Yes another SCA 150 build thread.

[Chris Spaulding]

It has been a few weeks and things are progressing nicely. After I transferred every thing over from the small RedSea Reefer 250 I decided to move the Apex over and not sell it. I had an extra EB832 so I added that as well.
I also added an Avast Marine Seabones Calcium Reactor. This caused me to expand the Apex with a PM module so I could have the Apex control instead purchasing a separate controller just for this.
Next step I added a second 60” white pop NicoBar. I must say I really like how it made the tank look.
Things started to heat up and tank temps were rising some and I did not want to hook up a chiller so I added a GHL cooling fan. I have this on the Apex and programmed to come on at 79.5 and off at 78.5. I must say so far it is working well.
Yes I know I need to work on some more cable management that will be this coming weekend.

 

[benapilot]

Looks great!

So glad to see you haven’t had any Dino or Cyano outbreaks! I got a real bad Dino outbreak- I upped my nitrates and phosphates, reduced the lighting and just installed a UV Sterilizer. Thing are starting to look better now.

I seem to remember you putting a UV on yours... I went back and forth as to what brand/size and settled on a 25W Aqua UV unit.
What size and flow rate are you running?

 

[Chris Spaulding]

Looks great!

So glad to see you haven’t had any Dino or Cyano outbreaks! I got a real bad Dino outbreak- I upped my nitrates and phosphates, reduced the lighting and just installed a UV Sterilizer. Thing are starting to look better now.

I seem to remember you putting a UV on yours... I went back and forth as to what brand/size and settled on a 25W Aqua UV unit.
What size and flow rate are you running?

I did get Dinos. I did a blackout for 5 days only running blues in the morning and evening for 2 hrs to feed the fish and dosed 1ml per 10 gallons on 3% H2O2 every 24 hrs. this knocked it out and so far no sign of returning. I also have been dosing MB7 and MB clean. I also at the same time the Dinos started my CUC came from Reefcleaners. over 200 different snails along with the small army that transferred over from the small tank. I also am running a 25 Watt Aqua UV unit and running about 500 GPH through it (guesstimate).

When I did the Transfer I also transferred about 40 lbs of rock from the old tank to the sump. I think this helped a lot.

 

[BoneDoc]

Looking good. Thanks for sharing your progress. I’m contemplating building a 150 myself. I was wondering what your thoughts are on the fleece roller filter. That’s definitely one of the new tech since I had to break down my tank 9 years ago when I had to move to England.

 

[Chris Spaulding]

I have 3 Tanks all all running fleece rollers.If you can fit it I would highly recommend the Aquamaxx AF-1 fleece roller. It is almost exactly the same a the Clarisea 5000 but only $200. the replacement rolls are only $14.00 each also the Clarsea roll fits the AF-1. I will try and upload some pictures when I get home of how I have mine set up.

I can not imagine not running a tank without a filter roller. Socks never again

 

[Chris Spaulding]

It has been a while for an up date. I added a few more Sticks and when they all looked happy on the rack I moved them out the main structures.
I have been fighting a Nitrate battle despite my fuge doing well I just can not seam to get the nitrates below 20 ( Nyos test kit ) same reading all the time every time. So I have ordered the Hanna HR Nitrate test kit. PO4 has not been a problem it is staying at about .03 -.04.
I have started Reef Moonshiners and so far I have found it very straight forward and easy to implement. I have just finished the corrections and now on to the dailies . It will be very interesting to see the results.

 

[Chris Spaulding]

A few cell phone pics

 

[Chris Spaulding]

I have been struggling with Nitrates I just have not been able to get them down. Always testing at about 24 both on Nyos and Hanna Hr nitrate tester.

I have been carbon dosing using Brightwells Reef Bio Fuel for the last 8 weeks and it has not even touched the nitrates.

I have been running the Fuge for 22 hrs a day in hopes that would bring it down. It has been working for PO4 with a little help from a small amount of Rowaphos . Holds at .03 (Hanna)

Today I installed a Biopellet reactor in hopes that as it gets up to speed it will bring down the NO3.
I tried to run it off the mana fold but there was just not enough pressure to tumble the pellets. I had to dust off a Core-15 to enough flow to tumble the pellets correctly.

I also made A trip down to Denver to a few shops and came across a Powder Blue Tang.
This shop quarantines all their fish for 2 weeks before they will sell them. This particular one had been there at the shop for 7 weeks, so I took the chance and picked it up

A few pictures of how things are looking now

 

[Chris Spaulding]

Well still battling high nitrates. My Chaeto was not doing well ,I have never done well with refugiums and figured the melting Chaeto was contributing to the high nitrates so I have decided to try an algae scrubber.
Last Sunday the new Icecap Pro in sump algae scrubber medium showed up at my door and was promptly unboxed. Opening the box I saw it was broken. I snapped a few pictures for the damage but thought I could easily fix with some glue , good as new and could not even see the damage.
I moved the skimmer and pellet reactor to the old refuge compartment and put the scrubber where I had the skimmer. It has now been 11 days running with lights running 24/7. A brown algae has started to form over the entire screen so things are looking promisin.

 

[benapilot]

Let us know how it works out!
I think I’ve got a nitrate battle looming. In the past I’ve dosed NoPoX to keep nitrates down, but took it offline in my battle against Dino’s. Using a Salifert test I’ve been hovering around 20-50 (hard to distinguish the color). I just got a Hanna Nitrate checker and it read 69.4!
Phosphates are back to less than 1.0. I seem to be winning the battle with Dinos…. Dino-X is doing its thing.

I love seeing the progression on your tank.
Way to go!!

 

[Chris Spaulding]

The Icecap Pro turf scrubber seams to be working well. It is quiet and running cool. The water runs over the screen evenly allowing the algae to grow evenly over the screen ,no hot spots.

This is 2 weeks growth running the lights 24/7.

 

[Chris Spaulding]

Well it has been year for an update. Over this last year I Have made things simpler and the tank has really taken off. I really think I was trying to do to many things at one time and so things were working against each other.
I first ditched the ATS.I have no doubt that the ATS would have handled this tank alone. But I did not want the extra maintenance that was involved. A short while after removing the ATS the biopellet reactor really started to take off and nutrients seamed to stabilize. I still did not like the maintenance that the biopellet reactor had. After some research I decided to ditch biopellet s and turned the reactor into a bio media reactor using Aquaforest bio fill. I have been running this now for about 5 months and I really like it.
So now the system is running along very nicely and much more simpler. Felt roller , Large bio media reactor , Maxspect Aquaduo skimmer and Avast calcium reactor, UV sterilizer and carbon / Aquaforest phosphate minus when needed.
I dose a cocktail of different bacteria regularly along with TM Bacto Balance for a carbon source.I also dose Reefmoonshine .

 

[benapilot]

Wow! Fantastic growth!
Looking great!!

 

[jmichaelh7]

It has been a few weeks and things are progressing nicely. After I transferred every thing over from the small RedSea Reefer 250 I decided to move the Apex over and not sell it. I had an extra EB832 so I added that as well.
I also added an Avast Marine Seabones Calcium Reactor. This caused me to expand the Apex with a PM module so I could have the Apex control instead purchasing a separate controller just for this.
Next step I added a second 60” white pop NicoBar. I must say I really like how it made the tank look.
Things started to heat up and tank temps were rising some and I did not want to hook up a chiller so I added a GHL cooling fan. I have this on the Apex and programmed to come on at 79.5 and off at 78.5. I must say so far it is working well.
Yes I know I need to work on some more cable management that will be this coming weekend.

How did you mount your ghl fan

 

[Chris Spaulding]

How did you mount your ghl fan

It was on the euro brace but I did not like that so I got a glass shelf from Home Depot and mounted it to the wall then I attached the Fan to that shelf. This gave me better options for angel adjustments and kept the fan from interfering with the lights.

 

[jmichaelh7]

It was on the euro brace but I did not like that so I got a glass shelf from Home Depot and mounted it to the wall then I attached the Fan to that shelf. This gave me better options for angel adjustments and kept the fan from interfering with the lights.

Looks good.

I went with a vorcano fan. I read reviews that these are subpar to a regular fan. It’s definitely a nice piece of equipment though!

thanks for the reply

 

[Caseyoidae]

Nice job on the plumbing, the tank is looking amazing! I have been collecting parts for my sca 150 build and wondered what size plumbing you went with? 1 1/2 off the return down to 1 before the return bulkheads? Does the gate valve go on the higher of the two upside-down U's in the overflow box?

 

[Chris Spaulding]

Nice job on the plumbing, the tank is looking amazing! I have been collecting parts for my sca 150 build and wondered what size plumbing you went with? 1 1/2 off the return down to 1 before the return bulkheads? Does the gate valve go on the higher of the two upside-down U's in the overflow box?

Thank You
The Gate valve is on the lower of the 2 Drains to the sump they are 1"
The return is 1 " then reduced to 3/4before going into the tank.
The Manifolds are 1/2" ball valves.

 

[Caseyoidae]

Thank You
The Gate valve is on the lower of the 2 Drains to the sump they are 1"
The return is 1 " then reduced to 3/4before going into the tank.
The Manifolds are 1/2" ball valves.

Thanks!! So that’s 3/4 going through to the uv.I like how you have that setup. Can’t wait to order mine, I’ve been eyeing it for years!

 

[Chris Spaulding]

Thanks!! So that’s 3/4 going through to the uv.I like how you have that setup. Can’t wait to order mine, I’ve been eyeing it for years!

Yes it is 3/4" going through the UV. I plumbed it that way so I could isolate the uv to remove if needed for maintenance or to swap out for a chiller if needed.