Red Sea Reefer 250 Build

[Donny41]

@Donny41 is that an IKEA cabinet? I Almost went with one but I wanted my electronics cabinet to hold a lot of weight in case I wanted to put a tank on top so I bought a standalone Reefer 170 stand and paid a lot for it. It does match my Red Sea 250 system quite well though!!

Yes it's from IKEA. Fits the space nice and matched the stand well enough.

 

[Donny41]

Let there be light! Set up the t5/led hybrid today. 2 hydra 26 hd running ab+ settings with 2 blue plus and 2 aquablue special bulbs. Also set up an led light under my stand and in the controller cabinet. Set up the reefers glass ato reservoir but will not be using the float switch for now. Going forward it will just be some cord management until I get my doser set up and get the lights on for good in a few weeks!

 

[Flameback Pair]

@Donny41 what is the wavemaker in the middle? can't be a Vortech, has the cord on the inside.

 

[Donny41]

@Donny41 what is the wavemaker in the middle? can't be a Vortech, has the cord on the inside.

Those are reefpower rpms by reefbreeders. Similar in tank profile to vortechs but at a third of the price and no dry side motor. Magnet is also water safe so you can place it on the overflow box which is a plus.

 

[Donny41]

Nothing new going on with my tank as I've been away for the holiday but I though I'd share a few pics I took in disney a few days ago. No idea this exhibit was there and I am very glad that I just happened to walk in because of the rain. There were a few small displays with coral but the real draw was the enormous displays with a ton of fish, sharks, rays, and even a sea turtle.

 

[ScottB]

Looking great!

I ran an RSR250 for several years before bartering it to my electrician for 12 hours of labor and upgrading a few sizes. You will love it.

I think you made a great call adding the dry cabinet. That was the only downside to the 250. No dry side for the controller & power stuff.

Keep us updated!

 

[Donny41]

Transferred the tang out of the frag tank yesterday and turned the lights on today. Going to run just the LEDs at about 20% max right now, t5s will come later. Looking to add a few of the lower light corals out of the frag tank this weekend. Added a new 300 watt titanium heating element, the 200 watt was struggling to keep the temp up. After that it's on to setting up the coralbox doser and cleaning up the wiring when my new eb832 is delivered.

 

[ScottB]

Question: That looks like an MP4 on the overflow, but it must be something else?

Suggestion: Here is a fix for the return flow moving your sand. Had it on my old 250 and now on my 525:


And dang it, I paid almost twice that price.

 

[Donny41]

Question: That looks like an MP4 on the overflow, but it must be something else?

Suggestion: Here is a fix for the return flow moving your sand. Had it on my old 250 and now on my 525:


And dang it, I paid almost twice that price.

Thanks for the tip! Someone else had suggested a similar nozzle but I felt it protruded too far into the tank, do you see this as an issue with this one? And the powerheads are reefpower rpms by reefbreeders. All three cost about the same as a single mp40, not as controllable but get the job done in my opinion.

 

[ScottB]

Thanks for the tip! Someone else had suggested a similar nozzle but I felt it protruded too far into the tank, do you see this as an issue with this one? And the powerheads are reefpower rpms by reefbreeders. All three cost about the same as a single mp40, not as controllable but get the job done in my opinion.

Yeah the lockline stuff is ugly. That is why I chose these stubby nozzles. You won't notice them.

 

[Donny41]

@ScottB for $10 cant go wrong, just ordered it

 

[Donny41]

Big tank day today. Started off with a 6 gallon water change. Let that settle and then tested major water parameters for a baseline.

Alk- 8.1 dkh (hanna)
Ca- 370 ppm (red sea)
Mag- 1260 ppm (salifert)
Salinity- 1.024 s.g
NO3- 1 ppm (salifert)
PO4- .04 ppm (hanna low range)

Salinity a bit lower than I like, prefer to be around 1.026. Calcium low but I expected that with plain I.O. have reef crystals that I am going to mix 50/50 once I run out of my current batch of water.

Next was the painstakingly long process of transferring over my corals and snails from my temporary frag setup. Visually inspected every frag for vertimid snails and put most of them on new plugs. Did a quick peroxide dip to try and keep from bringing any algae over then dipped in revive. Visually inspected snails as well which was a major pain but hopefully this means the tank will be vertimid free...

New eb832 was delivered during all this, set it up but next day I have a lot of free time I am going to reroute all the wires because it's a mess right now. Also have a brs temp controller on the way. Once that arrives and I set up the coral box doser(next project) then it should hopefully be on to getting to actually enjoy the tank a bit and look forward to the inevitable algae blooms for a new tank.

 

[Donny41]

Received and set up a BRS temp controller this week and i have not been happy with it at all thus far. Temperature has been fluctuating far outside set range. Apex was doing a much better job at keeping a stable temp. Also added a shelf in the stand and assembled the coral box doser. Still manually dosing until I bring the calcium up a bit. Already regretting my choice of sand, blows around way to much and was burying all my coral frags in the sand so i glued them all to the rocks. Last but not least i picked up an extremely small royal gramma who i have not seen since I put in the tank but im assuming is fine and hiding in the rocks.

 

[Donny41]

Few scattered updates

1. Found aiptasia in the refugium a few weeks back, removed chaeto (was from algaebarn. Sent me a new batch plus some peppermint shrimp in response.) Have not seen any new ones pop up so hopefully thats the end of it
2. Having trouble with the new chaeto in the refugium. Lighting for 10 hrs over night with 18w chaetomax led. Seems to be dying off, not sure if it's a lack of light, flow, etc.. phosphate has been between .04 and 0 ppm when measured, nitrate has been consistent at 5.
3. Tang died a few days ago. Not sure what happened. He had been eating fine and swimming around the day before.
4. Before the tang died I added a pair of yasha gobies and pistol shrimp from live aquaria (last Tuesday) I have not seen the at all since adding them to the tank. I see an opening under the rocks where I'm pretty sure the pistol shrimp is, really hoping the gobies have been hiding under there as well and did not jump out of the tank. I have a screen top but there is an opening where I set up an auto feeder that they could have potentially jumped out of.
5. Took down the brs temp controller. Thing was junk, did not stay calibrated or hold the temperature anywhere near the set parameters

 

[Donny41]

crappy picture but this is where I'm hoping the gobies have been

 

[Flameback Pair]

@Donny41 how about an update and a FTS?

 

[Donny41]

 

[Donny41]

Since my last update a good amount has happened with the tank. First off I had an ato failure in early February when I was away for a few days. Enough evaporated that no water was getting into the sump. Nothing in the tank died from that but it did turn my tank into an algae fest. Because of that set back I was hesitant on adding anything else but I had already made plans to go to the frag farmers market in Connecticut and I didn't want to pass that up and I'm sure glad that I did. That was the last weekend before everything shutdown (march 7th I think?) And I was able to pick up a bunch of sps frags. Since then everything has been running fairly steady, all but one of the frags has grown over the plug and onto the rocks and I've been having to slowly increase my alk dosing. Added a yellow tang and a pair of orange spotted gobies (came to the conclusion that the yasha gobies were no longer in the tank, probably found a way to jump out).

 

[Flameback Pair]

@Donny41 good to know things are going better now. I had an orange spotted goby that lasted just 2 weeks. I accidentally left the lid off and it jumped out, landed 8 feet away from the tank, and dried up there.

 

[Donny41]

Played around with a macro lens a little, Ultron favia was the only coral I could get a good view of