWC.

Aussie Bonsai

Orange Florida Ricordea

Red Acan

Green Slimer

Green Mile

Honeycomb Leptastrea

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Dont know why I stopped getting updated for you thread... perhaps if I post in it,

Love the new coral additions!

 

[adrianr514]

Okay so wow it's been two months since I last updated my thread. A lot has been changing in my personal life so the amount of time I could spare to keeping this updated has drastically gone down. So where to start?

I guess I will start with the basics and that's water. First I moved my RO/DI from under the kitchen sink to the washroom. I then have spent the better part of the last month working on my RO/DI system to get the best rejection rate possible as I was getting an input of 800+ and my permeate was coming out around 31+ which was eating my DI like candy. After tons of configurations and tweaks along with working with @SpectraPureInc we found a combo that is giving me a consistent ~99.5% rejection rate. What I had to do was go back down to a single membrane instead of dual membrane which cut my water production in have and I also had to get rid of my automatic flush valve as the restriction settings on that where keeping me from better rejection. I turned my Aquatec 8800 pump to its max setting and in lieu of a flow restricter I added a ball valve in its place. This gave me complete adjustability of my water:waste production as well as letting me dial in the working pressure to 90 psi. These changes alone got me down to the single digit output however it wasn't enough to satisfy me. I ended up adding a water softener canister before the RO system which cut that already single digit product water in half. You can actually read a more complete write up of my testing HERE .

This is what my RO system looks like now.

Next is tank changes. I have done lots of little changes here and there but nothing too drastic. For the tank I added quite a bit of corals. Nothing really big or fancy mostly just colorful corals from all over the spectrum. I did get my hands on a beautiful Black Widow nem and a Rainbow nem. Both are very gorgeous specimens.

As far as fish go I also added a beautiful Snowflake Eel and a Kole Tang.

Here's a recent pick of the display.

In my display I am using two 1/2 VCA nozzles and I also added that gorgeous Oceanbox Designs Glo fragrack. Here's a better picture of it holding all of my most recent @WWC frags.

Now for what really excites me the most. I have been communicating (bugging) @Crystal Reef Aquatics for some time to test out their RSR250 sump on my 170. It is a direct replacement for the Reefer 250 that just so happened to fit inside the 170 but we weren't sure how if I needed modifications or if it would be 100% plug and play. I had planned to go to RAP-California this year but things came up last minute and I wasn't able to make it. Which was a shame because I finally pestered @Crystal Reef Aquatics enough to work with me on the sump. Lucky for me @Sisterlimonpot was there and agreed to do me a favor and bring the sump back with him. I was dumb and didn't get the G6 ATO Reservoir when I could have. Oh well, you live and you regret. Once it was here I went to pick it up and I regret not taking any pictures of the sump before installing it. The bonds were perfect, the euro brace was beveled. It comes with 7 1/4" JG fittings for dosing/ATO and a generous ~11Gal refugium with a skimmer chamber that has an adjustable baffle. Let me tell you, this sump was quality. First I drained the sump and removed the overflow pipes so I could swap out the sump. Easy.

Then I slipped in the new sump and this is where I ran into problems.. Did it fit? yes it fit perfect within the stand and still had room to make it wider however this was a Reefer 250 replacement and as expected there were a few issues with the 170. The main issue is the the overflow drain pipes did not fit properly as parts of the brace and JG fittings interfered with proper placement. I was able to get the main drain to connect but the issue was with the emergency drain and I needed to force it on at an awkward angle that wouldn't allow me to lock it in place but worked in the meantime as can be seen here.

This was temporary until I could custom plumb it which I ended up doing. I ordered two Red Sea part # 42221, went with 1" tubing and added a true gate valve. No one locally had any red PVC so I went with plain white and painted it with Krylon Fusion. Here is how that turned out.

Finally I could sleep in piece not worrying that the pipes would leak and all the information of what needed to be changed incase anyone else wanted one for their 170 was forwarded to @Crystal Reef Aquatics who were happy for the feedback and said they would make those necessary changes for anyone wanting one for their 170. Thats great customer service from a company that wants to make sure every person has a flawless experience.

Next was my Tunze 9004 Skimmer. It was filling up everyday due to the water volume, fish stock and the crazy amounts of frozen food I feed. This is where I hoped over and ordered an Eshopps S-120 with out a second guess or any hesitation. I have their Nano protein skimmer which worked flawlessly on my 20 Long that I new I would be getting quality from their S line of skimmer as well. Once I received it I gawked at the beauty of the skimmer. The bubble plate was so unique that it puts the Nyos skimmers to shame in my opinion.

Once in it started producing amazing skimmate and I am extremely happy I went this route and even happier at the price I got it for. This brings me to an end of my update. Here is a picture of the sump with the skimmer and I will also post some nice pictures I've taken of the coral.

FYI the butterfly was re-homed. that beautiful ******* ate a couple of acans the went after my button scold.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

I didn't know you got a bigger skimmer... thinking back, I understand the conversation about needing to raise it 2" makes sense now.... hehe

 

[adrianr514]

So here's a rundown with what's going on in my tank right now. This past Wednesday I ran a treatment of chemiclean as I was starting to get a small Cyano outbreak and wanted to nip it in the bud before this got crazy. Treatment went well but of course like clockwork the Bryopsis and GHA went out of control. So Friday I did a 20% water change and put my skimmer and Carbon reactor back on line. Saturday I dosed 1000mg of Fluconazole and once again turned off my carbon reactor. Almost immediately I saw a response from the Bryopsis melting back and by day three there was non to be found. Only thing left was the GHA which was slowly starting to wither away. I am going to wait a whole 7 days before I run a water change and dose the flux again. In the meantime I have been manually scrubbing and removing the larger patches of GHA to help out the flux.

I finally got my hands on a 40 Breeder, thanks @Sisterlimonpot, that I will be setting up as a QT/Hospital tank for any new fish or problems that arise with current fish. I also scored a great deal on a used Innovative Marine Nuvo 25 Lagoon with APS stand. Their was not way I could pass up on it and I will be making this into a frag tank. I reached out to Innovative Marine and they are sending my a couple of parts that were missing as well as their Mighty Jet 538gph DC pump. Since its just going to essentially be a support system for my Reefer I will not be doing a separate build thread on it but I will post my progress with it here.

 

[adrianr514]

I haven't updated in a long while but unfortunately this build is no more.