220 Gallon Reef Build in the Caribbean...

[CaptAndrew]

Well... Salty Supply has consolidated ALMOST everything now. I ordered a lot of items they didn't keep in stock and it's much easier to ship things here as one pallet rather than a bunch of individual boxes. They should be consolidated this week and then it goes on the ship which should take another week or so. I also have clients on board for the next two weeks. So I won't be doing much. I did, however make my manifold before I left out of all 1" PVC (I had tons left and figured bigger couldn't hurt). It has outlets for Chiller, Calc. Reactor, Biopellets, carbon, GFO, one return to the return section of the sump, one return to the downstream end of the refugium facing upstream for a little bit of flow, and one spare outlet in case I find anything else to add. I also put a vent grille in either side of the hood and a fan on one side so aid in a little air flow through the hood. When I manage to get everything else there will be updates! It's going to be like Christmas.

 

[CaptAndrew]

OK... so we're all sitting here waiting on this shipment... I realise I never actually said what was in the final order so here goes:

Neptune Gold Package
Neptune WXM
Neptune I/O Box
Neptune Temp Probe x2
Neptune PM1
Neptune Lab Grade pH Probe
Neptune Energy Bar 8
Neptune AFS
Neptune AWM
Seaside Aquatics Magnetic Probe Holder x3
Multiples of all the calibration fluids
300W Eheim Heater x2
Aquaeuro Apex 1/2HP Chiller
AI Hydra x3
AI 18" EXT Rail x2
AI EXT Hanging Kit
Waveline DC12000
Vortech MP60 x2
RLSS R8-I Skimmer w/ Waveline DC6000
GEO 618 Calc. Reactor w/ Eheim 1048
DICI CO2 Reg with Bubble Counter
5lb CO2 Cylinder
A.R.M. Calc. Reactor Media
Nextreef MR1 x2
Nextreef SMR1
Seachem Matrix Carbon
Ecobak Plus pellets
Various fish nets
Cleaning wand
Magfloat scraper
Pretty much every Red Sea Test and Supplement available
New Life Thera-A
New Life Marine Formula
Neptune Crossover Diet
Aqueon Water Changer
28" gloves

I had tried to order a hydrofill ATO pump but Salty Supply has discontinued them. I'm waiting on an email back as to what might be considered an alternative... Any low flow pump will do as it will be controlled by the apex and some float switches in the sump. I'll post again when Chris lets me know what he thinks.

 

[Newbie Aquarist]

Man that is quite a list. Is it hard for you to get supplies where you live? Do you have to pay a larger price than normal?

 

[CaptAndrew]

Man that is quite a list. Is it hard for you to get supplies where you live? Do you have to pay a larger price than normal?

Depends how you look at it. One hand, the closest LFS is in Puerto Rico an island reachable by sea or air over 150 nautical miles away. On the other hand, I have an ocean full of natural seawater, fish, coral, live rock, live sand, inverts, etc right on my doorstep.
The local mail service literally delivers X-Mas cards from Canada in August... people never believe it until I post a picture of last year's card which I just received on Facebook. There are a few other options: 1) A forwarder in the US, 2) A mailbox in the US Virgin Islands which is then couriered by boat, 3) FedEx, 4) DHL. Which service I use really depends on the size and weight of what is being sent and how soon I need it. Pretty much all the parts for the yacht are flown in by FedEx or sent on a chartered plane because we need them the day before we ordered them. This is insanely expensive and I rarely go this route for personal use. In this case, Salty Supply has been immensely helpful. They have agreed to consolidate my order onto a pallet and ship it to a warehouse for my freight forwarder in Miami. From there Tropical Shipping will load it into a container and have it here in about a week. Once it's here then I have to fill in a volume of paperwork equivalent to a small novel for customs, pay a 20% import duty, harbour fees, freight fees, etc.
All in all it's not cheap to live here, and there are not a lot of creature comforts available locally. In this instance I'd consider it at least break even. I'm not sure how much you would all be spending on livestock for a tank like this since I have never had a need to research it, but I can assume it would more than equal the cost of equipment in a short time.

 

[Newbie Aquarist]

Wow that is crazy. But i do truly respect your determination to the hobby and I commend you.

 

[dave.m]

Gee, I thought smuggling paid better than that.

Dave.M

 

[CaptAndrew]

Well I tested the product water on our desalinator and TDS is at about 300ppm. This is fine for drinking water but clearly not for top-up. I guess that's the tradeoff for producing 58 gal/hr! Granted that 300ppm could be full of useful stuff since it is derived from fresh sea water, but I don't think it's worth the risk. When I get my test kits I will certainly test to see what's in there just out of curiosity. I have added an AquaFX Octopus to my order (luckily I don't think it has shipped yet). I picked it because it has a 1:1 wastewater ratio. There is no city water here and all of our fresh water is rain water fed into a cistern. The fiancee will like my aquarium even less if I run that dry. The upside is that I can run a tee off the membrane for drinking water, saving cost at the grocery store. I will also feed the waste water to the washing machine creating almost zero waste. I also measured the TDS in the cistern water and it is around 50ppm so I don't imagine the RO/DI will have to work too hard. Obviously there shouldn't be any chloramines in there so it should be mainly organics that get filtered out.

 

[CaptAndrew]

Ok, update. The order should leave Salty Supply next Monday or Tuesday. Christmas is coming. They were waiting on a few things that were backordered. Funny enough one of them was a flipper magnet... needless to say I will be getting the mag-float instead of waiting...

 

[CaptAndrew]

It's shipped... the waiting is killing me!

 

[zoomonster]

Subscribed... Nice setup but I thought I had some minor challenges. Beautiful place to live but I guess not without its costs and hassles. And to think I was whining about driving a 1/2 an hour to exchange something at Salty Supply. At least you have your tank in place... still waiting on mine.

 

[ntrlsur]

Great looking tank and stand at a great price. Not sure how reliable power is on the island and since you are fairly new to reefing have you thought about backup power of some sort for your vortechs to keep flow moving in the case of power outage as well as extra volume in the sump so that water could back flow until the siphon is broken?

 

[STX Diver]

I lived on St. Croix for several years and had a 75 g FOWLR. One word of caution, I got very unpopular with a few people in the dive club when they saw me collecting fish. Some people will not agree with the practice, even if you capture ethically. I always thought it was strange seeing as how they had no problem eating fish and lobster.

Good luck with the tank. Looking great so far.

 

[Sonicboom]

subscribed!, yes Chris from Salty Supply is great and always treats you like you are best buds, I got my AI hydras and a few other goodies from him but no where near the size of your list..lol

 

[CaptAndrew]

Great looking tank and stand at a great price. Not sure how reliable power is on the island and since you are fairly new to reefing have you thought about backup power of some sort for your vortechs to keep flow moving in the case of power outage as well as extra volume in the sump so that water could back flow until the siphon is broken?

Yes the power here is very unreliable. I'm looking at building a separate power supply with a 12v 8D (biggggg) battery and an inverter/charger which automatically switches. In the interim I'm going to put a smaller APC on the Apex bar which supports all of the "essential" equipment and see how that goes...

 

[CaptAndrew]

I lived on St. Croix for several years and had a 75 g FOWLR. One word of caution, I got very unpopular with a few people in the dive club when they saw me collecting fish. Some people will not agree with the practice, even if you capture ethically. I always thought it was strange seeing as how they had no problem eating fish and lobster.

Good luck with the tank. Looking great so far.

Yes, people can be funny that way. They're generally the same people that think spearing a few lion fish is going to chase them out of the Caribbean. On the up side we have a beach in front of our house which nobody else knows how to get to. Hopefully I should be able to collect most things from there.

 

[CaptAndrew]

subscribed!, yes Chris from Salty Supply is great and always treats you like you are best buds, I got my AI hydras and a few other goodies from him but no where near the size of your list..lol

I have nothing but good things to say about Chris and Richard... they have been awesome. BRS wouldn't even give me the time of day after I mentioned a freight forwarder.

 

[CaptAndrew]

Christmas! It's here! Everything has arrived. I have had a busy couple of days.

The boxes in the Jeep.

...and on the Jeep

In the house

...Installed with water... took me two days

Problems so far:

Everything is installed. So far not a single leak on my pipe joints. A few on the screw fittings which I will just tighten. The chiller is cycling off too often on a shutdown as I managed to design the system to give me control of every aspect of flow except the flow to the returns. Subsequently everything goes to the return and not enough to the skimmer. Tank temp is high right now (about 84) and I expect to fix this tomorrow when I pick up more ball joints. Media is in the reactors but I haven't flooded them yet. The local fishermen looked at me strangely the 6th time I appeared parked on the boat ramp with a 12volt pump to fill the 55 gallon bladder in the back seat of the Jeep. The system works well and will be fine for water changes, but man it's a long process to fill the tank. The next step is to add sand and rock which should raise my water level enough to flood my reactors one by one. The only reefer on island is getting rid of some rock and a few damsels, which I will try. Not a big fan of cycling with these things in the tank, but he seems to think they're pretty hardy. Since it's that or disposal, I figure I may as well give them a try. The APEX hasn't been as trouble free as I had hoped. So far the base module and the AWM work fine, but the PM1, PM2, and WXM all have problems (I assume they're all related). Neptune has a support ticket running and we're working through it. They have so far asked for a dump file and my firmware version, standard stuff. Hopefully things get a little more advanced in the coming days.

The system closed up...

 

[Sonicboom]

Congratulations from a fellow jeeper! Looks great!. I think the hydras on the ends can come in about 2 inches to be right in front of the overflows. At least that's how it looks from the angle of the picture. You won't need the reactors online during cycling but can leak test them no problem. Also if you throw in a raw uncooked shrimp you will get your cycle going and won't A. put a damsel through the ammonia B. Regret putting a damsel in your tank. Lol

 

[zoomonster]

Looking good... glad to see all that stuff that came by slow boat from mainland arrived in one piece. Just curious with the Hydras... have you tried orienting them front to rear also? AI shows two orientations, your way and front to rear. Just curious which provides better coverage.

 

[CaptAndrew]

Looking good... glad to see all that stuff that came by slow boat from mainland arrived in one piece. Just curious with the Hydras... have you tried orienting them front to rear also? AI shows two orientations, your way and front to rear. Just curious which provides better coverage.

Most of it arrived in one piece. The chiller wasn't working earlier (I thought it was a little too quiet). After calling AquaEuro on the phone, the lady kept mentioning a fan (which I wasn't hearing). Rather than ship it back to the states (I may as well buy a new one for that cost), I decided to open it up. The fan blades are aluminum or some kind of sheet metal (nice and sharp) and had bent in shipping. They were rubbing on the heat exchanger. Since that's fixed my tank is now back down to 81 degrees. Since I will be keeping things from local waters in the tank I have tried to mimic local conditions and the APEX has some neat stuff to do that. I have programmed the season table to accurately duplicate sunrise/sunset, moonrise/moonset, moon phase, and water temperature year round. It's pretty cool actually.

I also found out today I have to ship my CO2 cylinder out to get CO2 as nobody sells it on island. Guess I'll need two cylinders now...

Got the RO/DI working this morning. Have made myself a reservoir out of a garbage can.

The only big thing slowing me down now is the APEX and its software (I hope it's not hardware) issues. Neptune had been in touch daily until yesterday. I tried calling them today. The first time I called I got a message saying that they were closed. It went on to state their business hours. It turned out that even though they were "closed" I was, in fact, calling within business hours. I called back an hour later and the phone just rang and rang. I really need to get this fixed so I can program everything else and put some rock in! I shall try again tomorrow.