Krux

Once done finding a solution, you can put the auto feeder in the return pump chamber of your sump and it will still dose the food through the return line. Not sure what your budget is, but I have really liked my ClearView lid on the RSR 350, though the wait is currently quite a while unless you have a super standard tank. I went custom with the Pisces EXO line as I wanted to be able to run my auto feeder, add feed doors right above my MP40's for manual feeding, and also needed to have my RMS mounts properly spaced. I believe it was about 45 days to get it from time of order. (If anyone needs a lid for a reefer 350 and wants an autofeeder/dual feed door/rms layout I got you covered as that tank is coming down!) https://www.clearviewlids.com/pages/current-lead-time-shipping-estimates I believe some people are liking tops from Kraken Reef, but I haven't seen one in person so I cant comment on the build quality. They do not seem significantly cheaper than ClearView but the turn around time may be quicker. All custom lids are expensive but so are fish, and they look intentional which has intrinsic value to some folks. If you are handy and want a more budget method, I used the Red Sea kit on my old 170 and it was fine, but I did it with hand tools and the cuts were not perfect which bothered me. YMMV with skill level. Similar to the stuff linked above from BRS but with nifty red Sea logos on the corners so more expensive to achieve the same results! Hope that helps.

I don’t know what the water folks are doing, but my normal 3-4 incoming tds is really clean this month. Guess I don’t need to change my resin again for a bit.

I am near Washington Square, will you take paypal to hold it? I will not be free to find you until Friday or Saturday.

What is the pH inside your reactor? I am using the calcite based Triton/KZ marble chips in mine - not necessarily cheap but they don't really melt fast and they have the lowest phosphate boost of any media according to BRS testing. The only problem is it needs a very low pH to melt... under 6. Just a thought if you hadn't looked into it.

I am interested in the battery, where are you located?

Everything looks really happy, well done!

Have you tried clam extraction?

Frag rack was particularly attractive while I was feeding the fish

How long have you had the R7? I am still using a T6 and have been eyeballing the idea of going mirrorless, but needing to either buy new lenses or run an adapter has kept me from being serious about it. I have a couple of prime macro lenses as well as a chonker 180mm zoom lens for wildlife photography that I spent too much money on that are EF mounts. Do you like the camera? Did you upgrade from a traditional camera, and if so, any thoughts on the changeover? The main reason I want to upgrade is to get a bluetooth or wifi integrated model as I am lazy - I could get an eye-fi card but my understanding is they transfer really slow on larger images and I prefer to shoot RAW and then play around in Lightroom. Also, I have a cool Neewar horizontal tripod that is fun for top down shots - not sure if you have something similar but might be worth looking into something like that if you don't. Works really well with an Avast Porthole.

Do some searches for Interceptor as an in-tank treatment for red bugs. There are some drawbacks but there aren't a lot of other options.

I have lens envy.

Andy, we need to work together to more convincingly coordinate our attire next time. Looks like I need a bit of a beard trim as well for us to pull off our doppelganger shenanigans. Thanks to everyone who helped make it a great meeting!

It is the 190.5 Infinia

Thanks for the links! There are a few where I am going to be using metric to imperial, and then the rest will all be standard. Fortunately I have a couple in my plumbing box, but will definitely be grabbing some more.

I have been in talks with a guy on R2R who has a very similar setup (though slightly larger) including the new Waterbox, a Clarisea Roller, and a Ecotech return pump. Now that I have some time I am going to rework some of the plumbing! I am a huge fan of spending way to much money on unions so it is easier to break everything down for maintenance and to allow for quick swapping to backup equipment in case of failure. The fellow on the other board was kind enough to make me a diagram, if anyone is interested this is what I am going to shoot for:

We did some brainstorming yesterday… with a vacation coming up this month, the initial plan to just do a direct transfer using existing rock and water was put on hold in favor of a natural cycle for a bit. It was decided that the carpet needed to be cut out so the tank could be properly levelled, we expected to find slab underneath but there was some decent flooring underneath which was an added bonus, no need to paint the concrete. Put in 100lbs of Fiji pink, ordered 50 lbs of TBS live sand, and threw in a 1k watt heater, a gyre, and let it rip. I probably won’t see any more material changes until January other than putting the doors on and maybe some mounting of power bricks etc.

2?

Many donuts and a dozen coffees later she is in place. i try to describe how unforgiving my driveway and access to the basement are ahead of time, but my bevy of helpers were skeptical. Thanks @CuttleFishandCoral to Jeff and Pete!

I am trying to coordinate a window that has decent weather and ample hands to move the tank, but yes it is safely in town now. Maybe this weekend if we can dodge the Pineapple Express?

This is the outgoing tank, imagine the room in the new one.

Oh dear, I was hoping nobody would ask… I have been ripping it apart and getting rid of colonies for a couple months, but, um, here it is? Sort of like that moment when you moved out of your college apartment and were trying to decide if it was worth just giving up the cleaning deposit… I am anticipating a whole new aquascape so the things that are small enough have all been popped off the rocks for transplanting and I have a bit of a coraline issue going…

I have been real bad at updating this thread, sort of totally missed a couple years of having upgraded to a Red Sea 350. Whoops. Getting ready for the next step, moving up again to a Waterbox 190.5 in the next week or two. I had a small failure in my Dastaco Calcium reactor that slowly leaked across the floor, into the wall, and saturated the tank stand. I figure it was going for at least a week until the water moved across the carpet under the tank 8 to 10 feet away where I finally stepped in the puddle. Anyway, with the fiberboard construction of the tank stand now a liability, the aluminum stands on the new Infinia line made sense, Jeff helped me pick out the right size, Pete distracted my wife while we discussed the details, and it is now in Portland. As is customary for me, just as things are happy it is time to throw a wrench into the ecosystem, so I took a couple pictures of my overflowing frag racks waiting for the new real estate, their volume is more than doubling. Please enjoy and wish us luck as we start a brand new system just before leaving for vacation! Not sure what will migrate over from the current system, I am playing with color and texture balance (you are a horrible influence @steveweast) and have been slowly getting rid of some stuff that has been around for a few years as they won’t work with the new aesthetic. Once I am happy with placement of new and old I will do some wider shots to see if I can get some growth progress shots over the coming months-years. My plan is to anger my wife by marking the carpet with sharpie to allow me to regularly align the tripod legs for consistent images over time. Many nights of couch sleeping in my future I am afraid. Thanks for those of you who are following along and I can’t thank Jeff, Pete, and crew enough for helping us dig out of this water damage kerfuffle.

Sweet, I was just eyeballing a checkerboard today. Thank you.

Everyone needs another mp40!