Cali Kid Corals

Gablami's Reefer 525 Build

Thoughts on the yellow Chaeto:

Algae prefer to use Ammonium over Nitrate. In fact, they convert Nitrate to Ammonium to use it.
So as your cycle completes, the chaeto in a way has less to eat than it is used to. Might be hungry.

Yellow commonly means too much light. Suggest scaling back on the hours for that grow lamp.

Might be iron deficiency also. Usually rare, but a new tank might have almost none, so could be that.
 
rygh said:
Thoughts on the yellow Chaeto:

Algae prefer to use Ammonium over Nitrate. In fact, they convert Nitrate to Ammonium to use it.
So as your cycle completes, the chaeto in a way has less to eat than it is used to. Might be hungry.

Yellow commonly means too much light. Suggest scaling back on the hours for that grow lamp.

Might be iron deficiency also. Usually rare, but a new tank might have almost none, so could be that.
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I think you're right. Ammonia has been zero for awhile and no fish and minimal feeding. Couldn't sustain all the chaeto. Thanks for the input.
 
OK, finally some time to update. Been too busy working on stuff :). Plus the baby is 2.5 weeks away. :eek:

First, an interesting photo. A couple weeks ago, one of the Trochus snails fell off the glass and looked sick (not righting itself). Still alive mind you. In front of my eyes, one of my Nassarius came out of the sand and pulled it out of its shell and started eating it alive. Occasionally the Trochus would try to pull itself back in. Within a few minutes, all three Nassarius snails were dog piling the Trochus until it was just a shell.

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It's a snail eat snail world.

Anyways, onto more substantive updates.


WATER CHANGE STATION

My water change station has been finished for a couple weeks. I'm pretty happy with it.

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Drilled some holes and placed a few 3/4in bulkheads into two 24g ActionPacker Rubbermaid tubs. RODI going into the top. (As an aside, I'm getting some crazy PSI from my outdoor hose, like 100 psi without maxing it out). Top tub is RODI water, bottom tub is my mixing station. Got heater and a circulating pump in the bottom, which can then open into an external pump which sends the water directly to my tank with 40 feet of tubing. There is a valve at the end of the tube so I don't have to run out to turn off the pump if I'm getting close to overflowing. The hooked design also lets me hang it on the tank and walk away.

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Over the past week, I've changed over 100 gallons of water so I've gotten pretty good at it. I have another ActionPacker on a custom build dolly inside the house. I siphon 20g of water out of my display tank, roll it over to the nearby toilet and plug in a pump to empty it out. I connect my system up and start pumping the freshly made SW into the tank. I turn off the valve when it's done, turn off the pump, and recoil the tubing. Takes me about 20 minutes total, most of it is standing around waiting for the tank to fill.

CYCLE

My cycle finished, just in time for me to ditch it and decide to go with Zeovit. Over these past few weeks (as I've been waiting for my cycle to finish) I've been immersing myself in all things reef tank. I realized that I love SPS and I am drawn to the long term challenge of a glorious SPS reef tank. I'm a perfectionist and I like challenges. I was drawn to Zeovit because it is a tried and true system, and I'm ready to put in the work.

So I bought a the zeovite magnetic reactor (sold out on BRS, but found it on Amazon), and it arrived two days ago.

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It can fit 2L of Zeolite stones, but I think I'll only need 1L. Should be 1L for each 100g. My total system is 139, minus a suggested 20% for rock, sand and equipment and I'm at 111g. It came with no instructions, and I'm at a loss for what the little green tube on top of the reactor is there for. Any ideas? There is a little plug that comes off the top and it sort-of fits in the hole, but I'm not sure.

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Rinsed off the stones and put it in the system.

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Sadly, I got rid of my refugium. The Kessil H380 was amazing, and the sump compartment baffle painted black was great, but I had to make room and a refugium is not recommended with a ZV system. I'm hanging onto the light for now, but if anyone wants to upgrade their fuge light, let me know (Roostertech?)

Also, the german pump that came with the reactor is also super powerful. Too powerful. It is suggested to run the reactor at 100gph maximum. So I had to turn it way down, but eventually got it down to 75gph through the reactor. Started dosing my Zeobak, Zeostart and Zeofood.

THE CHALLENGE

I was at Neptune's today and I told Robert that I had decided to go with Zeovit. He scared the sh*t out of me and said that he wouldn't have advised me to do it, and that in his experience, six out of six customers who have tried Zeovit against his advice have had the tank crash within a year. I appreciated his advice, and I'm sure he is right. Failure is definitely a possibility, perhaps even a likely possibility. But like I said earlier, I enjoy challenges, so CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! I'm going to prove him wrong! :cool: Told him I would show up next Thanksgiving with a photo of my tank. This tank will not fail! So whether you are for me or against me, hang on for the ride.


TTM METHOD AND LIVESTOCK

A couple weeks ago I picked up a couple green chromis, and started tank transfer method. Got two 10g tanks from Petco, a bunch of airstones, a pump, tubing and heaters. Dosed prazipro a couple times. Things went without a hitch, and I was able to add them into the tank today!

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I also bought a bubble tip nem and a pair of "black ice" clowns from Neptune's, and I got them in a transfer tank. But the nem is in the tank now after a quick dip, and it seems to be doing great! Love finally having some livestock in my tank besides snails.

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FUTURE UPDATES

Tank lighting, slight diffusion Kessil optical kit, and PAR readings.
 
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Good luck with the Zeovit! I really hope you succeed. It seems like a very strict regiment.

A lot of zeovit tanks I see tend to end up having pastel washed out colors from running uln. There some stunning tanks running Zeovit but those tend to be BIG tanks.


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Good luck with Zeovit! I looked into and thought about doing it, but ultimately two things stopped me from doing it. Space in the RSR250 and my laziness. I would eventually have forgotten to put the drops in on a daily basis. Hope you do well with it!
 
It literally takes me less than a minute to dose the drops each day, and then I just have to pump the reactor, which is kinda fun.

But I guess I'm not going on vacation for awhile :). I'll need a tank buddy when I do.

I dunno Vhuang, there are lots of amazing nano tanks running zeovite too. And I can see why you wouldn't have room in your sump Randy, with all you have packed in there.
 
I hope my scare tactic will work and make you a little paranoid about being on top of it all the time...lol.

Zeovit system works! It's just very unforgiving, especially on brand spanking new system like yours, so you really gotta be on top of it.

Good luck, Gabe.
 
roostertech said:
if you are not running fuge, you might as well see if you can fit the roller mat into the downpipe area?
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thats what i did.. dumped the baffle kit and put the roller mat in. By far one of the best decisions. Keeps the tank way cleaner and 19380239802X better then dealing with dirty socks.
 
robert4025 said:
I hope my scare tactic will work and make you a little paranoid about being on top of it all the time...lol.

Zeovit system works! It's just very unforgiving, especially on brand spanking new system like yours, so you really gotta be on top of it.

Good luck, Gabe.
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Thanks Robert. I know you're trying to steer me down the path of success. Either way it'll be a learning experience :).
 
Dave B said:
thats what i did.. dumped the baffle kit and put the roller mat in. By far one of the best decisions. Keeps the tank way cleaner and 19380239802X better then dealing with dirty socks.
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I've been looking online for someone who has the rollermat in a reefer. And you're right here in this forum! Do you have a pic? Didn't see it in your build thread.
 
Wow that's even bigger than I imagined.

If there was any way to rig it into the first draining compartment, I would do it in a second. Would love to get rid of filter socks. Thanks for posting the pic.
 
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Flagg37 said:
Hmm. I might be able to get that to fit. I thought it needed to be mounted on top like they did for the BRS 160.
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Nope.. return goes into the rollermat and then out of the rollermat into the sump. Think the only thing they recommended was the water level in the sump be no higher then 5 inches from the bottom of the rollermat up.

So I built the stand to raise my rollermat up in the sump to make that requirement.

So far it one of the best investments I have gotten. It is way less work then socks and fitters the water better. Keeps the water flow WAY more consistent due to it rolling when it becomes blocked and in the 3 months I have had it, I just had to replace the roll a few weeks ago.

Only downfall is the size.. but I enjoy the tank and not the sump so its well worth the trade off in my eyes :D
 
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