My Waterbox Peninsula Journey.

[AstroMelly]

A big peninsula dividing a space like that is a dream for me. Following along to live vicariously

Love your nick! We have only just discovered Zoas and they are firmly on our list for first corals!

 

[rhostam]

Ok so I have had the water level in the weir chamber that low before and because of the volume of water flowing back into the weir (alot), it is noisier. What turnover have you got your return pump set to? If I run my return pump at like 5% then yes, having it at that height is silent for me. It's the water gushing back into the weir that is making the noise - and the further it drops, the noisier it is.
My return is a Vectra L2 - the 100% rating is 11,500 litres per hour. I am trying to reach 10 x tank turnover per hour and it seems I won't be able to make that without accepting the noise that comes with it. Don't get me wrong, it's not unpleasant, it's just a bit more dominant in the room than I would like at the moment.

Send a pic/vid anyway - always useful to see how/what others are doing!

I use a Neptune COR20 operating at 55%. This is about 5x turnover for total system volume per hour. That doesn't include any of the display tank powerhead water movement. WAVs themselves operate at about 20% combined or about 800 GPH.

Right now, my tank is LPS with a single exception. I myself may need to tune/change things up when I introduce SPS into the mix.

Incidentally, I have been facing down cyano in two specific areas of my tank, so I expect to increase flow using spare Neros (and/or increasing flow of far-end WAV) as another troubleshooting step.

 

[AstroMelly]

I use a Neptune COR20 operating at 55%. This is about 5x turnover for total system volume per hour. That doesn't include any of the display tank powerhead water movement. WAVs themselves operate at about 20% combined or about 800 GPH.

Right now, my tank is LPS with a single exception. I myself may need to tune/change things up when I introduce SPS into the mix.

Incidentally, I have been facing down cyano in two specific areas of my tank, so I expect to increase flow using spare Neros (and/or increasing flow of far-end WAV) as another troubleshooting step.

Nice! Good level of detail and exceptional timing. I just got an email from WaterBox. They told me their systems are designed for 5x turnover - which all makes perfect sense now! For my L2 pump that equates to 30% power (3,450 litres per hour) which is kind of the system’s happy place when it comes to noise levels etc.. I removed the baffle in the sump, although at 30% that should no longer be a problem as the flow there is pretty calm. I don’t see any point in chasing 10x turnover if the system was not designed for it.

My skimmer is coming tomorrow so the extra space in the sump will help with the install and I can always replace it if I want to run a refugium orthe increased aeration.

I’m interested in how people measure/observe the flow in their tanks. I thought of tying a ribbon to a stick and placing it at several points to try and gauge it! I suppose it’s more obvious when you start dropping food etc. into the tank! I’m tired of staring at the beautiful rock work. I want fish and corals!!!

I like the labels for your levels - I’ll be doing that when I find my label printer!

 

[AstroMelly]

Skimmer arrived!

 

[AstroMelly]

Well it's been a few weeks so here's an update for those following. We cycled the tank with the Reef Mature Kit from Red Sea. I am not sure what to think about this since this is our first reef tank - and it's a big one! I wanted a simple product/cycle system and I suppose I got it. I bought 3 packs which was enough for the amount of water we have - 1 pack is good for 250 litres - I reckon we have about 700 with change. It's straightforward and I followed (most) of the instructions, however we did not have live rock which it stipulates as a prerequisite and we were also not skimming most of the time, however towards the end of the 21 days the skimmer was producing some pretty funky skimmate!

We did not add CUC at day 10, I figure this would have been too early so we just held out until Saturday just gone which would have been day 30 or so. I figure if you wait that long, have a source of bacteria to seed, some biological filter media and a good turnover of water (and a source of ammonia) then your tank should cycle. We had 4 big bags of live sand, and I have a large brick of ceramic filter media (and a smaller brick) in the sump. We were testing for Ammonia, Nitrate and Nitrite throughout, and I know enough to look for the drop in the Nitrite spike as an indicator - we got a 'LO' reading on our digital nitrite kit on Friday - it had been dropping for a week before that. Ammonia always tested off the low end of the scale - which I am putting down to the live sand. We are using this digital testing tool - eXact iDip 570 Photometer Marine (quoted for the forum search engine) which is excellent so far. My only gripe with the Reef Mature Kit is that it is not very clear on what you are actually adding...

So on Saturday we added:

6 x Cerith snails
6 x Nassarias snails
6 x Trochus snails
1 x Sand sifting conch
6 x Red legged hermit crabs
3 x Fire shrimp
2 x Clownfish

All were drip acclimated over a period of about 90 minutes. We drip acclimated all the inverts together as I only have 2 drip kits. We lost 3 hermit crabs and a fire shrimp within 24 hours. I have no idea why/how this happened - I guess something they didn't like about the tank. The fish have been active and appear to be exhibiting natural behaviour but then they are supposed to be a hardy breed, I suppose the inverts are just a bit more sensitive to changes. All the snails are having a whale of a time and the nassarius really enjoyed their crab supper! I removed the expired shrimp.

Both the remaining fire shrimp have now moulted their shells. I know this is generally a good sign of being settled and growing but I also read that it can be brought on by stress so I have my fingers crossed for them. They have been hiding since going in. I'm leaving the shells in there having read around.

On the whole I was hoping for an easier ride but no-one ever said fish keeping was easy right?