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16ANA 240G starfire mixed reef (1 Viewer)

Some tools of the trade -

Skimmer - Alpha Vertex 300. I have used many skimmers through the years inlcuding the beckett style KZ-M and MRC skimmers and find the Vertex 300 is worth the money and peace of mind. Agreed its a little spendy but after having owned one and used for more than 2 years now I'm pleased with and sometimes wonder what was I thinking before that. very very quiet and consistent operation. Long vacations are not a problem since the collection cup holds upto 3gallons.

One days worth of skimmate, the skimmate line is from previous cleaning 2.5 days worth... makes me wonder if the cyano was feeding off whatever the skimmer is now pulling. I have been emptying upto 1+ gallons of skimmate every two days. for anyone jumping on this thread now... the tank was without a skimmer for about 5 months while I letting the ATS have a go at the nutrients

Skimmer is equipped with the Avast Marine Swabbie. Its a good addition and certainly gets a A+ for functionality and value. with it running its possible to go without cleaning the skimmer neck than was possible before. if the neck accumlates gunk it affects how much can easily be drained. Also if not cleaned the skimmer neck collects dry'ish gunk which is a pain to clean and stinks like hell is around the corner

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Calcium reactor - Made by reeftek, rated upto 400gallons medium stocked tank. Has been a good addition from the day I bought it 3 years ago. Normally I use the largest ARM media, this time I chose to use the largest garde that will fit, dead corals :rock: no better reason then I wanted to hook it up to the system and didnt want to open it up to top off media.

Water is fed via the displays primary drain. Co2 is fed from a 20pound bottle that lasts about a year or more; the bubble rate is controlled using a needle valve and supply of CO2 is shut on/off using a Milwaukee dual guage valve equipped with a solenoid. I chose to not make the water very acidic as is usually done by most people using Ca rx's. My goal is consistent availability of a certain level of calcium/alk/mg in the system at all times. any change in consumption rates is compensated by dosing two part.

Hate it when IE stops responding and I lose everything that was typed -

The reactor is equipped with a PH probe whose primary function is to shut off the CO2 supply if the in reactor PH falls below 6.20; secondary function is to shut the reactor off in conjunction with the main PH probe if the tank parameters, including temp and PH fall outside set limits.

The effleunt from the reactor drains into the fuge area where I'm sure it helps the macro algae do a better job, the original plan was to drain this to the ATS so it will do a better job, but now with all ATS plans on hold this one will be reconsidered if the ATS earns its spot in the system... which I think it will for sure if I switch to T5's for the ATS


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how the reactor is fed water from the drain, pic also shows the herbie drain
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Refugium - its a shallow 50ish gallon handmade 16ANA signature tank, uses black silicone also :agree: This was not in my original plan but with the ATS not exporting enough I restarted this. currently full of chaeto that is harvested once every 2-3 weeks, recently added some flame algae but its not on fire yet, there is also some waving hands and glass anemone for additional filteration... bah the aiptasia is just a pest :laugh:. IMO the refugium has two primary purposes
1. Obviously being a place of refuge for critters that otherwise get chomped up
2. Nutrient export - small or large it does help export nutrient and should be harvested periodically. its effectiveness as method of nutrient export depends on the %size of the fuge area to the total setup. In my setup it has been a secondary to the skimmer and still is.

circulation in the fuge is from the primary display drain. the display drain is located such that water travels through the fuge to the overflow box on the other end of the fuge which drains into the sump. unlike most setups I have high flow in the fuge area as it helps keep the chaeto watered ;) this movement is provided by the skimmer flow and a tunze 6045 pump positioned such that the water moves in a circular motion

There was no live rock in the original plan, I added it to help achor the macro algae and bring the dead to life :shocked:

The waving hand looks ill because it was left out to dry for 24+ hours in 60F weather while I let the silicone on the overflow box dry. its back and looks like it will do just fine

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ATO container - its 55G tank. I chose it because of it small front to back dimension and coz the price was right. Currently sitting by the wall until it moves to its planned designated spot if the snow stays on the ground :D Has caused issues once when about 35-40G was dumped into the main system over a period of 36 or so hours and obviously when I was away. there was an alk spike and the AC3 shut off the lights and any fans to keep the PH down. (the Apex came later). Never never never change things at the last minute

I plan to continue using this as my ATO just because its convinient and I have more checks in place now.

ATO is always laced with Kalk and Strontium/Molybdenum, dripped slowly using a LM3 top off pump

Also in right bottom corner is the Blue barrel used for water changes, nothing fancy there.. no automation yet but more on that later

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fresh RODI container - upright 105 gallons tank. Almost always have about 50G of RODI on hand. nothing fancy here.. its hooked up to a 75Gpd BRS RODI filter with dual DI. I have this one from Day 11 in the hobby from about 6 years ago and has done well for me. You all know BRS but I will still recommend them

I use gravity to fill up other tanks like the ATO or fresh SW mixing barrel. turn the valve, walk around for 2 minutes ..return and turn it off.. MUST return rather quickly or .....:eek4:

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Taklu said:
Some tools of the trade -

One days worth of skimmate, the skimmate line is from previous cleaning 2.5 days worth... makes me wonder if the cyano was feeding off whatever the skimmer is now pulling.
Click to expand...

You only get one guess as to what my opinion is.

I am hopeful I'll get a water test in before I go out of town, your setup is really inspiring. I better get back to work on mine if I am every going to look as good as this.
 
Chris Goetz said:
Looking at your pics it all looks so awesome and so familiar. :beerchug:
Nice work Manish.
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Few changes since then, but the mess is still on the ground, thats what I get from having fingers in too many pies... I'm glad this is the only spendy pie. hows your next big tank coming along?
 
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NorthSide Reef said:
You only get one guess as to what my opinion is.

I am hopeful I'll get a water test in before I go out of town, your setup is really inspiring. I better get back to work on mine if I am every going to look as good as this.
Click to expand...

Pics can be deceiving ;) I try not to show the mess...although to be fair to myself its a choice of putting something else rather than picking up reef trash.. my wife would love me more if I did just that one more thing in my available 24hrs a day :gay1:

Even my son now tells his friends dont go to the basement bcoz dad's left a big mess down there.. what does he know the methods of a great scientist :gay1:
 
Found one very interesting bit of information while browsing the wires... for the same level of nutrients you could notice no algae under a certain light... but with a change in intensity or spectrum the same nutrients can/will result in a burst of algae which will remain until a new equilibrium is reached. time to browse more ....

Oh I did turn the photoperiod down in my display and the sump/frag tank so that the algae only has incentive to grow in the ATS or fuge in that order..we will see how it goes
 
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So I have this theory that I finally want to test, its the right time of the year to do it and hopefully the costs are no prohibitive. I'm more convinced after spending a couple of hours dancing under metal halides....
Looking for a heater that would provide radiant heat aka metal halides; I'm thinking something along the lines of a long tube that I can suspend between the LEDs and focus the heat into the tank aka t5's. Need minimal radiant heat... Not trying to cook or roast anything.

As always appreciate ideas suggestions and inputs. Web links to products and articles are a big plus
 
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NorthSide Reef said:
I do not know what you're doing lol how would I know?
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Bringing the hot factor to LEDs :rolleyes:

halides I have used before but not for a decent length of time switched to T5's as soon as I burnt the back of my hand; Between the halides and LEDs the biggest difference besides low energy consumption is radiant heat... just for giggles I want to try adding heat source over a pink birdsnest colony... its pink right now but could be pinker.. as an experiment I am considering adding a source of radiant heat that will run 4-5 hours a day to mimic midday and see what happens...

reason for this is.. MOST.. almost all really pink birdsnest I have seen are right under halides or in case of T5's pretty close to the top. I have two colonies one closer to the top and one more midtank... both have pink but neither has that intense pink coloration although the one higher gets more light and flow.. (I will post a pic later to show what I mean by flow ;))
 
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hmm, well you know warm water holds less dissolved oxygen then cool water. I am not sure you're going to see much of a benefit. I think what you're missing is spectrum in your light source. It's the reason all of these LED companies are now throwing a ton of colors up against the wall and seeing what sticks.

Wasn't it nice of them to sell thousand of fixtures without doing any research and now wanting to charge hundreds more for us to continue testing them for them? I saw the price of the new Radion Pros and I can see where a person might go postal once and awhile :doh:.
 
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LOL I have a DIY and this is version 2... it has all the spectrum and more than in any of the Comm fixtures out there. I have followed other more intense DIY builds and the conclusion (maybe premature on my part) is the radiant heat.

cant find the article at the moment .. maybe I posted the link in one of my many previous posts.. the article mentioned that the tank temp could be 72-78F but the "coral" temp could be 80-90F.. the coral temp is only during the day and not a significant source to retain the heat. the only way a corals skeleton can heat up is radiant heat. a simple test to find out if there is radiant heat is to place the back of your hand under any of the light sources to find out ;) there is hardly any heat in LEDs... although they do put out a lot of heat and if all heat equations i know are correct LEDs are no more efficient than Halides at converting energy to light

goes back to my previous note.. I was at this place standing quite not so close to the usual metal halide lamps used to light work places and was sweating, although the wall temp guage was reading 78F in a rather large hall.

If this experiment proves the hypothesis correct.. next step would be to determine if SPS colors are *that* important... if they are MH's/T5's maybe the choice of light.. ofcourse adding a heat source to a LED setup might change. hopefully someone has already beaten me to this and I dont have to spend agonising thoughtful moments on the potty seat :eek:.. .too late in the year to be cutting grass :rotflmao:
 
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NorthSide Reef said:
Wasn't it nice of them to sell thousand of fixtures without doing any research and now wanting to charge hundreds more for us to continue testing them for them? I saw the price of the new Radion Pros and I can see where a person might go postal once and awhile :doh:.
Click to expand...

Thats the nature of evolution and If my knowledge serves me right thats how VHO's and MH's evolved... yeah I know I was kid then but I still kept track :agree:
 
Taklu said:
LOL I have a DIY and this is version 2... it has all the spectrum and more than in any of the Comm fixtures out there. I have followed other more intense DIY builds and the conclusion (maybe premature on my part) is the radiant heat.

cant find the article at the moment .. maybe I posted the link in one of my many previous posts.. the article mentioned that the tank temp could be 72-78F but the "coral" temp could be 80-90F.. the coral temp is only during the day and not a significant source to retain the heat. the only way a corals skeleton can heat up is radiant heat. a simple test to find out if there is radiant heat is to place the back of your hand under any of the light sources to find out ;) there is hardly any heat in LEDs... although they do put out a lot of heat and if all heat equations i know are correct LEDs are no more efficient than Halides at converting energy to light

goes back to my previous note.. I was at this place standing quite not so close to the usual metal halide lamps used to light work places and was sweating, although the wall temp guage was reading 78F in a rather large hall.

If this experiment proves the hypothesis correct.. next step would be to determine if SPS colors are *that* important... if they are MH's/T5's maybe the choice of light.. ofcourse adding a heat source to a LED setup might change. hopefully someone has already beaten me to this and I dont have to spend agonising thoughtful moments on the potty seat :eek:.. .too late in the year to be cutting grass :rotflmao:
Click to expand...

Don't ask me why, but for some reason I was thinking about this as I was getting ready to leave. If I remember right (I have been away from the hobby for awhile) but don't corals color up better in nutrient poor tanks? I think you will need to give this some time before you test this out since you are just getting your water parameters back up. Your Bird's Nest may very well color up and it will be due to the water quality vs the heat and it might give you the wrong impression.

next thing you know everyone will be throwing heat at their tanks :rotflmao:
 
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