Reef Pilot's Undersea Oasis

[Reef Pilot]

This is my tank overflow. Definitely no bean animal, herbie or durso... Just one drain at the bottom flowing down to the sump in the basement. No noise, though, but the flow is not that high. And the top of the overflow has a styrofoam cover and is inside a closed canopy. I clean the teeth at the top with a toothbrush every few months, to prevent any algae build-up. It's been this way for 13 years, and never a problem.

[Reef Pilot]

Right beside the sump, on the right, is a 1/3 hp chiller. It was driven by a Mag 5 (500 gph) in the sump. With the T5's and all the pumps, never needed a heater initially. But the chiller ran a lot.


Also in this pic, on the right, is my DIY carbon/gfo reactor which I added later. It is just an old Ro canister set that I converted by enlarging the ports to 3/8 lines to increase flow. The first canister is just a pre-filter, the 2nd for carbon, and the 3rd has GFO.

[Reef Pilot]

To the left is a 2nd sump that I was using for a 2nd tank that I set up downstairs. But initially, it was my QT for new fish, as well a refugium with caulerpa and chaeto.


I had it connected to the sump using this DIY overflow. It had an airline connected to the intake side of a pump in the sump which made it basically foolproof. It prevented the syphon from ever breaking, and would self prime if the power went off.

[Reef Pilot]

And oh, almost forgot about this giant MDM Sequence (not sure about the model name) 3600 gph pump which was used to to drive a closed loop system in my upstairs tank. I decommissioned it after adding some in-tank wavemaker powerheads. Anybody looking for a powerful but cheap return pump?...

[Reef Pilot]

I mentioned at the beginning that I had really high nitrates (up to 100ppm) in my 10+ year old tank. After reading on Canreef and elsewhere about refugiums and macro algae, I decided to give that a try. As you can see, caulerpa and chaeto thrived in there.


But it didn't make a dent with my nitrates. I also did big water changes, and the nitrates would drop a bit then, but be right back up there in a few days. Seems that I just couldn't get them to stay below 40 ppm for any length of time.

[Reef Pilot]

I also bought a new skimmer (Vertex In-280), and while it definitely pulled more skimmate, still wasn't making much of a difference with my nitrate problem.


Then I read about bio pellet reactors, so went out and bought a Vertex UF20 (just to the left of the skimmer). I also used MB7 to prevent cyano. I started out slowly with the bio pellets (as recommended), and initially didn't get much results, even after a few months. But gradually I increased the bio pellets and was able to fill the entire reactor with bio pellets (1000 ml). Then finally, my nitrates started to come down. It took another 6 months or so, but eventually they came down right to zero. I had to top up the reactor every few months. But no question in my mind, bio pellets do work, if you have a serious nitrate problem. Again, want to emphasize the importance of MB7 to out compete the cyano.

I still run the bio pellet reactor today, and my nitrates stay at zero. But interestingly, the bio pellet consumption has all but stopped, and have not had to replenish the reactor for almost a year now. I am even considering stopping it, just to see what would happen to my nitrates.

Once the nitrates were under control, I also added GFO to bring down my phosphates. That was with my 3 canister DIY reactor as shown earlier in this thread. It took another 6 months or so for the phosphates to come down (were over 1.0) to zero. But finally had my tank down to zero phosphates and nitrates.

And it really showed in the tank, with the detritus and algae pretty well gone completely. Of course, all along the way, I was scrubbing the rocks and vacuuming the sand. But eventually it all paid off.

[Reef Pilot]

When we bought the house and inherited the SW tank system, it came with an RO (no DI) system under the kitchen sink. It also had a pressure storage tank, which meant you always had a a few gallons of ready made RO water, and a faucet upstairs for household use. And a line ran downstairs to the sump room for the SW tank use.

However, the RO system was not owned, and we had to pay $30+ a month to Canadian Springs to maintain it (change filters, etc). Well, after being on Canreef and searching around on the internet, I soon discovered there was a better way, ie. install and maintain your own.

I bought this used RO/DI from a local Canreefer, and turns out, it is a pretty good system.
http://www.airwaterice.com/product/1...r-100-GPD.html



It is 75 gpd, has an Auto Shut Off valve and I have an inline dual TDS meter giving after RO and after DI readings. It also has a pressure gauge. I retained the pressure storage tank and separate RO only feed for upstairs use and drinking water. Here is a pic of the RO faucet on the kitchen sink.



So I am pretty happy with my RO/DI system.