Nathan's 210g Reef Tank Build

[n8n]

I've gone through and tallied the par settings, and decided to up light to 75% and re-organized tank.

 

The rational i'm using is based on a slide i found on reef central.

 

Zone 1 : 50-100 par (mushrooms, zooanthids, soft corals)

Zone 2 : 100-200 par (lps, clams, some spa)

Zone 3 : 200-500 par (acropora, montipora, sps)

Zone 4 : 500-1000 par (few sps)

 

Anyways almost exactly the same schedule that i've ran for the last year except the lighting is going from 50% to 75% and the corals are being moved around.  Most of my corals were surviving before but I didn't really see huge amounts of growth.

 

 

[n8n]

I did a little mini project on the tank. Upgraded the skimmate container to the life reef with braided 1/2 hose. The little tank in the sump is a hospital ready to be instantly setup if needed.

 

 

 

The fish say hi!

[surf&turf]

Updates?

[n8n]

I actually was thinking of doing an update to this thread earlier today speak of the devil.  My GMU finals start next week, and then i'll have all summer to start the next phases of my tank.   The last 6 months, basically since GMU has been in session i've been just doing regular tank maintenance with little addition/change but I expect changes to start occurring on a regular basis.

 

The apex has been automatically feed my tank pellets every morning like clockwork, and I feed frozen to the tank every evening.  The apex also does automatic water changes every night.  If i'm out of town (and i've gone out of town a couple times with the system on autopilot) it does 2g water changes by itself, if i'm around it does 3g water changes every night, ~90gal per month.

 

Every time i take measurements on the system everything is about the same, everything is right in target range expect maybe nitrates, which stay locked at 5.   I'm pretty sure the biopellet reactor is pretty much processing everything based on phosphates available to it, and with the amount I feed thats just sorta the outcome.

 

I just purchased a new glass scraper, the "great white" off BRS, its actually way way way better then the flipper i had.  The magnet on it is crazy strong, and its way harder to push around to clean the glass, but it gets stuff the other scraper could never even get.

 

My livestock has changed a littlebit, I had two sets of clowns taking care of different nims, but the large nim decided to move and stand ontop of the other nim and we had a huge clown war..... the two midnights actually took out my large maroon clown somehow, the marron was like 3x as big as them.  Anyways i'm now down to two clowns.  I donated all three of the clowns to a store, and got a pair maroons again.  The new maroons are way larger.  They actually belonged to the owner of Reef eScape in fairfax.  If anyone knows their store they were the huge maroons that were always "not for sale" but when they heard I hard a 210g full of nyms for them they finally decided they could part with them, and they are super happy in my tank.  The one change however, is the new clowns will bite me anytime i get my hand in the tank, my old maroons never cared about if i put my hand in the tank.

 

I also added a sailfin tang to the tank around the same time. The old "tank boss/bully" (yellow tang) learned quickly the sailfin and maroon is larger then yet (yes the clown is HUGE!) and the maroon clown will not tolerate my yellow trying to bullying it, so the bullying pretty much ended.    The sailfin would just pop out its fins and show it was bigger.

 

I'll try to get some pictures of my tank maybe post them next week after finals.    Ritter is still there in my tank maroons are actually hosting it even though i dont think they are supposed to.

 

I had a big scare a week or so ago, when I was in Arizona out of town.  Apex and webcams went offline, and I wasnt sure if power was out at house or what.  super scary.  I ended up going to verizon online and had them test my fios and they "tested everything was ok", and when they did the online test, magically everything came back online .... LOL.  (its amazing how fios can be out for like half a day then when they "test" it, it magically instantly starts working).  I went into apex logs and tank was running by itself like programmed no problems at all even without internet for like over half a day with me out of town.

 

With that said,... anyone in sterling looking for a tank buddy?!?!

 

My apatasia problem from about 9months ago is starting to return.  Last time i resolved it with a copper banded butterfly (that promptly was eaten by the ritter once the aptasia was gone ;/  )    Anyways I now have a new copper banded butterfly and a chevron tang, and melanurus wrasse in QT to add in a month or so.  (i dont have flat worms but I wanted to add that bad boy just in case).  I like to pick fish that are 1) utility and 2) look pretty. and hes cool looking and provides some insurance.

 

Anyways i'll try to post some pics, i have a laundry list of things to do/add tank wise, the tank build kinda got interrupted with school, but summer is almost here so time for tank build 2.0

Edited May 1, 2016 by n8n

[n8n]

Oh i know people asked about the lifereef skimmer many times.  About once a week (sometimes every 2 weeks if im really lazy) i clean the collection cup thing on the skimmer.   Its hooked to a 5 gallon avast collection bucket.  Its been running in BEAST MODE since i got it.  I have had to do ZERO maintenance to the venturi or anything.  The output of the 2 liter avast biopellet reactor goes straight to the input of the skimmer (on a T) so it can suck in water too.   The skimmer/reactor turn off twice a day when I feed, rest of the time they are on.  No problems, or any kind of major maintenance required been in service maybe 8 months?  

 

As for the biopellet reactor.... Uh yeh I dont have a pre-filter on it, so it clogs up about once a month and I have to take it apart to clean the nossel at the bottom that makes it tumble the pellets.  The reactor seems like its working well but the nozzle likes to clog up over about a month.   I know they recommend a pre-filter but i hate the idea of adding something I have to clean really frequently.   The reactor is working great other then it clogging up slowly.  

 

I know 6 months ago people asked about the Bean Animal Setup.  My bean animal is working perfectly system starts/stops twice a day to feed.  If anyone has questions just ask and i'll try to explain anything anyone wants to know. 

 

Thanks!

 

Nathan

[n8n]

So last night i heard some dripping...   one of the true union ball valves I have on my return system was dripping.  Good thing I keep a tub liner behind the tank.  All the water was caught.  I took it apart easy enough two or three times and the o ring looked fine.  i basically ended up using a wrench to tighten it a little bit.  I don't think I could hand tighten it enough from the weird angle I was trying to re-install it.  Leak fixed.  In the process however somehow i poured some saltwater from a bucket i was collecting the drip in onto my fios router ....  anyways so thats going to been upgraded lol.  No apex fusion till i get back on the net, only old school "apex classic" till I get that fixed.

 

This morning being paranoid i checked on things and my bio-pellet reactor was offline.  (pellets weren't moving)  I did the monthly cleaning of it (the nozzle gets clogged super easy, so I clean out the nozzle then re-assimble it).  Anyways it looked like the pump i had running it died.  Thats the second Sicce pump I've had die in like a year, all the rest of my pumps are knock on wood solid. (the other pump was on my quarantine system months ago).  Anyways i've been running the reactor straight through, rather than recirculating mode so I connected it to my manifold to keep the little pellets moving.... Good thing I have a dc pump, bumped it from 8 to 10 and then spent the last half an hour tweaking the flow on the bean animal drain to get the drain working properly.

 

Anyways its up and it works for now but today i need to make a decision.  Do i replace the pump on the biopellet reactor,  replace the biopellet reactor (don't like that idea, it took forever to get that thing working), or do I leave it hooked up to the manifold and then upgrade the return pump.   I was sorta thinking of upgrading the return pump before i lost the biopellet reactor pump.

 

Currently I have a waveline dc-6000 (~1500 gph) pump driving the 210g tank.   I happen to have a mag 18 (1500gph) pump driving my life reef skimmer.   I have 4 WAV pumps up in the display so plenty of surface/water movement.

 

I'm pretty sure with the head pressure/turns and now manifolding the dc-6000 its probably effectively running at like ~500gph about 1/3 of the rate the skimmer is running out, and sort thinking maybe the system would be better if the return was running closer to flow rate of skimmer.

 

thoughts?  probably going to spend some cash today if anyone reads this and wants to feedback.

 

-Nathan 

Edited May 26, 2016 by n8n

[Origami]

I'd at least try to match the flow into your sump to the flow in/out of your skimmer. So a main pump upgrade is a good idea in my opinion. You may want to hold onto that DC-6000 if for no other reason than to have a backup if your new main pump dies some day (and it will always die, so it pays to have backups of critical equipment nearby if you can do so). 

[rebekwl]

Nice build! very well planned and executed. 

[n8n]

I'd at least try to match the flow into your sump to the flow in/out of your skimmer. So a main pump upgrade is a good idea in my opinion. You may want to hold onto that DC-6000 if for no other reason than to have a backup if your new main pump dies some day (and it will always die, so it pays to have backups of critical equipment nearby if you can do so).

 

I replaced my return pump. The DC-6000 is now my backup. I rebuilt all the necessary plumbing to a near by union. That way should I need to put it back it's very easy quick without any addition parts/fabrication.

 

The new pump is Eco tech marine L3. I would have to say I understand the pump is tall and they want a low profile fitting but I'm not impressed with the fitting. Almost every pump on the market has threaded and nipple adapters included. I'm pretty decent with gluing pipes and fittings and the blue fitting was a pain. The problem in design is the ring to tighten it is larger then the inner part your trying to glue so you really have to plan out how you will apply pressure to set the glue.

 

The pump itself is nice, I'll try to get some pics and updates posted thx

 

Nathan

[Origami]

I replaced my return pump. The DC-6000 is now my backup. I rebuilt all the necessary plumbing to a near by union. That way should I need to put it back it's very easy quick without any addition parts/fabrication.

 

Smart move. Good job!

[n8n]

Smart move. Good job!

 

Here is the old DC-6000 with the plumbing assembled, with a shot of my sump.  It attaches to the union behind it (the black / white plumbing) just to the left of the red plumbing.

 

PVC Plumbing wise: 

Red = Emergency Bean Animal Drain that goes directly to the return.  

Yellow = backup Bean Animal Drain  (not visible)

Green = primary Bean Animal Drain / Full Siphon (to the left feeding into the filter sock section)

Black = returns.

 

There are alot of hoses and stuff in the picture.

 

The coiled black hose on the left is coming from my saltwater mixing station.

One of the clear white/grey hoses goes to my drain 

One of the clear white/grey hoses is about 30 feet and reaches my QT tank when unrolled.

The small black hoses are ATO hoses, one to saltwater, other to RODI/freshwater.  I have an electric switch setup so I can control if apex is reflling my tank with saltwater or freshwater depending on how active my skimmer is and salinity levels.

The clear hoses goto DOS/dosing pump for the automatic water changes.

 

Anyways like I was saying you can see the old return pump with the soft plumbing to a union.  Rather then re-using the parts I decided to spend the small amount of money to rebuild that section so this pump would be ready for emergiences, just screw in, adjust drain flow and good to go.

 

\

 

So i'm to lazy to pull out the pump for side by side comparision, but its in the drain in action, you can see a top view of it.  Same exact soft plumbing to an union.

 

Although I like alot of hard pumpling, I prefer soft plumbing when connecting to pumps and things that vibrate to try to reduce some vibration or noise they might make.

 

The tunze ato is also in this picture. I discovered if you buy a "replacement pump" for the ato (which is really cheap) like $20 bucks in parts from radio shack you can get this little ato to let you run it off two different pumps that you can have sitting in separate reservoirs.   My salinity is currently a little lower then I want, so I've got my tank topping off with saltwater.  Once I get it back to exactly where I want i'll switch it back to rodi.   My skimmer runs in beast mode.

 

[Origami]

That all sounds great. Well thought out.

 

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