Blog Comments

Think of it this way - a calcium reactor provide alkalinity and calcium to your tank all day long, instead of only right after a manual dosing. The numbers are far more stable because there are no ups and downs.

If you were to shut it down for many hours, you'd have a reactor filled with stagnant water, deprived of oxygen (thus the lowered pH). Turning it on again would dump that into your system.

It is of course important that you test daily and adjust the reactor as needed during the first three to four weeks. Once you have it where it runs correctly, it is pretty easy from that point forward with very little interaction on your part. Re-read my article again, as it will become more clear to you with each pass. http://www.melevsreef.com/calcium_reactor.html

At the risk of sounding like a complete noob, could running the reactor 24/7 potentially overdose the tank or do I have a complete lack of understanding of how it works?

Run it 24 hours a day. The controller will control the pH level in the reactor. The feedpump is always on so that the effluent can continue to flow out.

Me too. Make sure to create a new entry when you do. It will still be your blog entry, but it won't be like a build thread.

Okay cool, would love to see them.

I was actually taking a some new pics last night! I am working on enhancing them and what not so they look somewhat decent when I throw them up here. Hopefully I will get them up in the next couple of days.

Hey Yiyi, I love your rockscaping in ya tank. I've been looking at everyones tank to get ideas for my build. I want to to it very similar to yours. I would love to see an updated picture of ya tank!

I have seen this done on some other systems. The biggest drawback for me would be the fact that you lose all that water (I guess it would make you do a water change though!) Ideally I would plumb it to drain into a holding container of some sort so once you get the initial problem figured out you can just pump that water back into your system. At the same time, I'm the first to say that finding the real estate to put in an empty container that serves no purpose 99% of the time can be a real hassle, so as long as you keep some fresh saltwater made up or something in case of emergency I don't see why you couldn't do this.

For the lighting of my frag tank I am thinking of just using a simple MH pendant such as a Hamilton or Aquamedic. Not sure on the wattage yet, 150W or 250W depending on the depth I decide I want to keep the frags at. I am thinking I will go with a lower kelvin bulb like a 6500K since I will be focusing on strictly growing out the frags and then let them color up in my display under better lighting. I also have a DIY LED fixture I made a while back for a 12g nano that I used to have set up. It works great but I am going to run some par tests to see what kind of light it really puts off, I'm not convinced it will make enough for me to want to use it.

Thanks for the input!

I would agree. Speaking of making things better (more complicated), I was thinking about adding an emergency overflow standpipe to my sump. It would have the opening just below the top of the sump wall. It would drain through a bulkhead, through a water trap, and into the waste drain.

I know this will function correctly; however, I am sure there is someone out there that will explain to me why this would be unneccesary. I was thinking that it would be a back up in case my siphone holes plugged. Of course if that happened, shame on me for not checking them every few days, and I would have bigger problems to worry about if my livestock became exposed to air.

What are you going to light your frag tank with?

Thanks Marc, this is more or less what I had in mind. I just figured I'd investigate my options before I do anything with it.

I guess the easiest option is to put a uniseal in the sump and the prop section and run PVC between the two. That way water will flow back into the sump. Water can be pumped from the sump or from the return pump into the prop section.

I've been in and out of the hobby for about 10 years, but have been serious about doing real research and learning about how to do everything for about 3. I was pretty young when I first started and had a 75 gallon FOWLR setup for a few years. Then I moved out of my parents house during college and re-setup my tank as a true reef a couple years ago. It's all been downhill since then LOL. Thanks for the comments. I will be attempting to get some real pictures of the setup and equipment this weekend so you can have a better idea of how everything is laid out.

Opps, just found the pics. Looking good!

Awesome, exciting day to be sure! What have your past reefing experiences been like and can you post some pictures of the new setup?

Those pictures look great as long as they are thumbnails. Thanks for sharing them with us.

I wouldn't even turn in the lights during the cycle, as it will only result in more algae. When you are ready to turn on some lights, that's when you should have a clean up crew in there to keep up with the growth.

Sounds like it is going to be a very nice setup.

Thats interesting, I seem to recall you saying it should have been smaller when we were moving it in!

Very interesting articles. I have to agree with his ideology on reef tanks. I think half the fun of these is the fact that you are basically making a little ecosystem. It seems the consensus of the info I have gotten says to not run the lights during cycling and to add your live rock and live sand once the ammonia has settled down.

Regarding the idea to not stock anything for 12 months... I think I can safely say thats just not going to happen! LOL. I can see the reasoning behind these ideas, but I just can't see the practicality of doing it in our hobby.

Thanks for the compliments, if this tank turns out at all like what I've seen in my head for the past couple months it should be pretty cool. Then again who knows what the chances of that are!

I think the tank would have been better if it was 8'

Wow, I like the sound of your set up. I agree with you on buying the best and only buying once.

I am just about to start the cycling process, so I have been doing a bit of research. Here is some info I really like:
New Aquarium Cycle Methods - http://www.chucksaddiction.com/cyclemethods.html
The Clean Up Crew - http://www.chucksaddiction.com/cleanupcrew.html

He is very specific about how to add everything. This is just one guy's opinion. The overall theme he subscribes to is this...."A reef tank should be just that, a reef tank....not a coral display tank."

I also just read a good article by a phd student in marine biology..who also is quit and expert on reef aquariums. I cannot remember where I saw it though. He argued that no one should attempt to stock fish or corals in a tank during the first 12 months. There are sooo many dying off and rebirth cycles of different bacteria in the first 12 months, that huge levels of stress are passed on to fish and corals. There were a couple corals that were exceptions, that helped in the stabilization process. He also speculates that "old tank syndrome" can possibly be averted by replicating what nature often does. He says to move your rocks around every couple years, to emulate a dynamic natural occurrence that prevents any one species of anything in the tank from becoming dominant. This seems quite ambiguous, but interesting to think about none the less. One would want to make sure not to stress out things too much.