Rob's Really Rad 180 Reef Rally

RobB'z Reef · Jun 9, 2021

Newest additions to the reef: blue/gold maxima clam, a red Frogspawn and some Acans. Flow is looking fairly dialed in though I have a touch of diatoms in one corner of the tank where flow is a bit lower. Should figure that out at some point.

ajtomase · Jun 10, 2021

Rob.bucek said:
Added one of these yesterday, just got the dosing portion running today. I'll do a more in depth review/write up in a couple weeks once I've had time to learn more about it. Pretty excited! Only downside so far is it has to be within 3 feet of your water source which kinda chaps my @55 because I hate putting electronics under my stand next to water, but oh well.

Rob.bucek said:
Finally got my PM1 module in place today and the reading from the alkatronic came right in with no issues! Loving this capability as I can see everything I need to in one spot now.

Do you dose only Alkalinity with the Alkatronic, but monitor levels with the Neptune Apex (trying to understand as a newbie)? What do you use to dose calcium and magnesium with?

RobB'z Reef · Jun 10, 2021

ajtomase said:
Do you dose only Alkalinity with the Alkatronic, but monitor levels with the Neptune Apex (trying to understand as a newbie)? What do you use to dose calcium and magnesium with?

I use an Alkatronic to monitor alkalinity. The Alkatronic is hooked into my Apex via a PM1 module but it's just for convenience of displaying the measurements so you don't have to hop into another app to see it (rather sweet actually). Yes it can dose and I do have it configured to dose Na2CO3 (calcium carbonate or soda ash). It only does so if my level drops below it's minimum (which is rare) i.e. intermittent corrections. My primary source is I dose kalkwasser for calcium and alkalinity. Magnesium changes so slowly over time as it's consumed in a very low ratio with calcium I measure it manually maybe once a month at best and if needed I dose it up by hand once and it's typically good for months. I keep it over 1300, if it drifts below I bump it back up to 1400 or 1500.

RobB'z Reef · Jun 10, 2021

ajtomase said:
Do you dose only Alkalinity with the Alkatronic, but monitor levels with the Neptune Apex (trying to understand as a newbie)? What do you use to dose calcium and magnesium with?

I should also add, I use BRS products. Their pharma grade Kalkwasser, soda ash and magnesium pouches. I think I bought one pouch of their calcium but it's still unopened and I doubt I'll ever need it. Super cheap and very good quality.

RobB'z Reef · Jun 12, 2021

Hey all! Saturday's are for reefing projects and I did a fun one today I think. Been wanting to do this for a while now and it was nice out so I compromised and did it in the garage so I could see the sun and feel the fresh air at least lol.

I'm running out of room on my EB832's and I've also been wanting to get my 600w heaters off of them but still be able to control them with the Apex directly. So enter the Apex expansion outlets! Add more controllable outlets to your EB832 by using the 24v accessory ports. I will be doing a step by step video of how this can be done along with a parts list. These can be built for less than $30 each.

The introductory video is a little rough but hopefully this gives you an idea.

RobB'z Reef · Jun 27, 2021

Been a while... Did anyone notice? Lol

I've been busy researching pH and figuring out how I can reliably keep it up there. I've been experimenting with dosing kalk slurry and that has been very successful. While I technically don't need it right this moment I wanted to get it all figured out now. I've been dosing by hand for now and I'm really happy with the results.

Right now I'm doing a 4% slurry which is essentially mixing 48 tsp per gallon instead of 2tsp and then mixing it until it's all suspended and dosing the slurry (which is the saturated water and the undissolved calcium hydroxide). For testing I was dosing 23ml every 4 hours or so with a bit of a gap at night cuz I'm sleeping. I'm getting in some supplies so I can automate the dosing. Temporarily I'll use a Jebo slw-10 to keep the kalk in suspension and continue testing different intervals and amounts.
With this method I'll never need to consider a calcium reactor or care how much my tank evaporates. In a sense I'm using my tank water as the mixing bucket or call it a reactor for the kalk. Pretty cool stuff, I got this idea from watching an episode of reefdudes and two guys (telegraham and mahina_corals) were on the edge with this stuff. Love it!

Got a few new corals for the tank, trying to get my bio load up and complete the scape. One more good run on corals and I should be good. Crap is overpriced, so painful.

RobB'z Reef · Jun 27, 2021

Quick tank update video. I'll follow this up later with the new and improved fresh air line I ran outside for my skimmer. I still need to make that Apex outlet extension video. I have all the parts in to make two more, perhaps I'll complete that during the second round of building those.

RobB'z Reef · Aug 6, 2021

languishing build thread update.

RobB'z Reef · Sep 10, 2021

I finally made a decision on a AWC system.

Haven't posted much lately as I've primarily migrated to IG and Youtube now but I thought for those not following those platforms this might interest a few folks. This was originally released on IGTV.

400BA · Sep 23, 2021

Rob,

Mike here from the BRS video just now. FANTASTIC tank and videos, sir! I'm going to take some time and digest your build.

Be well, sir...

Mike

RobB'z Reef · Nov 9, 2021

My first successful fish breeding! (note: completely accidental). This was a complete surprise to me.

This was a cool and exciting find! Was doing some maintenance in my sump and noticed this little guy (was much smaller when i found him) in my return section a few inches away from the return pump. I have 3 adult Bangii Cardinals in the main display (1male/2females) that i had gotten when they were very small. Amazing the hatchling made it past my Klir's, through the skimmer section, past the fuge and grew out in the return section. I have since moved him into the fuge area until he get's large enough to go back to the display tank. What he ate to survive is unknown... must have been pods and who knows what else.

RobB'z Reef · Nov 9, 2021

Follow up video of X2S review and demonstration

Flameback Pair · Nov 9, 2021

@Rob.bucek that’s a cool story about that little guy !!! Do you shut off your return pump when you feed? Because if you do that fish could have swam down through the return pipe/line and swam out of the pump impeller. More likely it would have gotten stuck in the pump and got chopped up but there’s a possibility it made it through. Kind of like Nemo at the dentist office tank !!

RobB'z Reef · Nov 9, 2021

powers2001 said:
@Rob.bucek that’s a cool story about that little guy !!! Do you shut off your return pump when you feed? Because if you do that fish could have swam down through the return pipe/line and swam out of the pump impeller. More likely it would have gotten stuck in the pump and got chopped up but there’s a possibility it made it through. Kind of like Nemo at the dentist office tank !!

Ikr? I don't shut down any pumps when I feed. The flow as is within the display holds the food in long enough that they eat pretty much all of it before anything gets away. It's a real survival miracle!