Jesse's WB Infinia 150.4 Build

[JHSteepat]

Knee deep in the ugly stage. Cyano and hair algae all over everything. CuC not keeping up. I tested phosphates and nitrates today and got 0 for nitrates and between .075 and .1 for phosphate (pH 8.3, alk 8.8, Ca 410, Mg 1360, tank at 77 degrees).

Looks like I am getting strong cyano and hair algae growth. Also seeing strong coralline growth. All sorts of colors on the rocks. Coral is growing well. The lepastrea is looking great and the styloconiella is looking happy and appears to be growing. Chalice, favia, anacropora, lepto, and candy cane corals are all growing and colorful.

 

[JHSteepat]

I toothbrushed rock for the last two weeks and the hair algae and cyano are quite a bit better but not gone. Got some felt filter socks which seem to be helping.

Started adding a little vinegar to the kalk to help dissolve and to carbon dose a little bit.

Coralline algae is finally taking off. All corals look good and seem to be growing well with good polyp extension, including the SPS (leptoseris, anacropora, birdsnest, and styloconiella), and fish are active and eating well.

Had a major event Saturday night with the Helio heater. Temp dropped overnight to 70. The heater element is located in sump right where the skimmer chamber exits into the return chamber. Kept giving me an “e5” error which I understand has to do with not enough flow around the heating element. I cleaned it in citric acid along with the probe and tried it in different parts of the aquarium, and it still gave me the error. It had been flawless for the first 6 months.

I didn’have an adequate backup, so I went to Petco and got an aqueon 300w, with a 300w Jager on order as backup. Put hygger powerhead from mixing station in sump flowing over the heater. Seems OK, what I should have just gotten an inkbird and two 300w Ti elements, the Helio in hindsight seems too complex. All heaters are on the Hydros system as backup, anyhow.

D’oh redux - Had the right Octopulse 4 on inverse setting on waveengine. Fixed that and flow in tank is much improved. Maybe that will help with the cyano.

 

[JHSteepat]

Just a coral update. Still have cyano and gha, but also getting lots of coralline. Corals are really growing and I have 10 on order from Tidal Gardens. Stylophoras, montis (dig and encrusting), a favia, a couple cyphastreas, a psammacora, and a hardier acro to test waters. Anacropora, styloconiella, and leptospirus in tank are growing well. Stylocoelinella is frustrating. Supposed to be burning banana but all I see are polyps, which I suppose I should be OK with.

 

[JHSteepat]

Black Friday coral order, going for some medium difficulty (hopefully) corals to pick up at Tidal Gardens.

 

[JHSteepat]

I drove to Copley OH a couple of weeks ago and picked up the frags at Tidal Gardens, a 2-hr drive. Have them growing on a rack on the bottom of the tank. Everything is super healthy and I need to consider placement. The rainbow Monti, lepto, favia, and psammacora are growing off the plug already, so I need to find a home soon!

 

[JHSteepat]

The cyano outbreak seems to be mostly over, and the GHA is looking a little more manageable. I am not loving the refugium, so have a SantaMonica Rain2 on order both to gain sump space and to fix the mess in the 'fuge. The refugium only wants to grow hair algae anyhow, and if I overfeed, I can just grow more algae in the closed box. I started to use filter socks, but don't love them either, so I'll just rely on the ATS and skimmer.

 

[JHSteepat]

Update,

I moved all corals to their intended location, dropped the light intensity to avoid burning up the corals now higher up, and will gradually increase intensity. I had to glue down the anacropora, digitatas, and a couple others as they were in high-flow areas.

So far I am getting amazing growth from all corals. The rainbow Monti and watermelon psammacora started to encrust the rack after only a couple of weeks.

I installed the Santa Monica RAIN2 (Sicce 1.5, what a pain connecting the two), and what a difference in terms of organization. I removed to refugium overflow and cheato/gha mixture, and now am getting much lower noise from the sump . I'll try not to complain as the GHA overtakes the tank while the ATS is trying to establish. It has its work to do with nitrates at0 and phosphates at 0.09 due to the efficient algae scrubbing in the DT.

 

[JHSteepat]

Last Friday was a pain, as I ran three 1/4' lines and a speaker wire from my basement, under my kitchen sink, and through a closet wall to the room with the display tank. ATO reservoir will feed from the basement (osmolator plus Turbelle high-jet pump that should pump the 8-9 feet vertical and ~20 feet horizontal from the basement location to the sump, and therefore one 1/4" tube plus speaker wire). The other two lines will be connected to Versa pumps in the basement, one from the saltwater mixing station and the other to the sink drain. Now to figure out AWCs on the Mobius and/or Hydros systems.

Any thoughts or guidance would be appreciated.

 

[Tracdog]

How do you like the. WB Infinia 150.4? Any pros or cons? I’m thinking about getting this tank and really like the size of the sump and space to use a mat roller. Any thoughts on adding one on yours?

How is the noise level of the tank? I want to have mine close to my desk where I work but don’t want too much noise.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Curious if there are any updates!

 

[JHSteepat]

I’ll update soon. Kinda just working through hair algae, getting the turf scrubber up and running.

 

[JHSteepat]

How do you like the. WB Infinia 150.4? Any pros or cons? I’m thinking about getting this tank and really like the size of the sump and space to use a mat roller. Any thoughts on adding one on yours?

How is the noise level of the tank? I want to have mine close to my desk where I work but don’t want too much noise.

I love the tank and the stand is solid. Overall, i am very pleased. Some minor issues that are not deal-breakers.

The refugium chamber is a little small and chaeto was messy and caused extra noise clogging the weir, and was overrun with hair algae, so I recently went with a Rain2 ats that is just starting to grow algae.

I had to be REALLY patient with delivery, but time passed quickly enough. Better to manage your expectations.

As to plumbing, I will eventually re-plumb as the plumbing as-installed is satisfactory but a little hard to dial in. Not 100% quiet, but I have a gyre powerhead on a varying flow schedule that pushes more or less water through the overflow, causing some gurgles. I think you will never have a perfectly quiet tank, but this should be tolerable. The roller mat might quiet the noise I am having from the overflow waterfall into the filter sock compartment.

For servicing, I also am not a fan of the essentially inaccessible one way valve in the overflow chamber. Just put siphon breaks in the return tubes.

Use 2x 300w heating elements. I bought a 500w which is really too long for the sump.

I like the sump, but there is no real room underneath with the ato reservoir in place, but you will need a bigger tank for more room. I put the ato reservoir in a cabinet at first, but now am running the ato from my basement. Now I have a nice 8g rimless tank….I guess.

This last comment is based on the fact that I had a 55g tank as a sump in my basement for my last tank, which is a MUCH better setup IMHO (I am also older and 6’3x250 lbs so hate working in the sump). If you plumb the sump remotely, this would be an amazing setup.

 

[JHSteepat]

Any thoughts on adding one on yours?

Further to the comment above, I can see adding one later if, once the ATS matures and that, with the skimmer don’t effectively export nutrients.

Once the ATS matures, I am thinking of ditching the socks and using that first chamber for a carbon reactor.

I’d like to repeat how much better a remote sump at counter level would be (not a waterbox thing). I am hating cramming everything in the cabinet, and being limited in that manner.

 

[JHSteepat]

Update. I am patiently waiting for the ATS to grow hair algae. It is having a rough time competing with the tank’s algae. I have been talking with the Santa Monica people, who told me to be patient, as the screen is slow to populate when competing with the tank’s algae.

To this end, I am slowly seeing growth on the screen. So all good, but it is characteristic of low nutrients. I have faith that the algae will eventually take off as it grew well when I had the refugium.

Tank is a mess, though I understand that the display algae may temporarily get worse as phosphate desorbs from the rock after 9 months of sucking up phosphate.

At the vendor’s suggestion, I am going to take a leap of faith and not continue toothbrushing the rock, and will just pull any major clumps, as they appear. Once the ATS is more fully established, the tank algae should go away.

 

[JHSteepat]

I suddenly have enough fish and corals I care anough about, so I broke down and purchased the pieces of a power backup system including a Redodo 100Ah LiFePO4 battery, a Redodo 1000w sine wave inverter, a Xantrex auto transfer switch, and a Noco Genius5 charger. This will back up the return pump (~30-35w per hydros) to keep everything alive if power is down. Should run for well over a day. Knock wood but I don’t recall a longer power outage in my area in the last couple of decades.

I could have gone with a kraken, but system would have been well over $1000, and this at least allows me to charge my phone or run my router. And was about half the price. Probably will get a second battery to run in parallel, in future. I could have powered the waveengine via the kraken and got a much longer run time but I get to keep my sump running with this system. Again, I can just get a second battery -or run the waveengine from the inverter.

 

[JHSteepat]

Well I killed my first coral. The rainbow Monti. It bleached a couple of weeks ago. Not sure why, parameters were steady and in a good range, and I moved two Monti digs at the same time to the same level, same flow, and they are growing well. I suppose it was light-shocked, but so far it's the only frag of ~15 that didn't take. I will break it off the rocks and put it at the bottom of the tank to see if there is anything to salvage.

As to the algae mess. I am seeing some more growth in the ATS , but green algae is mostly at the top, with brown lime now covering most of the scrubber. It looks like pictures of scrubbers that are 2-3 weeks from growing nice turf algae.

I really don't want to move forward with additional fish or corals until I get the algae/nutrient export under some control. Maybe I should have kept the refugium while I waited to establish the ATS.

I'll probably start QTing some fish soon, but I also "need" some gonis, euphyllia, and acros. My wife wants me to get some "flowy" corals

 

[JHSteepat]

Ugh, I am sick of the gha, with the ats barely making headway but growing algae a bit more each week. Still only using one of the four lights in the RAIN2.

Somebody please tell me it will get better. I grow algae so well in the display and I only can pull algae from the display on weekends, but hopefully I will make some headway with the scrubber soon……

Five Mexican Turbos plus a few astreas and hermits, aren’t making a dent in the 2-3” tufts of gha.

Good news is that corals are surviving with most growing well despite this.

 

[JHSteepat]

My wife wanted “flowy” corals, so I got a hammer and an alveopora at the lfs. My first euphyllia and goni (type), so lets see how it goes. Pix below. The alveopora is actually pink. Both ate up some reef roids.

Also got a bali slimer that I swear has doubled in size in The past week. And a purple acro of some sort that I damaged a little, but it seems OK.

Had a monti dig break off a couple of weeks ago. I glued it down but it RTN’d yesterday. At least I still have the base, which is growing well. I am not having the best luck with montis. Wondering if it thet are lower light or over-sensitive as I’ve been bouncing around my light schedule a bit much lately.

 

[JHSteepat]

Also, I have another tomini on order from dr Reef along with a Springerii damsel and a diamond watchman goby. I need to put the lid together.

 

[JHSteepat]

RIP foxface. Skittish fish went carpet surfing while I am out of town. Sad because it just started coming right up to the dropper I use for feeding thawed food.

My daughter’s friend got splashed in the face while they were looking at tank. Now we know why. I’m just happy my puppy didn’t eat it. Until we found it behind the tank I was worried what would happen if the dog ate the spines.

I planned to finish the mesh lid last weekend but had to go out of town……Murphy’s Law in action.