Reefer 250 build

[tenurepro]

Reefer 250 build

New corals
Picked up a RR Strawberry Shortcake small frag two weeks ago
Coloring up - good potential

Then I couldn't resist this small pink millipora colony... only a bit more than the rr ssc and super fuzzy. Had to move something... ended up removing the green - now brown - slimmer. So the milli now occupies a prominent place in the aquascape
Slimer is now on a bit of rock on the sand bed. It if recovers and colors up, I'll move it to a better local.

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[tenurepro]

Got some more clean up crew today.
1 emerald crab (have one already)
A serpent star (or is it a brittle star - don't know how to tell them apart)
6 nassarius snails

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[tenurepro]

Impressed by accuracy/sensitivity of apex probes.
I mix up saltwater in a large unheated container in the basement - it's cold down there. Because I've been doing 2 liter water changes a day, I don't bother heating the new water. Yesterday I decided to do a 15 liter water change + sand vacuum. Apex picked up the change in temp and ph instantly - see drastic change in the graph below. It also picked up a slight decrease in salinity. I usually check new salt water with a Red Sea refractometer but it's difficult to spot 0.5 diff in specific gravity. But apex salinity probe picked it up.

On thing to add... I found that the probes to be so sensitive that placement in sump matters greatly. I'll do a YouTube vid on that soon. You have to be very mindfull of dosing lines. E.g. I does kalkwaser via ato with apex cutting power to ato if ph > 8.4. Well the first time I set up the probes, they were downstream of the ato in the sump. So when the ato kicked on, the ph would instantly rise very quickly in the skimmer compartment before the kalkwaser got a chance to mix with the rest of the tank water. This would then turn off the ato, and the cycle kept repeating. Also, the infusion of fresh water would quickly lower salinity... I would be at 35, it would drop quickly to 20 and the come up. I Thought that the probes were faulty at first, but no... just sensitive.

The solution was to move the ato line downstream of the probes.
So now I have the probes in the bubble trap area (I removed the black sponge), and my ato line goes to the return section.


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[tenurepro]

Tank is recovering nicely from nitrate spike 20 days ago. Nitrates now 2.5 to 5 ppm, phosphates zero and corals are coloring up and cyano is on the decline (still there but gradually improving)

Managed to take some top down pics while feeding today. iPhone + 18k lights = heavy post processing had to get them to match what I see

Red planet which really browned out (see month 8 video) is getting its green and red back

My unknown tort (aka ugly ducking because the 1" frag was devoid of any color) is getting the green base again - I lost some vibrance from the nitrate spike

And pink caddy is finally showing promise... You can start to see the pink, the green and the blue polyps

Finally, this RR SSC frag is looking fab!

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[tenurepro]

Reefer 250 build

Month 9 update
https://youtu.be/CCfYrH35huE


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[2000se]

so after having the Vectra m1 for this long..do you still like it?

 

[tenurepro]

Reefer 250 build

Yeah for sure! Great pump. Very quiet. Over kill for my system, but much quieter than jebao/jecod pump I started with. 2 minor complaints though; you need to buy a few extra things to hook it up; it doesn't come with any barbed connection. 2 not apex compatible


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[2000se]

I may have missed this piece of information, but at what level are you running the pump?

 

[tenurepro]

I may have missed this piece of information, but at what level are you running the pump?

About 40% (I calibrated the vectra so that 100% on the dial is only 80% of pump's max capacity, then set the dial to 55%, so roughly 40% output).
I use the vectra as a return but also to feed my fugue


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[2000se]

I'm still having a hard time understanding the feed mode and keeping the water level constant in the tank.

If the overflow is set to allow 500GPH to drain through it, and you put the pump into feed mode (I thought the pump would slow the output).

How does the overflow stay in sync with what the pump is outputting? Especially if the pump slows the output. (Let's say it drops to 300GPH).. Won't the over flow start draining down?
I hope I asked my question clear!

 

[Blitzer]

The overflow just overflows, so as water is pumped out of the sump, it displaces water from the tank into the overflow. How much water is cycled over time is determined by how much water is being pumped.

 

[Blitzer]

Hey Tenurepro, been following along with your build, just got my 250 in. One quick question for you on the MP10s, did you have to modify them at all in order to get them to hold onto the tank effectively? Just tried mine out and they're not super secure, so wondering if perhaps you took the foam/padding off either side?

 

[tenurepro]

Hey Tenurepro, been following along with your build, just got my 250 in. One quick question for you on the MP10s, did you have to modify them at all in order to get them to hold onto the tank effectively? Just tried mine out and they're not super secure, so wondering if perhaps you took the foam/padding off either side?

Nope - no modification. They do stick better after they start building up with algae and tank bacteria. I try to give them a little grace period of low flow after cleanup. I take them apart and soak them in vinegar every few month. When I put them back on the tank, I run them at 20 % or so for a few hours before resuming regular programming. If I don't, then sometimes the wet side would spin when ramped up. Finally; make sure you give the inside and outside glass a good clean before installing... will help with adhesion.
Good luck and enjoy the 250!



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[tenurepro]

My thoughts on the bubble king mini 160 skimmer (gen 2) after 1 month of running in the tank.
The bubble king replaced a bubble magus curve a5 with the DC pump.

In terms of consistency; the bubble king is amazing. It started skimming on the first day, I have not had to adjust the water level at all. The number of times the bubble king overflowed on me is ..... ZERO.... ziltch.... nada. It produces roughly the same volume of skimmate every week.

To put things into perspective, the bubble magus curve a5 - at best - overflowed once every two weeks. It required adjusting every few days. It got so bad that I had to check on the curve skimmer three times a day just to make sure it is skimming and not on the verge of overflowing.

Perhaps the comparison is not fair. But On paper, the curve a5 is rated for 75 to 120 gal while the bubble king mini 160 is rated for 50 to 130 gal, so they are competing in the same sand box. But the bk is about twice as large as the bm in real life and the pump is twice as big, so clearly the BM rating is purely aspirational. The BK is clearly a better skimmer imho... it also costs 5x more new...so perhaps that is to be expected.

I do have one complaint about the BK mini 160. It is loud. When first installed, i measured 75 db right up next to the skimmer (where skimmer cup meets skimmer body). The noise subsided to 67 db after a few weeks of breaking in. (It is sitting on two silicone pads). I was told that it should quiet down more, and I hope it does, as it is currently the loudest bit of kit in the tank. The bubble magus was near silent.

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[tenurepro]

So I think my female Ornate leopard wrasse Ariel is transitioning. Sub-male now?
September 2016. Dark body, small spots

April 2017 above; light body, large spots


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[tenurepro]

Quick update. Things going well. Colors improving a lot on sps. Slowly ramping up radions - 1% per week. Parameters stable with alk at 8.6 to 9, ca 430 - 440, mg 1360, nitrates holding steady at 5 ppm, phosphates undetectable. Weekly water change of 15 liters. Dosing 7 tsp kalk in my 5 gallon ATO reservoir. Feeding 3x a day. Skimming wet.

Increased temp from 77.8 to 78.8f after some research (peer-reviewed scientific journals baby!) on optimal temp for sps growth. What I learned is that it varies for different species (expected) and different regions (also expected). Sps from the Red Sea like it a bit warmer. Interesting findings include: 1) acropora often grows faster in the winter than in the summer. 2) There is a clear temp sweet spot for growth. After this optimum temp is reached, growth quickly declines. 3) many corals bleach a few deg above their optimum temp. Saw 78.8f a lot in Australian and Hawaiian studies, so decided to set the temp there.

Red cyano has all but disappeared. Noticing a very bright green cyano in a few places on the sand, but not really spreading. This cyano turnover is interesting; when one thing dies, something else takes its place!

Noticing a change in the accumulation of algae / gunk on the glass. Last 4 to 5 month, maybe longer, glass got dirty super quick; every two days. But starting last week, glass has been looking good for 5 or so days. I cleaned it last Saturday and it's still looking good. I am taking that as an indicator that my corals and filter feeders are starting to out compete nuisance algae. But that may just be wishful thinking

Finally. A few of you will remember this ugly 'Cali tort' stick

That turned into this glorious mini colony that doesn't look like a Cali tort at all

Well, after a long search and consulting with some of the sps experts here and elsewhere, I am fairly confident that it is a Myagi tort (which may actually not be a tort at all... wish frags came with scientific names!). Cool!



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[Darthv247]

therevare so many types of acros that even science doesnt have names for all of them so difficult to tell the differences without extensive testing.

 

[tenurepro]

Little mishap with equipment yesterday: (ps I have the new apex)

Power / wifi went out at 4 am while sleeping. Woke up at 6 am to 1) tunze osmolator alarm sound; 2) apex heartbeat notifications saying apex has been disconnected for 2 hours. Inspected tank -> mp10s were on (controlled by apex wxm module but not plugged to Alex power bar). Some outlets on apex power bar were off (return, skimmer) while others were on (ato, heaters, doser). Because the return was off, the display temp had dropped by a few f. The water level in the sump increased prompting the tunze osmolator to alarm

I manually reset the apex which allowed it to connect to wifi again but 1) salinity prob immediately stopped working 2) power bar and everything plugged to it lost touch with the apex. I unplugged and replugged the connection between power bar and apex brain. This created a new 'module' that I could access and control on fusion, but i had to reprogram each outlet again; the old programming was stuck in the old 'module' that was no longer responsive.

This whole thing took about 10 min to figure out. Went to work and came back to find that my skimmer had overflowed and the ph spiked to 8.2; In my morning haste, I reprogrammed the power bar but forgot to change the pointers to the new power bar. So I had a custom feed mode at noon, which shuts down return for 15 min while my ehime autofeeder dispenses pellets. My skimmer and ato had a line that turned them off whenever the return was off; but it was still mapping to the 'old return' on the old module, not the new return on the new module... so return went off but skimmer was on, which overflowed. The skimmer removed two cups of water from tank into skimmer cup which the tunze osmolator replaced with freshwater loaded with kalk, raising the ph.

Everything is fixed now, except the salinity probe which is still down. Contacted apex about issue and waiting to hear back.

While I really like the apex, yesterday's experience opened up my eyes to a whole bunch of things that can go wonky. I think I will plug all life critical equipment to a regular power bar when I go on vacation. The return was set to 'on' whenever the apex disconnected from fusion, but obviously that didn't happen. Not cool Apex! Not cool!



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[pelphrey]

Sounds like an eventful morning! Hate that that happened! When I setup my apex classic I was ready to use everything Neptune. Situations like this made me rethink that plan. I refuse to allow the apex to control every piece of equipment, for instance I'll probably never run the WAV pumps simply because if the apex craps out the pumps will also.

I do have all of my equipment plugged into my EB8, if it craps out I am out of luck. Luckily I work 5 minutes from home. As you said I may plug critical components into my battery backup when I go on vacation to eliminate the apex. It's nice to have the apex control heaters, my lights and delay start my skimmer. The breakout box has nice functions for my setup as well.

Your experience is another example on why I won't let rely on a controller 100%. I don't regret my apex purchase, I'm happy with the few functions I am using. In the long run the classic was a great price I couldn't pass up.

Hope it gets squared away for you!

 

[dimasv]

Wow nice setup just really love the fish! You have deep sand do u touch it a or just let it be on its own?

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