600 Gallon Upgrade Build

right now I am adding mg manually but when its time to change the media I will use the zeo mag supplements to add to the reactor. As far as how long it too me to tune it, it didnt take too long or at least thats what I thought. My ca was high so I made some adjustments and thats when things went wrong with the reactor and didnt find out until it was too late. I would definitely say you dont need to reactor while cycling the tank and would wait until you've moved your old system into the new one so you can figure out what the initial demand is like. The demand will have a lot to do with the salt that you use too. I use tropic marin pro reef which has low alk and ca numbers but if you are using a salt with high alk and ca numbers like reef crystals or red sea coral pro you might night need as much from the ca reactor. This hobby is so much fun when trying to figure all of this out and when people say that no two tanks are the same....they arent kidding. What works for me might not work for you and vice versa.
 
SPotter said:
right now I am adding mg manually but when its time to change the media I will use the zeo mag supplements to add to the reactor. As far as how long it too me to tune it, it didnt take too long or at least thats what I thought. My ca was high so I made some adjustments and thats when things went wrong with the reactor and didnt find out until it was too late. I would definitely say you dont need to reactor while cycling the tank and would wait until you've moved your old system into the new one so you can figure out what the initial demand is like. The demand will have a lot to do with the salt that you use too. I use tropic marin pro reef which has low alk and ca numbers but if you are using a salt with high alk and ca numbers like reef crystals or red sea coral pro you might night need as much from the ca reactor. This hobby is so much fun when trying to figure all of this out and when people say that no two tanks are the same....they arent kidding. What works for me might not work for you and vice versa.
Click to expand...

Well I do use IO Reef Crystals and have used it in all of my tanks. So that may mean I might get a longer use of product since the demands wont be so heavy. As for transferring everything over, well that is another discussion later after the water check passes and the re aquascaping begins.
 
I've had the LCR2 from Lifereef for about 5 years on my 180 (225g total system) and I think it'll be coming over to the 450 however I have been debating going back to dosing pums as my calcium always seems low but alk is always good.

Jeff at lifereef does really great work, I have a sump and skimmer from him as well, not big enough for the new tank but I really like his work.

Anyway the reason I may be going back to the dosing is I've had trouble with consistency which is why I got it, this could be a number of reasons not the least of which is that I bought a huge bag of media a long time ago and I've never really gotten great results with that bag, I'm not sure if its the media or if its just that I could never get it tuned in right but I've always had to still supplement ca. So if you go this route find a really quality media. Not sure if this makes sense but in my case it feels more like its an alk reactor than a ca reactor...

Anyway I did start adding a couple inches of the zeomag to maintain mg after I finished up the last of the Kent Mg product I had, that seems to be working quite well but that has only been running a couple months now.

Steve - "My human error was my decision to go with an upgrade to a bigger tank" - funniest thing I've read in a while on here, but there is small piece of me that thinks it may have been a nervous laugh, my tank isn't in yet and I'm starting to question my sanity...
 
You'll have to share your experience with the reactor. That's the reactor I've been looking at using on my system but not sure it will be big enough. Since the 1218 is twice the price I'll likely go with the 818 and if I need to upgrade later then I'll take that road when the wife has let up on how much I've spent already this year on the tank;)
 
I'm interested in your results with the media too and how long your CO2 tank lasts, I'm on a 5lb and with the bigger tank thinking of going with an upgrade to the CO2 tank.
 
Dustin1300 said:
You'll have to share your experience with the reactor. That's the reactor I've been looking at using on my system but not sure it will be big enough. Since the 1218 is twice the price I'll likely go with the 818 and if I need to upgrade later then I'll take that road when the wife has let up on how much I've spent already this year on the tank;)
Click to expand...

I have read some people running the 818 and still 3 part dosing to keep up with levels. I figure looking at the 818 like LEDs, the initial cost is expensive but will pay off in the long run.
 
Birthday Presents

Birthday Presents

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In my QT.


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I thought a I would make a post in regards to your overflow plumbing. In all honesty there is not really anything in your tank that will clog a 2" drain. What I would do is a super simple setup (the same I use on my 203g) two 2" standpipes. One of them 3" or so taller then the other.

You turn the ballvalve on the full siphon drain until the water level is slowly rising. As the water level rises to the second stand pipe it will slowly cascade down the pipe silently. My setup is dead silent, needs no adjusting after the initial setting and has no issues with clogging. If the full siphon did get clogged however your backup would flow the full flow of the tank and would make a gurgling sound as it sucked in air. No need for elbows or dursos, the setup is dead silent without them.
 
Tmoriarty said:
I thought a I would make a post in regards to your overflow plumbing. In all honesty there is not really anything in your tank that will clog a 2" drain. What I would do is a super simple setup (the same I use on my 203g) two 2" standpipes. One of them 3" or so taller then the other.

You turn the ballvalve on the full siphon drain until the water level is slowly rising. As the water level rises to the second stand pipe it will slowly cascade down the pipe silently. My setup is dead silent, needs no adjusting after the initial setting and has no issues with clogging. If the full siphon did get clogged however your backup would flow the full flow of the tank and would make a gurgling sound as it sucked in air. No need for elbows or dursos, the setup is dead silent without them.
Click to expand...

I was wondering on the height of the two pipes. I finally saw a YouTube video showing one pipe longer than the othe but unless I saw it wrong, the short pipe gets the ball valve right?
 
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