Rubblereefer Red Sea reefer 450 build

[Rubblereefer]

Hey guys, I’m in the process of putting together my ultimate build and with all this newfound free time I figured I’d document it. The tank is a Red Sea reefer 450. I’ll be transitioning everything over from my 45g bowfront which I have a separate build thread for. I plan on taking my time and doing this tank right as I’m hoping this will be a 10 year+ tank for me.

 

[Rubblereefer]

First thing I started on Is olanning out and buying equipment. here is what Ill be running for now:

Return:
sicce 5.0 return pump, soft plumbing the return and stock red drains but ill make it look nice I may run a small Jaebo backup return pump over the back but not sure yet

Nutrient export:
reef into 110 int skimmer (probably will upgrade this later but I have it already and won’t need massive export for a while anyway)

cheato fuge

marinepure spheres, bio balls, and ceramic rings where the Socks would have gone (not a fan of filter socks)

Lighting:
aquatic life t5 hybrid with 3 kessil a360we, cantilever wall mounted

kessil h160 fuge light and some aquamesh to make a fuge compartment in the sump

Flow:
rossmont mx2600 x2 with the waver kit, got a great deal on brs so figured I’d give them a shot instead of draining the kids college fund on mp40s. An old mp10 and icecap gyre 1k to supplement flow in the back of the rockwork

Dosing:
kalkwasser in ato once needed, a single brs 1.1ml per min dosing pump with tropic Marin all for reef to supplement kalk once needed

Control:
apex jr and an eb8, I’m going to be using a DOS for auto water changes, VDM for the lights, FMM for awc, pm1 for ph and temp

 

[Rubblereefer]

I was inspired by broadfields reefer 450 build and decided to put my diy skills to use. I started out by building a control center in the chiller compartment area. Rather than using wood, I used some plastic skinned foam board I had laying around that was A promo sign from the dealership I work at. It’s super easy to score and break like acrylic. i then vinyl wrapped it. I wanted a kind of chevy bel air theme so I picked up white, teal, and chrome vinyl wrap and set to work. I mocked everything out, and fastened everything with hot glue, using painters tape to protect the cabinet so everything is removable if needed. I screwed a piece of plywood in the back to mount the power suppliea, apex, eb8, and power strips. I wrapped the back of the sump to match. I also wrapped the Red Sea plumbing in chrome wrap And added some waterproof color changing led lights made for cars. I think it came out awesome!

 

[Rubblereefer]

i think this is as sexy as I can get it without hard plumbing

 

[Rubblereefer]

Next I built my scape and glued all the rockwork

 

[Paleozoic_reefer]

i think this is as sexy as I can get it without hard plumbing

Sweet build!!! I'm assuming these are PVC pipes with some sort of silver stickers on them???

 

[Rubblereefer]

Sweet build!!! I'm assuming these are PVC pipes with some sort of silver stickers on them???

Thanks!
Yup, those are the stock Red Sea pipes,with chrome vinyl wrap applied, I stopped the wrap a couple inches above the waterline on the bottom in case the wrap has some toxins in it that could leach.

 

[Dr. Bluethumb]

loving the aquascape on this build, nice work!

 

[Rubblereefer]

Still slowly cycling, I've had one blue chromis and a pair of hermit crabs in there for 3 months. Just started up the fuge and will be getting some more fish soon. Meanwhile I worked on the sunp a little more. I'm kinda tempted to remove the cabinet doors since it's the nicest part of the tank at the moment

 

[Rubblereefer]

Update, coming up on a year old very soon. I cleaned some more stuff up and got a bunch of upgrades done! This build is getting there!
I ditched the OEM auto top off for a tunze osmolator, set up the kessils with the vdm, added a heater controller, 2 brs titanium heaters, and expanded he apex with an eb8 and an old android phone with fusion For control. Also velcro“d a painted piece of foam board up to hide the lights which I think looks pretty slick and its easy to remove and replace for maintenance. I wanted iv but didn’t want A bulky unit, so I DIYd 2 innovative marine AIO uv lights into my filter sock location. Not sure if the flow rate will work out for the uv, but I can control that to some extent with the return pump setting. I’ll have to mess around with that more later but for now hopefully it’s doing something positive. Oh I also added a lifeguard aquatics in sump reactor since it fit in nice with the white theme. I just run a couple bags of chemipure.

I also finally got some more fish. 3 chromis, 3 cardinals, and a fox face. My clownfish seemed super happy for the company I think she was lonely. Test corals are doing ok, but not great. Still giving it more time before adding sps. Auto water change is next, I have he DOS sitting in the closet since Black Friday, just need to find a free day to hook it up one of these days.

 

[Rubblereefer]

Finally hooked up the DOS for AWC

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[Rubblereefer]

Regrettably this tank has really been struggling, mostly due to my own mistakes. I let nutrients bottom out, and ended up with multiple strains of dinoflagellates. I’ve been battling them for a couple months now and I think I finally may be out of the woods, fingers crossed. I really threw the kitchen sink at them. This is what I did:
-Dosed a couple kinds of Dr Tim’s bacteria
- Dosed microbacter7
-ran UV 24/7 for 3 days then off 24/7 3 days, to give the bacteria time to work
-Turkey basted entire sand bed on UV days
-Dosed flourish nitrogen
-feed the cap out of the tank, daily reef roids flakes Nori and frozen food
-c3 day fuge blackout then cut Fuge light down to minimum intensity, 4 hours on per day down from 12
-Purposely added

so I’ve raised nutrients slowly and repeatedly added Dino competitors, plus tried to make their life as difficult as possible by regularly bulldozing the sand so they get buried or kicked up into the water column where the UV can eradicate them. Finally looking a lot better now, and I’m seeing cyano appear in its place. I’ve never been so happy to have cyano!