Concrete Jungle Reef - RSR250

[schaNYC]

For some background, I had a couple small freshwater fish cups (not worthy of tank category) during my childhood, with the plastic plants and air bubbles coming out of a treasure chest. The lid opening and closing I find to be pretty cool still.

Fast forward some 20 yrs, I took my leap into saltwater after seeing some beautiful tanks on the Internet, wanting to create my own slice of the ocean. I picked up an IM Nuvo AIO 24 gal shallow reef tank. 3 ft length but not very tall or wide.

The lack of space in the “sump” of the AIO made for equipment fitting and maintenance a challenge. Algae maintenance was especially difficult as the main DT lights would shine straight into the rear “sump”. Scrubbing was difficult as my hand would barely fit. None of these challenges were on my radar as a first time SW hobbyist as you can imagine. I did manage to get the tank to thrive..... until it didn’t and I lost the algae battle.

Tank was always overstocked and overfed and water maintenance schedule became more sporadic over the years. I don’t have pics of the latter neglected phase of the tank.

I think I am in the category of fish before corals. Nothing like acclimating a new fish and releasing into your own created slice of the ocean and seeing it explore the tank for the first time.

To be continued...

 

[schaNYC]

I was no longer inspired to maintain this Nuvo 24. Scraping the glass, making top off water, feeding, etc, all became a huge chore and was just going thru the motions to keep things alive, did a great job keeping GHA and bubble algae alive too! Last spring, I folded and sold off what I could, gave away the tank for free because I didn’t want to clean it. Haha. I planned to wait to move to the burbs and do a proper build with a RSR peninsula tank.

Fast forward one year and spending a lot more time at home this past spring, along with the rest of the world, of course I get the itch! Forums and Instagram make it difficult to detach completely from this hobby.

I wasn’t going to wait around to move to a house in the burbs so I did what any responsible and good intentioned husband/dad would do. I pitched to the boss/wife how a 4ft tank would look great in the living room and how the kids want one really bad too! Although a 4ft RSR 350 would have been great, settled on the 3ft RSR 250. Making efficient use of floor space in a NYC apt is always a challenge, especially with 2 young children with their ever growing toys and books. Shocked I even got to this pt so not complaining.

After placing my order online, waited 2 wks for delivery and finally scheduled to arrive. It’s the Friday before Memorial Day weekend and all I could think about was starting the build. Freight company calls and says the truck broke down 5 miles from my home. Delivery will be Tuesday morning.

Gear that’s been piling up in the corner of my apt.

Oh fk no, wasn’t about to let that happen. I drove to the freight company warehouse (12 min drive) and loaded my suv! Not an easy task, but had to be done. Stand took about 3 hrs to build, broke off the spring loaded door push mechanism as I was manipulating the stand during the build. Buzzkill but not nearly as bad as the time I had a scissor in back pocket and sat down in my new car. Doh!

Before:

After: Ta-da!
First mod, peel away black vinyl around the overflow.

Leveler showed a slight lean toward the front of tank, shims ordered. Adjustable leveling feet on the RSR XL series tanks would have been handy. Was checking to see if the level was off on the tank/stand only or caused by the floor. We found the culprit.

 

[schaNYC]

Marco Rocks have arrived. Really looking forward to this scape portion of the build as it is one of the more creative/subjective aspects of a reef tank. Really let’s you play god.

Scaping workstation ready.

I really wanted the shelf rocks to stack but they were pretty pricey, 2x of reg Marco rocks and reviews are mixed. Some pieces apparently are not very porous and just looked like slabs of poured concrete? Anyways, didn’t want to take the chance and leave it to the store rock pickers so I have the reg stuff that I smashed/drilled then made final cuts with chisel and hammer for shaping. The chisel and hammer were greatly effective, the saw not so much. Using a drill bit helped to crack the larger pieces. I tried using JB water weld with a water spray bottle and super glue. This stuff was terrible to work with and not effective at holding rock together. The long set time makes it pretty impossible for this purpose. Will have to wait for Jurassic glue delivery. Ugh!

 

[schaNYC]

Have to work on the guts of the tank while I wait for the glue to arrive. Safety first so need to swap out outlet to gfci.

My first go at hard plumbing for this build and a real sump, not an AIO tank sump. Reading thru threads in this forum were a great help, down to exact parts to order!

Thanks @Eight for documenting your build so well!

 

[schaNYC]

For reference, my build list:

Varios-6
Deltec 600i
Aquamaxx XS reactor
Nero 5 pumps
GHL Mitras
GHL Profilux
GHL Doser
Tunze Eco-Chic fuge light

Fish plans:
Kole tang
Tomini tang
Bartlett’s anthias trio
Davicini clown
Snowflake clown
Tamarin wrasse
Flame wrasse

Corals:
Mixed reef, whatever looks nice that isn’t so green or purple and isn’t super pricey.

I will pay low 4 digits or what it takes to get my dream fish, the blue striped tamarin wrasse if I ever come across one, but it pains me to spend $100+ for a 1” frag of anything.

 

[schaNYC]

Thank you Jurassic glue! Now this is something that can hold rock together and sets quickly to allow you to move on and add smaller pieces to larger structure.

I just want to say what I envisioned in my head during the planning stages is not really how the rock scape played out. Just have to play the cards you’re dealt sometimes but with some creativity, imagination, and lots of super glue, results can be something interesting and effective for your fish habitat.

My inspiration was both bonsai trees and frank lloyd wright’s Fallingwater architecture when I was originally planning to use just shelf rocks.

Caves and overhangs were important to my design as I think creating space where your fish can retreat to is as important as open swimming space to reduce stress levels.

When starting to glue pieces together I noticed that my structures started to look like dome caves. Not very natural to me so I decided to flip the structure upside down which worked out great as I instantly had a base with pillars to build off of. I did add some more nubs at the base to raise the structures to allow efficient waterflow underneath.

I was originally going to try a BB tank but my love for tamarin wrasses trumps all and didn’t want to use a container of sand in some corner of the tank.

It’s very difficult to see the angles and capture this rock scape in 2D. A video when it’s placed in the tank will work much better.

From a birds eye view they are 2 islands that appear to fit like a jigsaw puzzle if you were to attach together. Both islands have a large cave in the center accessible with 3 entry/exits.

I tried to use flat pieces reaching toward center as I have a single light fixture. Ideally I would have liked the 2 islands further apart and have the fish swim back and forth from one to the other. Keep them busier than just one large structure. This would require a 2nd fixture $$$ and mount that would show thru the back glass. Or I just don’t bother trying to grow SPS at all under the high par output in the center.

 

[schaNYC]

I had to mod the Reefer V3 sump to allow for the Triton method, meaning no filter sock and fuge has to be atleast 10% of total water volume. To accomplish this, I had to cut thru a lot of silicone, scrape, and remove. Additionally, I moved the original position of the fuge/skimmer dividing baffle that was offset, toward the center of the sump to allow a 50% sump allocation to the fuge. Also attached matte white vinyl to sides and bottom of glass to allow better visibility of detritus. Left the front glass clear. Added black plexiglass to the existing glass divider betw return and fuge sections, to help prevent light bleed.

The plumbing is coming along. Honestly it was a daunting and intimidating task before I started as it was my first go at hard plumbing but after cutting pipe with a PVC cutter (must have!) and dry fitting sections together, not so bad afterall. I guess this could turn out to be not so fun once I get the tank wet. I can only imagine cutting sections to redo the plumbing. The next pic will be standard white PVC I’m sure as I scramble to fix leaks. I tried my best to prevent leaks by greasing all o-rings and using thread putty vs Teflon tape. Crossing fingers.

Well that escalated quickly... added a UV sterilizer as the final major sump component, which I didn’t have in my original plans, but fit nicely with the extra gate built into the manifold that I didn’t have plans for using just yet. The limited space in the stand requires some real creativity in the pipe layout and thinking ahead for maintenance/access of equipment. Although I could have mounted the UV outside the tank, I prefer keeping all things wet inside/above the sump. This required me to to remove the door push mechanism that I painstakingly installed twice as I broke them the first time. Fk me. Now I just use the top of my feet to open the door from bottom. Oh well. Guts of stand almost complete with sump and electronics board.

Still need to work on doser lines and adding one more flow meter to the return line. Waiting on ato reservoir and custom lid.

And now we have light...

 

[Mastiffsrule]

Evening,

Great build. tank looks good there. How did you stuff all that in the cabinet I have no idea. I have not heard much about your light so it will be neat to watch you tank grow.

Keep us updated with your progress

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

Looking forward to your progress!!

 

[schaNYC]

A bit nervous about being close to the window (more algae to scrape), but windows do face west and light comes it at an angle away from tank so hoping it works out. Reading about builds inside sun rooms gives me some sigh of relief.

You are totally right... I can't believe how much I fit inside there! When I test fit things, as long as I could get the skimmer cup and body out and reactor out, as well as access to trim chaeto, and change out UV bulb, I was thinking it could work. Integrating unions as much as possible also helps but even unions themselves were a concern as they take up more space than just pipe alone. It is working with these constraints that make the build so rewarding (or frustrating!) at times.

The lights are a staple of the the GHL product suite. I think they are better known across the pond and they have been in the controller game before Neptune Apex and they have been manufacturers for industrial applications before getting into the hobby industry.

Thanks for reading!

 

[schaNYC]

Tank is finally wet!

Walk around view of the scape:


Top down view:

 

[schaNYC]

We have some fish now and a bunch of frags. Frags are gonna need some time but here are my fish enjoying the scape and picking on the early stage algae growing on the rocks.