Devoted Reefer 250

[pelphrey]

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[pelphrey]

Had to paint the side of the plywood white, went ahead and painted the entire back! Going to try to move all of my equipment into here this weekend or next week!

 

[mystikal]

Looks good, your putting that right next to the tank?

 

[pelphrey]

Looks good, your putting that right next to the tank?

Thanks! You are correct, I made an "equipment" board and have it mounted behind the chiller opening. I've decided I would rather keep inside the tank stand as strictly a "wet" space and move all of my equipment into this cabinet.

I am thinking and hoping this will allow me to better organize all of the wiring, if I need to pull a piece of equipment out right now it is a pain. If I wasn't running the apex I wouldn't even be adding a cabinet, and since I just bought another energy bar this makes the most sense for me.

 

[pelphrey]

Second energy bar mounted inside the cabinet-

Need to clean this mess up!

Equipment cabinet in place!

I'll get before and after shots under the tank stand soon! I will be going back and cleaning up the cables inside the equipment cabinet soon. I had to take my system completely down to do this move and I wanted to get everything back up and running quickly!

 

[pelphrey]

Shot some pictures with the iphone 6 last night. No filters and didn't change the light settings at all -

The struggle of keeping a bare bottom tank!

 

[pelphrey]

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[tenurepro]

Are you still liking your skimmer Pelphrey? I am thinking of replacing the bubble magus curve a5 which has been difficult to tune in and doesn't seem to be able to keep up with my bioload (10 fish + cuc, etc). Was thinking of the nyos... heard good things, but a couple of owners complained of microbubles, sensitivity (tendency to overflow), and noise. curious about your experience; whould you buy it again if you had a restart.
we are somewhat limited in what we can put in the 250 sump. My list of contenders include the nyos 120 or 160, the ice cap k2 120 or 160, and a used bubble king slim 160; which will fit in the sump but make changing socks a challenge...

 

[pelphrey]

Are you still liking your skimmer Pelphrey? I am thinking of replacing the bubble magus curve a5 which has been difficult to tune in and doesn't seem to be able to keep up with my bioload (10 fish + cuc, etc). Was thinking of the nyos... heard good things, but a couple of owners complained of microbubles, sensitivity (tendency to overflow), and noise. curious about your experience; whould you buy it again if you had a restart.
we are somewhat limited in what we can put in the 250 sump. My list of contenders include the nyos 120 or 160, the ice cap k2 120 or 160, and a used bubble king slim 160; which will fit in the sump but make changing socks a challenge...

I love the Nyos 120! There were early reported issues of the collection cup getting stuck to the body. I haven't had that issue, I do take it off once a week for cleaning. I did run the skimmer in water and vinegar for a day, not sure that was needed. When I put it in the sump I put a gallon bag over the collection cup for a few weeks to make sure it wasn't going to overflow the cup and spray the inside of my stand. I never had an over flow issue that I didn't create myself. Adjusting the skimmer does require some patience, the air flow dial seems to be picky about that sweet spot, but once you are there you are good to go!

I looked a the Nyos 160, I opted for the 120 for space and there is a guy on YouTube "Practical Reef" who ran the 160, it was apparently stripping his system and making it a little to clean. So he started running the skimmer on a 12 hour on 12 hour off schedule.

My 120 is 100% dead silent, from time to time the lid on the collection cup will vibrate. I'll attribute that to me hitting it or moving it slightly while in the sump area.

If I had to do it all over again I would go with the Nyos again. The 120 is taking up half of my skimmer section, so I have a little room to grow!

 

[pelphrey]

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[Anthony357]

i bought a tall storage cabinet thing for my 90gallon tank, have my ATO top off 10gallon at the bottom, test kits, battery backup above that, then DJ style powerstrips with on/off switches that control everything electronic on my tank. I figured it would be way easier for when doing maintenence/water changes/etc to turn things on and off then hunting for cables to pull up and put back in lol. Definitely makes it easier, and looks better too! i'll get some pictures later tonight when i get home

 

[pelphrey]

i bought a tall storage cabinet thing for my 90gallon tank, have my ATO top off 10gallon at the bottom, test kits, battery backup above that, then DJ style powerstrips with on/off switches that control everything electronic on my tank. I figured it would be way easier for when doing maintenence/water changes/etc to turn things on and off then hunting for cables to pull up and put back in lol. Definitely makes it easier, and looks better too! i'll get some pictures later tonight when i get home

I may add another cabinet to the left side later down the road when I have the space to hold an ATO container. For now I just have my equipment in this cabinet, and it is a complete mess! But I would rather have it in this cabinet VS my stand.

Post pictures when you get a chance!

 

[Anthony357]

yeah its way better, only thing i might do differently is get two smaller cabinets (one for each side) to split the load, i have one tall cabinet that is the height of the canopy, only problem is, is that i put it right next to the tank, so i cant really see looking into the tank from the right side very well since the cabinet is about 8 inches away from the tank lol. But i definitely agree its better to have as much stuff as possible in the storage cabinet vs underneath the tank

 

[pelphrey]

I wanted to try out the Gyre for awhile, so I picked up the 230. I actually thought about the WAV pumps, there are a couple reasons I didn't go this route. First reason is that my tank is 3' and the WAV pumps are just to much. Second reason.... I do really like the Apex but I don't like relying on it 100%, if my Apex brain went out the WAV pumps would stop working as well.

I am currently running a MP40wQD on the tank and love this pump, if my rock work was different I probably would have ran another Vortech pump placing them both on the back wall. With my rock work being so tall I didn't think this was my best solution.

The downside to the Gyre 230 is the noise, I did open a ticket with CoralVue and they said the pump needed to break in and bacteria needed to grow on it. I have the Gyre set to random pluse from 10-40%, after running the pump for a little over a week now the noise has reduced some but it is still the loudest piece of equipment on the tank.

The controller for the Gyre is pretty simple to use once you know what it does. I am running the Gyre and Mp40 on the tank still, the pumps are on opposite walls. Soon the Mp40 will be pulled and sold, I'll pick up another 230 pump to put in place of the MP40. The fact that the Gyre controller can run two pumps is an awesome feature!

 

[kto17]

Thanks for this thread. Awesome posts.

 

[pelphrey]

Thanks for this thread. Awesome posts.

Welcome to ReefCentral and stopping by!

 

[pelphrey]

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[edsbeaker]

I have enjoyed reading this thread. Thanks for all the great info. I will be getting back in after 3 years, and will be buying the same tank.
I was wondering how you're liking the two kessil 160's? Is there enough coverage for the entire tank, or do you think 2 360's might be better? Are you controlling them with your Apex, and if so, did you need to add any other equipment to the controller?

I'm going to do softies, mainly, but I've said that at the start of each build for the last 20 years, and it always leads to SPS so I want to make sure I have enough light for the inevitable.

The other question is how do you like the one mp40, and si there a reason you got one, vs. 2 mp10's?

 

[pelphrey]

I have enjoyed reading this thread. Thanks for all the great info. I will be getting back in after 3 years, and will be buying the same tank.
I was wondering how you're liking the two kessil 160's? Is there enough coverage for the entire tank, or do you think 2 360's might be better? Are you controlling them with your Apex, and if so, did you need to add any other equipment to the controller?

I'm going to do softies, mainly, but I've said that at the start of each build for the last 20 years, and it always leads to SPS so I want to make sure I have enough light for the inevitable.

The other question is how do you like the one mp40, and si there a reason you got one, vs. 2 mp10's?

Welcome back!! You're going to love this tank!

The 160's I think will be fine even with some sps in the tank. If your thinking about two 360's go for the ap700. If you get the 160's or 360's you can control them with the kessil controller or a VDM apex module or VDM port on the apex(if your apex has the VDM port). Kessil to apex cable is $20 I think, get on Amazon eBay and get a long 3.5mm audio cable, you'll use that cable Togo from the output of the light you have connected to the apex, junlping that over to the other kessil light. If you go ap700 it isn't apex compatible, they have their own app.

I want confortable with the connection the mp10 made on the side glass. Planets others ha e use mp10's on this tank without any issues. I decide to skip the worry and grab a mp40wqd. Right now I have the gyre 230 and a mp40 on the tank. They are set really low, both ramping up to 40%. At some point I'll pull the mp40 off the tank.

 

[edsbeaker]

Thanks for the info. I didn't think about the mp 10's and the glass thickness, so thanks for bringing that to my attention. Doing more research it seems like they are hit or miss, but don't affect the integrity of the glass if they fall off, so I'll probably give them a try.