125G Tank Jurnal

molabecirovic · Mar 23, 2013

Hi All

I decided to start my tank journal as I am always making changes to my setup.
A little about my system
125G glass tank 72''x 23''x 18''
Diy sump with 7'' filter sock and 3 return pumps
Apex Neptune controller
2 Vortech MP40w pumps
GSA2 40'' tall 8'' diameter cone skimmer powered by 2 sicce 2500 venturi pumps, Avast marine swabbie neck cleaner and 5G collection container with a overflow shut-0ff
40G refugium
DIY LED lights. Royal blues, blues, cool whites, UV's and night lights, all separatley controlled by the apex controller.
JBJ Arctica 1/2hp inline chiller
Bubble magus doser, daily dosing Al, Mg and Ca

25 Fish
3 Shrimps

Sps,Lps, Softies, clams ...

I just did a Diy Led upgrade so I am posting the details.
My existing lighting configuration was 3 fixtures, with a total of 36 3w cool whites, 36 3w mix of blues and royal blues and 4 moon lights. All 60' optics
My new configuration I added 1 6X20 heat-sink with slide-in splash guard, 14 5w cool whites, 25 3w royal blues and 14 3w UV. All new with 80' optics sitting at 11'' from the water.
Added new L bracket to the old fixtures so I can add slide-in splash guards. Build a new railing to hold the heat-sinks and painted it all mat black.
Here are some pictures from the previous configuration to the new and during the build

Coral reefer · Mar 23, 2013

Sweet setup and equipment. What return pumps/why 3?

denzil · Mar 23, 2013

Looks awesome!

molabecirovic · Mar 23, 2013

Coral reefer said:
Sweet setup and equipment. What return pumps/why 3?

Thanks

2 lefegard Aquatics quiet one as the main return pumps for the display tank
1 rio to send water from the sump to the closet next to my tank where most of my equipment is located, chiller, refugium, skimmer .... gravity feed goes back to the return pump chamber in the sump.

tankguy · Mar 23, 2013

Good job , tank looks nice

Kmooresf · Mar 23, 2013

Nice job on the lights, and the tank looks healthy. Great color!

molabecirovic · Mar 28, 2013

A new day a new project :bigsmile:

Over the lest few days I been working on adding a algae scrubber to the system. I use to have one installed running for about 6 months or so and it worked fine . It was installed between my frag tank and the refugium, it was running on the drain line from my frag tank water falling on the refugium. The problem with that setup was that some of the hair algea the was growing on the scrubber was falling on top of my chaeto and soon enough started taking over. Didn't take to long for the hair algae to pretty much take over in the refugium and kill most of the chaeto algae, also hair algea prety much covered everything in the frag tank too.
I decided to clean everything up and start fresh. I removed the scrubber, threw away the chaeto and scrubbed all the hair algae from everywhere. To some degree not the best of decisions as my phosphates went up quite a bit soon after that and also did my nitrates, a problem I didn't have in a long time.

Jess from Diablo corals was kind enough to spare few bags of chaeto as a starting culture to start the fuge again so I got it started. Still slightly battling to remove all the exes nutrients so I decided to add the scrubber again but this time a different design. Im using my old frag tank as the housing for the scrubber and I will be adding a 4'' sock in the scrubber tank drain so no hair algae will be leaching back to the refugeum, at least thats the plan :Sp ....
Here are some pics of the build ...

http://s1286.photobucket.com/user/Molabecirovic/media/IMG_0674_zpsd8a5950d.jpg.html
http://s1286.photobucket.com/user/Molabecirovic/media/IMG_0675_zps7d536898.jpg.html
http://s1286.photobucket.com/user/Molabecirovic/media/IMG_0677_zps1ec69a77.jpg.html

rygh · Mar 28, 2013

Cool, another person with a scrubber!
But of course, it is hard to get right. Everyone has that issue, me too.

My opinion is that your fix will probably not make a big difference.
Yes, it will stop clumps of hair algae from moving around, but not individual cells.
And all it takes is a few cells and the right conditions. Hair algae cells are everywhere.
So it will help a bit, but you will still get hair in the chaeto.

The real key to a scrubber : The scrubber must be a better spot for algae
to grow than anywhere else in your system, by far!
The idea is that it will grow there like crazy, and easily out compete the algae
trying to grow in the rest of your tank and sump.

From what you describe, your scrubber is partly working, but not at full efficiency.
That means it can pull out nitrates and phosphates, but not enough to out compete other algae,
so algae continues to grow in other parts of the tank.
So not bad, just not good enough.

My opinion from pictures: Your scrubber has a lot of screen, and not enough light.
It is critical to have intense light.
That looks like a standard CFL, and you have 1 sided screens.
With that, you really need about 1/2 to 1 watts per square inch of screen.
(Real CFL watts, not the incandescent equivalent number - common mixup)

My suggestion:
Plumb it so you have your slot-tube and screen just down the middle, lengthwise.
Put two lights on each side of that screen. Four total.
Put good reflectors behind the lights.
Or better yet, get a couple of banks of LED red/blue grow lights.

Note that an optimal scrubber will kill all the chaeto in a refugium anyway. It out-competes it for nutrients.
If you really get it cranking, you may end up just putting it in the refugium, since that will be empty.
Really.

You also may want to make a quick build thread on the main scrubber specific site:
http://algaescrubber.net
There are a lot more fans/experts there, and you will get lots more advice. That can be good/bad of course.

molabecirovic · Mar 29, 2013

rygh said:
Cool, another person with a scrubber!
But of course, it is hard to get right. Everyone has that issue, me too.

My opinion is that your fix will probably not make a big difference.
Yes, it will stop clumps of hair algae from moving around, but not individual cells.
And all it takes is a few cells and the right conditions. Hair algae cells are everywhere.
So it will help a bit, but you will still get hair in the chaeto.

The real key to a scrubber : The scrubber must be a better spot for algae
to grow than anywhere else in your system, by far!
The idea is that it will grow there like crazy, and easily out compete the algae
trying to grow in the rest of your tank and sump.

From what you describe, your scrubber is partly working, but not at full efficiency.
That means it can pull out nitrates and phosphates, but not enough to out compete other algae,
so algae continues to grow in other parts of the tank.
So not bad, just not good enough.

My opinion from pictures: Your scrubber has a lot of screen, and not enough light.
It is critical to have intense light.
That looks like a standard CFL, and you have 1 sided screens.
With that, you really need about 1/2 to 1 watts per square inch of screen.
(Real CFL watts, not the incandescent equivalent number - common mixup)

My suggestion:
Plumb it so you have your slot-tube and screen just down the middle, lengthwise.
Put two lights on each side of that screen. Four total.
Put good reflectors behind the lights.
Or better yet, get a couple of banks of LED red/blue grow lights.

Note that an optimal scrubber will kill all the chaeto in a refugium anyway. It out-competes it for nutrients.
If you really get it cranking, you may end up just putting it in the refugium, since that will be empty.
Really.

You also may want to make a quick build thread on the main scrubber specific site:
http://algaescrubber.net
There are a lot more fans/experts there, and you will get lots more advice. That can be good/bad of course.

Mark thanks on your comments and suggestions :bigsmile:

The new scrubber is in the beginning stage and yes it still needs some more work. I just build it few days ago and threw a 10w led bulb just to get the baby hair algae start growing until I figure out what would be the best light configuration. Im planing on adding lights outside in L shape to follow the shape of the existing scrubber or add 2 reflectors on the front and one in the side and either do the same in the inside or add one more bulb to get better light through the inside. I am also looking into Led's as a option.
Didn't know there was a forum for scrubbers, looks like a great place to get more information. I will be starting a thread there soon.

Becho

125G Tank Jurnal

molabecirovic

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Coral reefer

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