Dave's Red Sea Reefer 650 Peninsula

[Dave Cureton]

Moved over the fish and corals from the old tank on Sunday. Not much left after the crash that almost got me out of the hobby after 12 years.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Bet it feels great now to have stuck with it.

 

[Dave Cureton]

Definitely getting there!

Bet it feels great now to have stuck with it.

 

[Dave Cureton]

Some shots from the old tank in it's glory days.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Very nice!

 

[Dave Cureton]

Couple of updates. I ordered some more goodies from BRS. First was the VCA random flow generator. Pretty happy with it so far. This a definite improvement over the stock return nozzle on the reefer tanks. Pretty affordable too. I also added another Gyre pump. Flow is now 2 XF250 Gyre's, 2 MP40's and the VCA RFG running off my Vectra return pump. I'm hoping that will be enough flow.

 

[Dave Cureton]

I also had enough spare time to clean up the spiderweb of wiring and mount controllers to the dead front panel on the dry side. Not the best work I have seen but it's an improvement.

 

[Dave Cureton]

Picked up some corals from @YourReef . A micromussa, duncan, chalice, monti cap, and monti setosa. Happy to report everything is alive and doing well. It's taking a lot of will power not to load up on SPS. I will probably add another piece or two in a month if things go well. I'm thinking a classic like a green slimer or some other hearty staghorn type.
FTS:

 

[Dave Cureton]

After a couple months of fighting with the Red Sea ATO I am officially done. We had a couple of dry days this weekend so I embarked under the house to tackle my ATO issues. For those not aware the Red Sea ATO is gravity fed via a float valve by a tank over the sump. I have heard these float valves can be finicky. I found that to be true and being there are times where my work has me 5-8 days away from home a proper functioning ATO is a must. I happened to have a Tunze 3155 osmolator (this thing rocks!) from my previous system so decided to put it to work. 50' of direct burial wire and 1/4" RO tubing later and we are in business. It was a good feeling to get home from the office and see the water level hadn't budget during the day today. Well worth the time crawling in the Nevada county red dirt under my house.

 

[RichtheReefer21]

Christmas came early!

1st, welcome to r2r and you are off and running man. Cranking through the upgrade! Nice transition, smooth.

Your last system was a stunner for sure. I dont see this one doing anything different.

I run 2 xf250s and love them. 6ft tank. Can you believe the 12 pages or whatever of possible programming on them?!? I was blown away at what you can do with them. Even the Cage adjustments to coincide with whatever your trying to accomplish with flow.

And I 2nd the tunze 3155. I did have a few hiccups with what I think was the optical sensor getting some macro on it or something and it not properly shutting off at the "level" point...

Wipe it down once a week or make sure it's not in a main-flow channel. I had to move mine from the skimmer chamber to the return. Havent had a problem since.

Hope the new frags acclimate well. Mine are doing great. (I was on that YR livesale too) and here I am... looking forward to following along.

That ATI fixture is a beast.

 

[Dave Cureton]

Thanks for all the positive feedback Rich. I'm still on the fence with the Gyre's though. Do you know if they can be programmed through Apex Fusion? I honestly got frustrated with the gyre controller.

 

[ReefChef19]

After a couple months of fighting with the Red Sea ATO I am officially done. We had a couple of dry days this weekend so I embarked under the house to tackle my ATO issues. For those not aware the Red Sea ATO is gravity fed via a float valve by a tank over the sump. I have heard these float valves can be finicky. I found that to be true and being there are times where my work has me 5-8 days away from home a proper functioning ATO is a must. I happened to have a Tunze 3155 osmolator (this thing rocks!) from my previous system so decided to put it to work. 50' of direct burial wire and 1/4" RO tubing later and we are in business. It was a good feeling to get home from the office and see the water level hadn't budget during the day today. Well worth the time crawling in the Nevada county red dirt under my house.

Nice looking set up, I have a question about the ato. So your pumping your ro water from 50 feet away for your ato? Im just wondering because I have the same type situation. Crawl space with my water bins being in the garage.

 

[Antics]

Awesome build thread! I love Red Sea tanks!

 

[Dave Cureton]

Nice looking set up, I have a question about the ato. So your pumping your ro water from 50 feet away for your ato? Im just wondering because I have the same type situation. Crawl space with my water bins being in the garage.

Yes pump and storage tank are in the garage. I'm sure it will cause premature failure on the pump but it is worth it to me. I was not impressed with the Red Sea option and having to fill the reservoir every few days wasn't something I wanted to worry about.

 

[Dave Cureton]

Awesome build thread! I love Red Sea tanks!

Thanks. Definitely the nicest tank I have owned.

 

[RichtheReefer21]

Thanks for all the positive feedback Rich. I'm still on the fence with the Gyre's though. Do you know if they can be programmed through Apex Fusion? I honestly got frustrated with the gyre controller.

No experience with apex. Sorry

 

[Dave Cureton]

Quick update for my own records. Livestock purchases:
From @Monterey Bay Coral:
LA Lakers Zoa (terrible name BTW. Go W's)
WWC Twizzler Zoa
Ultra Acan
Space Invader Pectina
MBC Planet Horizon Stag
JF Fox Flame
Cali Tort
ASD Rainbow Milli
Oregon Tort

From @YourReef live sale:
Gonzos Cookie Monster
TGK Cherry Bomb
TSA Fruity Pebbles
PC Superman
Red Dragon
Pink Stylo
YR Golden Halo Torch

All are doing well. Pictures forthcoming.

 

[Dave Cureton]

Ok. Good news and bad news for today. First the good news:
I received a shipment from TCK today. Very happy with the packaging. Everything was triple bagged. Frags were in cups inside the bags. Everything is looking happy and ready to grow. List of corals:
Walt Disney Acro
Green Slimer Acro
TCK Skywalker Acro
TCK Pikachu Acro
Rastas Zoas
JK *** Krak Zoa
PC Rainbow
TCK Fuzzy Was A Bear
TSA Bill Murray
Anthonys Pink Granulosa
TCK Red Titan Stag

 

[Dave Cureton]

And the bad news. Unfortunately this QT setup isn't for a new arrival. It should have been but I was negligent and am paying the price for it. I purchased a Bellus Angel recently (favorite fish) and went with my normal routine of acclimating in a bucket then putting into an acclimation box in my DT to let aggression diminish. Unfortunately the next day I started seeing the signs of ich on my blue and purple tangs. I figured nothing to freak out about sometimes tangs stress out and ich appears. I fed well and put a UV sterilizer on the tank to attempt to remove the ich. As it goes the fish started to look better as the ich dropped off and started the next part of their life stage. Fast foward to yesterday when the Bellus was sort of swimming/floating around the tank and obviously on deaths door. I tried a freshwater dip and setup a hospital tank with some homeopathic treatments. Unfortunately she didn't survive. Next was my Borbonius Anthias who I have had for the better part of 5 years. Unfortunately I had the same result with it. So I freaked out and went to the local pet supply and purchased 2-40 gallon breeders, heaters, filters, meds, etc to set up the quarantine for my other remaining fish to enter. My fish will be treated with Cupramine in the quarantines and the DT will be fallow for 80-90 days. Long story short is I dodged bullets for too long and lost my 2 favorite fish over poor husbandry. It won't happen again.

 

[RichtheReefer21]

And the bad news. Unfortunately this QT setup isn't for a new arrival. It should have been but I was negligent and am paying the price for it. I purchased a Bellus Angel recently (favorite fish) and went with my normal routine of acclimating in a bucket then putting into an acclimation box in my DT to let aggression diminish. Unfortunately the next day I started seeing the signs of ich on my blue and purple tangs. I figured nothing to freak out about sometimes tangs stress out and ich appears. I fed well and put a UV sterilizer on the tank to attempt to remove the ich. As it goes the fish started to look better as the ich dropped off and started the next part of their life stage. Fast foward to yesterday when the Bellus was sort of swimming/floating around the tank and obviously on deaths door. I tried a freshwater dip and setup a hospital tank with some homeopathic treatments. Unfortunately she didn't survive. Next was my Borbonius Anthias who I have had for the better part of 5 years. Unfortunately I had the same result with it. So I freaked out and went to the local pet supply and purchased 2-40 gallon breeders, heaters, filters, meds, etc to set up the quarantine for my other remaining fish to enter. My fish will be treated with Cupramine in the quarantines and the DT will be fallow for 80-90 days. Long story short is I dodged bullets for too long and lost my 2 favorite fish over poor husbandry. It won't happen again.

My heart hurts for u. I ran into the same issue and had to rush my 125g build and run the corals, inverts, and rock fallow as well. Lessons learned. . Hope u get thru the QT and fallow without anymore losses. Best wishes.