System Upgrade Advice Needed - How to Spend BRS Credit

[p3rmafrost]

Good Morning WAMAS!

Over the course of the past year I've amassed a fair amount of credit with BRS. I have nearly $700 in credit to spend. I'm looking for advice on what the community believes would be a worthwhile upgrade, or a "must have" that my tank is missing. I've outline what gear I currently have below, as well as a couple of my ideas on what to pick up. I would be very interested in hearing your opinions and feedback to help me make a well informed purchase. Thank you all in advance!

 

Current Setup:

Tank - 

• Red Sea Reefer 250, center overflow
• Standard Red Sea 11 gallon sump
• Red Sea gravity fed 2 gallon ATO
• Red Sea piano black stand

 

Circulation - 

• 2 Tunze 6105 pumps, one in each back corner
• Spare Tunze 6105 in case one of the mains fail
• 1 Jaebo MLW30 wavemaker in the sump to circulate detritus and help keep it clean
• Eheim return - Don't have the model number handy

 

Filtration - 

• 1 Reef Octopus 150SS Classic
• 2 Filter socks built into sump
• Extra rock in sump for natural filtration
• 1 Two Little Fishies GFO reactor
• BRS CO2 scrubber

 

Aquarium Control - 

• GHL Profilux 4
• Jaebo doser - doses Aquaforest 1+2+3+
• GHL Maxi 2 head doser (not in use, intended for automatic water changes down the line)

 

Lighting - 

• Giesemann Aurora V4 Hybrid - 4 T5 Bulbs with a bank of 3 LEDs built in
• Cheap Lowes "plant grow" light in sump

 

Testing and Cleaning - 

• Hannah Checkers - NO3, PO4, CA, MG, ALK
• Magfloat scrapper
• Razor scraper

 

Extras - 

• Sicce pump in ATO attached to GHL float sensor, if the gravity fed ATO clogs, the sensor activates the pump
• Sicce pump for GFO reactor
• 4 stage RODI filter with auto shut off float valve 
• Float sensor installed in skimmer, skimmer shuts down when full
• 16 space frag rack
• Various Aquaforest chemicals and additives

 

Tank Stock - 

• 1 Coral Beauty
• 2 Clowns
• 1 Watchman Goby + Tiger Pistol
• 1 Royal Gramma
• 1 Lawnmower Blenny
• 3 Nems (1 green, 2 rainbow)

 

Corals - 

• Various Acros
• Zoas
• Frogspawn
• Hammers
• Chalices
• Various LPS
• Monits
• GSP 
• Mushrooms
• Forest Fire Digis
• Bird's Nest
• Purple Pocci
• Cloves
• 2 Goni - The short tentacle one is doing well, the long tentacle one is mad.

 

Currently the tank is mostly doing well. I have had a couple of acros die off rather suddenly. Testing revealed that nutrients had bottomed out to nearly undetectable with the Hannah checkers. I have started to feed more and will continue to test to see if the levels come up. I'll also order and ICP test to double check things. The tank is filling out nicely and has made a lot of progress since I joined WAMAS.

 

Thoughts on what to buy:

I want to upgrade at some point to a 4 foot long tank (the 250 is 3 feet long). I want whatever I get to work in a larger tank. No sense in upgrading just to upgrade again a little ways down the road. I've considered a couple of things:

 

• Tunze Osmilator (have held off since the come up for sale here often
• GHL 4 head doser
• Chemicals - I use Aquaforest and it seems to be working well, I don't know if I could use the entirety of the credit for that, but I could certainly spend $200 or so on it
• DC Skimmer - mine is working fine, but I do like the added adjustability of the DC 

 

So, WAMAS, if you had $700 to spend, what would you buy?

 

 

[cpeguero]

Couple thoughts:

KH Director with 4 head doser - if you get this, don’t buy their reagent. It’s just 0.1M HCl. You can get 1M from Amazon for cheap and dilute it yourself.

Roller mat. I have the Klir roller (2 of the 7 inch ones). They’re designed as drop in replacements for filter socks. I actually have it controlled by my Profilux, because I didn’t like how fast it was getting used up with the stock controller.

If they ever clear their back orders for the ion director (and brs stocks them), you could get that. I’m hoping that happens sometime soon-ish


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[p3rmafrost]

@cpeguero - Thank you! All good thoughts. I hadn't considered the KH director, that's a good call. I'm going to look into the Klir roller. That's a new one for me, I figured I couldn't use a roller since the mount for the socks takes up so much space. 

[nburg]

From what I have read, the RedSea Reef Mat might be a better option and they just released a smaller one that should fit your sump perfectly. Removing the filter sock section is super easy, it took me able 20 mins with the redsea tool kit (~$15)

 

I would 100% recommend an osmolator (they should be coming out with the new one soon, but the old version is super good)

I would also look at replacing some of the lower quality equipment with nicer stuff like the jebao dosers. 

With acros, an auto alk tester would be a huge recommendation, since you're on GHL, I guess their version of the tester?

And you can always load up on food, salt, supplies, etc., that you would use anyways. 

[cpeguero]

From what I have read, the RedSea Reef Mat might be a better option and they just released a smaller one that should fit your sump perfectly. Removing the filter sock section is super easy, it took me able 20 mins with the redsea tool kit (~$15)
 
I would 100% recommend an osmolator (they should be coming out with the new one soon, but the old version is super good)
I would also look at replacing some of the lower quality equipment with nicer stuff like the jebao dosers. 
With acros, an auto alk tester would be a huge recommendation, since you're on GHL, I guess their version of the tester?
And you can always load up on food, salt, supplies, etc., that you would use anyways. 

Good point. I’m not familiar with what Red Sea has for their systems, so if they have a drop in roller mat upgrade, go with that.

The KH director is GHL’s alk tester. I use it to adjust my kalkwasser dosing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[lowsingle]

I have the Red Sea roller mat and it is an impressive tool (probably the best invention since the protein skimmer IMO ).It was far superior to the theiling mat I had before it.  Also, you can just purchase a DC pump for your skimmer….I recommend sicce PSK pump, I use it and am really happy with it.  Also, you can check out either of these on my tank if you want to see them in action.

 

Darren

 

[p3rmafrost]

@lowsingle -  I might take you up on that. You're pretty close to me, and I'm in Reston fairly often.

 

So to summarize so far the suggestions are:

GHL Doser, ditch the Jaebo

KH Director

Ion Director if they start producing them

Red Sea Roller Mat

Chemicals and other disposable/routine items

Tunze Osmolator

 

@nburg - I wasn't aware they made a tool kit to remove the sock section. Thank you for bringing that to my attention, I was wondering how I should go about removing the section where the socks slide in. 

 

 

[nburg]

Yeah, I tried on my old tank with a razor blade and it was not easy and quit. Ordered the removal kit and it was a breeze. Did it while the tank was fully functioning. Only thing I noticed is there were some silicone bits floating around but that’s not harmful for anything 

[p3rmafrost]

@nburg - I looked at the Reef Mat 500, it looks like it might not fit right in my tank. The way my sump is designed the ATO sits directly on top of the sock chamber, there is only about a half inch between the ATO tank and the lip that holds the socks in place. It's looking like I will need to move the ATO in order to drop a reef mat in there. I'll need to do some more research to work that one out, unless the reef mat fits under the ATO? At first glance it looks too big to fit under there.

[nburg]

I think you need to remove the ATO which you would probably do anyways if you got the Tunze osmolator. Also, they have a reefmat 250 coming out... I think i saw it in a video so it might not be out yet, but it was designed for the 250. 

 

According to a ReefBuilders article, the 250 comes out sometime in October. 

Edited September 26, 2023 by nburg

[kngfisher]

GHL 4 head doser would be my suggestion as well. Easy to get parts and very dependable. Some good dosing containers and some GHL magnetic stirrers so you can auto dose via the GHL.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[dmatt56]

Can you buy a gift card and then use it when you need?

[p3rmafrost]

@kngfisher The doser seems to be a common theme, I think that'll go on the "for sure" list. 

 

@dmatt56 Hmm, great idea. I don't have an answer to that. I'll have to reach out to customer service and find out. I figured I had to use or lose them, but that's a good suggestion. 

 

Does anyone know how many heads the KH director needs on a doser? I dose 3 part AF currently, could I use the spare head for the KH director?

[kngfisher]

KH director uses all 4 heads of a doser. Input sample is 1, waste water is 1, testing solution is 1, and dosing alk solution based on measurements takes up 1.

Another Crazy suggestion is a reefbot


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[p3rmafrost]

39 minutes ago, kngfisher said:

KH director uses all 4 heads of a doser. Input sample is 1, waste water is 1, testing solution is 1, and dosing alk solution based on measurements takes up 1.

Another Crazy suggestion is a reefbot


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ok, so I would need 2 4 head dosers then. Gotcha. That's helpful. I heard the reefbot was kind of sketchy, have you had good experience with them?

 

@kngfisher

[cpeguero]

You don’t have to use your 4th dosing head for alk with the KH director, but it is kind of the point of having it….

You can also hack the Jebao doser to have it controlled by the Profilux. I did it. It’s not as clean, but if you don’t want to spring for 2 dosers right now, and have the time and skills, it’s an option.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk