PARtimereefer's Red Sea 250 Build

[partimereefer]

Starting up a build thread to document progress on a Red Sea Reefer 250. Figured I would start one up now with all the Black Friday sales coming up! This will be my fourth reef tank but first with a sump so pretty excited to get into it.

On November 10th I started up the water with some Marine Pure spheres and bricks in a 44 gallon and a 20 gallon Brute can. I seeded each can with some media from my existing tanks, a bottle of BioSpira and a ghost feeding of mysis to kick off the amonia cycle. A few days later I added the dry rock and some Fritz 900.

Current gear listing:
Tank: Red Sea Reefer 250 ordered from SaltwaterAquarium.com November 17th
Lighting: Two Aqua Illumination Hydra 32 HD's with HMS single arm mounts
Rock: 25 pounds of Marco's dry shelf rock and 20 pounds of Marco's dry reef rock
Substrate: 40 lbs Caribsea arag-alive
Return pump: Sicce Syncra 3.5

 

[CasaReefer]

Sounds Great... Using some great gear... Can't wait to see pics... Thanks for the ride along....

 

[partimereefer]

Thanks! Tank is due tomorrow so I expect to get some pics up soon.

I still have to decide on a skimmer and see you have the Red Sea skimmer. What do you think of it?

By the way that's a nice Barracuda!!

 

[partimereefer]

Tank was delivered today and everything checked out ok so the build has officially begun.

 

[MERKEY]

Sweet, cant wait to see it full!

 

[partimereefer]

And done...

 

[CasaReefer]

Looks Awesome.... Rock Work look Great....

 

[partimereefer]

Phew...that was a long build process!

Even though I took my time and had everything planned out I still had the wrong fittings for the return pump and had to drain the tank to re-level it. Turns out a one inch move from initial placement was enough to be 3/8" low at the front, and I found that out after all 65 gallons of water were in so out it all went.

The two trips to the hardware store ended up producing the exact parts I needed (believe me, that's a rare occurrence) for my Sicce pump and a neat pack of shims. I'm attaching images in case other Red Sea owners using Sicce pumps have the same issue or same uneven wood floors I do.

The last part was silencing the drain. Man that took hours! Everything I read said to take it real slow after each adjustment which I did, but I started wide open and ended up most of the way closed off... by making a 1/16th of a turn every 5 minutes! New Red Sea owners take note, turn the gate valve almost all the way clockwise to start and then back it off until things quiet down.

So after all that, I am sitting here next to a super quiet tank and my OCD is not going off because the tank isn't centered or uneven ;Happy

Next up, lights!!

 

[partimereefer]

Looks Awesome.... Rock Work look Great....

Thanks! I got some more work to do on it though, I think I need a little extra height on it. I am considering getting a hack saw and trying to cut some flat pieces off the unused dry rock and build it up.

 

[CasaReefer]

Not to much... Need room for those HUGE corals your gonna be growin.

 

[partimereefer]

And we have lights...

 

[Flameback Pair]

@partimereefer great to see another Reefer 250!! How are you going to do your water changes may I ask? I'm still up in the air.

 

[partimereefer]

Here is my water change routine...

I have a 44 gallon Brute can that I keep filled with fresh RODI water in the garage. From that I draw about 10 gallons into a 20 gallon Brute can on rollers. I do this with a Sicce 1.0 pump with 5 feet of 1/2” ID tuning on it.

In that 20 gallon can I add my salt and drop in an old return pump and heater to get things mixed and up to temp.

From the tank I draw water into a 5 gallon bucket and make two trips.

Next I wheel the 20 gallon can with the freshly mixed saltwater over to the tank and drop the Sicce in to top off the tank.

It may sound like a lot, but aside from waiting for the water to mix up it’s pretty straight forward.

 

[partimereefer]

Skimmer arrived, and I changed the aqua scape...

 

[partimereefer]

Current shot of the sump with skimmer running a refugium light added and some macro algae from my other tank.

 

[Flameback Pair]

Here is my water change routine...

I have a 44 gallon Brute can that I keep filled with fresh RODI water in the garage. From that I draw about 10 gallons into a 20 gallon Brute can on rollers. I do this with a Sicce 1.0 pump with 5 feet of 1/2” ID tuning on it.

In that 20 gallon can I add my salt and drop in an old return pump and heater to get things mixed and up to temp.

From the tank I draw water into a 5 gallon bucket and make two trips.

Next I wheel the 20 gallon can with the freshly mixed saltwater over to the tank and drop the Sicce in to top off the tank.

It may sound like a lot, but aside from waiting for the water to mix up it’s pretty straight forward.

@partimereefer I'm thinking of skipping the buckets and going with an Apex DOS to do it automatically.

 

[partimereefer]

@partimereefer I'm thinking of skipping the buckets and going with an Apex DOS to do it automatically.

Let me know how that goes. This is my first reef tank where I need more than two 5 gallon buckets so we’ll see how this goes.

We can all dream of a mixing station plumbed for continuous water changes right!

 

[partimereefer]

Ugh...skimmer overflowed last night. Guess I’m learning the hard way getting this thing dialed in.

 

[partimereefer]

Diatom blooms started three days ago, I hate this part.

 

[partimereefer]

Clean up crew and a water change made short work of the diatom bloom. Also added my two little clowns, a hammer and a Duncan coral to get things started.

Also added the Red Sea DIY mesh lid and a new outlet nozzle from Vivd Creative Aquatics which fits up nice and works great.