demeyer2's 28G Red Reefer Nano

[demeyer2]

I’ve been out of the hobby for quite some time! My last tank was 6 years ago when I had a 34 gallon Solana (20” cube), but unfortunately when I moved to SF I wasn’t able to have a tank (no car, no LFS = no tank). I kept following RC and Nano-reef and also stayed in touch with all the equipment developments (back in my day, Pluto was a planet and there were no LED fixtures :P). I would do Google Sketch-up drawings of dream tanks, make ideal equipment lists, stock lists, etc. and I even went as far as learning how to drill tanks, plumb them, etc. even though I knew I couldn’t have a tank. Recently, however, I settled down in a new place and the passion to get back into the hobby was back and my beautiful fiancee was supportive (she’s always appreciated my inner marine nerd).

Once I had the green light, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the right tank. I’m still renting so I can’t go for anything big (I’d love to do a drop off tank or large shallow lagoon one day) and although the IM tanks look cool, I really wanted a sump this time around to obfuscate as much equipment as possible while making the equipment easily accessible to tinker/clean/etc. There are very limited options for nano-sized reef ready tanks that are already plumbed for a sump setup. Ultimately it came down to Red Sea Reefer Nano vs. Elos Mini. I couldn’t justify the Elos Mini cost vs. what it offered so I went with the Reefer Nano (loving my decision so far if you’re curious).

Tank

• Red Sea Reefer Nano
• 18”x18”x18”
• 28 gallons (21 in display, 7 in sump)

Lighting

• AI Hydra 26 w/ AI mounting kit

Circulation

• Sicce Syncra 2.0 return pump
• Vortech MP10 w/ Reeflink

Filtration

• Eshopps X-120 Axium
• IM in-sump mini media reactor (GFO & carbon)

Other

• Neptune Systems Apex controller
• Neo-therm 75W heater
• Trigger Systems Ruby 5g ATO reservoir (Tunze Nano Osmolater only used while on vacation)
• ~18 pounds of dry reef rock seeded with a couple pounds of live rock
• ~25 pounds of CaribSea Dry Aragonite Special Grade Reef Sand

Some reflective thoughts early on:

• I’d say the only thing I’m missing from the Reefer Nano that I’d love to have is a refugium. I could have put it in the sump, but it would have come at the cost of the skimmer or reactor and I honestly don’t think I’d trade either of those two for it. One day with a future tank I’ll have a proper refugium though. My dream fish is a Mandarin and a healthy pod population is essential for them so this is one of the reasons why I’m particularly obsessed with refugiums.
• Loving my first sump, but the extra convenience of what you can do with your equipment comes at the price of worrying about leaks, power outages, and having multiple failure points (return pump, plumbing leak, etc.). I don’t think I’ll go back to AIO tanks, but sumps aren’t as dreamy as I made them out to be in my head.
• This is my first venture in LED light and I absolutely love my AI Hydra (especially the app / web interface). Same can be said for the Vortech/Reeflink setup although I’ve used Vortechs in the past as well. This is my first time with a top tier controller (I’ve had a AC JR in the past). The price jump to the Apex is steep, but I get the ROI now and I don’t think I’d go back to a smaller controller again unless Neptune released other wifi ready controllers. The web/mobile interface is amazing and gives great piece of mind. I’m also loving having the probes (although I’ve struggled a bit with trusting the salinity probe) and being able to monitor the relationships of ORP vs. pH as well as temperature vs. perceived salinity. I have a couple of vacations this year and Apex gives me the confidence that my tank can run on auto-pilot in my absence (I lost a frag tank in college from an ATO nightmare).
• Patience is a virtue. I worked at a great LFS through all of college and was mentored by a number of passionate & wise reef hobbyists and still I fell victim to moving too fast with this tank. It’s so hard to fight that urge when you get excited. I’m not proud to say this, but I didn’t wait for my tank to fully cycle before adding in livestock. I really hope for future tanks I can be more mature about this and give into the urge for that instant gratification.
• All of my favorite tanks are SPS heavy and naturally I thought that’s the direction I would want to go with this tank. I’m having second thoughts after having set up the tank however. There’s definitely an allure to the low maintenance world of LPS, softies, zoas, etc. especially since they can deliver the color diversity to give the tank that look that pops. I’m not afraid of work - I plan to do weekly 10% water changes, clean the glass every other day, rigorously test my water, change out reactor media, clean pumps, probes, etc., but I like that I wouldn't have to stress constantly about my calcium, magnesium, etc. levels. It also kind of sucks that SPS is so expensive and grows so slowly. I would probably want to get small colonies, but have a $200 mini-colony creates that water quality stress. We’ll see how it evolves, right now I have a couple of acroporas, a montipora cap, a torch coral, two different zoanthids, and a florida ricordia.
• My thoughts on livestock with regards to the fish have also changed since tank conception. As I mentioned previously, my dream fish is a Mandarin. After my tank is more established and I’ve seeded a copepod population, I would consider getting a captive bred Algae Barn Mandarin that already eats frozen foods. To do that responsibly, I wouldn’t want to get any other fish that also consumes pods such as a wrasse which was the next fish I was considering (six-line or leopard) or midas blenny (I’ve always found their personalities so fun). We’ll see - I’m open to suggestions, but I don’t want to overstock or introduce anything aggressive.

There’s not much to see yet, but I posted a picture below of my current setup. I really wanted to implement a clean cable management system, but given the sump is the exact same size as the tank I’m really limited on my options.

[Jadams]

Looks great!

[solitude127]

Looks good. how's the skimmer doing with that tank? Seems like a lot of skimmer for a small tank. I had a BM curve 5 on my RS Reefer170 and it was too large. I recently switched out to a Aquamaxx WS-1 and much happier.

[demeyer2]

Originally Posted by Jadams

Looks great!

Thanks! Long way to go and I plan to add a lot more coral in the next couple of months, but I want to do so slowly.

Originally Posted by solitude127

Looks good. how's the skimmer doing with that tank? Seems like a lot of skimmer for a small tank. I had a BM curve 5 on my RS Reefer170 and it was too large. I recently switched out to a Aquamaxx WS-1 and much happier.

Good question. I think it's too early to tell. It took about a week to start producing meaningful skimmate but now it's seems to be doing a great job. I only have a pair of clowns in the tank so far and I don't feed too much - only a bit of flakes or pellets or frozen mysis per day (small bits to make sure there's not waste). I'm not skimming wet so that will probably help. Any good way to know if I'm over skimming other than having 0 nitrates (when my corals would probably prefer 3-5ppm)?

[demeyer2]

Tank is coming along nicely. Nitrates in the 0-5 range. Nitrite/Ammonia 0.

My Artfully Acryllic top arrived today and fit/looks great. Really pleased with the quality and now I never have to worry about any fish jumping action. Here's the top:


I do wonder if I should turn up the LED intensity because some of the light will be diffused. Any one know if there's validity to this?

A couple more updates:

• I placed an order with UniqueCorals.com that should arrive on Thursday. So far I've had great luck with online purchases from Tidal Gardens and Blue Zoo Aquatics. Really excited for my first SPS colony (pink mille) It's actually the first mille I've cared for and I know they like high flow but if anyone has any other tips I'd love to know.

• I go on vacation for the first time with this tank next week so I'm excited to play around with the Apex automatic fish feeder I bought. I plan to do the lowest possible setting once per day to ensure no overfeeding action happens. I also bought a Tunze osmolater as I don't think the default Red Sea Nano ATO tank will be enough for 5 days of evaporation.

• I'm too embarrassed to show my sump just yet as I want to get the cable management under control first. I bought some cable raceways that I should be able to mount to help keep it clean.

• Really loving the Eshopps Axium skimmer so far. Not only is it my first in-sump skimmer, but it's basically the first skimmer I've owned that really pulls out some serious gunk. Took a week to break in but since then it's quiet and performing like a champ.

• My salinity drama is over. I kind of assumed the Apex salinity probe would be all I needed, but it varies with temperature and if there are any bubbles in the probe (considering it's in the same chamber as my skimmer that's common) then it's all off kilter. Now that I have the Milwaukee digital refractometer I can get a quick and accurate read and I use the Apex to make sure there aren't any strange swings throughout the day/week. The Milwaukee is one of those "I will always buy one of these for every future tank" kind of purchases.

[demeyer2]

First let’s start with a FTS:


Not everything is open, but it's been two weeks so I figure it's worth posting an update. Here's what else has been going on:

• The vacation went great until it didn't. The Apex autofeeder worked perfectly (I had it on the lowest setting and had it feed once per day). The Tunze Osmolater, however, did not. I was in Belize so if something went wrong, there was nothing I could do and I didn't have a tank sitter. I checked the Apex dashboard and my tank cam daily. This past Monday (last day of the trip) I saw something that made my stomach drop: my return pump was pumping tons of microbubbles into the tank. It meant my sump was low and something went wrong with the ATO. I was lucky enough to set up the stock ATO tank just in case something went wrong with the Tunze and it probably saved the tank. By default, the Tunze turns off after running for 15 seconds without flipping the float switch (I've now changed to 30). This setting must have gone off early in the trip because most of the Tunze ATO water was still left and my backup ATO stock tank was completely empty. Fortunately I stashed a key outside and was able to call a co-worker to come and put water in the tank. It was much more difficult than I would have imagined to explain someone how to refill my ATO tank in my sump...so that happened.

• I purchased an IM MiniMax Sump All-In-One Media Reactor to run my GFO and carbon (I was previously running in a filter sock) and it's been working very well so far. One of these days I'll actually clean up my sump to take a picture and you can see my setup + beast of a skimmer

• My 75W heater wasn't able to keep up with my tank so I bought the 150W Cobalt and that's kept my tank within 1 degree for the past 2 weeks which is great.

• Before going on vacation I bought the 5280 Copepod pack from AlgaeBarn. Definitely kickstarted the pod population for the tank and my clowns bellies are full, but I question whether it was too much for a 28 gallon tank.

• I have good coral news and bad. Good news is the Pink Mille colony I have is great and all of my SPS is getting stronger in color. The blues, greens, etc. are all coming out. The bad news is my torch died. It was almost like something was eating it. One head, then a week later the other. I've always wanted a torch so I'm going trying one more and if it doesn't work, I'll move on.

After this Torch, I'm going to chill on adding coral for a while. I'm already starting to see some encrusting, growth, and new zoa polyps forming so I'd like to just let the tank take shape for a while (or that's the plan at least).

[demeyer2]

Other than the salinity issue I had with the Apex salinity probe, I haven't had any issues with the tank (fingers crossed) with the exception being pH. Maybe it's because with my previous tanks (34G Solana, 12G Biocube, 29G) I never had a pH probe so I never monitored it closely, but with this tank my pH has been low. 7.5 at night, 7.7 during the day. Definitely lower than recommended and given I have SPS (which from an appearance standpoint looks great) it's something I wanted to address.

I have kalkwasser and I was dosing for a bit (which helped), but there were two problems with it:
1. I knew it was a short term patch.
2. It clogged up my ATO valve after a couple of weeks which prevented the top off water from going through the tube (luckily I was there to spot the issue).

Next I thought about a refugium to run on a reverse light schedule to help pH. I would actually love a refugium because I find them fun in a nerdy way, fascinating, and I would love to build a thriving pod population). But with the Red Reefer Nano sump and my huge skimmer + in-sump media reactor (carbon + GFO), there isn't a lot of space for one. I saw a bunch of people mod'd the ATO tank to run a fuge which I could do since I have a 5G Sapphire acrylic ATO reservoir hooked up to my Tunze ozmolater, but I really like the safety blanket of using the stock ATO unit as a back-up in case the Tunze acts up (saved me on vacation once already). I thought a lot on how to plumb a separate refugium into the tank or even buy one of those cool LED chaeto reactors (pricy though) and at the end of the day I determined it would give me more stress about what could go wrong with the tank. I don't travel often, but when I do I don't have a tank sitter so having a less stressful setup is definitely preferred.

So I kept exploring other ways to raise pH. Running my protein skimmer airline outside isn't an option since I rent. Then I looked into CO2 scrubbers by BulkReefSupply. It's essentially a reactor you run your protein skimmer tubing into that houses CO2 absorbing media balls that change color with use. The downside I read were it runs through the media quickly and it's fairly expensive to replace. $50 for the media and it does 7 refills and I've read the media last 2 weeks so ~$15 a month. Not ideal but I figured it was worth a try. I hooked it up to my Axium X-120 skimmer yesterday (I put the canister behind the stand with the air tubing running to it) and well, the results speak for themselves:

[demeyer2]

One month later and all is going well. A couple of updates and purchases:

• Reef tanks are so expensive...I know I'm preaching to the choir here. I knew from day 1 that two MP10s would be ideal but they're so expensive that I waited until now to add the additional flow. I need to read up on the gyre modes so I can sync my Vortechs to really randomize the water movement. I also picked up a back-up return pump because I realized I'd be SOL if my current one failed as I don't have any other pump on hand with those plumbing fittings and considering the heater is in the sump, I really don't want to be in a position where my tank is sumpless.

• I still haven't learned how to take proper FTSs. Everything on my wife's canon comes out super blue and I couldn't figure out how to re-calibrate the white balance to correct it. It's a shame because the tank is really starting to take off. The torch colony is massive, my pink mille is really becoming a showpiece, and I added some ricordea to help round out the tank.

• The last update is the biggest. I added a refugium.

I talked about this earlier, but I really wanted a refugium from the onset, but I couldn't figure out where to put it, how to contain it, or how the lighting setup would be done. Two weeks ago I was talking to an old friend who I used to work with at a LFS in Michigan (Preuss Pets). He went on to become a marine biologist working at the Georgia aquarium. We caught up, I talked about my tank, and asked him his take on anything I was doing considering he was a professional. He said he wasn't a believer in GFO, which I've been running with carbon in the Minimax reactor. He didn't believe it helped with phosphates as much as the community believes it does.

I personally found GFO a PITA. I have to dial the flow just right to keep it tumbling but not going crazy as then it goes everywhere. I have to rinse it but I can't rinse it like I do carbon (RODI rinse) and I have to change it every two weeks and as nice and compact as the Minimax is, it's not fun to empty/clean/replace media. Plus even as cautious as I was, it still ended up everywhere in my sump (not a ton, but I'd definitely find a fair amount when vacuuming) so I said screw it and I removed the reactor and put the carbon in the filter sock.

I realized without the reactor that I actually had a decent amount of room in my sump now Then I watched this BRS video on chaeto where they did an experiment to see how effective it truly was as a nutrient export and sure enough, with proper lighting it can export a lot of nutrients. Then as if it were some reef god was tempting me, Kessil released this:


A perfect light for a small sump-based refugium complete with a gooseneck. It was all too good that I had to try and luckily the CPR in-tank refugium fit to help contain the chaeto. Given it would also help my pH, which even with CO2 scrubbing media hooked up to my skimmer only goes from 7.7-8.0, I figured it was a no brainer as it would help there as well. It's not the best picture, but here's my messy sump at it currently stands:


Next up: cable management and learning how to take a proper FTS!

[mikelask]

Looks Great! I plan on trying your style Fuge very soon. How is it coming along?

[Wmich2008]

Any updates on this tank?