Broadfield's Red Sea Reefer 450 Build - OCD Inspired... Going Back To a Reef

[RoanokeReef]

Great setup, you made a sump look sexy :-)

 

[thenanoreef]

Do your Primes make a buzzing sound when the blue and whites aren't at 100%. Mine did, so I returned them

thenanoreef

 

[Broadfield]

Do your Primes make a buzzing sound when the blue and whites aren't at 100%. Mine did, so I returned them

thenanoreef

They do not

 

[thenanoreef]

Your just a lucky one I guess. When I called AI about it, they told me that (and I quote) "all units make a buzzing sound and therefore there is no point in us sending you replacement units" He had me at "all units" so they went back the next day, although the LFS wouldn't let me return them, I eventually got my way. Haven't gone back since because the customer is always right. Really a tragedy because they had good prices but I had to go their 3 separate times before they took them back. Glad to see you had more luck with them.

Happy reefing,
thenanoreef

 

[Broadfield]

Your just a lucky one I guess. When I called AI about it, they told me that (and I quote) "all units make a buzzing sound and therefore there is no point in us sending you replacement units" He had me at "all units" so they went back the next day, although the LFS wouldn't let me return them, I eventually got my way. Haven't gone back since because the customer is always right. Really a tragedy because they had good prices but I had to go their 3 separate times before they took them back. Glad to see you had more luck with them.

Happy reefing,
thenanoreef

Actually, I went and listened to them after your post and they do buzz. But I can't hear it over ambient noise unless I put my ear right next to them.

 

[Broadfield]

Howd you go about the socks you shaved the tray down? Why wouldnt it slide out

I didn't want it to slide out, so I didn't trim the rest of the black tray holder. If you want it to slide out, you would need to trim the opening of the black tray, the width of the sock.

 

[Sabellafella]

Thank you i was tryng for the longest time to see if someone did it already cant find the socks anywere nor vertex so ive ben running without them

 

[Broadfield]

Added some frags a couple of weeks ago from an AquaSD live sale. Also really liking the WAV setup from Neptune. I'll have a little writeup and specific pictures of that in the near future.

IMG_4536 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr

IMG_4523 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr

IMG_4520 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr

IMG_4533 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr

IMG_4635 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr

IMG_4610 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr

IMG_4615 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr

IMG_4617 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr

IMG_4526 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr

IMG_4629 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr

IMG_4612 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr

 

[Perculap]

What are your reactors sitting/mounted on? Looks good

 

[Broadfield]

What are your reactors sitting/mounted on? Looks good

They don't sit on anything... they hang about 1" over the water.

 

[Broadfield]

This is the view I have everyday coming down my stairs:)

IMG_4609 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr

 

[gpinto81]

Your tank is outstanding... just curious did you brace your floor or do you not have a basement to be worried about the weight?

 

[Broadfield]

Your tank is outstanding... just curious did you brace your floor or do you not have a basement to be worried about the weight?

I do have a basement. The wall that is behind the tank is an exterior wall... so it is a solid concrete foundation. But I still wanted to make sure that I wouldn't have any sagging issues. So I put two steel floor jack posts roughly under each front corner of the tank... it's not going anywhere;)

 

[Newtybar]

So jealous of you mofos with basements. We don't get those here in California.

 

[gpinto81]

ah gotcha... yeah I couldn't do floor jacks since I have a finished basement... even though it is a new home, I am still a little hesitant to add anything greater than the 250 on the first floor... now the basement that is a different story lol

 

[Broadfield]

Just picked up a nice Goniopora Norfolkensis, a few days ago, at my LFS. It's opening up nicely and seems to like a little more light. I had it lower in the tank originally and it would barely extend. As soon as I moved it up pretty high, it's as happy as a clam!

IMG_4719 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr

 

[Broadfield]

Ok, I have a major update, but not necessarily by choice. I completely removed all of my sand and rock, then replaced with all new. Here's why:

When I did my original aquascape, I used rock that I aquired from a friend. The pieces weren't ideal, but I used hydraulic cement to make structures that I was happy with... bonding smaller rocks together to make larger ones, making overhangs etc. Everything was fine for the first three months. I then noticed a couple of the cemented joints starting to "break" down. The cement was getting soft and starting to deteriorate. The small dark grey parts of the cement were flaking away and making the sand in the area look bad. Luckily, the "infected" areas were not really structural ones so I didn't worry about it too much. The areas where I really needed the support were still solid and completely intact. Until about a month ago when those areas started to also break down. Now the sand really looked bad and I was going to be facing a landslide of reef rock before too long. On top of that, I was never happy with the sand. To start off, it was REALLY dusty. It also wasn't consistent. It had larger chunks of stuff that would color up with surface algae and then look really out of place in the sand. So being completely fed up, I ordered up 120 lbs or Marco Rocks and Tropic Eden Miniflakes. In the past, I used Marco Rocks in my nano and was 100% happy with them.

I put all of my coral in my sump and performed a 24 hour swap. First getting the rock out and then the messy job of getting the sand out... without removing any of the water. Here it is with everything out:

IMG_5122 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr

I think I clogged up about 20 filter socks throughout this process lol. It was very late at this point so I let the tank clear up over night and then I continued on with it when I got home from work the next day. I did my aquascaping with the new Marco Rocks. Since they sent me a nice variety of large pieces, I didn't have to bond anything together to get the look I was after. Next up was the Tropic Eden sand. Let me tell you, this stuff is basically dust free... it's unbelievable! Then I simply moved the corals back into the DT and I was good to go. I used a bottle of Dr. Tim's All-In-One to make sure I didn't have a crazy cycle. All parameters tested great every day. I had a very minor, 1 week long diatom bloom. And that was it. I have had great results with Dr. Tim's in the past and the results were equally impressive this time around. Back in business:

IMG_5285 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr

IMG_5307 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr

A quick video I made for documentation:



I'm actually really happy that this happened. I wasn't 100% happy with the original rock work and hated the sand.

 

[Newtybar]

Looking good, I like the new scape much better and i love marco rocks.

 

[FireEMT]

Looking good, I like the new scape much better and i love marco rocks.

Looks great, glad that you were able to get everything fixed without much disruption. How do you like the WAV's on the back wall? I am having problems with mine disrupting the sand on the side wall and wonder if the back wall would be better.

 

[Broadfield]

Looks great, glad that you were able to get everything fixed without much disruption. How do you like the WAV's on the back wall? I am having problems with mine disrupting the sand on the side wall and wonder if the back wall would be better.

I'm really liking them! It took me a while to get them adjusted, but I have a nice distributed flow combined with my dual outlet on the Reefer return. They are angled as much as they will go towards the center of the tank and then aimed up just a tad. I run Mavericks 100% of the time and vary the flow throughout the day anywhere from 8 - 20%.