UABSleeper Red Sea Reefer 350 build!

[UABsleeper]

Hey guys im spencer I have had a reef tank about 3 years no! I got it when I was in grad school and since i bought it has been moved 3 times! I finally got moved in and settled in a house that my wife and I had built (don't plan on moving for a long time) after a little saving I decided now was the time To upgrade to a more sizable tank.. especially since my wife and I are expecting our first child in September.. I figured I better get everything like I want it before the baby comes!

I will be upgrading my biocube 29 to a Red Sea reefer 350.. I have been buying stuff slowly over the past couple months

So far what I have the tank which for those that don't know 75g 47x20x21 with 18 gallon dump..
55 lbs pukani curing
40lbs ocean direct love sand 20lbs Fiji pink
Aquamaxx coneS 1 skimmer
Jebao 6000 return pump
Heater and nano ato from biocube

Still to buy
2 AI hydra 26hd and tank mounts
Apex controller
Carbon and gfo reactor possibly biopellet reactor
Dosing system
Custom larger acrylic ato

Thanks for looking in
Here is my biocube 29 now

Once the tank is setup I will be transporting all the coral and fish except the galexia coral that thing is like a weed that kills everything near it haha

 

[UABsleeper]

The tank finally got here two days ago and we finally got the tank in our house and setup and I will tell you that sucker is a lot heavier than it looks in pictures

The tank is in my office.. the biocube will be gone eventually! For me it's the perfect size I don't see myself going any larger

 

[UABsleeper]

So i finished up my plumbing yesterday I plumbed in a manifold for reactors in the future l.. hopefully everyone will work like I have pictured in my head and their won't be any leaks!! [emoji15]

Here is a picture of my handy work.. which was also the first time I have ever plumbed anything
All the fittings were either secured with primer and glue or teflon tape

The only area I'm a little concerned about is right here

at the joint between redsea's return pipe and my fitting.. the original tank comes with a barb fitting which has 3/4 inch threaded portion and 5/8th barb portion.. I removed it and used the o-ring on a screw to slip fitting and teflon tape to secure it but still a little nervous about it.. guess we will see when it finally gets wet!

Let me know what you guys think

 

[UABsleeper]

Did a little bit of thinking and playing with possible aquascape ideas.. still
Waiting on stonefix to
Get here before I secure everything together but just getting some ideas..

This would be on the right side of the tank and I would do a smaller rock structure on the left side of the tank because of where it's located in the office you will be looking at the tank from the left corner so don't want to block anything off on the right side!

 

[UABsleeper]

Alright finally got my aquascape done! Took a good bit longer than I thought it would but I think it turned out pretty well!

 

[UABsleeper]

So after about two days of making water I was finally ready for the real test.. putting some water in this sucker.. I was a little nervous about my plumbing because I have honestly never plumbed anything before but looks like everything is good so far no leaks!

 

[UABsleeper]

Now just waiting for the tank to cycle and.. waiting for some more equipment to get here!

So far I have ordered one light ai hydra 26hd and hms mount still also I have ordered a 300w jager heater.. the one I have now is 125w and just a leftover one I had .. not really doing the job though..

On a side note I'm really impressed with this aquamaxx coneS 1 it has been in the tank since last night and already settled out and giving some decent skimmate!

 

[UABsleeper]

Plan for the near future.

1)Wait for tank to get up to temp. Then add seeded seachem pond matrix from biocube to speed up cycle

2)order another ai hydra 26hd and mounting arm..
3) Once cycle is complete add brs carbon and phosphate reactor..

 

[ksfulk]

Looks like a good start to a nice tank! Word to the wise, be sure the Jager will fit in your sump. I run the 300w on my 525xL and it just fits in the second chamber of the stock sump. Its a great heater, just a bit long

Aside from moving over your inhabitants from your biocube, do you have any additional stocking plans?

 

[UABsleeper]

Looks like a good start to a nice tank! Word to the wise, be sure the Jager will fit in your sump. I run the 300w on my 525xL and it just fits in the second chamber of the stock sump. Its a great heater, just a bit long

Aside from moving over your inhabitants from your biocube, do you have any additional stocking plans?

Thanks for the input! Yes I ordered the 250w heater because according to the site specs it should barely fit ha we shall see!

Yeah really wanting a mixed reef and to try my hand at some sps! Maybe a couple plating chalices and possibly a bubbletip.. ha ha(some of the stuff I've wanted for a long time but the biocube compact fluorescent wouldn't support!

Fish looking to get a purple tang, potters angel and a couple wrasses.. of course all of this will be a while..

 

[UABsleeper]

Alright so finally got some time to put my lights on the tank and I must say I'm pretty impressed and overwhelmed with all of the controllability these lights have!

Also water has almost cleared up.. took almost a week for my ocean direct sand to clear

Oh and the bag in the tank is my pond matrix from the bio cube

Tank has been running almost two weeks and cycle is mid swing.. hard to tell but had
~0.25 ammonia
0 nitrite
5-10 nitrate..
phosphate was about 0.02 ppm
ph ~ 8.0

 

[UABsleeper]

Skimmer is working well also taking a little while to get dialed in but looks promising

 

[UABsleeper]

Tank cycle looks to have completed

Numbers
Ammonia-0
Nitrite-0
Nitrate-between 5-10 can't really tell on the API test..
Phosphate- <.03 according to salifert test kit.. hard to tell

I decided to go ahead and add a few cleanup crew to test out the water.. ~ten blue leg crabs and some snails.. all thriving

 

[UABsleeper]

Picked up some bio-spira while at Petco just to make sure everything was cycled well before the crabs went in

Had plans to put my clownfish from my biocube but the eheim jager heater was so far off calibration that it couldn't be recalibrated.. so waiting on replacement from brs before I add any fish..

Plans
Waiting on brs deluxe reactor to arrive some gfo and carbon from brs
-Also planning on buying one of the newer model apex's just waiting on a couple items to sell on eBay before I make that purchase

-need to build a water mixing station in the garage
-need to build a cord management and storage area on the cabinet.. where I can mount the apex and doser and hide all the wires!

 

[UABsleeper]

Also setup a lighting schedule.. they have been off for the past couple weeks while the tank finished cycling they go to a max of 30% right now because I don't have any coral in the tank..

Current setting on the ai hydra26hd
A little bit lost on what the corals will need as far as channels go..
let me know what you guys think have plans to go up to ~50% when I add my lps corals for a while anyway..?

 

[UABsleeper]

Hey guys so had a little time this weekend to work on my sump area! So I could get some carbon and gfo running in the tank..

Initially was planning on just running vinyl tubing directly from the manifold to the reactor and having the brs reactor in the skimmer section but decided it was to large and took up to much prime real-estate so decided to mount it in the cabinet and plumb it in! I think it turned out well!

Also cought after about tearing down the biocube trying to catch them! And bought a fire shrimp

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Looking good!!

 

[UABsleeper]

Ordered some new fish fish for liveaquaria yesterday got a Hoeven's wrasse coming in and a coral beauty(the one fish my wife has wanted.. and one of the reasons she allowed me to upgrade my tank)!

Also have been thinking a lot about what type of lid I want to put on the tank without taking away from the beauty of the tank itself.. I really would prefer to not have a top on the tank especially since it is rimless.. however I know wrasses like to jump.

I thought about getting two of the brs kits and doing a two piece lid but I'm afraid with the overflow and and how the lights are mounted on the tank I'm the finished product is not going to look that great.. so I decided to bite the bullet and order a custom lid from Artfully acrylic custom Red Sea reefer lids.. it was a little pricy but I think the finished product will be great! Though the wait time is 6 weeks so hopefully I won't have any fish decide to go flying before then.. [emoji50]


http://artfullyacrylic.3dcartstores.com/Red-Sea-Reefer-350-ClearView-Lid_p_1875.html

 

[LittleMaui]

Artfully Acrylics is what i added to my 450 after 3 suicides. How's the jabeo working out? I started with a larger jabeo,but found the flow rate varied enough I had problems with my overflow. Are those metal valves? Curious if the are reef safe.

 

[UABsleeper]

Artfully Acrylics is what i added to my 450 after 3 suicides. How's the jabeo working out? I started with a larger jabeo,but found the flow rate varied enough I had problems with my overflow. Are those metal valves? Curious if the are reef safe.

Hey! How did you like your top? Was the quality good? It was about 2x as much as a diy screen top but I have a feeling it will look and function a lot better than anything I could do would.. And yeah I have read a lot of people's horror experiences with jumping fish I decided I better go ahead and buy one!

The Jabo is a good strong pump I have had it about three years and never had a problem with it.. but it's only temporary I will be using an mp10 I currently have in my biocube and getting one of the gyre punps once I get some coral on the tank!

I also have one of the jabo return pump dct 6000 and it's a beast! I love it so far have it on 50% and running my carbon/gfo reactor and return and is dead Silent

Which parts are you referring to being metal? The return barb? That is plastic.. or the gate valve..?