The second video shows the dirty floss leading to water level rising, triggering the sensor, which then rolls the paper and the water level goes down.  Pretty dirty on the 'used' side of the roll!

https://youtu.be/fgH1VKQlUIw

I have a small pump (with no filter guard) that pumps aquarium water from the sump into the unit, which sits on top of the sump.  The water flows in the middle input bulkhead just above the filter roll.  The water flows through the filter cloth and exits through a bulkhead in the lower right corner, which drains back into the sump.  You can see that the pressure differential through the filter cloth causes a difference in water level on the two sides of the cloth.  As debris clogs the filter roll, the water level rises in the middle.  Eventually, it reaches the optical sensor, which tells the unit to turn on power to the motor that winds the filter roll paper.  This pulls the dirty cloth out and winds it up, and also bring new fresh cloth into the water, which is more permeable to water due to no debris build up.  The water level will then quickly decrease with the new clean filter paper.  If the sensor ever fails or the unit runs out of cloth, or can't roll in new fleece for some reason, there is a backup overflow just above the level that activates the motor.

So far it is working great!  I didn't have any mechanical filtration before this, and I feel like my tank is already clearer....

pH has been fairly stable.  It started at 8.0 and went up to 8.2, backed down to 8.0 as ammonia went down (no idea if those are linked somehow?), but has gone back up to 8.2.

Ammonia was added the first 3 days until it hit 4.0 ppm, then I stopped adding.  It has slowly declined and has just hit 0 for the past 2 days.

Nitrite went up slowly but steadily starting on day 5, and it appears to just now be declining.

Nitrate followed just behind Nitrite, as expected.  I actually already stocked the refugium with caulerpa and chaeto.  I wasn't sure if it would survive the ammonia, but it appears to have done fine.  It may be serving to keep nitrates from rising too high just yet.

While waiting for cycling, I needed something else to work on, so I decided to make my own roller mat filter.  I've never had one, but everything I read on them makes them sound great: you can avoid the constant switching/washing/replacement of filter socks, and the waste doesn't sit in your tank for days until the change.  Plus if you're like me, it's usually a lot longer than days between sock changes 

First, I looked up common filter fleece sizes, since I wanted to be able to replace them easily with ones that I could order online. I settled on a 4" filter fleece size, and got to work designing the structure.  I ordered some acrylic and used my table saw to cut the pieces.  Then I used a hole drill to make the cuts in the plates and in the back.  I used weld-on #4 to adhere the acrylic pieces.  It's still a work in progress, but perhaps pictures speak louder than words:

The intake is the solitary hose barb in the middle bottom.  The water then goes through the filter fleece and through the holes in the acrylic plates and drains out the outlet in the bottom corner.  Just in case the fleece is clogged and the water backs up, there is an overflow outlet higher up.

I have the motor for the filter roll, but I'm still waiting on the filter fleece roll itself.  I ordered a " 4" klir filter fleece roll " from bulkreefsupply.  Unfortunately, when it came, I realized the fleece roll itself was only 3".  It was just marketed to be for the 4" system.  So I have reordered the clarisea 4" roll, and it says on the website the roll is ACTUALLY 4" wide.  Hope it's correct, since I designed the plates 4" wide.  I'll have to return the other one.  I'll post more pictures as parts roll in.

After the sand cleared, it was time for some live rock! I ordered 60 lbs of real reef live rock from bulk reef supply, bought 35 lbs of leftover rock from another reefer, and bought about 25 lbs of marco dry rock which is bleach white and located at the back underneath the rest of the rock.  I think it looks excellent with the pink and purple color, but the selection of pieces I got didn't allow me for a great aquascape:

I would have preferred more branching and arches.  But you gotta work with what you've got.

Now comes the long process of tank cycling.  On one hand this is exciting, but on the other hand it is a painstakingly long wait!

I got a bioplate during black friday sales and it came with a bottle of brightwell aquatics nitrifying bacteria:

I used Dr. Tim's ammonium chloride to start the cycling process.  I thought about putting a shrimp in there and letting it decay, but didn't want the smell.  I also thought about a sacrificial fish, but my wife basically said no creatures should be harmed in the cycling of the tank, so that was also a no-go.  Plus, I listened to a convincing podcast that said that by adding pure ammonia as a source and using a bottle of denitrifying bacteria, you avoid buildup of opportunistic contaminant bacteria.

Next, came filling the tank, adding salt, and then sand.  I added reef crystals to achieve a SG of 1.025 and will try to maintain that salinity.  Should stay pretty consistent with the auto top off.  For sand, I used carib sea arag-alive bahamas oolite.  This is a very fine substrate, and I was worried that it would blow around the tank, but it actually has been great and doesn't move much, but does give a nice wave pattern on the bottom of the tank.  Moment of truth!

I put the bags down into the tank after cutting a small corner off the bag, turned off all powerheads/pumps, and tried to gently let the sand come out of the bag.  Well, didn't prevent clouding!  Took about 4 days to completely clear up, even with the biomagnet clarifier.  On day 3 I turned the pumps back on, and on day 4 turned the gyre back on.

While I waited for the tank to clear, I focused on some more electrical work.  I had a leftover icecap ballast, which I used to hook up the lighting for the refugium.  I also had some leftover reflectors (they were 5', I had to cut them to 2') and endcaps.  I used 24" grow lights in the purple spectrum to give both red light and blue light for macroalgae photosynthesis:

I also worked on plumbing in a manifold for the various media reactors.  Specifically, I planned to have carbon, phosphate, and a calcium reactor.  These would be plumbed into the same circuit as the mixing tank.  I wanted to be able to turn valves to turn off each reactor for changing media independently, and also needed to be able to turn valves to divert water away from the mixing tank for doing water changes.  Those two things turned into quite a complex manifold system, but we got it done.  Hopefully it continues to work seamlessly enough...

Here is the first reactors plumbed in:

Unfortunately, I don't yet own a calcium reactor, but the plumbing is there and ready for it when I do eventually get one!