JBJ 8 Gallon AIO Build w/ Auto Water Changes!

[firedancer414]

My Red Sea Reefer 170 crashed last January after coming back from a long vacation, and I've been thinking about ways to reduce my maintenance (was doing a bad job of running Triton with no water changes - not keeping up with dosing iodine / potassium / strontium / boron which were always running low). After a lot of research, I landed on doing a new build of a pico with auto-water changes from the Neptune DOS, inspired by the success of the ULM tank trials series from BRS.

 

I got the DOS plumbed last night and it's just magic. It changes out 40mL for new salt water every 10 min, so about 1.5 gallons a day. The waste water is plumbed directly into the sink drain in the next room over. Just incredible!

 

Wish me luck!

 

Equipment

• Tank: JBJ 8 Gallon Desktop, ~6 gallons water volume
• Light: Kessil A160WE 40W
• Flow: VorTech MP10 Wireless + Anemone guard
• Heater: 25W NeoTherm (upgrading to 50W) / Cooler: 80mm USB fan from Amazon controlled by Apex
• Filtration: 10 pounds of special grade CaribSea live sand + bag of carbon (BRS ROX 0.8) in overflow
• Water: 5 stage BRS RO/DI system
• ATO: Neptune PMUP V2 with 2.5 gallon reservoir, evaporating ~200 mL / day. Relatively tight custom cut plexiglass lid. WL_TNK to trigger adding water (~0.5 in below WL_EMR) and WL_FW for adding to the reservoir.
• Auto Water Changes: Red Sea Blue Bucket, Neptune DOS + 20 Gallon reservoir of salt water in closet, waste water plumbed into sink drain, 1.5 gallons / day. Two water level monitors, one in the salt water to monitor if I run out (WL_SW), another in the tank to turn off the DOS if it gets too full (WL_EMR).
• Controller: Neptune Apex, FMM fluid level monitoring, WXM for VorTech MP10 connection

[Over]Stock

• Softies: Ricordia, Many Zoas - large WWC Illuminati colony, purple + rainbow hornets, scrambled eggs, Halle Berry, purple monster, etc
• LPS: Duncans, frogspawn, some acans
• SPS: Green slimer, Bonsai, Bubblegum Digitata
• Inverts: Blood shrimp, emerald crab, electric orange hermit, red-banded pistol + Randall's goby, purple urchin
• Fish: Diamond Watchman Goby, purple firefish, melanurus wrasse, bicolor blenny

 

 

[Merthynia]

I really like your anemone guard for the mp10, I'll have to look into that. I find it really interesting that you have it automated to do water changes throughout the day like that. What is your plan to monitor salinity in the tank? Will you still run an ATO for evaporation or manually correct it as time goes on? I assume with the frequent waterchanges it will creep up rather slowly.

[firedancer414]

1 hour ago, Merthynia said:

I really like your anemone guard for the mp10, I'll have to look into that. I find it really interesting that you have it automated to do water changes throughout the day like that. What is your plan to monitor salinity in the tank? Will you still run an ATO for evaporation or manually correct it as time goes on? I assume with the frequent waterchanges it will creep up rather slowly.

Thanks for dropping by! Here's the anemone guard I have. I have the Apex Fusion monitoring the salinity - ideally it's just swapping salt water for salt water but will definitely keep paying attention. The tank has a pretty tight glass lid on it (maybe 1/4 inch on the sides) to minimize evaporation but will keep posted on how it performs.

[Merthynia]

54 minutes ago, firedancer414 said:

Thanks for dropping by! Here's the anemone guard I have. I have the Apex Fusion monitoring the salinity - ideally it's just swapping salt water for salt water but will definitely keep paying attention. The tank has a pretty tight glass lid on it (maybe 1/4 inch on the sides) to minimize evaporation but will keep posted on how it performs.

Thank you, I'll be following along for sure. Have you noticed algae growth on the guard itself?

[firedancer414]

22 minutes ago, Merthynia said:

Thank you, I'll be following along for sure. Have you noticed algae growth on the guard itself?

So I've been running this particular tank for 5 days so not a ton of algae growth so far.

 

When I was running it in my 170 - it tends to catch a lot of floating algae and detritus and need to be cleaned periodically (I just mean reaching your hand in the tank and scraping as much off as you can every few days) it can bring down the flow significantly as it gets clogged. Since I'm just planning on softies and some LPS flow isn't a huge deal for me.

[firedancer414]

Some more photos of the auto water change setup now that it's settling in. I upgraded to a 20 gallon container from Home Depot to house the salt water, with an airtight lid. 

 

 

Two power heads and a heater to keep it. I just added a bunch of fresh from the garage so pretty cold.

 

The DOS tubing for waste routes along the windowsill in my office 

 

 

Behind my desk and bed to a drain saddle under the bathroom sink next door. 

 

 

[firedancer414]

Few more updates ...

We're about 2 weeks in and corals are starting to look happy. Frogspawn is completely open, bubble tip anemone isn't walking around the tank anymore, acans are starting to open. Also not having any algae / uglies / cycling issues yet (in fact, some of the hair algae that came over from my old tank has been coming down not going up).

I decided that I want to upgrade from an A80 to an A160 so I could put some higher light corals in there if I so desired. I didn't realize that an A80 only gets you a max of 70 par if you get it 4 inches above the surface. I have a bubble tip anemone in there and I'm worried it's not enough for the guy.

Got the fan set up to manage temp and cut a custom ~airtight plexiglass lid to integrate it into. It fogs up which is a bit ugly but oh well. Gotta manage that evaporation! I don't have an ATO so is definitely annoying to have to add RO from time to time and want to keep that to a minimum. There's a tradeoff between managing temperature and amount of RO I need to add.

Only bad news is my Neptune temperature probe went bad - it thought my tank was up to 90 degrees and turned off everything (including the heater) and when I took its temp realized that the tank was actually at 74 degrees. I lost my diamond sand sifting goby that day and I think it was because of the temp swing.

 

 

 

Also cut some holes in the wall to the closet and started building the mount board. Cables need to be cleaned up but looking a lot better. Need an extension for the Kessil control. I'm able to almost shut the whole closet which cuts down on the DOS pumping whine significantly.

The mount board is actually an old Ikea chair that my kid destroyed haha.
 

 

 

 

[firedancer414]

Got the A160WE switch done (wanted some extra PAR to get some SPS in there) - took a few pictures
 

 

 

 

[firedancer414]

Add a few hearty SPS to the tank today given how well everything was doing from Cherry Corals - a Green Slimer, Garf Bonsai, and Bubblegum Digitata. Might try to pick up some birdsnest next time I'm at the LFS.

 

[firedancer414]

Making a few small upgrades.

• Got a BRS 5-stage RODI system (because I have city water with chloramines) so I don't need to go to the aquarium store anymore to get water. I put it under the same sink next to the drain and I'm trying to hook it up in a way to be safe and also seamless (doesn't need to hook into the sink counter) ... I think I should be able to do it with a Y-connecter into the drain with check valves.
• Setting up an ATO with a Neptune pump - the tank still has pretty significant evap even with the lid (~100-200 mL / day I think) and need the stability.
• Did some PAR measurements with a rented meter from BRS - my A160 is ~5 inches from the top of the lid, I was getting max PAR readings of ~280 on the zoa colony at 50% spectrum and 100% brightness. So I think the plan is to run closer to 30% spectrum (more blue) and 100% brightness after acclimating so will have max pars in the 200 range. 

[firedancer414]

Set up the ATO in the closet and cleaned up all the wires again - looking great! So happy with how this is turning out would highly recommend to anyone looking to keep a reef without having to worry much about testing, dosing, dragging buckets of water all over the house, getting your hands wet, etc.

 

 

 

Salt mixing station on the other side of the closet for the auto water changes.
 

 

[firedancer414]

Finally got my RODI plumbed under the same hallway bathroom sink. The RODI input comes from a "EZ Faucet Adapter Kit with 1/4" Mur-lok 90 Ball Valve". However, it's for a 1/2" sink hose, and I have 3/8" hose under my bathroom sink. So I needed these two fittings to make it work:

• LASCO 10-0061 Delta Faucet 1/2 Female Pipe Thread by 3/8 Male Compression Brass Adapter, 2 Piece
• GAPPO 1/2" Female to 3/8" Male Faucet Hose Connector Lead Free Brass Hot & Cold Water Faucet Adapter Pack of 2(1 Pair)

which worked! So happy with how it turned out.

Not too much to report from the tank. It's started going through its uglies (been set up for about 2 months now) - lots of diatoms and cyano, it looks like. Green slimer has been encrusting pretty well.