Cam's red sea max

[coralcam]

Being playing around with this for the past few months and all seems well.
Setup with everything supplied that it came with plus a bit of black sponge to trap any micro bubbles before they get into the tank, resun 280 chiller with reef octopus 1000l/hr pump running and 4500l/hr tunze nanno for added circulation bringing total to 5500l/hr which is over 45 times per hour. Chiller pump sucks from heater area and returns here as well so it doesn't add to turnover and did it this way as it is much neater.
Didn't use the substrate (yet) as I wanted the rock to vent out a lot of the detritus trapped in it for the first few months and this has payed off with consistently low levels with nitrates always under 5ppm.
20 litres water change weekly with salt mix - Aquasonic
Sponge cleaned weekly in water removed for water change.
detritus siphoned weekly from the two spots it collects and then tank blasted with a power head and filter wool used for 24hours to polish the water.






















[/img]

[Dunny]

Fantasic pics..There is one of these set up in my lfs. Very nice looking. Do you swap or clean the black sponge that stops the micro bubbles?

[koran1]

hi cameron,
seen your nano on the weekend,looks great!

[coralcam]

I clean the black sponge out every week but i have put another smaller piece of the black sponge after the skimmer before the heater chamber area to catch out the fine bubbles and it works brilliantly. It takes a few hours (usually overnight) for it to stop the bubbles. I think they all start to join to form bigger bubbles in the foam and then rise to the surface or are too big and buoyant to be pulled down.

[TrulyFish]

Its looking awesome...

[dejavu]

Some great looking corals in there! I especially like the Montipora and Fungia.

I take it that the tank is still running the stock lighting right?

[bradman]

Great looking tank, you've made it look very simple but very affective. Look forward in seeing pics in 3-6 mths

[silverseahorse]

I have monti envy!

[coralcam]

Yes the lighting is stock standard. The corals are sucking the Kh out like there's no tomorrow..

[Clambuff]

Cam, Do you think there is a need to upgrade anything at all? I'm thinking mainly of the filtration, like the sponges, the small white one maybe. Any thoughts?
Dave

[coralcam]

The small white filter material that it came with is a bit small for the area it is in so water can just bypass it (pointless). I use a handful of normal filter wool / Dacron instead but only every now and then when i am doing maintenance to catch out the fine material. If you leave the filter wool in, it will clog within a day or two and then slow the water down entering the filter area resulting in your tank water level rising and possibly starving the pumps of water and introducing bubbles to the system. The black sponge is fine, i rinse it out in the 20 litres of water i change every week and then put it back in.
I usually replace activated carbon every 4 weeks but due to having to undo and remove pumps to do it, i just haven't bothered as it is a little cumbersome, but i should do it.
Attached is a pic of the additional piece of black sponge installed to stop any micro bubbles from skimmer.
Hope this helps

The pipes you see are to the chiller, the intake for the chiller is at the bottom of the heater section (so it doesn't suck in any bubbles through the chiller) and the return is a short hose back to the heater section, yes there is some recycling of chilled water into the chiller again but it has not affected the cooling at all.
You can also see the skimmer and I have the air inlet for the skimmer open all the way and I have only cleaned it out 3 times in a few months. Having a bare bottom and weekly water changes means there is almost no skimmate produced. It does foam a little when i put in nutraplus complete feed (a mix of red and green phyto plankton and rotifers and artemia. I only use 3 drops at a time but it is very concentrated.