DanTheReefer’s ProStar 150

[InactiveAcct]

New house, new tank. Upgraded my classic 75 gallon to a ProStar 150 (120 gallon display).

To a greater extent than my prior tanks over past 17 years, I really wanted this one to be aesthetically pleasing within the house and have it as a focal point of living area in the home. It is direct line of sight from front door.



Equipment:
Lights: 3X NooPsyche K7 V3
Flow: Ecotech MP40 and Jebao OW-40
Return: Orlushy DC-9000
Skimmer: Reef Octopus 150 EXT

Controller: I made a reef-pi (Raspberry Pi 4) with temp/ ph monitoring, and 3X outlet control. Planning to add dosing soon. I have an old iPad2 next to tank that displays ReefPi Ph and temp
Old iPad showing Pi stats


Control board


Power bar for ReefPi that I designed and printed



Filtration:
Protein skimmer, 3X filter socks (dislike but it’s noisy without them), BRS 6” media reactor for occasional carbon. Also plastic bio balls in sump so I can quickly spin up a QT. Sump is definitely the biggest eye sore of the system.


Params:
Temp: 75 F
Ph: 7.6-8.0 typical day
Alk: 6.5 dKh
Phos: .25 ppm
Don’t test others frequently

Dosing:
All for Reef by hand, daily

Water changes: Almost never, tank is dialed in, but I did a lot while tank was breaking in years ago. If an issue arises I just do a lot of water changes while trying to figure out root cause

Fish:
Kole Tang
2X Classic Oscellaris Clowns
2X Chromis
1X Coral Beauty
1X Royal Gramma

All of the fish are 2+ years old

Coral:
Mostly easy SPS like montis, most are beautiful mature colonies now




I may be wrong but feel like this Monti may be somewhat unique with its green spots amongst the red. Maybe time to get some space from the torch…


New Mai Thai Goni (bad photo)



Torch:



Zoas:

Anyone know what zoa below is?


Frog Spawn:


Porities


Other Inverts:
Derasa Clam



Shrimp



More photos, how about an orange filter:










Things I’d like to improve:
-Bare spots in sand
-Fuge light spill
-Cabinet tidiness
-Aquascape for right half of tank

Let me know your thoughts

Prior 75 G tank

 

[SPR1968]

Very nice Dan!

 

[CasperOe]

Looks great, well done and thanks for sharing!!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

New house, new tank. Upgraded my classic 75 gallon to a ProStar 150 (120 gallon display).

To a greater extent than my prior tanks over past 17 years, I really wanted this one to be aesthetically pleasing within the house and have it as a focal point of living area in the home. It is direct line of sight from front door.



Equipment:
Lights: 3X NooPsyche K7 V3
Flow: Ecotech MP40 and Jebao OW-40
Return: Orlushy DC-9000
Skimmer: Reef Octopus 150 EXT

Controller: I made a reef-pi (Raspberry Pi 4) with temp/ ph monitoring, and 3X outlet control. Planning to add dosing soon. I have an old iPad2 next to tank that displays ReefPi Ph and temp
Old iPad showing Pi stats


Control board


Power bar for ReefPi that I designed and printed



Filtration:
Protein skimmer, 3X filter socks (dislike but it’s noisy without them), BRS 6” media reactor for occasional carbon. Also plastic bio balls in sump so I can quickly spin up a QT. Sump is definitely the biggest eye sore of the system.


Params:
Temp: 75 F
Ph: 7.6-8.0 typical day
Alk: 6.5 dKh
Phos: .25 ppm
Don’t test others frequently

Dosing:
All for Reef by hand, daily

Water changes: Almost never, tank is dialed in, but I did a lot while tank was breaking in years ago. If an issue arises I just do a lot of water changes while trying to figure out root cause

Fish:
Kole Tang
2X Classic Oscellaris Clowns
2X Chromis
1X Coral Beauty
1X Royal Gramma

All of the fish are 2+ years old

Coral:
Mostly easy SPS like montis, most are beautiful mature colonies now




I may be wrong but feel like this Monti may be somewhat unique with its green spots amongst the red. Maybe time to get some space from the torch…


New Mai Thai Goni (bad photo)



Torch:



Zoas:

Anyone know what zoa below is?


Frog Spawn:


Porities


Other Inverts:
Derasa Clam



Shrimp



More photos, how about an orange filter:










Things I’d like to improve:
-Bare spots in sand
-Fuge light spill
-Cabinet tidiness
-Aquascape for right half of tank

Let me know your thoughts

Prior 75 G tank

Some great coral in your tank!

 

[InactiveAcct]

@SPR1968 @CasperOe @Gumbies R Us
Thanks!!

 

[Macsreefs]

The tank looks awesome! love the new set up!! I’ve had a few tips from people with rock work when aquascaping that helped me a lot so I’ll pass it on. It’s pretty basic really. I had a bunch of rocks kinda thrown in mine and it didn’t look the best, I tried to make caves and find the perfect rocks that looked like caves for the fish and also aesthetics. After a year or so of moving stuff around and ticking off everything someone finally gave the the bright idea of using a chisel… ya simple right just a chisel and hammer and slowly chisel away. Go slow and when you get the rocks to the size and shape you want and try to stack them… if they rest on each other well stick some glue under and let it hold for a few minutes… I finally have a structure / aquascape I find somewhat appealing and you can’t see glue or any chisel marks or anything… if you have any advice for me or tips/input I would love to hear it!

 

[InactiveAcct]

The tank looks awesome! love the new set up!! I’ve had a few tips from people with rock work when aquascaping that helped me a lot so I’ll pass it on. It’s pretty basic really. I had a bunch of rocks kinda thrown in mine and it didn’t look the best, I tried to make caves and find the perfect rocks that looked like caves for the fish and also aesthetics. After a year or so of moving stuff around and ticking off everything someone finally gave the the bright idea of using a chisel… ya simple right just a chisel and hammer and slowly chisel away. Go slow and when you get the rocks to the size and shape you want and try to stack them… if they rest on each other well stick some glue under and let it hold for a few minutes… I finally have a structure / aquascape I find somewhat appealing and you can’t see glue or any chisel marks or anything… if you have any advice for me or tips/input I would love to hear it!

Your tank looks great and thanks for suggestions, definitely fish friendly with the hiding places.

So I did at one point put the time into scaping when I first set up the 75 with dry rock 4 years ago and there was a lot of breaking and bonding the rocks, was almost happy with it. During the two tank moves in a year it felt like a bit of a bleep show and I wasn’t able to get things back to where they were in one piece.

Prior to move #1:


After move #1, knew this would be temporary so mostly set up to keep things alive vs aesthetics


Prior to move #2:


After move #2:


After some rearranging:

 

[KQuillan]

I am looking at the same tank. Are you satisfied with the quality and its performance overall? I am looking at this one compared to the IM's.

 

[InactiveAcct]

I am looking at the same tank. Are you satisfied with the quality and its performance overall? I am looking at this one compared to the IM's.

Overall very happy, tank is beautiful, the high gloss stand is pretty unique and looks really nice. I’ll get into the details on the gripes, but I would still buy again.

All of my complaints are geared towards the overflow, and I think IM does a lot better in that category. The Prostar is internal vs external for the IMs I looked at. Workmanship issue, my overflow tower actually is not exactly center, I think about a half inch off, and it’s very noticeable when the mesh lids are on because they meet right in the middle. The IMs are 3 drain bean animals so you can make dead silent and have an extra emergency drain. The Prostar looked like a 2 drain herbie style to me but they are not - the drains are identical heights. They have silencer inserts to reduce noise, but do not surface skim when those are on, had a lot of film build up first week tank was running. To get around that, I removed one of the silencers and reduced flow through that one, so it’s sort of like a Herbie now and it’s pretty quiet. I had a guest comment on how quiet it is last week.

Something else to watch out for is the plumbing is metric (I’m sure ProStar isn’t only brand). But I cut the return to plumb in a manifold and the manifold I made was very loose. I ended up 3D printing an ABS sleeve to wedge in between the imperial/ metric pieces and bought a specialty cement to bond the ABS to PVC. Worked perfectly but what a pain.

I also dislike filter sock compartments and ProStar has them just like pretty much everyone else.

If I recall, the things I noticed that I didn’t like about IMs when I was shopping is the sumps are wall to wall (wasn’t clear where equipment would go), long lead time for models I would have gotten, and higher price

 

[KQuillan]

Thank you, @DanTheReefer . I just placed the order today for it. I have noticed a couple people have said the exact same thing as you. I have a couple guys from the lfs coming to install it so I'm sure they can fix the plumbing issues.

Going from a 60g to 150, I'm nervous about it. lol

 

[InactiveAcct]

Thank you, @DanTheReefer . I just placed the order today for it. I have noticed a couple people have said the exact same thing as you. I have a couple guys from the lfs coming to install it so I'm sure they can fix the plumbing issues.

Going from a 60g to 150, I'm nervous about it. lol

Awesome! Yeah before filling up maybe have them consider if they can make the drains Herbie style, guessing they can be unscrewed. Good luck let me know how it goes

 

[rphman]

New house, new tank. Upgraded my classic 75 gallon to a ProStar 150 (120 gallon display).

To a greater extent than my prior tanks over past 17 years, I really wanted this one to be aesthetically pleasing within the house and have it as a focal point of living area in the home. It is direct line of sight from front door.



Equipment:
Lights: 3X NooPsyche K7 V3
Flow: Ecotech MP40 and Jebao OW-40
Return: Orlushy DC-9000
Skimmer: Reef Octopus 150 EXT

Controller: I made a reef-pi (Raspberry Pi 4) with temp/ ph monitoring, and 3X outlet control. Planning to add dosing soon. I have an old iPad2 next to tank that displays ReefPi Ph and temp
Old iPad showing Pi stats


Control board


Power bar for ReefPi that I designed and printed



Filtration:
Protein skimmer, 3X filter socks (dislike but it’s noisy without them), BRS 6” media reactor for occasional carbon. Also plastic bio balls in sump so I can quickly spin up a QT. Sump is definitely the biggest eye sore of the system.


Params:
Temp: 75 F
Ph: 7.6-8.0 typical day
Alk: 6.5 dKh
Phos: .25 ppm
Don’t test others frequently

Dosing:
All for Reef by hand, daily

Water changes: Almost never, tank is dialed in, but I did a lot while tank was breaking in years ago. If an issue arises I just do a lot of water changes while trying to figure out root cause

Fish:
Kole Tang
2X Classic Oscellaris Clowns
2X Chromis
1X Coral Beauty
1X Royal Gramma

All of the fish are 2+ years old

Coral:
Mostly easy SPS like montis, most are beautiful mature colonies now




I may be wrong but feel like this Monti may be somewhat unique with its green spots amongst the red. Maybe time to get some space from the torch…


New Mai Thai Goni (bad photo)



Torch:



Zoas:

Anyone know what zoa below is?


Frog Spawn:


Porities


Other Inverts:
Derasa Clam



Shrimp



More photos, how about an orange filter:










Things I’d like to improve:
-Bare spots in sand
-Fuge light spill
-Cabinet tidiness
-Aquascape for right half of tank

Let me know your thoughts

Prior 75 G tank

how are the Noopsyche holding up? im on fence about getting them or forking out the cash for some radions

 

[rphman]

how are the Noopsyche holding up? im on fence about getting them or forking out the cash for some radions

 

[InactiveAcct]

No issues yet, I had 4 ATI T5s over the old 75 and was expecting a tail off in growth but opposite happened. I max NPs out at 55%. The fans can be heard every now and then but aren’t too bad, suspect about same as Radion. The app is a little underwhelming but does the job and they have performed well. Running 14 months now.

 

[jackiemon]

Hi! Im setting up a 60g cube (24 inch*24*24). Would 1 noopsyche k7 v3 be enough?

 

[nickng]

Hi I'm looking at getting the prostar 150 mesh lids. How is the quality and does it warp? Also what are the actual dimensions of the lid?

Your tank looks great and thanks for suggestions, definitely fish friendly with the hiding places.

So I did at one point put the time into scaping when I first set up the 75 with dry rock 4 years ago and there was a lot of breaking and bonding the rocks, was almost happy with it. During the two tank moves in a year it felt like a bit of a bleep show and I wasn’t able to get things back to where they were in one piece.

Prior to move #1:


After move #1, knew this would be temporary so mostly set up to keep things alive vs aesthetics


Prior to move #2:


After move #2:


After some rearranging:

 

[InactiveAcct]

Hi! Im setting up a 60g cube (24 inch*24*24). Would 1 noopsyche k7 v3 be enough?

I think one would be unless you have a lot of SPS, mainly from a coverage/ shading perspective than intensity. Sorry for replying 6 months late

 

[InactiveAcct]

Hi I'm looking at getting the prostar 150 mesh lids. How is the quality and does it warp? Also what are the actual dimensions of the lid?

I was not impressed although they have not warped yet. No fish have jumped out, so that’s a plus.

Dimensions wise, fits just about flush with outside walls of glass. Two halves meet in the middle and wrap around the overflow. My main issue is the overflow itself is not centered so where they are supposed to rest on it looks a little janky and they make it obvious to tell the overflow isn’t centered.

The channels for the spline to hold the mesh in were poorly machined with almost flakey/ jagged edges, they collect salt creep. They also taped the hell out of it during shipping, including a strong tape on the mesh itself - I could not get the tape off without pulling some of the mesh out so it sags in some places. Was really disappointed.

 

[nickng]

I was not impressed although they have not warped yet. No fish have jumped out, so that’s a plus.

Dimensions wise, fits just about flush with outside walls of glass. Two halves meet in the middle and wrap around the overflow. My main issue is the overflow itself is not centered so where they are supposed to rest on it looks a little janky and they make it obvious to tell the overflow isn’t centered.

The channels for the spline to hold the mesh in were poorly machined with almost flakey/ jagged edges, they collect salt creep. They also taped the hell out of it during shipping, including a strong tape on the mesh itself - I could not get the tape off without pulling some of the mesh out so it sags in some places. Was really disappointed.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. Guess I will have to look at alternatives