Mornes Reefer 170

mornewil said:
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Day 7 of cycle. Tank clearing up nicely.
SG sitting on 1.024 and temp 25.4 deg.

No sign of any diatoms or cyano yet. But keeping the lights off most of the time.

Not gonna do any mods to this tank as i want to keep a simple running setup.

Any other extra filtration methods to deploy on this tank? I was thinking just to add some orca biocubes “bomb” in the sump before skimmer.

Advice will be appreciated.
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Good choice. Bio cubes work very good
 
Wow looking good there Sir, probably cannot wait to start stocking
 
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Cycle completed and added some livestock. Need a better camera or app to take some decent pics.

Added 2 blue legged hermits, 2 snails, pair of clowns and some various small zoa frags and candy cane.

Went through diatom and gha phases and tank seems nice and clean from it for now.

My focus at this is more on deploying a decent filtration system and making the tank as easy as possible to maintain. My aim is to only do water changes once a month so need some good filtration methods.
 
Tidied my engine room up aswell. Added some finger trunking to neaten wiring and create more room to work in. I purchased a BM doser aswell which I will install at a later stage.

I would appreciate some advise on extra filtration since im currently only relying on skimmer and liverock.

Another question. Has anyone moved their heater to the overflow box? Just trying to create more room in sump and thinking if this would work.

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I ran a heater in the overflow box yes. Just make sure it sits underneath the water level when shutting of return pump. Im a big fan of bio cubes and had great success with it. Just need an airpump and your sorted
 
Dian6430 said:
I ran a heater in the overflow box yes. Just make sure it sits underneath the water level when shutting of return pump. Im a big fan of bio cubes and had great success with it. Just need an airpump and your sorted
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This was my initial plan yes but remembered the salt creep I had in the past with these. Just looking at more alternatives first.

Been reading up a bit on Seachem matrix. Never used before. Whats your take on this?
 
mornewil said:
This was my initial plan yes but remembered the salt creep I had in the past with these. Just looking at more alternatives first.

Been reading up a bit on Seachem matrix. Never used before. Whats your take on this?
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I also used seachem matrix. Ran it in a bubble magus media reactor so it stays clean. Worked great
 
mornewil said:
This was my initial plan yes but remembered the salt creep I had in the past with these. Just looking at more alternatives first.

Been reading up a bit on Seachem matrix. Never used before. Whats your take on this?
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Also i ran my bio cubes in a reactor so no salt creep. Took an old reactor body. Drilled through the bottom and added an airstone. Drilled 2mm holes in the inlet pipe and just had a outlet pipe that ended right infront the skimmer intake. No mess. Easy to add new cubes etc
 
Dian6430 said:
Also i ran my bio cubes in a reactor so no salt creep. Took an old reactor body. Drilled through the bottom and added an airstone. Drilled 2mm holes in the inlet pipe and just had a outlet pipe that ended right infront the skimmer intake. No mess. Easy to add new cubes etc
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Great stuff. Which would you say did the better job? Or did you run both? Dont also want to overkill as I have an acrylic breeding box laying around so think I will grow some chaeto in there
 
mornewil said:
Great stuff. Which would you say did the better job? Or did you run both? Dont also want to overkill as I have an acrylic breeding box laying around so think I will grow some chaeto in there
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I ran both because my tank was heavily stocked. I think ill go more towards bio cubes than matrix. Difficult to say which one is better
 
Dian6430 said:
I ran both because my tank was heavily stocked. I think ill go more towards bio cubes than matrix. Difficult to say which one is better
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Ok cool. Appreciate the input. Think i should deploy one of the two with the chaeto for now and see how it goes first.

Lets wait for some other opinions if any before I make a decision
 
Instead of cheato I think you should setup a algae scrubber. Much more efficient at exporting nutrients. There are a few different companies who produce then now or you can diy one. Santa Monica Filtration has a few nice ones.
 
Damien said:
Instead of cheato I think you should setup a algae scrubber. Much more efficient at exporting nutrients. There are a few different companies who produce then now or you can diy one. Santa Monica Filtration has a few nice ones.
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I agree, it is multiple times more efficient than chaeto, just need to design it well so you don't get salt spray all over. You won't need biocubes if you have a well designed algae scrubber, they are really good at taking up nutrients.
 
hotdog83 said:
I agree, it is multiple times more efficient than chaeto, just need to design it well so you don't get salt spray all over. You won't need biocubes if you have a well designed algae scrubber, they are really good at taking up nutrients.
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Anyone got some DIY ideas on this?
 
Hi - agree with everyone on algae scrubber - but for me requires +1 DIY skills, just more than what I am prepared to attempt. Slightly easier option is cheato reactor - grows cheato much faster than just having cheato in sump - how I'm not sure but it does! In any case the interweb has many DIY examples of both.
A suggestion on your cabinet setup - why not move your electric's outside the cabinet, and mount carbon/gfo/bio cubes reactor/s on the left side of your sump, running off your return line? Those mini reactors - half size of RODI housings- would fit in there I think.

I also don't like the ATO solutions on the Reefer tanks - I would remove that to create more space as well, and replace with external reservoir with more capacity.
 
Damien said:
Instead of cheato I think you should setup a algae scrubber. Much more efficient at exporting nutrients. There are a few different companies who produce then now or you can diy one. Santa Monica Filtration has a few nice ones.
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I have done a DIY algae scrubber in the past and you right, it works well. Who stocks the Santa monica scrubbers? Watched a few videos and looks pretty neat.
Still weighing options though as I want maintenance to be as simple as possible with whatever methods I use.
 
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