Bpb

I’m due for an update. It’s been a little while. I’ll probably try to take some new pictures today if I get a chance.

Not much has changed. I’ve added and removed a few corals. But nothing really fun or exciting. Kind of just in a watching the grass grow phase.

As my co2 tank is nearing empty and I’m on my last small bit of masterflex tubing I’ve been thinking about my reactor a lot. My masterflex is an old brush motor model. While I realize it’ll probably outlast me, it’s so noisy. Noisy enough that I am constantly just thinking about how nice it would be to have a silent tank. I’ve tolerated the hum for a couple years and it is just driving me up the wall now.

I think my chief concern is that when this tubing is done with I have to change something. My particular unit is discontinued and takes ls15 tubing. They don’t have an identical pharmed tubing alternative, and Cole Parmer only sells this tubing in 25 foot $125 sets which I’m not wanting to pony up for. So that leaves me with some options

Replace the ez load head with one that takes ls17 tubing and stock up on pharmed tubing. Pro-probably the cheapest fix
Con-still have the awful noise.

Pick up a kamoer
Pro-quiet, relatively inexpensive
Con-shoddy quality, jebao level or worse, coralvue is unaccommodating on claims

Pick up a brushless masterflex on eBay
Pro-silent, reliable
Con-Will take some setting aside of money for a while. I’m on a budget and a purchase like that isn’t one I can just make on a moments notice. Buying a used pump is a risk as well

Pick up a brand new brushless masterflex
Pro-everything. Best of all worlds
Con-the cost is borderline fantasy land. The buyers remorse would kill me

Pick up a fuel filter and run an ac pump/needle valve old school setup.
Pro-nearly a free change. Simple. Saves space
Con-hit or miss if it actually works

I’ve been hearing so many conflicting opinions
If you run a pump and needle valve
Use a prefilter
Don’t use a prefilter
Use a pinch valve
Use a needle valve
Use a return pump manifold
Don’t use a manifold it’s unreliable, use a dedicated pump
But most pumps that small aren’t very high quality.

I’m so torn on what direction to go, but I have to make a decision soon.

I’m about to cull all of my pc rainbow. Despite multiple dips and relocations, the colony and various frags tend to spiral down hill. Burnt tips, mesenteric filaments, brittle tissue, color loss. No idea what it could be, but whatever it is, it’s winning. Everything else is fine

Against Ty’s best advice, I’m likely switching back to metal halides very soon. Have a pair of mint lumenbrite pendants being offered to me for free and I have ballasts as well. A pair of hamilton 14k every 9 months or so will be cheaper to run and replace than 8-54 watt t5 bulbs. I will be able to drive the par higher as well. I don’t think anyone would argue that halides don’t grow acropora lol. I like my t5’s and they’re reliable, but a canopy is a must, and I’m not up for a rebuild. I can’t really get my par in the neighborhood I’d like. I am peaking out at about 300 or so on the rocks at the highest point and 400 directly under the water surface. Likely due to the fact that the lights are 13” off the water and can’t get any closer. Shooting for 400-500 atop the rocks and higher as the branches grow upward. A free lateral move bringing me into the range I want and bringing back that zesty shimmer I’ll admit is exciting to think about.

I think that about covers the update for now. I’ll post some pics later. Here’s one just for attention




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I gotta find a way to get some of these!


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I have a Geo. I had a lot of slowing effluent issues and clogging lines for a long time. I’d constantly have to open the gate valve more to keep it flowing. I tried a fix from Gigem and put a pre filter on the line before the gate Valve of the effluent line and is been rock solid ever since!




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Thanks for the first hand experience.  I plan to try a Kamoer out as well.  My MTC reactor isn't keeping up with my coral uptake anymore and I have a giant Deltec CaRX but it could never keep a stable effluent.  I was going to try the Kamoer on it and see if I can keep it stable.  If so, I'll run that as my new CaRX.

You can find brushless masterflexes for under 500. With the kamoers coming out and being refined, i fully expect the used masterflex market to be reduced. 

I'm curious what horror stories you've read about the Kamoer pump?  I use a Kamoer pump with my calcium reactor and can give you some honest feedback from my experience.
I wouldn't consider it a horror story but the first several months of using it was really frustrating.  Air would constantly build up in the reactor and required purging every couple of days.  It's no worse than having to constantly adjust a needle value (using the push method with a conventional pump) but the whole point is to NOT have to mess with it.  Drove me crazy until I finally found a thread on reef2reef with the solution.  The reactor needs to be slightly pressurized to avoid this air build up.  You have to setup the Kamoer to pull and use either a conventional pump or return manifold to push and apply pressure.  Works great now.  I use a Geo calcium reactor so I'm not sure if this problem exists with other reactors.  I've always had issues with air/gas building up in my reactor for various reasons.
Not ideal having to still push with a pump or manifold but I've never been able to get a needle valve to work well, even with a faster stream/drip.  It's also slightly louder than I would like but not too bad.  My tank is in my living room, a couple feet from the couch so you can hear everything.  I've had it for 8-9 months and have not had to recalibrate or change out the tubing yet.

Short answer bud... Its the reactor design.  I ran 4 reactors up to this point, 3 worked well and never had issues with unsteady flow that constantly slowed down... One did.  After trying everything to try to troubleshoot the one... Came down to design flaws to me regarding pressure.
Some say you can run a prefilter for the CaRX but that didn't work for me either.  So really, get an old PM CaRX, a Korallin, or an MTC Pro Cal and you can ditch the peristaltic pumps.
Otherwise, run a peristaltic or be ready to kick up your flow every 7-10 days when it slows down again.  Just my 2 cents from the reactors I've played with.

So you’ve been a long time proponent of not needing a peristaltic pump on your reactor. We discussed this briefly years back. I’ve enjoyed the stability and reliability of my masterflex but the noise and inability to get the tubing it takes any longer have me at my wits end.

Soooo many people report constant effluent fluctuations, valve clogging, and headaches using the push method with a conventional pump.

A new masterflex is definitely not in my budget. A $2400 calcium reactor feed pump is absurd. And I’ve read nothing but horror stories about the kamoer pumps that brs and coralvue are carrying.

Share with us/me how you’re able to maintain such stable alkalinity on your reactor without using a peristaltic pump, and why do you think others struggle so much with it. A mj900 sounds a lot more attractive than a faulty peri pump or a couple grand for a decent one.


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Maybe once a year or so.  Reminds me its been a while.  I think I'll clean the return and skimmer pumps this weekend

I’ve been using muriatic acid to clean my pumps for years. I do about a 1:10 mixture. Stings the nostrils.


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I don’t get much coralline in my tank honestly. My Powerheads seem to always get a lot of your standard algae buildup on them. I have to clean my jebaos monthly or they drop about 30-40% flow. I am hoping swapping the cages and rotors out will do enough for monthly maintenance with a full shaft removal and cleaning of the bushings every few months. The gen 3 gyres look like they’re coming with a light shield to keep algae from building up on the cages


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Do you guys find that simply swapping the cages and rotors isn’t sufficient. Do you need to take out the impeller shaft and scrub thst too?


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Christmas present to myself. Not sure if I should throw them on the tank now, or let them stay brand new for the 150 gallon? What do y’all think. My flow situation presently is ok, but I wouldn’t mind more. What do y’all think?


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Easiest thing I found to do is find what someone is doing who has a tank you really admire, and pick their brain. Copy them


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Special grade or white starboard. CC is too big, finer sand makes a mess. I’ve debated going barebottom but I just love the look of sand too much


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As suspected. Measured the entire tank at all points using the apogee qm510. I’m getting 550-600 at the surface, and 250 on the sandbed. Most points on the rocks that aren’t shaded are averaging around 300-400 par. Par is ridiculously even laterally and front to back and the only real variation I see is in vertical depth.


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Would it then be advisable to be immediately aggressive with the PO4 removing method of your choice, carbon use, and perhaps polyfilter, and some large water changes to immediately remove whatever that dead algae is providing the water?


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Refilled the CARX media for the first time since buying it. It was about 1/4 left full and about an inch of non-dissolved powder at the bottom. Took about an hour. Was slightly less of a pain than anticipated. Up and running full of fresh media and good to go!


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New bulbs came in. Love how bright and natural it looks. Like sunlight in shallow water



Will take par readings after I replace all 8 and they’ve burned in. I only swapped two out today. Spectrum shouldn’t change much from here though. The rest are duplicates.


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Tank looks great! And is it just me or is that fox face massive? 

Holy moly! The lighting expert knows his par readings! [emoji50]

Alright, that was the last one. [emoji12]

FTS looks great sir! The tank is getting full fast!

Sorry not under pure 6500k this time like I’ve been trying to do. Didn’t feel like getting into the cabinet and turning off the blue+ bulbs.


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No more criticism Ty. I took par readings in my tank for the first time ever. It was a Seneye so keep that in mind, but it gets pretty good reviews on it’s accuracy vs the 500 series apogee.

Par was a good bit lower than expected. 8x54 watt ati sunpower mounted 13” over the water I am getting about 400 at the surface over roughly the entire footprint, with a gentle gradient down to about 100-200 on the sandbed depending on how centered I get it. Most my acros are hanging out in the 200-300 range which is much lower than I expected.

Couple things. The 6500k bulb does put out a lot more par than any other bulb. I’m adding more.

The splash shield was very messy with salt creep.

All my blue+ bulbs are about 24 months old, and the rest range from 9-18 months.

I’m going to take it down and clean the splash shield real well. Maybe order new reflectors. And new bulbs. I’ll repeat readings in a month or so


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Jebao customer service is lousy, and I have a feeling this thread would get buried on a big forum in a hurry. Question for you guys and gals

As I continue to slowly build up the 150 gallon I am at a flow conundrum. Ideally, I’d get a quartet of MP60’s or maybe a pair of Gyre XF280’s. But....even being in this hobby for as many years as I have, I simply cannot reconcile the cost of those options. Having had a tunze and a vortech to kaput on me in the past, I simply don’t trust that spending 1-2 grand on powerheads will result in a “you get what you pay for” situation.

I digress. 60”x24”x24”. All sps. Shooting for 100x turnover or more.

Considering a quartet of jebao OW60’s

Here’s my question. Can you do two master and two slaves? I understand if you set one master pump it will automatically detect any nearby controllers and any assign them as Slaves. I’d ideally like to have two masters on one side and two slaves on another that way I could program a gyre flow using the stock controllers if that makes sense. But I don’t understand how that will work logistically when setting the controllers.

My apex is pushing 7 years old and I don’t expect it to hang in there much longer, won’t be purchasing a new one. So apex control isn’t something I’d like to rely on

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