d2mini's "Essential Focus" Mixed Reef Build

[d2mini]

They are called diaphragm or metering pumps. They use the same tubing as RO units. We use them for treating our domestic water. We pump a silicate through the system that coats the pipes. Helps prevent pin holes in copper piping. I've seen one shoot water ten feet without a pipe. One of my techs gave it to me to use as a dosing pump, but it's too loud for my living room. They work by a diaphragm being moved by a magnetic solenoid. The solenoid makes a pretty loud thumping noise.

Look here

Way to go Richard!!!!

Kewl!

How do you plan to use the P4 for AWC? Just with level sensors in the sump and one pump to drain and one pump to fill?

Yes.
The P4 (and P3) has the ATO/AWC programming built in.
On start, the ATO function is disabled.
The drain pump kicks on and drains until the lower level sensor is activated.
That pump turns off and the fill pump is turned on.
The fill pump turns off when the upper level sensor (which is also the ATO sensor) is activated.
ATO functionality is then restored.
So you've automatically pumped in the exact same amount of water that you removed.

 

[Reefer525XL]

So you are limited on the amount of water the return section of the sump holds correct?

 

[d2mini]

So you are limited on the amount of water the return section of the sump holds correct?

Technically, yes.
But if you are running it many times per day (My old LM3 setup ran 150x per day), then it doesn't matter.
My setup is all 1/4" water lines, which don't move a lot of water.
I can hide these behind the baseboard along my walls.

 

[d2mini]

Here's the current state of my tank and surrounding area. lol
Little cube holding my coral with one of my Radions suspended by bungee cords.
Towels everywhere. Real high class.

Temporary "scape" while I wait on Part II of my TBS order.
I forgot what it was like to have white sand!

And a few pics of the life on the rock...

 

[MarkW64]

I'm curious what size "package" you ordered from Richard? And that looks like the Walt Smith rock, am I right?

 

[sirreal63]

Looks like an awesome beginning. Your wife should be put up for super stellar award or sainthood. ��

 

[saf1]

You can't go wrong with TBS packages. Really. Unless you have a local Goliath Grouper Jewfish in the package - lol. Regarding high class comment - I'm sure your friends and family know more about your hobby and what could or could not happen and what temporary or urgent crises might unfold. Now if this is still there a month from now I expect a post and picture in the ghetto rig thread

Really - nice recovery. Initial placement looks reasonable and gives your 2nd package some room. Any cool hitchhikers so far or is that mostly in the 2nd shipment?

 

[rtparty]

I like it as is Dennis! But I am fan of less rock overall. Most tanks have too much rock for my taste

 

[d2mini]

I'm curious what size "package" you ordered from Richard? And that looks like the Walt Smith rock, am I right?

90g Package. Yep, WS rock and a little pukani mixed in.

Looks like an awesome beginning. Your wife should be put up for super stellar award or sainthood. ��

Haha no doubt.

You can't go wrong with TBS packages. Really. Unless you have a local Goliath Grouper Jewfish in the package - lol. Regarding high class comment - I'm sure your friends and family know more about your hobby and what could or could not happen and what temporary or urgent crises might unfold. Now if this is still there a month from now I expect a post and picture in the ghetto rig thread

Really - nice recovery. Initial placement looks reasonable and gives your 2nd package some room. Any cool hitchhikers so far or is that mostly in the 2nd shipment?

Well speaking of groupers... i think I got one. :eek1:
Well, maybe it's just a full grown 3.5" Seaweed Blenny.
He's staying in the rock so I can't get a pic yet.
But he came in with the sand. Was sitting on top when I opened the bag.

I like it as is Dennis! But I am fan of less rock overall. Most tanks have too much rock for my taste

Thanks. We'll see what comes next and what I decide to use in the display.

 

[saf1]

Well, maybe it's just a full grown 3.5" Seaweed Blenny.

That is cool. Didn't you get something like that the last time too? Very cool.

 

[d2mini]

That is cool. Didn't you get something like that the last time too? Very cool.

Good memory!
He was small though. This guy is huge!
But I had to remove that one from the DT. Pretty sure he was eating my hammers.
May have to pull this guy out too, especially at his size.

 

[saf1]

Good memory!
He was small though. This guy is huge!
But I had to remove that one from the DT. Pretty sure he was eating my hammers.
May have to pull this guy out too, especially at his size.

Lol - it is almost like I'm a stalker! But seriously, I'm not. Just odd things I remember from reading your threads.

 

[SPotter]

wow Dennis....I go away for a few days and don't check in on RC updates and I see this first thing today....you are dedicated to this hobby for sure!!! I think many would have just thrown in the towel and put everything up for sale. Cant wait to see how 2.0 turns out!

 

[VJV]

d2mini's "Essential Focus" Mixed Reef Build

d2mini's "Essential Focus" Mixed Reef Build

Dino's or whatever I've had for the last several months has beat me down.

Since my tank was "only" 9 months old and I didn't have a ton of coral yet, I decided to cut my losses now and start fresh.
Going back to what I know works for me. Standard Berlin style filtration, a nice ball of cheato (that gets trimmed!), and no more Triton dosing.
Triton was going ok for me in the beginning but once the fuge crashed, it's been all downhill.
I'll use ESV Bionic for now since I'm set up to dose, and once demand pics up and I have time to recover $$$ from this, I'll invest in a CaRx again.
New TBS rock and sand coming tomorrow night.

This pic is this morning.
Nona (our kitteh) is all "wth?" Can you find her?

None of my fish made it through the transfer.
I set up a 50g QT with matched salinity and temp but there must have been an 02 drop because they were all dead within a couple hours.
So pretty bummed about that to say the least.

Most coral are packed in an 18" cube. I took a few lps to my office nano.
All coral were dipped and put into fresh SW.

The tank was drained, and then filled with tap water and bleach and run for 10 hours over night.
I drained it again this morning.
Filling with fresh SW commences later today.
Part 1 of the rock and all the sand goes in tomorrow night.

What a bummer! So sorry to hear that. My Tapatalk app is acting up on me so some posts get "eaten" for lack of a better word. This thread was stuck on the post before this one for weeks for me so I had no clue what was going on... [emoji22]

I may be headed your way I'm afraid... as you said, since the fudge collapsed it has been going downhill with a mix of GHA, followed by diatoms, cyano and no dynos all over the sandbed... I have been doing weekly water changes and syphoning as much as I can for the past months but it does not seem like anything is improving.

I just bought the core 7 Reef additives as these do not have the extra elements to fuel the algae, but am thinking your option is likely to be the best one...

I work abroad and come home on weekends and have been spending almost one entire day just treating the tank for this mess.

My wife is wonderful but at some point she will get fed up with this.

All the luck for the rebuild!



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[VJV]

d2mini's "Essential Focus" Mixed Reef Build

d2mini's "Essential Focus" Mixed Reef Build

Putting the jeep to work tonite!





btw, my last ICP test came back... elevated levels of Tin.

No idea where that came from.:hmm5:

https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/aquarium/auswertung-b/icp-oes/39743/

Denis, our builds are becoming uncannily similar. It is almost spooky [emoji33]

I too have a Vectra L1 and let's just say I am a bit disappointed, not only with the head pressure but also with the amount of whirring noise it puts out. And my ICP tests also told me that I have high levels of TIN [emoji15][emoji15][emoji15].

Set point is 0,0 and I apparently have 4,75!!! I have wondered if I have any rusting element in my L1 (which would also account for the increased noise) and whether this could feed my nuisance algae problems... spooky [emoji317]

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[iced98lx]

Good luck on the reboot sir!

 

[d2mini]

wow Dennis....I go away for a few days and don't check in on RC updates and I see this first thing today....you are dedicated to this hobby for sure!!! I think many would have just thrown in the towel and put everything up for sale. Cant wait to see how 2.0 turns out!

LOL! No way man... d2mini will prevail... even if that means cheating and hitting the restart button.

What a bummer! So sorry to hear that. My Tapatalk app is acting up on me so some posts get "eaten" for lack of a better word. This thread was stuck on the post before this one for weeks for me so I had no clue what was going on... [emoji22]

I may be headed your way I'm afraid... as you said, since the fudge collapsed it has been going downhill with a mix of GHA, followed by diatoms, cyano and no dynos all over the sandbed... I have been doing weekly water changes and syphoning as much as I can for the past months but it does not seem like anything is improving.

I just bought the core 7 Reef additives as these do not have the extra elements to fuel the algae, but am thinking your option is likely to be the best one...

I work abroad and come home on weekends and have been spending almost one entire day just treating the tank for this mess.

My wife is wonderful but at some point she will get fed up with this.

All the luck for the rebuild!



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I'm sorry to hear of yet someone else having a problem.
I hope it works out for you. I don't understand exactly what is being dosed for the fuge. Or why. If you have enough light and you can't grow the stuff, then you don't have enough nutrients which IMO is a good thing, as long as your coral have enough food.

Denis, our builds are becoming uncannily similar. It is almost spooky [emoji33]

I too have a Vectra L1 and let's just say I am a bit disappointed, not only with the head pressure but also with the amount of whirring noise it puts out. And my ICP tests also told me that I have high levels of TIN [emoji15][emoji15][emoji15].

Set point is 0,0 and I apparently have 4,75!!! I have wondered if I have any rusting element in my L1 (which would also account for the increased noise) and whether this could feed my nuisance algae problems... spooky [emoji317]

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Yeah, mine wasn't quite as high as yours but close... still getting into the orange area.
Someone posted a link to one of Randy's articles that shows tin can come from various places. Nori had a pretty high amount and i have that in my tank daily.

You might want to call Ecotech if your L1 is noisy. I can't hear mine at all.

Good luck on the reboot sir!

Thanks!

 

[Bpb]

Serious question. And I dont want this to come off as a dig against TBS rock. I really do believe that it is the BEST option on the market for starting and maintaining a healthy tank from the get go. I'm devastated that they're not able to ship to the city I live in otherwise I'd have completely redone my tank with TBS rock. So...that preface out of the way...

I've followed your builds back since your previous tank with the MH over it, (big tank cant remember the size), and I haven't seen you mention how you handle some of the pesky critters that tend to come with TBS rock. Have you not encountered any isopods? That would be my main concern. How have you managed to easily catch all the things like whelks, stone crabs, mantis, ect? I just see the posts about picking up the rock, and it going straight in and in short order there are fish and corals thriving, but no mention of the pests that are just a fact of life with real ocean harvested rock. Can you elaborate on your experience there?

 

[VJV]

Thanks Denis. I have sent the L1 back to the regional distributor (I live in Portugal and the distributor for the Iberian peninsula is Spanish) but so far the only comment has been "that's impossible! We have shipped a lot of these and no one complained until now"... [emoji19] lets see.

Good luck!



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[d2mini]

Serious question. And I dont want this to come off as a dig against TBS rock. I really do believe that it is the BEST option on the market for starting and maintaining a healthy tank from the get go. I'm devastated that they're not able to ship to the city I live in otherwise I'd have completely redone my tank with TBS rock. So...that preface out of the way...

I've followed your builds back since your previous tank with the MH over it, (big tank cant remember the size), and I haven't seen you mention how you handle some of the pesky critters that tend to come with TBS rock. Have you not encountered any isopods? That would be my main concern. How have you managed to easily catch all the things like whelks, stone crabs, mantis, ect? I just see the posts about picking up the rock, and it going straight in and in short order there are fish and corals thriving, but no mention of the pests that are just a fact of life with real ocean harvested rock. Can you elaborate on your experience there?

I know it would be hard to find these posts since there are very few of them but I get asked this a lot so each build thread has it mentioned at least a couple times somewhere. lol
Quick answer is yes, you do end up with a few pesky critters.
And in all my tanks set up with TBS there has only been ONE critter that I truly hated... a stone crab that had a body about the size of a racquetball when I pulled him out. I hunted that guy for weeks.

Longer answer... most of it is really not a big deal. People blow it way out of proportion.
Mantis Shrimp are usually only an inch or two long. Would rather eat leftover scraps than have to hunt. May kill some snails or hermits? But not really a big deal and cool to watch. I usually just wait until they come out in the open. They get braver and braver over time. Then I use my 24" long steel forceps to snatch them out and find someone who wants them.
Gorilla crabs... nothing really good about them. But again, most are just babies and harmless. If I see one come out in the open I'll grab it, or maybe even try to skewer it. I don't like them, but again I don't stress over them.
Whelks... people say they are bad... 4-5 tanks worth later, I haven't really figure out why. Picked them out when you see them if you want.
Other crabs... if it has pointy claws, or if I just think it has an ugly mug, I'll remove.
Pistol Shrimp. Some people don't like them. I think they are cool.
I'll say one thing... and this is the ONLY time I would say TBS might not be for you... if your tank is in your bedroom and you are a light sleeper. Pistols can be noisy.
Isopods... not that I have ever noticed.
Nuisance algae... nope.


That's about it. And as I always say, a few annoying critters are nothing compared to all the good stuff.
Porcelain crabs, decorator crabs, pistol shrimp (i like them), urchins, brittle stars, sponges, tunicates, snails, feather dusters, barnacles, tons of microfauna.... so much cool stuff and things that are beneficial to a reef.