Cali Kid Corals

Gablami's Reefer 525 Build

After six months or so, decided to ditch the algae turf scrubber and go back to a refugium. My last fuge I was using the dinky 5g ATO that came with the Reefer.

Decided I needed to go bigger. Tried to figure out how to divide the sump. The problem is my BK mini 180 is too big to split the skimmer compartment in half horizontally or vertically. So I decided to divide it in half diagonally.

Bought a custom cut piece of black acrylic from TAP plastics. Then I contemplated how to cut parallel slits in it to allow for flow. It can be done with a router saw and templates, but I eventually decided to go the simple route. Three large 1.5” bulkheads with filter covers.

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Then fit it into the sump.

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Then installed a 45W thin grow light to attach to the cabinet door.

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And then installed an h150 (36W) to hang from the top.

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Clean chaeto arrived yesterday from algae barn, and I’m good to go.

Will be selling the 302 aquatics ATS soon if anyone would like to give it a shot. The benefit to an ATS as opposed to a standard fuge is it takes up less space.


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If the divider holes started clogging, would the water level in the skimmer half change? I’m planning to just have the chaeto surround my skimmer like it does now, I sort of thought for a long time that water should go through a skimmer section first and separately, but chaeto seems to benefit from the aeration and water movement the skimmer provides.
 
If the holes clog, it will overflow over the top into the skimmer side. It won’t overflow the skimmer side since it’s coast to coast overflow down into the return compartment. So skimmer depth is constant. I’ve got spare filter caps for those bulkheads so I can clean them out whenever I want.

I have my fuge first, then skimmer, and I’m now sockless!


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Gablami said:
If the holes clog, it will overflow over the top into the skimmer side. It won’t overflow the skimmer side since it’s coast to coast overflow down into the return compartment. So skimmer depth is constant. I’ve got spare filter caps for those bulkheads so I can clean them out whenever I want.

I have my fuge first, then skimmer, and I’m now sockless!


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That’s the way I roll too. Fuge first. Socks only when I’m doing a major cleaning and stiring things up.
 
Such an awesome tank! It's cool to watch a tank built and seeing all the ideas and effort put into it.

Thanks for sharing the cool ideas!

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Gablami said:
If the holes clog, it will overflow over the top into the skimmer side. It won’t overflow the skimmer side since it’s coast to coast overflow down into the return compartment. So skimmer depth is constant.
Click to expand...
So you made the divider height to match your sump water level? Smart!
 
A near miss yesterday. I was working on some plumbing and needed access to the back of my stand. So I removed the tubing from the autowater change masterflex head to remove the pump from the cabinet. Normally the heads compress the tubes so when not rolling, it is sealed shut. I forgot that, and the drain tube started to siphon out from my tank into the drain underneath my house.

I didn’t find out for about 6 hours. I left the house a few times. My tank temp kept dropping because the tank was constantly being topped off with cold ato water from the crawl space. I checked to make sure it wasn’t the skimmer filling up, and then tested the heaters. Finally I realized that the AWC tubing was siphoning. And clamped it.

I tested the SG and it was at 1.022, down from 1.027.

Now this whole time, the apex salinity does not show any change. In fact it shows it is going up. Notice the time 3:55pm. Siphon started around 10am.

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It’s only until 6pm that the salinity probe registers the drop. After the tube has been clamped off for 2 hours.

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Scratching my head on this one. Anyone have any insight into why?

The good news is the tank looks fine.







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Thanks for sharing your oh sh*t moment with us, they can be hard to talk about. We’ve all had plenty of them.

I don’t know why the conductivity probe had that delay. It is very disconcerting because detecting this kind of problem is literally the only thing it is good for, and it is a PITA to keep working correctly (mine isn’t). Actually your temp alert was more helpful. I’m interested to see what others say about this.
 
JVU said:
Thanks for sharing your oh sh*t moment with us, they can be hard to talk about. We’ve all had plenty of them.

I don’t know why the conductivity probe had that delay. It is very disconcerting because detecting this kind of problem is literally the only thing it is good for, and it is a PITA to keep working correctly (mine isn’t). Actually your temp alert was more helpful. I’m interested to see what others say about this.
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It woulda been a lot harder to talk about if I left it alone and the tank crashed. So the apex temp sensor did its job giving me a heads up that something was wrong. But the salinity probe definitely failed. Wonder if @jonmos75 has any insight into why the delay happened.


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A quick drop like that shouldn’t be a big problem for most stuff, raise it back up slowly tho. Like over several days or a week I’d say. Glad you caught it.
 
Coral reefer said:
A quick drop like that shouldn’t be a big problem for most stuff, raise it back up slowly tho. Like over several days or a week I’d say. Glad you caught it.
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Yeah, I’m planning on letting evap and hypertonic auto water change bring me back up. Will probably take awhile.


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