David's Red Sea Reefer Peninsula 500 Build

[oneilwiz]

@david Sweet tank, I am on the fence to get one of these tanks or the reefer 525XL. Can you please post a pic of how the side of the tank looks which has the overflow ? I want to get the peninsula 500 but I want to place it like a rectangular tank.

 

[mahindra.dev]

Great Build... Love the tank/ Setup. Light fixture goes very well. Peninsula is my next one and your build is very helpful.

 

[mahindra.dev]

@david Sweet tank, I am on the fence to get one of these tanks or the reefer 525XL. Can you please post a pic of how the side of the tank looks which has the overflow ? I want to get the peninsula 500 but I want to place it like a rectangular tank.

@oneilwiz, this link should help. Placing the peninsula like a regular tank.
http://www.ultimatereef.net/threads/red-sea-reefer-650-peninsula.825089/

 

[David Taghehchian]

@david Sweet tank, I am on the fence to get one of these tanks or the reefer 525XL. Can you please post a pic of how the side of the tank looks which has the overflow ? I want to get the peninsula 500 but I want to place it like a rectangular tank.

Unfortunately I I don't have a picture of the side of the tank with the overflow (the back that's against the wall). It was built/set up in place, not slid into location so I wasn't able to get any pictures like that.

Just out of curiosity, why do you want to get a peninsula then put it against a wall?

 

[David Taghehchian]

Flow - 3 Jebao PP-8 Wavemaker Pumps
I wanted to keep the flow simple, but largely adjustable without breaking the bank. I decided to give the Jebao PP series a shot. I have friends who praise Jebao for to low cost and acceptable performance, but I have also read a lot of negative reviews about their quality control. My original plan was to by 2 PP-8's and 2 PP-15's and mount them all on the back wall next to the overflow box buying one a time to see if I wanted to move to a different brand based on a quality issue if I experienced a problem. After receiving the first PP-8 I decided to go ahead and get a second. With 2 PP-8's and the return running I was able to get plenty of constant flow so I adjusted the plan from 2 more PP-15's to 2 more PP-8's. With the third PP-8 installed I think it has plenty of variable/turbulent flow for now before the corals grow in so I'm going with just the three for now. Here are some picture's of how the pumps are set up on the back wall.

 

[David Taghehchian]

Return - Current USA eFlux DC 6010 1900GPH
I bought the tank from OceanLife Aquariums in Houston, TX (which I strongly suggest visiting if you get a chance) and I bought the return pump the same day I paid for the tank itself. The tank did wouldn't arrive for a few weeks but I got the pump immediately just to reduce prep work leading up to delivery. The day I bought the tank just happened to be the stores "birthday" and they had a sale and raffle going on. I found out after I checked out that they were giving everyone 1 raffle ticket for every $10 spent on purchases in the store. Since we had just bought a tank and some accessories we had a lot of tickets to put into the raffle. As luck would have it, we won the exact same pump I had just paid for (eFlux 1900GPH DC pump). They offered to let me trade it for store credit, but I decided to keep it as a spare.

Heater - AquaTop 300 Watt Titanium Heater
There isn't much to say. It's been in the tank for about 3 months and it has worked very well so far. I plan to eventually get a second ~100 Watt heater as a backup, but I think I have some time given the heater is new and has been working well.

 

[David Taghehchian]

Update 18-Feb-2018
Tank has been up for 2 months now and I finally have something to show for all the work so far. There are approximately 35 corals, 4 anemones, and 15 fish in the tank. Pictures below.

Current Fish List:
3 Bartlett's Anthers
2 Ocellaris Clownfish
1 Tailspot Blenny
1 Mandarin Goby
1 Six-line Wrasse
1 Yellow Tang
1 Regal/Blue Tang
3 Blue/Green Chromis
2 Firefish

Successes:
Refugium, Refugium, Refugium. I can't say it enough. The refugium with the Kassil H380 is amazing. The chaetomorpha grows crazy fast and has a light green appearance. In combination with the snails and tangs, i have almost no algae in the display tank. The Bubble Magus skimmer is also working quite well. I am thoroughly pleased with it

Failures:
Luckily I haven't had any major problems in the tank aside from fish aggression from the large Bartlett's Anthias when the livestock count was low. That's not to say I haven't had a major problem outside of the tank. In fact, I made a pretty big mistake about a month ago. I made the classic RO/DI home flooding mistake. I kept putting off buying a float valve for my RO/DI system and my mixing bucket overflowed overnight because I forgot to turn it off before falling asleep. Lesson learned the hard way, I now have a float valve, an overflow drain line from the mixing bucket straight to the toilet, and I set a reminder for myself every time I make water.

Issues/Concerns:
Time. Time before I have to move to another city/state/country, that is. I work in the Oil and Gas industry and my biggest concern is that I will come across a job in a new location that I can't turn down. Moving a lot is just part of the job unfortunately.

Future Plans:
Aside from the addition of a dosing system, I hope the only things I need to do are Maintenance and Water changes. I hope to see everything grow in with little to no changes to the system. If you look through this build thread you will notice everything is pretty simple. Read: no controller. I had a controller on my last tank (IM Nano Fusion 20) and I think it made me more paranoid than helped keep things steady. Given the large water volume on the peninsula 500 I think it will do fine without a controller. At least for now......

Pictures as of 18-Feb-2018

 

[mahindra.dev]

Update 18-Feb-2018
Tank has been up for 2 months now and I finally have something to show for all the work so far. There are approximately 35 corals, 4 anemones, and 15 fish in the tank. Pictures below.

Current Fish List:
3 Bartlett's Anthers
2 Ocellaris Clownfish
1 Tailspot Blenny
1 Mandarin Goby
1 Six-line Wrasse
1 Yellow Tang
1 Regal/Blue Tang
3 Blue/Green Chromis
2 Firefish

Successes:
Refugium, Refugium, Refugium. I can't say it enough. The refugium with the Kassil H380 is amazing. The chaetomorpha grows crazy fast and has a light green appearance. In combination with the snails and tangs, i have almost no algae in the display tank. The Bubble Magus skimmer is also working quite well. I am thoroughly pleased with it

Failures:
Luckily I haven't had any major problems in the tank aside from fish aggression from the large Bartlett's Anthias when the livestock count was low. That's not to say I haven't had a major problem outside of the tank. In fact, I made a pretty big mistake about a month ago. I made the classic RO/DI home flooding mistake. I kept putting off buying a float valve for my RO/DI system and my mixing bucket overflowed overnight because I forgot to turn it off before falling asleep. Lesson learned the hard way, I now have a float valve, an overflow drain line from the mixing bucket straight to the toilet, and I set a reminder for myself every time I make water.

Issues/Concerns:
Time. Time before I have to move to another city/state/country, that is. I work in the Oil and Gas industry and my biggest concern is that I will come across a job in a new location that I can't turn down. Moving a lot is just part of the job unfortunately.

Future Plans:
Aside from the addition of a dosing system, I hope the only things I need to do are Maintenance and Water changes. I hope to see everything grow in with little to no changes to the system. If you look through this build thread you will notice everything is pretty simple. Read: no controller. I had a controller on my last tank (IM Nano Fusion 20) and I think it made me more paranoid than helped keep things steady. Given the large water volume on the peninsula 500 I think it will do fine without a controller. At least for now......

Pictures as of 18-Feb-2018

Very nice. Good update. Good fish selection. Does your 6 line get aggressive with other fish?
& Did u try creating waves with the Jebao? They are powerful and If you run the Jebao's in Else mode, there should be a lot of flow for the tank.

 

[David Taghehchian]

Very nice. Good update. Good fish selection. Does your 6 line get aggressive with other fish?
& Did u try creating waves with the Jebao? They are powerful and If you run the Jebao's in Else mode, there should be a lot of flow for the tank.

Thanks. It's always nice to get positive feedback.

The six line was added last and very small size (under 1"). It has been growing pretty fast and always has a huge belly, never shy when the food comes out. Luckily he's never been an aggressive fish by any means.

I did the wave setting on the jebaos for a while but I'd rather just have randomized flow from other settings. 3 PP-8's is almost enough, planning on buying a 4th soon to round it out. I currently run one of the three on Else mode and the other two on C mode with varrying durations to hopefully maximize turbulence.

Thanks for the interest, suggestions, and questions.

 

[SlvrZ]

have a pic of how you mounted your fuge light?

 

[David Taghehchian]

have a pic of how you mounted your fuge light?

I don't and it will be some time before I can take one. I just used a screw in hook. I taped off a drill bit so as to not exceed the thickness of the wood when drilling the pilot hole. From there I screwed in the hook and hung the light with a caribiner clip.

 

[powerpk]

@David Taghehchian Hi David, thanks for sharing. Just wondering, when you were assembling the cabinet, if it'd be possible to swap the sump side (i.e. put the sump directly under the drain and put the dry side divider on the other side).

 

[David Taghehchian]

@David Taghehchian Hi David, thanks for sharing. Just wondering, when you were assembling the cabinet, if it'd be possible to swap the sump side (i.e. put the sump directly under the drain and put the dry side divider on the other side).

The whole cabinet goes together much like IKEA furniture. Out of the box, I don't think it's possible but I'm sure with some minor modifications it's possible.

The only problem would that then all of your power/wiring would need to pass through the sump compartment unless you run wires through the bottom or out of the peninsula end. Can I ask why you prefer to do it that way?

 

[mahindra.dev]

@David Taghehchian

Not sure if you have noticed, but your tank, the first pic from your thread and of course @Broadfield tanks were shows as snippets in the BRS Red Sea Reefer video. Here is a link @ 2.27sec!! If you haven't already, submit your tank for reeftank 365 and claim your build thread...
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/reef-tank-365-enter-your-tank-here.351475/

 

[OriginalUserName]

Love the light mount. Thanks for sharing. I'm getting ready to order a Reefer 650 peninsula in the next few months and have been going crazy looking at light options. I hate how hanging lights look.

How is the fuge treating you? I'm considering trying mine with all fuge and adding a skimmer if needed.

 

[David Taghehchian]

@David Taghehchian

Not sure if you have noticed, but your tank, the first pic from your thread and of course @Broadfield tanks were shows as snippets in the BRS Red Sea Reefer video. Here is a link @ 2.27sec!! If you haven't already, submit your tank for reeftank 365 and claim your build thread...
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/reef-tank-365-enter-your-tank-here.351475/

I hadn't noticed till you mentioned it. I feel sort of special now. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

[David Taghehchian]

Love the light mount. Thanks for sharing. I'm getting ready to order a Reefer 650 peninsula in the next few months and have been going crazy looking at light options. I hate how hanging lights look.

How is the fuge treating you? I'm considering trying mine with all fuge and adding a skimmer if needed.

Thanks for the kind words. I agree regarding the look of hanging lights which is what drove me to the 80/20 idea.

I think my fuge is too effective in conjunction with the skimmer. I have been having what I believe to be a Dinoflagelate problem for about 6 weeks now. My current best guess is that nutrient export is TOO efficient. No matter what I do, nitrate and phosphate consistently read 0. I tried dosing nitrate and that made dinos worse. My suspicion is that it was due to an imbalance with phosphate based in research. Before starting to also dose phosphate, I decided to try more than tripling my feeding in the past 2 weeks with no noticeable effect.

I'm sort of at a loss for now, but I plan to make a post once I figure out the issue/solution.

 

[OriginalUserName]

Thanks for the kind words. I agree regarding the look of hanging lights which is what drove me to the 80/20 idea.

I think my fuge is too effective in conjunction with the skimmer. I have been having what I believe to be a Dinoflagelate problem for about 6 weeks now. My current best guess is that nutrient export is TOO efficient. No matter what I do, nitrate and phosphate consistently read 0. I tried dosing nitrate and that made dinos worse. My suspicion is that it was due to an imbalance with phosphate based in research. Before starting to also dose phosphate, I decided to try more than tripling my feeding in the past 2 weeks with no noticeable effect.

I'm sort of at a loss for now, but I plan to make a post once I figure out the issue/solution.

I'm tempted to grab an H380 as well, but I have a pretty high output DIY led fixture that provided plenty of light (21 3w LEDs) to my entire 29 cube until I went with the Kessil so I'll try that and hopefully save some cash. Form factor doesn't matter as much since it will be hidden in the stand. If I can also save that $500 by not buying a skimmer it will be gravy.

I'm considering converting the ATO resovoir into a secondary fuge and using a large decorative glass vase outside the stand to house my RO water.

 

[eyenstein]

Hey David, I am admiring your light stand and am thinking of doing something similar. Did you mount the horizontal cantilevered piece to the top of the upright one or to the side? I don't know if it makes a difference or not but I am trying to measure out my aluminum bars and was curious which way you did yours. Any reason you chose the black bolts for the corner brace? (Aesthetics or a practical purpose?)

 

[OriginalUserName]

Hey David, I am admiring your light stand and am thinking of doing something similar. Did you mount the horizontal cantilevered piece to the top of the upright one or to the side? I don't know if it makes a difference or not but I am trying to measure out my aluminum bars and was curious which way you did yours. Any reason you chose the black bolts for the corner brace? (Aesthetics or a practical purpose?)

I'm planning on mounting the horizontal bar to the top of the vertical myself. I'm thinking it will give more support that way but I'm curious to see David's response.

They also have some pretty cool pivot brackets that might be useful for moving the light out of the way.