FarmerTy

I was just being cheeky about the no SPS.

Because you don't even have SPS yet. [emoji14] Real answer, they're both comparable except that the Korallin's capacity is slightly exaggerated, 400 gals my butt. You remember my old 125-gallon... when it was fully stocked... it had a hard time keeping up. Now, I will concede that I had a ton of montis and SPS in that tank when it maxed out so I'll give it 200-250 gal rating, similar to the Minical. Both built the same as far as quality construction but I'll say at the end of the day, I'd go with the minical and wait if it were me because: 1) the parts are easily replaceable with a trip to Home Depot. If you break anything on the Koralin, expect to pay at least $80 just for the parts. 2) Customer service. I called MTC when I first got the used unit and he ran me through it, even though he didn't make a dime off me. He stands behind his product. 3) Built in secondary reaction chamber. My pH was 7.8-8.0 with my Koralin. My current pH is 8.3-8.5. 4) Pumps on minical not on lid. As if the lids of CaRXs aren't annoying enough to remove, but adding a good sized pump on top of the Koralin doesn't make it more fun. Patience sir. [emoji6]

I thought I just documented more. Surely every on the club spends a good amount of time on their tanks?

Back down to one tub again. The emperor and the hippo tang have been declared bacteria infection free! It's funny, I just realized how much my laziness prevails in this hobby. Here is the evidence I've amassed in the last couple of months: 1) As most know already, my DT can run itself. Down to feedings, no water changes, auto cleaner for my skimmer, CaRX replacing foundation elements, reactors scrubbing nutrients, automated lights, automated flow variations, etc, it's set and forget for the most part. Except when the GFO reactor clogs for the 2nd time in a month! Dang algae! 2) Even when running an extended QT for 76 days, I chose to buy new dry rock and cycle it, as well as add a skimmer into the tub than to do frequent water changes to keep the water quality up. I even picked up some lanthanum chloride and 10 um filter socks to knock down nitrates when they get too high. This over water changes. 3) I removed my QT system from the display tank and plumbed it separately now. I run GFO on the system and use kalk to keep my foundation elements in line. The hope is to never do water changes on that one either but we'll see. I'll start dosing aminos and perhaps nitrate if the nutrients get too low in there. 4) I picked up another Apex just to use on the frag tank because I didn't want to be attached to the hip with that thing. Just notify me if something is wrong! I'm sure there are more but my hunger is overriding my desire to remember all the other ways I've been lazy with my reef tank the past couple of months.

I still have my green plate corals and I still love them!

Maybe you said it right with the first statement, I've narrowed it down to large tanks keeping SPS dominant systems, as those are the only ones I follow. For your purposes, kalk with vinegar should hold you over I'm sure for the life of your tank and would complement 80% of the tanks out there as well. I definitely don't disagree with that. From a standpoint of maintenance, not cost or learning curve, CaRX wins for me hands down, but that's just my opinion as I've run kalk, 2-part with dosers, and multiple CaRXs over the years. To them peaking, I'm sure the manufacturers that are still coming out with new types of CaRX annually, I doubt they are building them for fun and people aren't buying them. At the end of the day, neither of us can quantify that so no point in proving the unprovable. How is any of this related to vodka dosing? I don't know but somehow we steered the topic off from the original post so I'll leave it be there. I'm not looking for a debate on the function, utility, and adoption rate of methods to supplement foundation elements. There is no debate, they are all functional in their own rights and a better fit for certain systems/reefers than others. It doesn't matter to me that 90% use CaRX, or 5% use them. I have no stock in the game. The only issue I had was the painting of a picture of CaRXs being a technology that people aren't employing anymore or trying to employ. I see new threads all the time with people wanting advice on how to run their new CaRX. I chime in when I have the time to help.

I don't think you'd even have to remove anything to add the sand. You can just use some large diameter PVC and pour the sand into it with the end of the PVC at the bottom of the tank to minimize dust being kicked up. I'd highly recommend rinsing the sand very well when you do this and to turn off all pumps during this process. You'll probably getting a diatom bloom or a mini-cycle in general but maybe a couple more water changes than normal during this time will help keep it to a minimum. Clownfish are super territorial, mine have even dashed at my large emperor angel with no fear... that's like me smacking Shaq in the back of the head because he got too close to my house. Suicidal fish! Perhaps when you rearrange your tank, you use that as your opportunity to get some other fish you would like. The clownfish will be feeling out their new territory and may not be as aggressive towards other tankmates during that time as they haven't staked a claim yet. The damsel is another story, it'll probably be aggressive to any fish you add to the system as well as that's probably the only reason he's still alive. The best way to know if your filtration is ideal is to test your water. Do you have any idea what your parameters are? Mainly Ca, Alk, Mg, nitrates, and phosphates? I kind of like the rock structure the way you have it. I think once the corals grow in and start covering up the rock and the sand is in place, your tank will look really nice and cohesive.

Yeah, I almost thought about starting a brand new one. I like Bobcat's idea... Juiceman's Oceanic 200g Reef - Re Re-aqua scaped!

These look like mug shots? What's he in for? Robbing your wallet?

My wife tells me is because my mouth is always talking and that gives very little opportunity to actually listen... so I have no doubt I probably misunderstood something. Nice, throw up a video when you get a chance. I want to see those biopellets running for their lives in that reactor!

Welcome John! I think you're doing pretty good. Everything looks happy and healthy. I think the best way for you to move forward is to start looking an example tanks and zeroing in on what you want yours to look like. Once you decide that, there are plenty on the club that will help you achieve that with some great advice.

Nice summary!

I don't know 100% myself but I would imagine that dosing carbon in any way and allowing the bacteria to reside in the system is only creating a sink for nutrients. Sure, they will get uptaken but if the bacteria itself is never actually exported via a skimmer or another process, then when the bacteria dies, it will release the nutrients back into the water column. Best analogy I can think of is growing chaeto but never trimming and removing it from the system. If you just continue to leave it in there and it eventually gets choked out and starts dying, it will release all the uptaken nutrients back into the system. So, it's only function was just a temporary sink for nutrients. How do you like your Aquamaxx reactor? Looks pretty cool and definitely a departure from the standard reactors.

I find that hard to believe that many large, SPS dominant tanks are switching back to 2-part as the ones that I keep up with and look up to nationwide mainly run CaRXs. I know Jake is not a fan of running a CaRX because he honestly has only tried to run it once in the display tank at the store and it didn't work out so they never tried again. I've offered to even help them with the setup of one on their system but I think its like most folks, they think they are more difficult to run than it really is. At the end of the day, I find it a little overreaching to conclude that many are leaving CaRXs for 2-part. Everybody I know personally in town have not ditched their CaRXs for 2-part... In fact, many are going the other way. I'm not in either camp as they both perform the same function but I just don't like making broadbased conclusions like that on little data or a couple people's opinions and passing it off as fact. I'm honestly not a fan of dosing carbon via kalk because now you have two variables tied to your amount of evaporation, which is inherently variable in itself. While fine for those that don't need to or don't care to fine tune their addition of alk and carbon, for me, that would cause me fits. I agree on the skimming downstream should be a viable option and with the kalk/vinegar setup, it'll allow you to direct most of the bacterial growth to the sump where it can be more efficiently skimmed out whereas, dosing in the DT with vodka may increase the bacterial population in your DT and less make it to your sump where the skimmer is to be skimmed out and removed from the system.

I run such an overstocked fish load that biopellets (another form of carbon dosing like vodka) are my savior to keep nitrates low. FWIW, I don't run an ULNS, I try to actually encourage some algal growth for my tangs and angels to feed on. Just for the original poster, you can't run vodka, or any type of carbon dosing, without a good skimmer. It is essential as it removes the bacteria growth that is initiated from the carbon dosing. Sascha, if you aren't into the amount of work zeovit systems require, then vodka isn't going to be your thing either. It's daily dosing and too much work in my opinion as well. I would look into biopellets if your fish population ever gets too high and your nitrates start soaring. Simple, little maintenance, and efficient form of carbon dosing. The big drawback is having to buy a reactor and you can't tune it as well as you can a daily carbon dose addition like vodka.

Kevin, one on my old 125-gallon (6') was more than enough power and I put another on the other side just to have an opposing flow, but it wasn't really needed. They are plenty strong.

Just wanted to mention just in case. Kudos for waiting for it to cure already.

Show me one good tank that was started with just live rock? Just kidding. You ARE going to have an interesting summer... and a busy one.

Just another thought as I am full of them this week. [emoji14] If you are removing all the rock anyways, why don't you just put your current rock in a tub that's plumbed into your DT. Then throw a ton of peppermints in there to get rid of the aiptasia. Cover the tub and let the trash palys and GSP dieoff. If it's a lot of them, maybe move those rocks with GSP and palys to another smaller tub and leave them in there with no light to die off and run some carbon. That'll save you a whole lot of money and still keep the same biofilter you had with your tank that's been happy. On the live rock, I'm surprised you're going with actual live rock. I thought the whole point of the reboot was to get rid of unwanted hitchhikers?

I don't know much about the rock other than its live. Will you have to worry about hitchhikers?

I don't know about never as that's a strong statement to make but lowering nutrient levels in a tank can definitely help with dinos. I agree that there is a strong correlation anecdotally between cyano/dinos and carbon dosing but nothing officially proven.

I'd wait at least a week before putting it online until the silicone completely cures. You'll leach chemicals in your water otherwise and could kill corals and fish.

Good plan! Juiceman has my fish trap but if he's done with it, you're more than welcome to borrow it. I'll let you two work out the details of exchanging it. Here's how I use it if it helps. If you don't have a sea squirt to administer the food to the trap, let me know and you can grab mine. Juiceman didn't need it because he has one. My only suggestion is to maybe wait a bit longer on the SPS just to be safe. All parameters may look good but the fluctuations of a new tank may cause you to potentially lose all the SPS. Maybe just transfer one as a test piece and if it does well, then transfer the rest of the SPS. When you get to the CaRX stage, give me a holler. Been fiddling with those for years now.

So are you using it? What size is it?Juiceman,Ol Aggie has my tub, I have his. My tub is the standard 100-gallon Rubbermaid tub. If ol aggie gets his tank sometime this century and is done with it, you are more than welcome to grab it and use it. He's currently using it to store his livestock from his old tank until he receives his new tank. If you need to drill it, you can but let's talk before you do so I'm in agreement with the bulkhead size and location of the hole. If I'm a betting man, I'm thinking I'll be done with his tub before he's done with mine... considering Reef Savvy's reputation for delayed delivery. [emoji6]

Oh, and the club doesn't have anything near 100 gallons. I asked already a couple months ago.