A Golden Reef Tank (v2)
- Thread starter halmus
- Start date
Thanks. You’re welcome to come over and see it when you think it’s safe. I’m not personally too concerned about the ‘rona. My body functions at toxic levels of caffeine. Completely inhospitable to the virus. It’s science backed by my own peer reviewed study (me). You’re in health care so you can back me up on that, right? Somehow my wife doesn’t buy it but she’s a DO not MD so...
Thanks again for helping move it in! Still feels like a young tank. Plenty of space to fill in up front but it’s coming along.
Thanks again for helping move it in! Still feels like a young tank. Plenty of space to fill in up front but it’s coming along.
Thanks Mike.
I’ve been encouraged by a few people to start using Kalk. Now that I have the Tident, I’m a little more comfortable with the idea.
Has anyone had any issues with turning their substrate to cement by dosing Kalk? I had that happen on a past tank but I was probably doing something wrong.
What about precipitation on pump impellers? Anyone had issues there?
On a separate note, I’ve been target feeding coral lately every two days with oyster feast and adding amino acids. I’m seeing some good results with coloration from that.
I also have been working on the pod cultures but haven’t nailed down a real schedule yet. Right now it’s about every two weeks I’ll dump a flask (1000ml) that has the phyto and pods. I should spread that out over multiple days instead of all at once. I’ve been dumping that into the refugium for now.
I ordered some new phyto cultures from Florida Aqua Farms. Nanno, Tetra, and Chlorella. They’re out of Iso. I had some old disks from 6 years ago when I moved. I tried starting culture from that but they’re probably long dead.
So, the Kalk thing isn’t going to happen anytime soon. I want to see what more reliable feeding produces. Try to be responsible and patient for once rather than play with a bunch of variables and not know what worked (or didnt).
Right now
Ca :455
Alk: 8.5
Mg: 1266 (working on bringing that up)
I’ve been encouraged by a few people to start using Kalk. Now that I have the Tident, I’m a little more comfortable with the idea.
Has anyone had any issues with turning their substrate to cement by dosing Kalk? I had that happen on a past tank but I was probably doing something wrong.
What about precipitation on pump impellers? Anyone had issues there?
On a separate note, I’ve been target feeding coral lately every two days with oyster feast and adding amino acids. I’m seeing some good results with coloration from that.
I also have been working on the pod cultures but haven’t nailed down a real schedule yet. Right now it’s about every two weeks I’ll dump a flask (1000ml) that has the phyto and pods. I should spread that out over multiple days instead of all at once. I’ve been dumping that into the refugium for now.
I ordered some new phyto cultures from Florida Aqua Farms. Nanno, Tetra, and Chlorella. They’re out of Iso. I had some old disks from 6 years ago when I moved. I tried starting culture from that but they’re probably long dead.
So, the Kalk thing isn’t going to happen anytime soon. I want to see what more reliable feeding produces. Try to be responsible and patient for once rather than play with a bunch of variables and not know what worked (or didnt).
Right now
Ca :455
Alk: 8.5
Mg: 1266 (working on bringing that up)
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Thanks. That’s a great question!
I think the tank will be 3 years old this fall. I think. I seriously loose track of my own age, so...
Anyway, I’ve struggled with corals coloring up fully ever since I set up the tank. I have memories and pictures of the last tank and for the longest time, I was far off from that standard with many of the same coral.
I designed the system to be basically 3x the size of my last 120g. So I thought it would be a no-brainer. But didn’t work out that way.
I thought it was my lighting for a long time. I ended up going back to MH and my lighting today is almost exactly what I ran 10 years ago with great success. That helped but still didn’t meet my standard.
I added fish to try to get nutrients up. Don’t run carbon or GFO unless necessary. Skim less. That helped a little.
I started dosing Amino Acids and target feeding Oyster Feast. That seems to help a lot. Corals are looking better. Now, it’s just a waiting game. I want to give this 6 months and see what happens.
I’ve been told by someone that they keep their ph at 8.7. Mine currently holds at 8.1-8.2. A little low but I don’t want to chase numbers. I’m working on getting Mg to where it should be and Alk up a little.
So, to answer your question, why use kalk? I’m not yet. If coral continues to look good and get better, I probably won’t. Why add another variable? I added the deep sand bed to the fuge a few weeks back and growing out sea grass. I can’t afford to turn that to cement. An unhealthy deep sandbed is a recipe for disaster.
So, I’m going to be patient and wait this out.
I think the tank will be 3 years old this fall. I think. I seriously loose track of my own age, so...
Anyway, I’ve struggled with corals coloring up fully ever since I set up the tank. I have memories and pictures of the last tank and for the longest time, I was far off from that standard with many of the same coral.
I designed the system to be basically 3x the size of my last 120g. So I thought it would be a no-brainer. But didn’t work out that way.
I thought it was my lighting for a long time. I ended up going back to MH and my lighting today is almost exactly what I ran 10 years ago with great success. That helped but still didn’t meet my standard.
I added fish to try to get nutrients up. Don’t run carbon or GFO unless necessary. Skim less. That helped a little.
I started dosing Amino Acids and target feeding Oyster Feast. That seems to help a lot. Corals are looking better. Now, it’s just a waiting game. I want to give this 6 months and see what happens.
I’ve been told by someone that they keep their ph at 8.7. Mine currently holds at 8.1-8.2. A little low but I don’t want to chase numbers. I’m working on getting Mg to where it should be and Alk up a little.
So, to answer your question, why use kalk? I’m not yet. If coral continues to look good and get better, I probably won’t. Why add another variable? I added the deep sand bed to the fuge a few weeks back and growing out sea grass. I can’t afford to turn that to cement. An unhealthy deep sandbed is a recipe for disaster.
So, I’m going to be patient and wait this out.
So if you started kalk it would be to help raise ph correct? From what I understand when your sand turns to cement which I’ve done to my sand, it’s because your dosing more then what’s needed and precipitation. With the trident and some extra flow where you dose it, hopefully those could be avoided.
How long and when are you lighting your fuge? You can cut back on skimming and some other stuff to try to help raise nutrients but possibly the fuge stepped up and is removing the same as before.I have my fuge running opposite my DT to help stabilize ph and for me it made a difference.
Also how much fresh air is the tank getting? When my tank was in my house my ph was same as yours right now and I had a hard time even with kalk raising it. When I got kicked out to the garage my ph shot up and is now consistently at 8.4 to high 8.2 in early Morning. I can tell everyday when my wife works out in the garage because my Ph will drop .2-.5 easy and goes back to normal after an hour or so.
sorry I didn’t go back to see if you already answered any of these questions and I’m not nearly as knowledgeable as I used to be before I became a father ha.
Hey Juan.
Refugium is running 11 pm - 11 am. Opposing light cycle. I’ve been trying to reduce the nuisance algae in the fuge. Clean it up so that mangroves and sea grass are the major plant life in there. I should stop calling in a fuge since my end goal is to have pipe fish or something similar in there. It’s going to be a secondary display. The ideal deep sand bed has the ability to help filter nutrients, so there is value with that and maybe too much? My system is over filtered as it is. Someday I might remove some live rock from sumps to cut down on the filtering capacity.
Again, I’m trying to be systematic because things are looking good. Just minor tweaks from here.
Air:
The way my fish room is set up, it’s sealed pretty tight. Moisture and heat are trapped in there. That was the intention to protect the house (floor joists, HVAC ducts, etc.). I run one vent fan 24-7 (90cfm) in that room. I have a secondary vent (300cfm) that is controlled by the apex based on aquarium temperature, so it’s my chiller. I also have other fans for evaporative cooling controlled by aquarium temp. They’re staged so that the hotter the system gets, the more fans come on.
Those ceiling vent fans pull air from the room. The only opening in the room is through vents in the aquarium hood. It pulls cool living space air through the hood, past the lights, into the filtration room where it is mixed and eventually sucked outside. All of the cool air in the basement has to be replaced by air coming in from the other side of the house near the HVAC system. The fresh air intake for HVAC are two 8” pipes. I can feel the air movement in those pipes when the aquarium air movement is on full. I also added some vent grates in the walls down there which allows for easy air movement across the basement.
So, I agree, fresh air is a huge benefit. I am hopefully getting a decent amount. I could possibly put on CO2 scrubbers on the skimmer. That’s one thing I haven’t done yet which I used on my last system.
Refugium is running 11 pm - 11 am. Opposing light cycle. I’ve been trying to reduce the nuisance algae in the fuge. Clean it up so that mangroves and sea grass are the major plant life in there. I should stop calling in a fuge since my end goal is to have pipe fish or something similar in there. It’s going to be a secondary display. The ideal deep sand bed has the ability to help filter nutrients, so there is value with that and maybe too much? My system is over filtered as it is. Someday I might remove some live rock from sumps to cut down on the filtering capacity.
Again, I’m trying to be systematic because things are looking good. Just minor tweaks from here.
Air:
The way my fish room is set up, it’s sealed pretty tight. Moisture and heat are trapped in there. That was the intention to protect the house (floor joists, HVAC ducts, etc.). I run one vent fan 24-7 (90cfm) in that room. I have a secondary vent (300cfm) that is controlled by the apex based on aquarium temperature, so it’s my chiller. I also have other fans for evaporative cooling controlled by aquarium temp. They’re staged so that the hotter the system gets, the more fans come on.
Those ceiling vent fans pull air from the room. The only opening in the room is through vents in the aquarium hood. It pulls cool living space air through the hood, past the lights, into the filtration room where it is mixed and eventually sucked outside. All of the cool air in the basement has to be replaced by air coming in from the other side of the house near the HVAC system. The fresh air intake for HVAC are two 8” pipes. I can feel the air movement in those pipes when the aquarium air movement is on full. I also added some vent grates in the walls down there which allows for easy air movement across the basement.
So, I agree, fresh air is a huge benefit. I am hopefully getting a decent amount. I could possibly put on CO2 scrubbers on the skimmer. That’s one thing I haven’t done yet which I used on my last system.
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Tonight was my breaking point.
I have 7 Ecotech Vectra M2’s on my system. 4 have failed. Finding a workaround for everything or just leaving that pump dead if it’s not critical.
I have 4 Ecotech MP60’s on my system. 4 have rusty impeller shafts.
My Ecotech Reeflink has been inop for about a year.
I sold x5 Radion G4’s and replaced them with either old school MH or T5HO.
See a trend? I’m done with Ecotech.
Just lost another Vectra tonight. Second time the impeller shaft seized on that pump but it’s a trend with all others. The plastic housing of the pump is failing and the shaft disintegrated tonight after I cleaned everything and restarted the pump.
Have a Maxijet circulating water to my frag system now as backup.
Planning on replacing every Ecotech product in my system as budget allows.
I have 7 Ecotech Vectra M2’s on my system. 4 have failed. Finding a workaround for everything or just leaving that pump dead if it’s not critical.
I have 4 Ecotech MP60’s on my system. 4 have rusty impeller shafts.
My Ecotech Reeflink has been inop for about a year.
I sold x5 Radion G4’s and replaced them with either old school MH or T5HO.
See a trend? I’m done with Ecotech.
Just lost another Vectra tonight. Second time the impeller shaft seized on that pump but it’s a trend with all others. The plastic housing of the pump is failing and the shaft disintegrated tonight after I cleaned everything and restarted the pump.
Have a Maxijet circulating water to my frag system now as backup.
Planning on replacing every Ecotech product in my system as budget allows.
Maybe they’ve improved their product line after a short stint of crap production. Maybe I just had bad luck in timing with an early crap model.
I will never use their products again. That being said, I’m going to have a hard time replacing the MP60’s. I like their performance and form factor. Don’t like the rust.
I will never use their products again. That being said, I’m going to have a hard time replacing the MP60’s. I like their performance and form factor. Don’t like the rust.
Sorry to hear about the on going issues with your ecotech.
I really like their vortech line, but also have had issues with the wet sides from time to time.
Honestly there has not been enough good reviews for any of their return pumps for me to ever spend that type of cash on their DC return. I haven't even heard good things about their versa parastolic pump. DC in general has a much shorter service life and double the cost ( I buy two AC's for the price of one DC and now have a backup on hand). While it seems like to change the flow rate with a click or app how often do you really need to change return pumps flow? If so a gate valve is also an option. My vote is switch back to AC returns and use a German or Italian made product. This is obviously my opinion.
But like I said I like vortechs... so if you do dump your MP60's.... I would be interested haha.
I really like their vortech line, but also have had issues with the wet sides from time to time.
Honestly there has not been enough good reviews for any of their return pumps for me to ever spend that type of cash on their DC return. I haven't even heard good things about their versa parastolic pump. DC in general has a much shorter service life and double the cost ( I buy two AC's for the price of one DC and now have a backup on hand). While it seems like to change the flow rate with a click or app how often do you really need to change return pumps flow? If so a gate valve is also an option. My vote is switch back to AC returns and use a German or Italian made product. This is obviously my opinion.
But like I said I like vortechs... so if you do dump your MP60's.... I would be interested haha.
Since you have so much of the Neptune stuff, I was going to suggest the Cor-20...but then I read the reviews and they seem very similar to your Vectra issues, if not worse. Then I thought, well what about the Abyzz pumps, I've heard good things. Now, I know I have this reputation for spending other peoples money very easily...but dang, they are proud of those pumps! One more quick search and look at the Sicce pumps and the ADV7.0 moved 1900gph and the the 9.0 does 2500 (I thought the M2 was around 2000), priced at $200 and $250 respectively. That might be an avenue worth searching?
I think I detailed my experience with the Versa Peristaltic, which was the first Ecotech product I've ever purchased. Between that experience and your account....I think I might steer clear as well.
I think I detailed my experience with the Versa Peristaltic, which was the first Ecotech product I've ever purchased. Between that experience and your account....I think I might steer clear as well.
Certainly looking at AC pumps. I had a bunch of matching Coralife pumps on my last system. Not a big name but they were really reliable, simple, and low wattage.
I agree on the DC controllable side. Most are set and forget when it comes to flow. The only exceptions on my system are the two “closed loop” pumps in my overflow. They are programmed to ramp up and down through the day to help with random flow.
I like using identical pumps when possible in a system so that I can swap them as needed and prioritize the most critical needs. Obviously having spares is nice as well. I’ve already burned through spare Vectras.
I ordered a Pan World pump today. I’ve had good luck with them when I’ve used them. Re-plumbing is going to be a giant PIA due to other plumbing in the area. Probably have to dismantle that to get to the sump area. Luckily, I went crazy with unions and true union ball valves!
I agree on the DC controllable side. Most are set and forget when it comes to flow. The only exceptions on my system are the two “closed loop” pumps in my overflow. They are programmed to ramp up and down through the day to help with random flow.
I like using identical pumps when possible in a system so that I can swap them as needed and prioritize the most critical needs. Obviously having spares is nice as well. I’ve already burned through spare Vectras.
I ordered a Pan World pump today. I’ve had good luck with them when I’ve used them. Re-plumbing is going to be a giant PIA due to other plumbing in the area. Probably have to dismantle that to get to the sump area. Luckily, I went crazy with unions and true union ball valves!
The Abyzz pumps are sexy! They’re also a mortgage payment.
My philosophy when it comes to pumps and plumbing is to have dedicated pumps for dedicated tasks. So, I end up having a lot of pumps. I know most people don’t do things that way.
The obvious alternative is to have few really good pumps and use manifolds. If that was my build, I could maybe justify the Abyzz. Too late and too expensive to re-plumb the entire system.
I’m downgrading flow by going with a Pan World 100PX-X. Should be around 900GPH after head loss. In replacing most of my Vectras, the only critical issue is just moving some water through. I generally have supplemental flow inside the tanks anyway.
As of today, I have a Maxijet keeping a little water flowing up to the frag tank. Have Apex pumps in the frag tank itself creating a lot of flow. Pretty impressed with those. I expected them to be a big disappointment.
My philosophy when it comes to pumps and plumbing is to have dedicated pumps for dedicated tasks. So, I end up having a lot of pumps. I know most people don’t do things that way.
The obvious alternative is to have few really good pumps and use manifolds. If that was my build, I could maybe justify the Abyzz. Too late and too expensive to re-plumb the entire system.
I’m downgrading flow by going with a Pan World 100PX-X. Should be around 900GPH after head loss. In replacing most of my Vectras, the only critical issue is just moving some water through. I generally have supplemental flow inside the tanks anyway.
As of today, I have a Maxijet keeping a little water flowing up to the frag tank. Have Apex pumps in the frag tank itself creating a lot of flow. Pretty impressed with those. I expected them to be a big disappointment.