Scott's 270 aka Project Mayhem

I am getting some green algae on the glass as well as a little bit of brown algae on the sand so I am cutting the lights. I also have GFO running. I want the biopellets running but the temporary quiet ones pump in the bottom sump doesn't have what it takes to feed the manifold sufficiently. In good news my Mitras wireless card and lower sump Abyzz A200 are on the way!

Nitrates are ~10, phosphates are ~0.1.

Any opinions on keeping the algae at bay?
 
Get your nitrates down, of course. The algae will follow. GAC and water changes, plus vacuum the rocks and sand if there is a lt of detritus.

Dave.M
 
Thanks Dave! Yep, I know the basics on getting rid of the algae. No detritus to speak of. I siphoned the bottom and rocks after they had cured in tank. I've never started a tank this big, so I didn't know if there were different tactics to control NTS.

I am hoping to get my automatic water changes set up over the xmas holidays. So small, daily changes should bring those numbers down I hope.
 
MHG said:
Nice tank. whats with the 4 probed in the sump? From the pic they all look like PG probes...
Click to expand...

Thanks MHG.

They are GHL conductivity, redox, pH, and temperature probes. there is a lot of flow hitting that corner so it seemed like a good place for probes :)
 
Thanks kodez. I am going to grab another mp40 and have two on the left side creating flow across the bottom of the tank from left to right. Then I am hoping by having the three returns on that side all aimed high they will continue moving the flow to the overflow weir. That should get as much of the surface skim as possible to the sump. The other three mp40's will be along the back of the tank pushing to the front.

I am hoping to take some of my corals from the 40g and transfer them to the 270g. I will have to wait and see if the peppermint shrimp have cleaned up my aptasia problem or not. I don't want to willingly add aptasia to my new tank if I can avoid it.

Dave, you mentioned GAC in your last post. In your opinion what does that clean up? I have GFO in place for the phosphates, but decided not to run my biopellet reactor until my A200 for the bottom sump is installed. The Quietones 6000 didn't have the juice to run the reactors and the return tot he top sump. I bet if I had a ball valve on the return to the top sump I could have got the bio pellets churning a little better but that defeats the purpose. The cleaned water needs to get back into the top sump.

Also, I am going to pick up some tumbled marble tiles for frags. A fellow here in Canada uses them across the entire bottom of his tank and it looks rad! I am going to use them in the frag section of my top sump after soaking them to leach out any bad stuff.

I should be home in 10 days and get back to work on the tank when I can around the holidays. Right now my three fish from the 40g are transferred. A yellow tang, royal gramma and long nosed hawkfish. I also added a small clean up crew to start dealing with the small amount of algae that's starting. There are 4 conches, some cowries and some turbo snails. Oh, I also moved my long spine urchin into the 270g as well. Really all there is left to do is move the corals :)

Cheers,
Scott
 
Scythanith said:
Dave, you mentioned GAC in your last post. In your opinion what does that clean up? I have GFO in place for the phosphates, but decided not to run my biopellet reactor until my A200 for the bottom sump is installed.
Click to expand...
When people ask questions like this it makes me cringe as it suggests you have not done any reading on keeping reef tanks and are flying blind. GAC is a chemical filter. It absorbs dissolved pollutants that a protein skimmer doesn't touch. It will remove natural waste products that cause the water to yellow which cuts down on light penetration to your corals. It removes some heavy metals and toxins. It can also remove some medications and additives, but so does protein skimming. The benefits generally outweigh the negatives.

Running GFO and bio pellets at the same time doesn't make much sense to me. Use GFO to get your phosphates under control, then re-use the same reactor for bio pellets later on when your system has a live load.

Some books to get: The Reef Aquarium Vols 1-3 by Delbeek and Sprung. If you want something newer try Mr. Saltwater Tank. I see he has a Xmas sale on his ebooks at the moment. I haven't read his books but his videos seem pretty kosher.

Dave.M
 
Easy big fella! I have used GAC on most of my tanks. Specifically I was asking why you suggested running it to deal with nitrates and phosphates, which is what I meant to ask with my question directed to you. I hadn't heard of using GAC to control either of those two parameters. I also will have ozone running, which will feed into the GAC reactor. I have read the differing opinions on ozone and it's place in the reef tank and I think it's worth the risk simply based on improved water clarity.

I have specific reactors for specific purposes. Ie. the biopellet reactor is much larger and has a different nozzle in tank to create a vigorous churning of the pellets. The GFO reactor is much smaller.

I own shelves of books, which I have read :) Please don't assume things and we'll get along smashingly :)
 
Sorry, we don't know each other and it's hard to tell where people are coming from with their questions sometimes.

I use ozone but mostly just overnight to keep redox levels up.

Dave.M
 
We'll be best friends before ya know it…. I'm loveable lol!

What do you think of the new Mindstream Aquarium Monitoring system? If it work's ~75% as good as everyone hopes it will be a windfall for that company! And if it ties into my profilux it will give me some extra piece of mind when I am at work.
 
Oops, sorry, forgot the main point. Just do a Google on "GAC nitrates" and you'll see that GAC is frequently used for removal of nitrites and nitrates from water.

Dave.M
 
Here is a quick break-down on GAC and Nitrates from RC's very own Randy H-F.

"GAC removes organic matter, and anything attached to that matter (like some heavy metals).

Bacteria can also grow on GAC, so when you remove it, you remove whole bacteria, and anything inside of them.

It does not directly remove nitrate or phosphate, but will prevent organic matter that binds to it from breaking down into nitrate or phosphate."

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2005920

The Ohio Department of Health has a small write up on GAC. The phrase that interested me was

"GAC is not effective for removing minerals and salts such as arsenic or nitrates. GAC does not remove microorganisms."

You can find the article here.
 
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You should start a build thread! People like Dave and plenty of others are a plethora of knowledge. I believe it's important to take all of the information into account and form your own ideas based on your personal experimentation and results. There is no one way to make a beautiful reef, the same way there are plenty of apple pie recipes and they all make great pies! That's how I designed my system. I took what I knew worked, and mixed in some new to me elements like LED lighting and bio-pellets.
 
Wow!!!

Wow!!!

I just stumbled across your thread and really admire your choices in hardware. From the Abyzz to the Mitras you chose some first class gear. I also want to applaud you on your progress to date. Well done! I am looking forward to watching your progress going forward.
 
Scythanith said:
What do you think of the new Mindstream Aquarium Monitoring system?
Click to expand...
Hi, there seems to be some sort of lag in processing the posts as I did not see yours at the time.

re. Mindstream - As with any new technology I like to wait to see if a). it ever makes it to market, b). if it is UL/CSA approved, and c). does it work well for others. In other words, I don't want have to pay to be the guinea pig on new equipment. And if it doesn't have UL/CSA approval I can't use it for installations at public places like hospitals (fire marshal may tell me to pull it out).

Other than that, wow! It looks like a great idea that could take a lot of the load off my time in testing. Again, my only concern would be that it wants to wirelessly connect to the cloud, which wouldn't be allowed in a hospital.

Dave.M
 
Thanks Rotknee. You look to be running some nice equipment as well! I want the most reliable equipment I can get my hands on. I am away from home a lot. I haven't even scratched the surface of what I can do with the Profilux yet.

Dave, I didn't know you couldn't use wireless in a hospital! That's unfortunate for the mindstream, especially if they don't have a mini USB port or something similar on it. I agree with everything you said! I will wait a while to see if it's all it's cut out to be. But imagine if all you had to do was swap a reactor disk every couple months?! I would still test randomly with titration kits to back up the readings.

Cheers,
Scott
 
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