Bfactor84's Red Sea Reefer 450

[Bfactor84]

CURRENT FTS: 12/26/18



Hello R2R,
I am starting this thread to share my experience with the Reefer 450 and to post progress reports on this build as the tank matures.

A little bit about my background, I started a fresh water 10 gallon build 12 years ago and ran it like a champ till I moved to south florida in 2013. In 2013, I started my larger 55 gallon FOWLR salt water tank and rang great till my nitrates creeped to almost 100 ppm after running for 3 years, at which point it became a huge chore as I was not able to control GHA and called it quits. I did use tap water for this tank that was treated with ant- chlorines and chloramines but didnt really bother with RO/DI as i never intended to put corals in there. I shut it down and sold most of the tank piece by piece.

Then life took over and we had a beautiful baby boy in 2016. Also bought a new house and was really wrapped up in the daddy thing that my aquarium itch subsided for a while. However, I always followed several forums, most prominently R2R to keep up with whats hot in this hobby these days. In fact, my boss has caught me several times browsing R2R in my spare time at work and he too was intrigued to learn about the hobby. In august of this year, i visited a local LFS near our new home and could not control myself on pulling the trigger on a steeply discounted reefer 450 as red sea was discontinuing them and this LFS had a few in stock. It was completely assembled and just required plumbing installation.

With the trigger pulled, I bought the 2 QT box of marine pure ceramic spheres from BRS and asked this LFS store to place them in their SPS heavy fragging tank's sump, with the goal of having all the beneficial bacteria saturating the pores by the time my tank was ready.

With the tank order placed, proceeded to order the following items from BRS and Marine Depot:

100 lbs of dry rock
40 lbs of caribsea reef dry sand
2 x ice cap gyre 3k
Vortech M1 return pump
Reef Octopus 150 int classic skimmer
Klir Di4 filter and bracket
3 x Radion X15wpro lights and mounting arms
Instant Ocean Reef Crystals 20o lbs box
Marineland 300 watt heater
BRS dual reactor - only running carbon with phosguard as backup

The tank went wet with a 7 lbs live rock from LFS on 10/01/18

As of 12/09/18

 

[KJ]

Nice looking tank my friend And Welcome to R2R!!!

 

[Bfactor84]

Nice looking tank my friend

Thank you!!!

 

[Almondkc]

Really nice setup and very clean/neat installation in the stand. How do you like the gyre flow and also your sock replacement? Are you pleased with both?

 

[NY_Caveman]

Looks great! I like the new aquascape a lot.

 

[Bfactor84]

More pics of the initial setup as the water cleared:




The klir bracket was slightly modified. Sawed off about 1/4' from the front end of the base and rasied it by gluing 1" PVC couplers at the bottom. This allowed me to keep the bracket raised in the drain area of the sump. Without sawing, the bracket would fit snug and in the event of an overflow situation, might lead to water flowing out side the sump.

With the bacterial loaded ceramic spheres transfered from LFS tank to my tank, I started tracking the nitrogen cycle. Also ghost fed frozen mysis shrimp for the first 7 days. Seeing no ammonia or nitrites and noticing 10+ ppm nitrates after 7 days, I dosed ammonia to raise it to 3 ppm in the tank and 24 hours later 0 ammonia and nitrites. At this time, I also added a bottle of the fritzymne 900. With no detectable ammonia or nirites for the next 3 days, I introduced 2 black body yellow tail chromis in the tank, and kept on tracking ammonia and nitrites for 10 more days. 2 weeks after adding the chromis, I added a pair of clown fish, and few weeks after, six line wrasse, yellow tang and a royal dottyback by end of November.

Been doing 10-15% water changes every week and tracking essential parameters. Here is a plot of the parameters i have been tracking and a picture of my salifert test box

The X-axis is off by 15 days.
Salinity ranging from 1.024 - 1.026
Phosphate still not detectable on salifert test kit

 

[Bfactor84]

Looks great! I like the new aquascape a lot.

Thank you ..... too much rock initially so cleaned it up. Removed close to 40 lbs of rock and about 30 lbs of sand. Gyres blew it around too much at just 20% setting

 

[Bfactor84]

Really nice setup and very clean/neat installation in the stand. How do you like the gyre flow and also your sock replacement? Are you pleased with both?

I think 1k gyres should have sufficed for this tank. 2 x 3k are overkill and currently running no more than 20% at this time. It is creating sufficient flow.

My only complaint about the Klir filter and its housing is that it does not create a decent enough seal to separate the dirty and clean side of the water.

 

[Bfactor84]

This is an updated shot of the filtration area. I created a fuge from a 5 gallon fish transportation tank from Petco. Painted with krylon food grade black pain on the outside and using the Tunze 6500 fuge light. The fuge is supplied water from the return and drains back in to the return area of the sump. The drain from the fuge is filtered through the black filter mesh that comes with the red sea media cup.

Basically upgrded plumbing after inspiration from @SuncrestReef and @Broadfield reefer builds.

 

[Bfactor84]

Video finally uploaded to youtube ....

 

[NY_Caveman]

I like the aquascape even more after seeing the depth in the video.

 

[Captain Quint]

Props on such a sleek, beautiful, well-planned build. I love it!

 

[Bfactor84]

Props on such a sleek, beautiful, well-planned build. I love it!

Thank you

 

[Bfactor84]

The biggest challenge I have had since I started this tank is the water changing process. I live in a 2 story townhouse and only have a 1/2 bath on the ground floor. Because of lack of any available water supply lines on the ground floor, I had to install my 4-stage RO/DI unit in the laundry room upstairs and unwind and run a 20 ft RO/DI water line downstairs everytime I had to do a water change. This meant open tubing lying on the stairs and my wife did not like it since it would stay like that for 1/2 a day when I do water changes. Luckily, the laundry room sits right above the downstairs 1/2 bath so running the supply line directly in the 1/2 bath was something that could keep the area clean. Here is a picture of the layout of where the tank is in relating to the 1/2 bath:



The RO/DI line now runs from the upstairs to downstairs within the wall between the stairs and the stairs. When I setup my tank, I also installed a spare MJ1200 pump in the skimmer section of the pump to serve as a drain during water changes. At the same time, I also installed a T to the return manifold to work as a supply line for fresh salt water.

Both lines were hard plumbed to the back of the tank. Here is a picture on the back side, not clear but there are 2 unions connecting the PVC lines from the sump to flexible tubing running to through the wall underneath the stairs and in to the 1/2 bath



Here is the section the opposing side of the wall next to the stairs, inside the 1/2 bath, you can see the blue 1/4 RO/DI line at the top coming from upstairs that Ts to supply RO/DI water to the mixing tank and at the supply fresh RO/DI water to my ATO in the equipment cabinet. On the left bottom corner is the outdoor rater power supply extension for the mixing station pump and heater. It is connected to the power center in the tank

The flexible pvc tubing is attached to the two lines just for aesthetic purposes. It is a multi purpose line. When its time for water change, the MJ1200 drains the sump skimmer section (~16 - 18 gallon water) through the line on the right. the flexible tubing then drains water in to the sink (where I am standing and taking the picture)

Created a 20 gallon mixing tank from a Brute garbage can. Installed my 10 year old (and still working like its new) Marineland 525 gph pump with the inlet facing down in the center. The return is hard plumped to a manifold that 'T's off near the top of the tank through a 1/2 bulk head. Basically, the return within the tank is for mixing purposes and the return line leaving outside the container is for charging water to the sump in my tank. Tied a Eihm spare heater to the center.



This setup makes roughly 19 gallon water when filled just below the valve inside the container. Enough for about 15% weekly water change.



The outlet union connects to the left supply line on the wall shown in the previous picture.

 

[Bfactor84]

Made some changes to the power center. Purchased 2 switched power centers from guitar center to individually control each electrical piece in the aquarium. This comes in handy on maintenance days.



The tank has been coming along well for the last couple of weeks.

Parameters wise, pH and calcium seem to be stabilized but still seeing 1.5 dKH swings weekly. Magnesium seems to be holding steady too for now.

Registered my 1st phosphate reading of 0.03 ppm this weekend, after cleaning off algea growth on the back walls of the tank.

My concern now is nitrates as it has dropped to near 0 on the salifert test. The pink colour in the sample is only visible when i hold it in direct sunlight.

An updated shot of the tank and the thing that's terrorizing the tank inhabitants ;Joyful

 

[Bfactor84]

Most up to date picture of the filtration area. I relocated the marine pure spheres from the media cups to the refugium and placed some filter floss in the media cups to capture all the floating debris and algea since the weekend cleaning. This is just temporary till the water polishing is done. while The Klir filter works great for large debris like poop and leftover foot but the smaller stuff still makes through the tiny openings where the filter roll comes in contact with the assembly. If you notice, I changed the orientation of the Klir unit to where the sensor is now facing forward instead of sideways. This has nothing to do with the sensor but the drain section. The water from the drain now flows down the Klir unit pushing the filter sheet against the support wall, thereby creating a better seal.

Skimmer has been breaking in well over the last few days too. Skimmate and foam formation has exceeded my expectation.

 

[Bfactor84]

Got a Gopro Hero 6 for X'mas. Decided to make a short video of the tank with it. Still working on all the settings but it takes better video without filters than my iphone X.



I know the music is a bit too much but it brings me peace

 

[Bfactor84]

Purchased some exotice Zoa frags before christmas. Apologize for the picture quality, still working on filtering the blues through the phone camera.

Platter with Rastas and some exotic names that I cant seem to remember


Twizzlers (I think)

GreenBay Packers

Fire and Ice with another zoa that I cant remember the name

Cant remember the name on this one either - Blue center with yellow tips

I think this ia Paly frag. Deep red colored tips with purple centers (similar to twizlers but polyps are bigger)

One is a Bam Bam ... dont know the other one.

 

[Bfactor84]

The older frags that have now grown:

Torch

GSP island (two different varieties)

Florida Orange Ricordia (this guy has not grown much and don't expect it too either)

Aussie Grape Coral

 

[Bfactor84]

Purchased a couple of lyretail Anthias and a Fiji Coral Beauty fish before Christmas break. They are swimming and eating healthy, including pellets which kind of surprised me.