I rebuilt the lighting rack, I wasn’t crazy about a few things. Plus, I had been working with FIRGELLI on some using some actuators. I just don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze regarding lifting/raising my rack. I’d have to mount them horizontally and then utilize pulleys, etc. I do have something up my sleeve, but, that is a couple months down the road. So, here is the final rack, less 2 XR30s, those will be mounted when I break down the stock tank, which will happen in the next couple days. I also plumbed 2out of the 3 return pumps. I also built and installed a dual manifold system system that will power 4 1” RFGs, 2 per return pump (L2s).
The Dry Reef - What's old is new! 96x36x25 Peninsula
- Monster Build
- Thread starter WhatCouldGoWrong71
- Start date
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Man, lots going on. Ive been focused on doing video updates on Insta @thedryreef.
I’ll need to get in front of my laptop to type stuff out. Consolidating two tanks into a new one is a daunting task. Not only do I basically have two complete systems but I didn’t have one to start out with (electronics, etc). It’s made it tricky. I got some Dino’s in the transition process ( sigh…), had a heater controller fall in my sump, found out the replacement is 2 degrees off and the jury is still out on if I am going to need a chiller or not. My fish room is kinda chilly now and my tank was 78.2 this AM so when the halides come on, the tank will now be 2 degrees cooler. I found a 1.5” gorilla crab in my Acro tank I broke down. It must haven been in their from 19 months ago when I added new wet gulf rock, also explains a few things. I’m amazed at how much 2 part all this is soaking up. But I’m holding my PH at 8.48+ so not super looking forward to fighting to get a PH above 8.1 with my CARX.
I’ll need to get in front of my laptop to type stuff out. Consolidating two tanks into a new one is a daunting task. Not only do I basically have two complete systems but I didn’t have one to start out with (electronics, etc). It’s made it tricky. I got some Dino’s in the transition process ( sigh…), had a heater controller fall in my sump, found out the replacement is 2 degrees off and the jury is still out on if I am going to need a chiller or not. My fish room is kinda chilly now and my tank was 78.2 this AM so when the halides come on, the tank will now be 2 degrees cooler. I found a 1.5” gorilla crab in my Acro tank I broke down. It must haven been in their from 19 months ago when I added new wet gulf rock, also explains a few things. I’m amazed at how much 2 part all this is soaking up. But I’m holding my PH at 8.48+ so not super looking forward to fighting to get a PH above 8.1 with my CARX.
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I added a healthy dose of @Reef By Steele pods, and those jerks were starving, they ate all my Dino’s overnight. I’ve been using Kent for pods for some time now, he and his wife are great people with great product. Highly highly recommend. This is not a paid advertisement. I plan to post the good the bad and the ugly when I am done with the build out.
Check out my Par. The XR30s are at about 60%. Both the 8 XR30s and the 4 250w MH are 14-15 inches from the water. The XRs have the narrow high intensity lenses on them. The T5s are at a 45 with the lower bulb about 8” off the water. Currently running all channels for 6 hours and blues for 6 hours. T5s are on 7 hours and I am up to 90 minutes with all 3. I have 10K Ushios in the MH and a white full and a blue plus in the T5.
Currently have 4 L2’s and a A400. I was going to add a 5th L2 and have RFGs come down from above. I’ve gone a different direction. I’m quickly becoming a Tunze fanboy.
Coral and rock are about where they will reside. Time to keep my hands out of the stew for a while. Still so so much to do. Just found out I have to go to Hawaii for 6 days in 2 weeks for work. Tank isn’t ready for me to not be around. I’m going to have to shift my priorities around. I don’t even have my ATO reservoir on auto refill yet.
Well, just because…
I’m chipping away at a bunch of things. Got the Royal Exclusive 200 Deluxe skimmer online. The controller is wonky, I’m not a fan at all of the controller. For the amount that this skimmer costs, the controller should be much better. It’s also different than what I see in the videos online. I also bought a red dragon to Apex cord and it doesn’t work. The controller is obviously not produced by red dragon or based on that platform. But the skimmer itself is to die for. I was able to dial it in within about 25 minutes. Holds a head instantly and has been producing muck fantastically. I think I am going to turn it off nightly and just run it about 14 hours a day.
I also put my CARX online, I’m kinda running everything, meaning that, Kalk 16 hours starting at 8pm and I’m dosing 2 part with sodium hydroxide. I was holding ph at about 8.5. I was dosing about 280 mil a day, I backed that up some when I started to bring my CARX online. The ph suppression is causing me to have a depression. I’m running a high of 8.25 now.
I was able to get my reservoir in place. I have 3 fans running on high 24/7 across my water. I have a whole house dehumidifier in my fish room, and 3 humidity gauges. Humidity isn’t going above 30%, so my dehumidifier is not turning on. But, I am evaporating about 7 gallons a day. I’m putting 3.5 gallons of kalk through my reactor, I’m just not sure if I should put the full 7 in and if I should do that over 24 hours
I’m starting to clean up the wiring. This weekend I am going to get the cryptic sump online. This thing is a beauty. Joe over at Glass Cages made this for me. It’s a 60g cube made out of black acrylic. I just need to figure out how I want to plumb it this weekend.
Here is a bunch of random pics I took tonight:
I also put my CARX online, I’m kinda running everything, meaning that, Kalk 16 hours starting at 8pm and I’m dosing 2 part with sodium hydroxide. I was holding ph at about 8.5. I was dosing about 280 mil a day, I backed that up some when I started to bring my CARX online. The ph suppression is causing me to have a depression. I’m running a high of 8.25 now.
I was able to get my reservoir in place. I have 3 fans running on high 24/7 across my water. I have a whole house dehumidifier in my fish room, and 3 humidity gauges. Humidity isn’t going above 30%, so my dehumidifier is not turning on. But, I am evaporating about 7 gallons a day. I’m putting 3.5 gallons of kalk through my reactor, I’m just not sure if I should put the full 7 in and if I should do that over 24 hours
I’m starting to clean up the wiring. This weekend I am going to get the cryptic sump online. This thing is a beauty. Joe over at Glass Cages made this for me. It’s a 60g cube made out of black acrylic. I just need to figure out how I want to plumb it this weekend.
Here is a bunch of random pics I took tonight:
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This weekend:
1) Finish getting the Mastertronic online
2) Mount Dosetronic. I need to evaluate what will be for what. CARX and Kalk will be on this and nutrient control also. That opens up some heads. I’m running A and K for now, if I go back to The Shine, I could like put that on dosing heads now. 4 of the Versa will be used for AWC. I had Geo put 1/4 bulk heads in both roller mat chambers. First chamber will pull water out and I will dump new water in the second chamber. I’ll use 2 Versa heads for in and 2 Versa heads out.
3) put a work station together out of Tslot
4) put cryptic in its place and add a couple additional cross beams. And plumb.
5) put frag tank in place and plumb. Start getting lighting in place. I’ll be using metal halides on my frag. I’m so glad I added these to my main display. It had changed the game. It’s like I added steroids to the tank over night. No joke.
6) put some floor protection down
I’m only working one day this week, so, if I don’t get to all this, I will during the holiday break.
1) Finish getting the Mastertronic online
2) Mount Dosetronic. I need to evaluate what will be for what. CARX and Kalk will be on this and nutrient control also. That opens up some heads. I’m running A and K for now, if I go back to The Shine, I could like put that on dosing heads now. 4 of the Versa will be used for AWC. I had Geo put 1/4 bulk heads in both roller mat chambers. First chamber will pull water out and I will dump new water in the second chamber. I’ll use 2 Versa heads for in and 2 Versa heads out.
3) put a work station together out of Tslot
4) put cryptic in its place and add a couple additional cross beams. And plumb.
5) put frag tank in place and plumb. Start getting lighting in place. I’ll be using metal halides on my frag. I’m so glad I added these to my main display. It had changed the game. It’s like I added steroids to the tank over night. No joke.
6) put some floor protection down
I’m only working one day this week, so, if I don’t get to all this, I will during the holiday break.
Lighting Acclimation:
Since I have introduced Halides to my system, I am seeing almost instant results. It’s amazing. I had growth, encrusting and PE before. But now, I have a tremendous amount of white tips everywhere. You can see how happy the coral is under the Halide bulbs.
As a reminder - I have 8 XR30 G5s with high intensity lenses. These are mounted at the same height as the halides are, 14 inches from the bottom of the fixture to the water’s surface. I also have T5s. XR30s start coming on at 9am, at 10am they are done ramping. At 10:30 the halides come on, I also ramp the XR30s down at 10 to 10:30 to lower the par as part of the acclimation process. The T5s come on at 10:30 also. From 10:30 to 12:30 halides stay on with the lower XR30 PAR impact. From 12:30 to 1:30 (I just started this additional hour this week) I ramp up the XR30s and once the XR30s are at peak, the halides shut off. Ultimately I want my halides on 6 hours with the XR30s at the illustrated peak.
If you look at the picture, #1 Is when halides come on, #2 is when they shut off. Ultimately I want them on with the PAR output between 2 & 3.
Par with the halides, T5 and XR30s when the halides come on:
Par with all 3 lighting options on with the XR30 PAR output between 2 & 3:
If I crank my Radions up all the way, I can get nearly 1k PAR. Then the tank was bare with only water, the par was silly at the bottom >1k.
I’m using Ushio 10k bulbs. I really like these. I have 14 and 20s and the par really falls off at the 20k level.
Since I have introduced Halides to my system, I am seeing almost instant results. It’s amazing. I had growth, encrusting and PE before. But now, I have a tremendous amount of white tips everywhere. You can see how happy the coral is under the Halide bulbs.
As a reminder - I have 8 XR30 G5s with high intensity lenses. These are mounted at the same height as the halides are, 14 inches from the bottom of the fixture to the water’s surface. I also have T5s. XR30s start coming on at 9am, at 10am they are done ramping. At 10:30 the halides come on, I also ramp the XR30s down at 10 to 10:30 to lower the par as part of the acclimation process. The T5s come on at 10:30 also. From 10:30 to 12:30 halides stay on with the lower XR30 PAR impact. From 12:30 to 1:30 (I just started this additional hour this week) I ramp up the XR30s and once the XR30s are at peak, the halides shut off. Ultimately I want my halides on 6 hours with the XR30s at the illustrated peak.
If you look at the picture, #1 Is when halides come on, #2 is when they shut off. Ultimately I want them on with the PAR output between 2 & 3.
Par with the halides, T5 and XR30s when the halides come on:
Par with all 3 lighting options on with the XR30 PAR output between 2 & 3:
If I crank my Radions up all the way, I can get nearly 1k PAR. Then the tank was bare with only water, the par was silly at the bottom >1k.
I’m using Ushio 10k bulbs. I really like these. I have 14 and 20s and the par really falls off at the 20k level.
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I should add, half my Radions are blue and half are pro. There is a noticeable different in par output between the two. You can see this in the sand bed par numbers.
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Thank you for documenting your tank. I’m curious what drove your decision to move to an ozone reactor vs just running it through your skimmer?
I’m liking the idea that your reactor runs through carbon before returning the water back into the sump!
Also - how many hours per day do you run ozone?
I’m liking the idea that your reactor runs through carbon before returning the water back into the sump!
Also - how many hours per day do you run ozone?
2 reasons - part of this started when I was doing planted tanks and injecting CO2. I could never figure out. Way to truly mix without a reactor. So, when I started working towards this build, I did a bunch of research. I have two very nosey dogs that I worried about. So I knew I needed to run through some carbon. My first pass at this was doing what Devon from Reef Dudes did. I ran a second skimmer and put a bunch of carbon in the cup. That was a pile of crap, ineffective and I still smelled it. I had decided that @geo was going to build a few things for me, so after several conversations with him on this reactor, I decided to go with it. I couldn’t be happier with it. I would just make sure you think through every bit of placement. I had this under one of my old tanks and I did a poor job of installing it and paid the price. Due to my lack of judgement, it fell over and blocked one of the hoses causing a small spill, completely my fault. Just make sure that the discharge hose can never be blocked. Every 45 minutes it is on for 9 minutes, 24 hours a day. I use the OCS command. I have my ORP set to 350 in order to shut this down. I have the Ozonetech set to 3. I am sitting 40 feet from the tank. It has gotten so clear since I have put this online. I just got my Mastertronic online and that OLI test it does for organic compounds was nearly a zero.
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