270 Gallon SPS tank for JBNY
- Thread starter JB NY
- Start date
shiladitya1991
New member
Tank looks great, can't wait for those sticks to grow out. How do you like the Riptide?
sahin
Ultimate Reefer
Good to see one of the greats back. 
Water changes + Lots of feeding + Good skimmer + Strong lights will hopefully get your tank in order.
Look forward to your tanks progress, hopefully the small signs of recovery and survival of the sps frags are signs of good things to come. Good luck.
Water changes + Lots of feeding + Good skimmer + Strong lights will hopefully get your tank in order. Look forward to your tanks progress, hopefully the small signs of recovery and survival of the sps frags are signs of good things to come. Good luck.
JB NY
Active member
Thanks for kind words guys, yes it feels great to be able to see the reef moving forward again. I am very excited to get things growing.
Thanks, I have two sections that open up all the way to the back to the tank, the fish can get all over the place, they love it. I think it will look very cool once corals are placed all over.
I like the Gyre? I like it a lot. I would say it is the best pump I have used so far. The amount of flow it puts out all over the tank is pretty impressive.
Thanks, I have two sections that open up all the way to the back to the tank, the fish can get all over the place, they love it. I think it will look very cool once corals are placed all over.
I like the Gyre? I like it a lot. I would say it is the best pump I have used so far. The amount of flow it puts out all over the tank is pretty impressive.
Great to hear Joe! :beer:
JB NY
Active member
Dude, you know it!!
JB NY
Active member
Here is an update.
Tanks is doing very well now. To the dismay of my reef friends and my wife, I am starting the tank with frags again. I know that lots of people like an instant tank with lots of colonies, but I really like the time when all the corals are just growing. It's sort of a tank of possibilities and what ifs. So as I am waiting for my frags to grow I thought I would update this thread with some changes and how the setup I originally put together has been doing the last 7 years.
So first off, for a setup that has been in place for 7 years, it still runs almost perfect. Over the years, I have had equipment failures (no emergencies) and some parts breaking that needed to be replaced, but for the most part all the failures where equipment that had probably reached the end of its life. So overall, two thumbs for good planning.
I added some LED lights under the stand for those times I need to get in there, to add or move something around, I had been using a flashlight but the LED lights were under $15 and works great for providing light.
I also stopped carbon dosing and using GFO and started growing Chaeto like I had years back. This time instead of just throwing it in a tank with some lights I bought a reactor made by Pax-Bellum, the unit is the ARID C30, it's pretty big, but I have a big tank and lots of room so no worries there. I have some Chaeto in it, and have it plumbed off my main pump, it has an inner rod that has LEDs on it to grow the Chaeto. I just have my Apex turn the lights on for 18 hours on a reverse photo period, that pretty much it.
Here is the unit in the sump room.
It grows Chaeto really fast, looking in from the top. this is what it looks like on day one.
I week later it is full and I need to thin out the algae. So far it has worked great. There is no algae in the main display, for me it is working out better than when I was carbon dosing. So I'm very happy with this addition.
About 4 months ago, I put in a Kessil a360we LED over my frags tank to see how it is with growing coral. So far I am not happy with it, it looks fine, but it is just not coloring up or growing the coral like I am used to, I am going to replace it with an ATI T5 fixture soon.
I've got some other things I have been doing, I will post them a little bit later.
Tanks is doing very well now. To the dismay of my reef friends and my wife, I am starting the tank with frags again. I know that lots of people like an instant tank with lots of colonies, but I really like the time when all the corals are just growing. It's sort of a tank of possibilities and what ifs. So as I am waiting for my frags to grow I thought I would update this thread with some changes and how the setup I originally put together has been doing the last 7 years.
So first off, for a setup that has been in place for 7 years, it still runs almost perfect. Over the years, I have had equipment failures (no emergencies) and some parts breaking that needed to be replaced, but for the most part all the failures where equipment that had probably reached the end of its life. So overall, two thumbs for good planning.
I added some LED lights under the stand for those times I need to get in there, to add or move something around, I had been using a flashlight but the LED lights were under $15 and works great for providing light.
I also stopped carbon dosing and using GFO and started growing Chaeto like I had years back. This time instead of just throwing it in a tank with some lights I bought a reactor made by Pax-Bellum, the unit is the ARID C30, it's pretty big, but I have a big tank and lots of room so no worries there. I have some Chaeto in it, and have it plumbed off my main pump, it has an inner rod that has LEDs on it to grow the Chaeto. I just have my Apex turn the lights on for 18 hours on a reverse photo period, that pretty much it.
Here is the unit in the sump room.
It grows Chaeto really fast, looking in from the top. this is what it looks like on day one.
I week later it is full and I need to thin out the algae. So far it has worked great. There is no algae in the main display, for me it is working out better than when I was carbon dosing. So I'm very happy with this addition.
About 4 months ago, I put in a Kessil a360we LED over my frags tank to see how it is with growing coral. So far I am not happy with it, it looks fine, but it is just not coloring up or growing the coral like I am used to, I am going to replace it with an ATI T5 fixture soon.
I've got some other things I have been doing, I will post them a little bit later.
FishyFishy69
New member
I hear you with the LED's. They just don't grow stuff in my system nearly as good. I went back to T5's after a couple of experiments with the LED's. Different strokes I guess.
JB NY
Active member
Yeah it's just not working for me. Much cheaper to just put a T5 unit in then try another LED.
I got it from Tristan at Pax-Bellum. Yeah water flows from the bottom and up out the top.
JB NY
Active member
I like it a lot, other than the return pump, it is the only pump I am now running on the whole tank. I am planning on getting another one though, the Gyre does great with overall flow but the flow on the side with the gyre attached is not as good as the opposite side. So I plan on putting another on the opposite side and then using my Apex to turn them on and off at different times for different flow periods.
maxxII
Super Housemonkey!
Joe, glad to see you back in the game. I'm going through a rebuild stage myself. I'm interested in your overall thoughts on the ARID canister. I
I've got a much smaller system than you do, and would not need as big a unit. But I'm also space limited to some degree and if that works well long term, I could see that doing a lot for my needs.
You and I both went through the Wavy Sea debacle and I'm not interested in paying for the privilege of beta testing someone's product for longevity.
I've got kids now and my disposable income isn't at all what it used to be...
I've got a much smaller system than you do, and would not need as big a unit. But I'm also space limited to some degree and if that works well long term, I could see that doing a lot for my needs.
You and I both went through the Wavy Sea debacle and I'm not interested in paying for the privilege of beta testing someone's product for longevity.
I've got kids now and my disposable income isn't at all what it used to be...
JB NY
Active member
Thanks Rich, once you get your tank ordered, then the fun can begin. Putting it all together is probably just as fun as having it all set up!
Thanks, yeah in a few more months the tank sould really look pretty good, everything is growing nice right now.
So with the ARID system. I do like it, it works really well. I am not carbon dosing or running GFO anymore and it pulled my NO3 down like no tomorrow, PO4 as well. I used to run a refugium with chaeto in it years ago with my old 180. Right now I clean the ARID C30 out once a week and I probably pull out as much chaeto as a months worth of growth when my refugium was growing at it's best years ago.
The two things that need to be a little better are, one the amount of head pressure that the unit puts on the feeder pump. Pax-Bellum says the unit is supposed to have a minimum of 500GPH going through it to preform at it's optimum. I have the largest size reactor they make, and the two pumps I had to try with it (Ehiem 3000+, Mag9.5) were only able to get just under 300 GPH. I couldn't figure out why there was so much back pressure on the pump that I was getting such low flow rates. Then I took the unit apart and realized there is a deflection plate in the bottom of the unit (adding almost 4 feet of HP) to insure uniform flow up the reactor. At least I now understand what was happening, but that meant there was about 11 feet of head pressure. I now have it plumed off my return pump and I flow about 450 GPH through it.
The other is cleaning it. It's not that hard, it's just a little messy. If you have ever worked with chaeto in a refugium you know what I mean about messy. The unit comes apart very easy but when you take the chaeto out it gets all over the place. Chaeto is just so wiry and tends to break off here and there it does not really come apart clean. But that is not too much of a big deal. It takes me about 10-15 minutes to clean out the unit once a week.
But overall I like it a lot. I found that when my Nitrates fell to undetectable levels, I could dose Nitrates in the tank and pull my Phosphate even lower, I was able to maintain NO3 at under 1 ppm and PO4 at 0.00 when dosing Nitrates. Those levels I was never able to achieve even when aggressively running GFO and carbon dosing. I just recently stopped dosing NO3 because I started to some dinoflagellates in the main display. I think the dinoflagellates was because I was dosing too much N daily. I just stopped N dosing a few days ago and already it is almost gone. I will start dosing again just at a different amount maybe only a few times a week.
Any more question just ask. Also Tristan over at Pax-Bellum is very helpful and has a great understanding of how the unit both works and interacts with the reef tank.
maxxII
Super Housemonkey!
JBNY,
Thanks for the insight. I've been on midnights for the past month and just did some catching up on various threads on RC....yours was one of them.
I did some searching and found their website, but the only posts about the ARID reactors and Pax-Bellum were from you and from Manhattan Reefs. I emailed Pax-B this morning and already received a reply from Tristan. I'm pretty close to pulling the trigger so to speak on a much smaller reactor, (my entire system is smaller than your display).
Are you still running your protein skimmer with the C30 running?
I'm intending to keep my skimmer going, but I've also got a larger skimmer than I need for my system.....
My previous set up had constant issues with phosphate. I've done all the digging and researching that I can on this and have come to the conclusion that my Pukani rock work was the source of the excessively high Phosphate over the years.
My 120 was emptied, and has been cleaned out. I have new rocks (Marco rocks and BRS Tonga Shelf rock) which I will be using for the new set up and I've been searching for some way to utilize nutrient export without taking up the space a refugium would. Previous attempts at growing chaeto have always been hit and miss for me. I could never get enough light to the lower layers of the stuff and it would die off from the bottom up...releasing all the nutrients I was trying to bind up and export...
The ARID reactors appear to be a good solution to my particular problems.
Thanks for the insight. I've been on midnights for the past month and just did some catching up on various threads on RC....yours was one of them.
I did some searching and found their website, but the only posts about the ARID reactors and Pax-Bellum were from you and from Manhattan Reefs. I emailed Pax-B this morning and already received a reply from Tristan. I'm pretty close to pulling the trigger so to speak on a much smaller reactor, (my entire system is smaller than your display).
Are you still running your protein skimmer with the C30 running?
I'm intending to keep my skimmer going, but I've also got a larger skimmer than I need for my system.....
My previous set up had constant issues with phosphate. I've done all the digging and researching that I can on this and have come to the conclusion that my Pukani rock work was the source of the excessively high Phosphate over the years.
My 120 was emptied, and has been cleaned out. I have new rocks (Marco rocks and BRS Tonga Shelf rock) which I will be using for the new set up and I've been searching for some way to utilize nutrient export without taking up the space a refugium would. Previous attempts at growing chaeto have always been hit and miss for me. I could never get enough light to the lower layers of the stuff and it would die off from the bottom up...releasing all the nutrients I was trying to bind up and export...
The ARID reactors appear to be a good solution to my particular problems.
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