Chris' Red Sea 625 G3 Build

[Chris_from_SoCal]

Hello, new here showing my 1 month 625 build. I have had reef tanks 30 years ago and after watching too many YouTube videos of reef tanks I decided to get into it again.

I went with a 625 liter since I was planning on gutting out the office closet and fitting it in there and it was the largest I could squeeze in. Once it was delivered my wife decided it has to go into the living room where everyone can enjoy it. Fine with me. The only thing is I had purchased hanging lights to hang from the ceiling but now I would have to build a light bar for this location. I doubled up 2040 extruded aluminum for this.

I had our contractor install a 20 amp GFCI circuit for the tank and I had installed a 200 GPD RO/Di so while he was in the attic space I had him run a RO line from the garage to the tank as well.

the tank.

I might end up with jumpers so I made a top with 8mm polycarbonate sheets with rubber edge trim.

I have designed and 3D printed a few things so far including an autofeeder guard to help the food drop in cleanly and give no space for jumpers.

I added a Red Sea 1200 reef mat. This will help a lot to keep things clean. The skimmer is a little undersized for the tank size but it does it's job. I 3d printed a stand to keep it at the proper height.

All the electric stuff. I added a 1500MAH battery backup for the essentials. I haven't turned on the RO ATO yet. I first used a float valve but I could not get it to shut off properly. I ended up getting a solenoid shut off valve instead after watching Jed at Top shelf installing one on a $60k install. If it's good enough for that it's good enough for my setup.

 

[Fish Fan]

Looks like a great start!

 

[Chris_from_SoCal]

The fish.

2 Black Storm Clowns, Purple Tang, Dwarf Fire Angel, Watchman Gobie, Male and Female Anthia and a Lo Foxface rabitfish. Everyone seems to get along well. The Flame Angel is the character of the tank. He gets everyone out of the rocks and swimming around.

the Gobie dug himself a tunnel on day one and only comes out at feeding time.

 

[Chris_from_SoCal]

The tank need a little oomph!

 

[Fish Fan]

Love that neon sign, nice touch!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Your tank is looking great!

 

[Chris_from_SoCal]

The goby decided it was time to come out of his cave and for the last three days has been doing a wonderful job of cleaning up the sand. He is eating lots of frozen food which is great.

The only downside is his sand sifting is making it snow in the whole tank and is covering the rocks with sand.

He went from hiding to being a tough guy of the tank.

 

[Chris_from_SoCal]

A few of my coral frags. I dug out my old Canon DSLR for this and ended up getting a Ttartisan 100mm F2.8 Macro 2X so I can attempt to get proper picks.

 

[Chris_from_SoCal]

Also setup two 2 gallon grow tanks for brine shrimp and copepods in my home office. The copepods are hard to see on camera but there are plenty swimming around. there are also a couple 1 gallon containers to hatch the brine eggs until they get big enough to move.

So far the fish love it when I place live brine shrimp in the tank. They eat frozen but go absolutely nuts for the live ones.

These tanks have pumps but they draw from the bottom and after a quick test they were sucking the brine shrimp into the filter. I unplugged the pumps and switched to air bubbles instead. I added some live sand to keep them both out of the filter area.

 

[Chris_from_SoCal]

Deleted. Will post again.

 

[Chris_from_SoCal]

I have made a few upgrades since the last post here. I replaced the skimmer with a much larger one. The old one worked but filled up too quickly. I went with Red Sea and since I had to get a controller for it I went ahead and picked up a Red Sea main pump as well.

I also added a DI canister to my RO system.

TDS went from 15 to 0. I checked my tap water and it is 180.

 

[FragDaddy420]

Following. Nice build. I also recently set up a 625.
Getting that gyre mag out of the weir box will be fun!

 

[Chris_from_SoCal]

I received three more fish today from Dr Reef.

Yellow Tang

Blue Tang

Mandarin

The Yellow Tang is the exact same size as my Purple Tang. The Purple was going up to the Yellow and showing his dominance but the new Yellow was like, I'm not afraid of you dude.

I fed before adding the new fish and again later. The Yellow Tang took a few minutes to realize that he couldn't just slowly swim to the thawing brine shrimp or it would get swiped. He figured it out and was eating his share. The Blue Hippo would swim around the other fish but didn't actually eat yet.

The mandarin is wild caught so a little shy and hiding in the rocks so far. I put lots of Copepods in there so hopefully he will do OK.

 

[Chris_from_SoCal]

Picked up a new 55 gallon drum with removable lid to replace a trash can for the mixing station. This will take up less space and make it a cleaner setup. Drilled a hole near the top of the tank for the pump to circulate the water and hang the RODI faucet from.

Not much room left in the garage but it just fits near the whole house water softener.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I received three more fish today from Dr Reef.

Yellow Tang

Blue Tang

Mandarin

The Yellow Tang is the exact same size as my Purple Tang. The Purple was going up to the Yellow and showing his dominance but the new Yellow was like, I'm not afraid of you dude.

I fed before adding the new fish and again later. The Yellow Tang took a few minutes to realize that he couldn't just slowly swim to the thawing brine shrimp or it would get swiped. He figured it out and was eating his share. The Blue Hippo would swim around the other fish but didn't actually eat yet.

The mandarin is wild caught so a little shy and hiding in the rocks so far. I put lots of Copepods in there so hopefully he will do OK.

Awesome new additions!

 

[Chris_from_SoCal]

After I added the yellow tang they got along for about a week. Then the purple tang went turbo. He ripped up the fins on the yellow tang and was determined to kill him. I had a hard time but was able to net him out of the tank.

I had a kind of neglected 50 gallon fresh water tank that only had goldfish. I spent a few days draining and scrubbing it like crazy to get it clean enough to convert it to a fish only salt water tank.

I think I did a pretty good job and had enough equipment to make it work. I did not plan on this but am happy with the outcome.

It needs more rock and fish but the Yellow tang is safe. I 3D printed a large tower to hold the protein skimmer.

 

[Chris_from_SoCal]

I found out that adding lots of RODI water took way longer than I expected even with a 200GPD system and twice I forgot to add a timer to my phone and overflowed the 55 gallon salt water drum.

I added a 20 gallon matching tank for RODI water with a solenoid switch. It has a pump to run it into the 55 gallon salt water barrel and I added a power strip with individual switches for each plug to control everything. So far it works great but I can also switch it off when not needed and turn off the water supply.

It is also very easy to dunk a 1 gallon pitcher (aquarium only) into the RODI tank to add to my new fish only tank to top it off.