TinyChocobo’s Red Sea Reefer XL 425

[TinyChocobo]

Hello!

I had a 29 Gallon reef for about 2 years. Hang on back skimmer, no sump, and I kept it in good shape with about 5 soft corals, two clowns, a strawberry dottyback, a couple scarlet shrimp, and an emerald crab.

Due to circumstances outside of my control I no longer have that tank so I’m setting up a new 88 Gallon Red Sea Reefer XL 425. Total volume is ~112 gallons.

Initial equipment:
2 x Kessil A360WE
2 x Vortech MP40-QWD
Reef Octopus VarioS-4 DC Return Pump
ESHOPPS S-200 Skimmer
8 x 8 x 4 Marinepure Block
~65 pounds Live Pukani Rock
~2.5 Inches Fiji Pink Argonite sand.

I have been up all night setting everything up.

 

[Ludders]

nice

 

[TinyChocobo]

The rockwork is pretty solid but as I will have a pincushion urchin in here I drilled the rocks and put fiberglass rod in. You can see a piece of it in in the front left - I’m going to cover it with epoxy putty just so it’s not so obvious.

 

[Ludders]

when you get corals and everything you wont notice anyway

 

[TinyChocobo]

when you get corals and everything you wont notice anyway

Yeah I know. That’s a little ways away though so I’m going to cover it up.

 

[NeilW]

Looking good. I'm thinking of getting the Reefer XL 425 and interested in following to see your experiences.

 

[TinyChocobo]

Looking good. I'm thinking of getting the Reefer XL 425 and interested in following to see your experiences.

So far I really like it but I’m only on Day 2.

 

[najer]

Great start, nice rockwork.

 

[TinyChocobo]

Great start, nice rockwork.

Thanks! I used a drill and brick chisel to make the caves.

 

[TinyChocobo]

I added 8 clown fish - 2 ocellaris, 2 snowflake, and 2 more pairs of two other types I forget off hand and an anemone.

6 out of the 8 are hosting the anemone.

 

[najer]

Lol, nice.

 

[TinyChocobo]

Lost one of the clowns. :-(

7 out of 8 still going strong.

 

[Ludders]

Lost one of the clowns. :-(

7 out of 8 still going strong.

How was your tank cycled?

 

[TinyChocobo]

How was your tank cycled?

Cycled the live rock with dry rock in a 40 gallon breeder until ammonia was 0.

Also had a big block of marinepure.

The nutrients in the tank are good - but I only had the clowns a few days. This one I found stuck to the side of a VorTech Pump.

 

[Ludders]

How is your nem at the moment?

 

[TinyChocobo]

It looks about the same. Still in the same spot. Sometimes open and inflated and other times pulled in.

When I got it from the LFS it was attached to the front glass and there was no damage to its foot or anything and when I got it home I acclimated the temperature and put him in. He climbed around the tank until he settled on the back wall.

 

[Ludders]

That's pretty normal in my experience. Have you got somewhere in mind for it to settle? I helped mine to where they both are now.

 

[TinyChocobo]

I would love for it to be somewhere on the rockwork but I’m ok with him where he is now too.

Maybe someday he will change his mind and wander down to the rocks.

 

[TinyChocobo]

I got the Apex installed and such but I need to do something about cord-pocalypse...

 

[TinyChocobo]

Did some 'advanced' Apex Programming today.

I set up Feed Mode D for 'maintenance' at 1 hour.

I configured it so that my return pump and skimmer ramp down from 100% to 0% over 1 minute when Feed Mode D is enabled.

I configured the Return Pump and the Skimmer to ramp up from 0% to 100% over 1 minute when enabled [be it at the end of maintenance, or anytime they're turned on such as after a power failure].

I created several virtual outlets:

• Skimmer_Full
• Skimmer_FAIL
• RetPumpFail
• PriHeat_Fail
• BkpHeat_Fail
• AllHeat_FAIL
• TempControl
• ExtraHeat
• BackupHeat

Skimmer full watches for the skimmer watts to drop below 5 as it drops to 3 watts when the float switch on the DC pump cuts off the motor.

Skimmer_FAIL watches for the watts to exceed the normal operating wattage of the skimmer pump by ~10% - will tweak the value if necessary.

RetPumpFail Watches for the return pump wattage to be below 30 and above 50 as it runs right at ~40 watts normally.

PriHeat_Fail watches for the outlet for the 300W heater to be ON but the wattage to be below 250 or above 300 as it runs at ~275 Watts.

AllHeat_FAIL watches for Primary and Backup heaters to fail - and if it is true alarms and emails.

BkpHeat_Fail watches for the outlet for the backup 300W heater to be on but the wattage to be below 250 or above 300 as it runs at ~265 Watts.

TempControl simply specifies what temperatures control the primary heater when it hasn't failed and what temperatures control the backup heater if the primary has failed.

ExtraHeat sets the secondary heater to come on 0.2 degrees below the on-threshold for the primary heater if the primary heater has not failed [so if the primary heater is not keeping up, the secondary will come on]. I'm considering setting a defer on for a few minutes rather than running it 0.2 degrees lower.

BackupHeat runs the backup heater at the same TempControl as the primary heater if the Primary Heater has failed.

All in all - I should get notified if anything major fails and the heaters are redundant in the sense that the backup heater can help pick up the slack if the main heater cannot keep up [say the heater in the building fails and the primary heater cannot maintain temperature any longer on it's own].

I can use Feed Mode D for water changes / sump maintenance as I can just turn it off when I'm done and everything will start back up gracefully.