Hello fellow reef tank lovers. I wanted to share my experience with the Nano mat roller in a tank that's not a red sea tank and how it works as a 4" filter sock replacement. TLDR - Its awesome. This unit does not have any connectivity to the red sea apps and only functions on its own but the controller and brain is the same as their other units. Just no internet connectivity. That's fine with me. When using this as a filter sock replacement it requires the 4" sock ring holder that it ships with and you MUST REMOVE a small piece of plastic on the opposite side of the inflow side. This is not explained unless you download the instructions from the site as none come with it. The functionality works based on 2 sensors. 1 will roll the mat about 4" when the water level reaches the lower sensor. The other will shut off the rolling if the water level reaches the high water sensor. This is in case you shut off your return pump and the water level in your sump rises above the first sensor and prevents wasting the clean matting.
Firstly here's how my custom made sump works. (Check out my build thread for detailed info) It has 2 filter sock holes. I only bought 1 nano mat roller though as this will function much better than using 2 filter socks anyway. More on that below.
As you can see there is plenty of room for at least one of these units. What I experienced was a bit of trouble getting it inside my sump ad there was not a lot of room between the sump and the top of the cabinet and the unit is very tall fully assembled.
What I had to do to get it in was remove the motor controller from the top and then work some magic with angles to get it inside the filter sock section.
Once it was inside and turned on I was faced with the problem of plugging the 2nd filter sock hole. I wanted to make a custom plug so that I could still use this filter sock hole when I clean the display tank. I use a filter sock to catch all the algae that I'm removing so that the water just recirculates and I can clean for as long as it takes.
What I did to resolve this issue is I took one of my old filter socks (Don't need them anymore now) I cut the sock off and then took one of my filter sock caps and siliconed it in also filling all the holes in the cap. This way I now have a disk I can put in the hole that plugs it and allows the water level to function on the nano mat roller.
Now I was in business. This thing has been a life changer. No more changing and washing filter socks over and over. No more overflows to the safety line in the filter sock area causing top off pumping too much RODI water into the tank offsetting salinity. This is great.
I've been using this for about a month now and have not needed to replace the roller material yet.
I highly recommend this to anyone looking to buy. Will update here and answer questions as I can.
Firstly here's how my custom made sump works. (Check out my build thread for detailed info) It has 2 filter sock holes. I only bought 1 nano mat roller though as this will function much better than using 2 filter socks anyway. More on that below.
As you can see there is plenty of room for at least one of these units. What I experienced was a bit of trouble getting it inside my sump ad there was not a lot of room between the sump and the top of the cabinet and the unit is very tall fully assembled.
What I had to do to get it in was remove the motor controller from the top and then work some magic with angles to get it inside the filter sock section.
Once it was inside and turned on I was faced with the problem of plugging the 2nd filter sock hole. I wanted to make a custom plug so that I could still use this filter sock hole when I clean the display tank. I use a filter sock to catch all the algae that I'm removing so that the water just recirculates and I can clean for as long as it takes.
What I did to resolve this issue is I took one of my old filter socks (Don't need them anymore now) I cut the sock off and then took one of my filter sock caps and siliconed it in also filling all the holes in the cap. This way I now have a disk I can put in the hole that plugs it and allows the water level to function on the nano mat roller.
Now I was in business. This thing has been a life changer. No more changing and washing filter socks over and over. No more overflows to the safety line in the filter sock area causing top off pumping too much RODI water into the tank offsetting salinity. This is great.
I've been using this for about a month now and have not needed to replace the roller material yet.
I highly recommend this to anyone looking to buy. Will update here and answer questions as I can.
