4 x 2 x 2 Balcony tank

[markietan]

Hey guys I'm back after 5 years of break from reefing! Wifey gave thumbs up for  a 4 x 2 x 2 at the balcony. This thread is to share my learning experience and for you guys to provide feedback and suggestions for me too. Lots to learn from everyone! =D

Most of my equipment were sourced from this forum back in March. Very nice to meet some new and old friends and learn from their experiences. Some were bought from LFS, nice to visit these LFS again after so long. My equipment list as follow

• 4x2x2 12 inch tank w/ 3" sump and cabinet/hood
• Deltec 1455 Skimmer
• Jebao DCT 8000
• OF Hydra Stream 3
• TLF Phosban Reactor 150
• Kamoer KSP-F03 Dosing Pump
• Arctica 1/5 Chiller
• Maxspect 300W R420r
• Jebao RW20 wavemaker

Tank was filled with Red Sea Pro salt mix and RO/DI water on 26th March. Added 2 bags of CaribSea live sand and 40lb of CaribSea dry aragonite sand, 2 big live rocks from fellow reefer and many dead rocks. Dry/wet filter sump compartment also filled up with biohome, biohouse, marinepure rocks. Used Brightwell Aquatics Microbacter 7 to help seed bacteria. Also bought Prodibio Biokit but yet to dose.

This is the resulting rockscape. Stay tuned for more updates!

ato sold, thanks for all interest.

Picture of dead rocks still avail. newspaper is straits tim

[Solo77]

Welcome back and looks good.

[SubzeroLT]

Looking forward to more updates!

Any pics of the sump?

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[Admiraltian]

Nice scape.

[sherman]

Welcome back and hope to see your update soon

[markietan]

Pictures of my sump! The original owner designed it with wet/dry filter compartment, then skimmer compartment (1455 fits nicely). Then it flows into a small middle compartment and through 2 bubble trap to the left most compartment for return. I modified it for the return pump to be in the center compartment and left the left most compartment as a refugium area.

Currently the return pump splits into 2. Right side goes back into tank, left side gets split into 2 again with 2 different output diameter. The larger output goes to chiller and it dumps back into the return pump compartment. The smaller output goes into Hydra, then into FR and is dumped into the refugium compartment. Return pump is set at 50% speed on the controller. Dosing pump is currently set as ATO to figure out what is my daily evaporation rate. Haven't start dosing KH/CA/MG yet but 5l bottles are on standby. Chiller is housed in a cheap Ikea coffee table and lightning power supply is also housed outside the cabinet.

Chiller is about ~1ft from the wall for hot air to circulate out. The wavemaker power supply is also housed outside but is temporary and not mounted yet as I'm using a 12V supply. The original 24V is too strong. Am waiting for a variable power supply to arrive and will probably run at 18V.

Some future changes that I might implement. The lightning power supply runs quite hot... am thinking of adding active cooling. The right side 'compartment' fits a 80mm computer fan just nice. I might lower the lighting fixture onto the tank edge instead of the hood, meaning it is closer to the tank surface thus reducing the intensity of the lightning and lowering the power requirement. From my observation it should be safe from the surface salt spray, need to monitor further.

I'm also thinking of switching the wavemaker to the other side of the tank. The other side of the tank has overflow box and is near to the sliding door, so hardly view from that side of the tank. Might help with increasing flow in the tank without blowing the sand, need to test when new power supply is here.

I made a mistake of not rinsing the rowaphos enough before running it and i'm still skimming rusty stuff out now...

Would love to hear any feedback or suggestions on my setup. Thanks!

[Darren Sim]

Nice tank and sump! I think your return pump section is a little too low. You can still increase it. Btw where you got your kh,mg and cal?

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[MarcoVan]

Pinye!!! Nice to see you back!!! Where you staying now? And need Zoas bo? Lol can frag you some keke...

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[markietan]

On 23/04/2016 at 8:08 AM, Darren Sim said:

Nice tank and sump! I think your return pump section is a little too low. You can still increase it. Btw where you got your kh,mg and cal?

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Ya good idea. I might increase it to just below the 2nd bubble trap on the left so that the water from the refugium will flow over. However when I off the return pump and water flows back into the tank through the return piping before siphon break, the skimmer overflows quite fast because the return pump compartment n skimmer share the same water level... Increasing the return pump water level might make it worse.

As the siphon break hole on the return piping is already quite high, would you guys suggest to lift the skimmer higher?

[Darren Sim]

Why would you want to put your return pump in the middle?

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[markietan]

7 hours ago, Darren Sim said:

Why would you want to put your return pump in the middle?

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I wanted a refugium area and the sump tank was originally designed to have a wide compartment on the left and a narrow on in the middle. Currently I have some dead rocks and a basket of coral chips in there, but in the future might use it for chaeto and frags

[Darren Sim]

Then another choice is just to higher your skimmer.

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[markietan]

So after months of observing and learning from other reefers, trial and error and reading up on the internet. I have changed some of my setup and equipment

● 4x2x2 12 inch tank w/ 3" sump and cabinet/hood
● Deltec 1455 Skimmer
● Jebao DCT 8000
● ATI Sunpower Dimmable 8x54W
● TLF Phosban Reactor 150
● Kamoer KSP-F03 Dosing Pump
● Arctica 1/4 Chiller
● Maxspect Gyre XF130
● Maxspect Gyre XF230 w/ controller
● Lumen Aqua LED

Some photos of my sump/refugium first followed by some FTS. Feedback n comments most welcome!






FTS


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[Jairus]

wah! how come I haven come across this thread yet. haha first time seeing your tank. vv nice!

[martian55]

Huge refugium bro . No wonder you always have lots of chaeto to give away. Thanks again bro, I was once a beneficiary of your giveaways :-)

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[markietan]

Changed the lights in the sump to a maxspect razor. Previous light can't control blue n white separately. Now running mostly blue led on reverse cycle from the tank.



Also changed 2 tubes of t5 to euroquatics e5 LED blue pop. Really like it, hopefully they will last longer n save some electricity along the way.

Bought n started dosing vibrant too, am doing half the recommended dosage for dirty tank every 3 days.

Some photos n videos for sharing
FTS under bluish lighting


My softies corner. Guess how many weedy type of softies is growing on this rock? (Aiptasia excluded haha)


Mushroom rocks



Recently poisoned by these...


Up and coming dragon garden


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[markietan]

The valley in between my rock work

Spot the same rainbow Monti but different coloration under different height


My clownfish (Picasso n Domino) finally seem to have paired up and host in this gorgeous golden hammer anchora under a new 'bridge' which was recently raised.



Also the rock on the right of the tank is an aquaroche rock. Bought from a reefer at a good price, looks good and has many ledges to place corals. However coraline doesn't seem to like growing on it. First time using artificial rock... It still looks artificial in the tank after 3 months.

Anyway tank just passed 1 year old! Reconnected with some old reefing friends, made many new ones and am loving the hobby! Also thanks to SRC for keeping the passion alive in SG.

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[markietan]

Oh ya.. and does anyone know why my digitatas grow out like bonsais? Small n knobby. Doesn't really grow n stretch out. Especially the forest fire... Purple digis are still not too bad.

Also see if u can spot my utter chaos colony. They morphed into something quite unique.

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[sleexox]

very nice!

[sleexox]

nice!