Isn't that a lot more work?

[Dustin07]

Final resting place determined:

I used an elaborate, back breaking, multi-bucket approach to cleaning the sand multiple times:

I'm kinda glad I did. I'm sure it saved me a few bucks, but I also really like the texture of the sand he used and the color was very white in his tank

My fill method was caveman-like. I honestly kept a 5 gallon bucket in my utility room. filled it up with a 1 gallon container, 3-4 gallons at a time, so that I could measure and mix the salt:

I was still a little uneasy/paranoid about the plumbing. I haven't used a sump in almost 20 years. I saw it in action, and I took pictures of his plumbing before we took it down but I still had this trepidation about pouring 100+ gallons of water all over the living room. so I filled it slowly and allowed the overflow to fill into the sump. I do believe that's how RedSea had recommended doing an initial fill. I also did a power off test and would go back and forth turning off the sump pump to see where the water level would rest.

I pulled out the refractometer periodically to see how my salinity was looking. I used up two leftover bags of instant ocean, and started on a large bucket (170g worth) of Redsea salt.

Previous owner had two switches on the power supply labeled "heater" I talked to him about that and in the past he ran two smaller heaters so that he always had a backup if one failed. I need to go to that method as well. However more recently he ran just a 150w heater in the Sump so for now, that's what I have going as well. Overnight it warmed from 68ish to about 70-72f.

The ambient temp in our house is not very warm as we run mostly off wood heat so 70f is definitely the heater at work, but I turned it up a notch before going to work this morning so I'll see where it lands tonight. the water has almost fully cleared and I have the 90w redsea lights dialed into the app. I would have took a picture this morning but the lights dont' come on until around 8am.

I seeded the tank with aquavitro:

NOW, my hope/wish/goal is to see how fast I can cycle and how soon I can feel comfortable moving corals into the big tank. My wife is super curious about trying to quarantine the clown eggs. They're unfortunately nestled into my largest rock so I'm really not sure if we can save the fry but this will be a busy week of musical tanks regardless lol.

 

[Dustin07]

I also need to learn how to use a protein skimmer, an algae reactor, and reef tape. Then the autodoser. I also have ATO I need to set up probably tonight. It's a gravity/float/plunger system rather than electronic.

 

[griss]

Great progress.

 

[Dustin07]

The heater in the sump only got me up to about 74F so I added a second heater last night. I did add a small rock of Zoas that had been given to me by the previous owner as well. They're not particularly of interest to me and I'll probably sell them or regift them anyways but I wanted to add them to the tank as a canary in the coalmine... they opened up immediately so that's a good sign.

I am probably going to buy another higher wattage heater today and replace one of the heaters I currently have in the tank. I like the idea of having the heaters hidden in the sump, but I'm wondering if maybe having one in the main body of water is the way to go.

 

[griss]

Location of he heaters is personal preference IMO. Yes, it might help to maintain the temp in the tank by having one there but, if you have good flow from your return, it shouldn't be an issue.

 

[Dustin07]

So it seems like I'm probably underpowered. I think I have 200w combined between my smaller heater and the larger one. I read today to plan for about 1w per liter. I don't know if that's an accurate rule of thumb but even if its close, i'm way under powered.

Now, my house is no doubt much cooler than the previous house but I'm still a little surprised I'm struggling to get warmer. I'm going to add a higher powered heater to the sump...

 

[griss]

My tank is in the basement of the house in St. Louis area, so it's in a cooler area of the house. I have a 40 breeder with a 10 gallon sump (water level only half full) and recently added a 15 gallon refugium. If memory serves, I have two 150 watt heaters in the sump that maintained my temperature.

After adding the additional water volume of the refugium, I needed to add another heater as my temp was dipping to 75 during the night. I found a Visitherm 150 watt on sale for $15 at Petco so, I simply added that to the refugium to maintain temperature in that tank since from to/from the sump is fairly low. Since doing so, I've had not issues with temperature.

That said, if I remember correctly, this is a 90-ish gallon tank? I tend to go much higher in watts than recommended by the manufacturer. Here's what BRS recommends when using their Titanium heaters. So, I'd shoot for two 250 watt or higher for your tank.

I always have redundancy in heaters in case one fails.

 

[Dustin07]

That said, if I remember correctly, this is a 90-ish gallon tank? I tend to go much higher in watts than recommended by the manufacturer. Here's what BRS recommends when using their Titanium heaters. So, I'd shoot for two 250 watt or higher for your tank.

it's a 425xl so 425 liters = roughly 112g total water volume. Although with sumps and all that I'm not positive what the true number is I'm guessing it's more than 100 and less than 112g. Even so, with a recommended 300w at 100 gallons, I'm not even close.. will be adding a heater!

last night I got the reef mat added. That was incredibly simple and easy to set up. Next thing I'm thinking about doing is getting some of those 3m sticky tape hooks or something to help organize and route the wiring in the sump area. I'm not sure how other people do it, but that's a lot of random wires in a watery area so I'm not a big fan:

I love the Pyle surge protector though and the way he had it labeled.

The next two things I need to figure out is the protein skimmer, which goes in the back left chamber here, and the ATO fresh water tank which sits directly on top of that black gate which I currently have open to allow more flow.

I'm not sure how that was supposed to work closed unless it's indicative of me not running enough water in the sump. I might need to do a power off test and fill the sump further (it obviously looks very low in this picture)

 

[Dustin07]

I will say by this morning after only about 10 hours of the reef mat being in place, the water was incredibly clear compared to even last night. and that's with the lights turned off still at 5am.

 

[Dustin07]

Another thing that has occurred to me is nutrient levels, particularly nitrates. Even if I have the basic parameters set and my corals are ready to move into this new tank, the water will likely be void of the additional nutrients that my 40g is quite rich in.

Initial options I can think of would be doing a small water change, seeding with water from the 40g (which I had planned to do anyways). I could also transfer some of my sand over. Lastly, I could just start feeding the new tank with phyto, reef roids, etc....

 

[Dustin07]

Swapped 8g of water from big tank to old tank today. Took matching amount of water from old tank to new tank + rock. Also added a 400w heater to the new tank.

Moved more corals over, they seem happy so far! But to be honest even with rocks removed from the 40g I'm not sure how I'm going to catch these fish

 

[griss]

Oh yeah, catching fish can be fun.

 

[Dustin07]

I did manage to catch my two chromis, but they're pretty dumb. they practically jumped into the net lol. the damsels will be another story altogether. AND, where the heck did my orchid dottyback go??? I honestly have no idea. it just disappeared yesterday while I was moving the rock. I looked around to see if it had jumped out of the tank but I couldn't find it on the ground anywhere unless the dog ate it, lol.

 

[griss]

The dottyback is likely hiding out in a nice hole in one of the rocks.

 

[Dustin07]

The dottyback is likely hiding out in a nice hole in one of the rocks.

She was! lost her for 2 days. She was somehow caved up in my biggest rock that was covered in Zoas, the same rock where the clowns had laid their eggs. When we broke down the 40g I moved everything over to the new tank except that one large rock. I moved it to a 5g bucket of water from the 40 gallon.

I setup a 10g tall tank, refilled with the original water, and put a single redsea 50w over it. I put the large rock in there to let the clown eggs do what they do. the next day the dottyback appeared in there lol.

My troublesome fish, another large blue damsel, committed suicide however. I found him behind the tank. He spent like 2+ years causing havoc in my tank, only to kill himself rather than being caught and sold/traded in on the last day. so weird, what a bugger.

 

[Dustin07]

Over the weekend, we basically completed the swap. I neglected to get a better picture of the sump, but I have the protein skimmer setup and operational. the reef mat is connected to the bluetooth app, and I have additional mat in stock so I can replenish it. It's sorta crazy to see how much garbage the reefmat and protein skimmer are removing from the water already considering I had neither of these toys the past 3 years.

I got the ATO tank added to the sump, and plumbed into the chamber with the float valve. it seems to be operational. I added the 400w heater and the tank went to about 80F so I dropped it a tiny bit.

I know the interenet tang police may not agree with our decision but we finally got one of the few fish that I've had my eyes on for many years, a Juvenile Hippo Tang at about 1-1.5" long (I'll try to get a better picture later).

I spoke with a number of locals, LFS owners, etc and everyone felt that our new tank is indeed large enough. I received 50/50 feedback in regards to the fish outgrowing the tank. My preferred LFS (because I really trust his wisdom) felt the tang would never reach full size and would be happy in our tank, my second favorite LFS said worst case scenario I may find myself selling the tang in a few years IF it outgrows the tank.

it's a beautiful fish though, and very derpy. it's sorta hilarious to watch. One thing that cracked me up is I have a cactus pavona from Bali, this tang is from Bali. it immediately found the pavona and made it into a home at night.

All of my corals are open and seem happy in the new tank. My frogspawn, bubble, and torches all appear to be opening up very large. we don't have the reef scape perfectly figured out yet, but it's close.


I'm still dosing with the aquavitra seed, and also facing a small cycle, but I'm not concerned yet. just a little more glass cleaning in the short term.

 

[Dustin07]

I truly do not think that I will be able to use my algae reactor in this tank, I have no idea where it could possible fit as the sump is totally full. do you guys think they add enough value? Do I need to light up the sump area if I just toss macros in there? any concerns with macros causing clogs or other issues in the sump? those reactors aren't cheap!

 

[griss]

I truly do not think that I will be able to use my algae reactor in this tank, I have no idea where it could possible fit as the sump is totally full. do you guys think they add enough value? Do I need to light up the sump area if I just toss macros in there? any concerns with macros causing clogs or other issues in the sump? those reactors aren't cheap!

I've never used a reactor. I've used separate refugiums on some of my tanks.

If the sump is not designed for a macroalgae refugium, I might consider not using one. You never know where macros can get to...skimmer pump intake, return pump intake, etc.

I know @Timfish uses cryptic refugiums with rock rubble and sponges for filtration.

 

[Timfish]

I would definitely go with a cryptic sump/refugium. Algae reactors were conceived to deal with the perceived problems of elevated inorganic nitrogen and inorganic phosphorus. Unfortunately when there was a very poor understanding of the multiple and complex roles of the Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) compounds in reef systems. We now know the DOC released by algae is far worse for corals than elevated inorganic nutrients. What saves corals are the cryptic sponges that remove DOC a thousand times faster than the bacterioplankton (30 minutes vs 20 days) that might be removed by skimmers.

 

[Dustin07]

I've never used a reactor. I've used separate refugiums on some of my tanks.

If the sump is not designed for a macroalgae refugium, I might consider not using one. You never know where macros can get to...skimmer pump intake, return pump intake, etc.

I know @Timfish uses cryptic refugiums with rock rubble and sponges for filtration.

I would definitely go with a cryptic sump/refugium. Algae reactors were conceived to deal with the perceived problems of elevated inorganic nitrogen and inorganic phosphorus. Unfortunately when there was a very poor understanding of the multiple and complex roles of the Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) compounds in reef systems. We now know the DOC released by algae is far worse for corals than elevated inorganic nutrients. What saves corals are the cryptic sponges that remove DOC a thousand times faster than the bacterioplankton (30 minutes vs 20 days) that might be removed by skimmers.

I'm two coffees into my morning and still a little lost. I had to read that a couple times, Tim. I'm hearing that my algae reactor could probably be traded/sold off. it sounds almost like it could be more negative than positive for the tank?

"What saves corals are the cryptic sponges that remove DOC a thousand times faster than the bacterioplankton (30 minutes vs 20 days) that might be removed by skimmers"

can you walk me through that? I grabbed the links you posted but be patient with me those are long reads so I'll have to come back to them, lol. I'm not sure if I'm understanding your stance on protein skimmers from this statement. the past 3 years I have had nothing more than a natural rock / sand/ CUC with essentially a sponge filter setup that I'd occasionally update/clean, and felt like I had things pretty under control with my corals growing, spreading, and my fish starting to breed. So I've been very excited about the additional water of the sump, the reefmat and protein skimmer for the perceived water quality improvement but now I'm really wondering what the best solution here is, lol.