Reef mat on timer

[Formulator]

I’m loving my new reef mat 500, but going through a roll per week. Has anyone put theirs on a timer to conserve fleece? For example I could connect to my apex and tell it to alternate power on and off every other hour. Theoretically this would give me double the roll life. I just wonder if it is going to throw an error from all the disconnects/reconnects to my wifi. I don’t understand why red sea didn’t build in this functionality…

 

[exnisstech]

Is it a recent install? I've heard they use a lot when first installed. Mine used more than it does now but not a roll per week. I may be wrong but have a hunch power interruptions may cause issues. A month or two after I added mine my nutrients were low so I started putting it in manual mode at night and just letting it overflow. Corals appreciated it.

 

[LPS Bum]

You shouldn’t be going through a roll per week. What is the mat advance length set to? How low does the Reefmat sit in your sump? Do you have water streaming out the sides of the unit?

 

[Formulator]

You shouldn’t be going through a roll per week. What is the mat advance length set to? How low does the Reefmat sit in your sump? Do you have water streaming out the sides of the unit?

Mat advance length is 0.6-0.8 inches. Perhaps that is too high. I do have multiple leopard wrasses and a diamond goby that like to kick up sand. Also on the tail end of a battle with hair algae and I see a lot of little tufts of algae on the roll when I look at the used portion. I know it is working correctly as I have watched it go through a complete cycle of water level rise and roll advance when it reaches the sensor. It is only in about an inch of water after a fresh advance (see photo).

 

[LPS Bum]

I have always had my 1200 set to the lowest auto advance length. I think it's somewhere around 0.2 inches, give or take. That's helped with the longevity of the roll, and you might want to try that.

Your ReefMat definitely isn't sitting too low, so that's good. A battle with hair algae, diatoms, cyano, etc will definitely increase the amount of fleece you're using, but I still think a roll should last you at least 3 weeks unless you're blowing off your rocks and sand every day or two.

Try the lowest setting on the auto advance. That helped me. Lastly, I'm assuming your 500 is properly sized for the tank, meaning you're not using it on a 150+ gallon system.

 

[C_AWOL]

If the flow rate is too high or theres bubbles from the drain that could prematurely trigger the sensor.

Or are you carbon dosing upstream of the rollermat?

 

[Formulator]

I have always had my 1200 set to the lowest auto advance length. I think it's somewhere around 0.2 inches, give or take. That's helped with the longevity of the roll, and you might want to try that.

Your ReefMat definitely isn't sitting too low, so that's good. A battle with hair algae, diatoms, cyano, etc will definitely increase the amount of fleece you're using, but I still think a roll should last you at least 3 weeks unless you're blowing off your rocks and sand every day or two.

Try the lowest setting on the auto advance. That helped me. Lastly, I'm assuming your 500 is properly sized for the tank, meaning you're not using it on a 150+ gallon system.

Thanks, I’ll try lowering the advance length setting. I have a 120g DT, plus a 20g fuge, and the sump, so I believe borderline appropriately sized. I couldn’t fit the 1200 in my space. But I teed off the DT drain to my fuge upstream of the roller and the fuge drains into the sump downstream of the roller so the fleece is only getting about 75% of the drain volume from the DT. I did this in an effort to help the copepod population have a fighting chance. It does mean there are some air bubbles in the mat, but when observing the fill/advance cycle, they don’t appear to have any major impact.

 

[Formulator]

If the flow rate is too high or theres bubbles from the drain that could prematurely trigger the sensor.

Or are you carbon dosing upstream of the rollermat?

Some bubbles as described above, but they don’t seem to be causing premature mat advance. Not carbon dosing at this time.

 

[C_AWOL]

If the bubbles are large/frequent enough they can definitely trigger the sensor but assuming that's not the case and flow rate isn't too high for the fleece to handle, you'll just have to live with that until your tank water is polished enough.

For what its worth I push about 4000gph through 2 reefmat 1200s with extremely heavy feeding + high bioload and the rolls last shy of 4 weeks for me