Reefer 350 journey! Picture heavy!

Denisk · Sep 19, 2017

Hello to everyone who will be reading!

Starting this build thread to showcase all the progress that goes on. I will also be posting about all the equipment I used and the pros and cons I personally have noticed with them. Please ask if you have any questions as I am happy to help anywhere I can.

Current Tank info

Tank - Redsea Reefer350

Sump - Red Sea

Skimmer - BM curve 5

Lighting - ATI 48" 8 bulb dimmable fixture & 48 in XHO Reef Brite

Controller - 2016 Apex

Flow - 2 jebao pp8

Return - jebao dcs 5000

Salt - Red Sea Blue Bucket and instant ocean

Heaters - 1 eheim jager 150 watt

Ato - Red Sea 3 gallon top off

Doser - BRS 1.1. Ml

UV - Aqua UV 57 watt

Instagram name - Lost_in_a_Reef daily updates

Current state 10/16/18

Scarybo · Sep 19, 2017

Nice! I like your aquascape. How many #'s of rock?

Denisk · Sep 19, 2017

Thank you! I ended up using Marco rock and realized I had to break the rock a lot as the rocks came in on the big side. If I remember correctly, I only have about 50/60 pounds of rock. I did however buy 100 or so pounds so I can get a good selection of rock.

Denisk · Sep 19, 2017

The tank was purchased in March of 2017. After waiting and waiting, it finally came in

Over the years I have purchased many tanks and there is no feeling like when that truck company calls to say they're pulling up. You would think I'd immediately be so happy however, that's when I start worrying as to whether the tank is cracked or missing something in the box. Luickly I was ok!!

Packaged super well which was great to see. I love when I see companies make sure they spend time on the packaging as well as the product.

Moving everything out of the way just to build this stand in the living room.

There she stands.

revhtree · Sep 19, 2017

Very nice so far!

Denisk · Sep 19, 2017

After I figured out where the tank was going to go in my house, I started aquascaping. I went with Marco rock and was happy with what I received. The only thing I needed to do was break up the rock as some pieces were too large. I realized to achieve a good depth, you need to have rocks that are accordingly sized to the tank.

Denisk · Sep 20, 2017

Beginning of May:

The cycle was quickly over as I always use ATM colony for my bacteria. They say it can have fish the next day but I have used it in a fishless way and always am able to have it ready to go within 7 to 10 days. I just start off by using a little bit of pure ammonia.

Denisk · Sep 20, 2017

At the time I was running a bubble magus curve 5 skimmer. I must say it did a good job pulling a lot of stuff out but it was very finicky. If I did a water change, it would over flow. I did like that it had a small footprint which left me with a lot of space in the sump.

Denisk · Sep 20, 2017

Beginning of August:

Having the extra room in the sump led me to realize that I have never ran a refugium. I thought why not to do it now. I wasn't necessarily looking at it as a way to export a lot of nutrients. But I did want to have a place where I could contain algae growth and a place for pods to repopulate. I had a nano light laying around and I thought I would just strap it in the sump and see if it would grow the Chaeto.

Denisk · Sep 20, 2017

Mid or so August, my tank is getting fairly stocked up with fish. I needed to finally make the jump and add some corals. I waited some time to get corals as I wasn't sure if I had wanted to go all softies/lps or all sps/Zoas. The decision was made!

Denisk · Sep 20, 2017

Following right after the sps started to acclimate to the light, I realized upgrades needed to happen!

After stocking the tank more and more. My skimmer could no longer really compete with the bio load. I was starting to get annoyed as to how sensitive the skimmer was and decided to put the skimmer on my nano. The nano had been running skimmerless and I wanted to see how the things would react to throwing a skimmer on it.

The refugium light had been running 24/7 and was doing its job. However the Chaeto was growing extremely slow. I thought maybe there just wasn't a ton of bio load in the tank to grow. But at the same time I was kind of shocked that some people were having to trim Chaeto weekly.

That's when on August 24th I received some upgrades.

Denisk · Sep 20, 2017

After about a week of the kessil h80 and the vertex omega 180i running, I must say I was amazed. Especially with the kessil on how it performs, truly a great light and skimmer!

I did notice that the skimmer is a bit loud but that didn't bother me. I'm also sure the 150i would have been appropriately sized for my tank however the footprint was better with the 180i since the pump was inside the body. Go big or go home I guess...

Denisk · Sep 20, 2017

Since having the vertex omega 180i and the kessil h80 in place, the aquarium had been going very well. I ended up picking up a few more corals and shortly noticed that I would need to get my doser set up. I ended up going with the coral box wifi doser. Somewhere by the end of August I had the doser set up.

That didn't last long at all. I continuously had bubbles in the lines, the calibration was off every time I checked it, and on top of that I had the motor mechanism just shaking around for one of the heads. I spent money on different air line tubing/different check valves and nothing helped. At that point enough was enough and reached out to reefbreeders and had returned the doser. I must say the customer service was great! He was there to try and help in whatever way he could. Remember this is my personal experience with this doser. Maybe I just got a defective unit but I at that point didn't want my entire tank relying on the experience I was having.

Denisk · Sep 20, 2017

Just as I thought my doser nightmare was over, I was mistaken. I decided to go with BRS 1.1 ml dosers as I read so many great reviews and luckily having the new apex it was a breeze to program them. When I received both dosers, one out of the box was broken. I contacted BRS and they took care of me by shipping another one out. Once I had both set up, I noticed that one of my sps was starting to bleach from the bottom and immediately started to checking all my parameters. I noticed my alk was creeping up and realized my original doser I got stopped working. At that point I was just pacing back and fourth wondering whyyyyy me?

I then contacted BRS once again and they had another one shipped out to me right away.

Finally after two new dosers "knock on wood" they are working well and I am having no issues.

Denisk · Sep 20, 2017

Now I’m up to date to everything going on with the reef. Currently all my sps and fish are as happy as can be. The one thing I went out and splurged for was a new macro lens. I’ve always used either my iPhone or canon 60d with a 50mm and some extension tubes. But let me tell you that updating to a canon 100mm is version was all the difference. I’m no professional when it comes to photography but it is definitely nice to have this lens.

Denisk · Sep 20, 2017

Some shots with the canon 100mm. None of these are edited since most of the photos are just getting sent to my iPhone and then straight to reef2reef

If anyone has any tips and or comments regarding the photos, I would love people to chime in. It can either help me take better photos or others can even learn from here too.