Desert Reef (200 gallon)

[ajtomase]

Ever since I was a child I pretty much lived at the aquarium and thanks to pandemic I’ve been researching the hobby since September 2019 and have had a mentor to help me along my slew of questions (cc_reefkpr on Instagram, @Scubabum on R2R)! Back during the Black Friday sales, I decided to purchase the Red Sea Reefer 750 XXL v.3 along with other items listed below. Had some items returned along the way, but the list above is what I’ve settled on.


Equipment

• Tank: Red Sea Reefer 750 XXL
• Lights: 4 Ecotech Radion XR15 G5 Blues
• Powerheads: 2 Ecotech MP60s and 2 MP40s
• Return pumps: 2 Ecotech L2s w/2 Red Sea Reefer Ultimate Return Upgrade Kits
• Dosing Pumps: Red Sea ReefDose - 4 pumps
• Skimmer: Reef Octopus Regal 250INT
• Refugium Light: AI Prime Fuge
• Rock: Kona Reef Fauth artificial rock (similar to CaribSea, but not as heavy)
• Brains: TBD (waiting until needs of my tank before deciding)
• Heaters: Ink bird + 2 300W titanium BRS heaters
• Salt: Getting setup with Kent's Marine, but slowly switching over to Red Sea Blue Bucket
• Controller Board: TBD (waiting until needs of my tank before deciding)
• ATO: Tunze Osmolator
• RODI system: 7 Stage PRO Plus 150 GPD Water Saver RODI System
• RODI Reservoir: Innovative Marine 15 gallon Hydrofill

For a while I’ve been thinking about doing a rock flower anemone dedicated tank…but I might be swayed into LPS if I find the right ones to go in there. My fish wishlist has already been researched and selected and this is what I’ve decided on below. My goal is to have one of each family, and to cover all colors (avoiding duplicates if possible):


Fish

• Whitetail Bristletooth Tang
• Lyretail Anthias (2 female, 1 male)
• Orange Storm Ocellaris Clownfish (2 - bonded pair)
• Lawnmower Blenny
• One-Spot Foxface
• Salon Fairy Wrasse
• Blue Mandarin
• Royal Gramma Basslet
• Banggai Cardinalfish

potential adds

• Firefish
• Long nose hawkfish (if small enough and won’t eat cleaner shrimp)
• Chalk Bass

Inverts

• Dwarf Cerith Snails
• Nassarius Vibex or Tongan Nassarius and Nassarius Vibes
• Florida Cerith or East African Cerith Snails
• Astrea Snails or Mexican Turbos and Astrea Snails
• Trochus Snails
• Tiger sand conch
• Cleaner Shrimp or Blood Red Fire Shrimp (medium to large)
• Spotted Porcelain Crab
• Tuxedo Urchin

Anemones

• Rock Flower Anemones

Time to finish up my rock scape….

 

[AJsReef]

Very cool build, from a fellow 750 owner!

Do the new versions have dual return lines?

 

[ajtomase]

Very cool build, from a fellow 750 owner!

Do the new versions have dual return lines?

Yup, version 3 has a lot of changes especially to address the stability issues. Here's the diagram of the plumbing setup for v3:

 

[AJsReef]

Yup, version 3 has a lot of changes especially to address the stability issues. Here's the diagram of the plumbing setup for v3:

About time, huge improvement there. I have been thinking about replumbing my tank (version 1) by replacing the return line as a second drain and going over the top returns. The new set up is how it should've been day one. I wonder if they increase the drain line diameter as well?

 

[Zach B]

Sounds like a killer setup!

 

[ajtomase]

About time, huge improvement there. I have been thinking about replumbing my tank (version 1) by replacing the return line as a second drain and going over the top returns. The new set up is how it should've been day one. I wonder if they increase the drain line diameter as well?

That I'm not sure. I'm having my LFS set it up for me so I can focus on making sure my aquascape is well balanced.

 

[ajtomase]

Just finished my aquascape. I used E-Marco Mortar 400 for securing rocks, but not all of them because it’s pretty heavy overall and I need to be able to move it into the tank. Unfortunately, some of the joints didn’t end up working visually in the end so I had a to break them off.

Here's the first first that I was going to go with, but until i put in a visual of what the overflow box would look like, and I noticed some of the arches were blocked by it...

Knowing how that blockage would effect the archway, I re-scaped and came up with this for the final design:

It did leave some residue, so I’m not sure if I should just leave it, maybe Coraline will grow over it, or chip off those sections....who knows

Now that I have the scape down, hopefully I can get everything to look the way that it does when moving everything into the tank. There are some areas that are a tad wobbly, so I plan on using BRS super thick glue once they’re in the tank, then use insta-set on them, then surround them/fill in the gaps with Two little Fishes mortar provide additional stability.

Next up, the electrician is come to install 3 receptacles where my tank will go. Each receptacle will be 15 amp circuits each so that'll be sure it doesn't effect any circuits for the rest of the house. I'm also changing over an existing outlet that is part of the dining room circuit to its own circuit. That should be enough if I have a power strip plugged into each outlet giving me a total of 42 items that i could plug in total (1 outlet will be designated for a grounding probe I'm putting in the tank so if any electrical malfunctions happen, the grounding probe will suck up that electricity instead of electrocuting the livestock....


Until next time!

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Very nice!!

 

[ajtomase]

This past week was certainly a busy one. I had an electrician come in to install 3 new receptacles, each on their own 15 amp circuit. The 4th one is an existing outlet that’s already attached to the dedicated fish fridge and our other mini fridge, that’s also on a 15am circuit.

Funny thing happened though, the electrician fell through the ceiling, but luckily we were able to get that section repaired before the tank will go in…hopefully I’m not too panic-y about any other cracks that may happen above where the tank will be…

After the ceiling was fixed (patched, but looks fine), the electrician made all the outlets GFCI which is great especially since they’re all just for the tank.

Next up, adding in the utility sink and connecting the RODI system!

 

[ajtomase]

The second part of the busy week was getting a utility sink installed and plumbing to it. I already put together the sink a while back, and the plumber came in to add waterlines needed for it. Luckily he understood my needs for an RODI system so he was able to attach 1 diverter valve that will remain constant under the sink so I don’t have to keep turning that one on and off, and suggested I added another one higher up on the line so I’m able to reach it much easier. I’ve also drilled a hole in the drain pipe to attach the black line to so I can easily hide water. Right now I have the RODI system under the sink. There is a chance I’ll need to put up a temporary mounting solution in my garage so i can mount it on a 2x4 when removing canisters. Hopefully it won’t be difficult/awkward to remove canisters when it comes to change them, but I’ll approach that bridge when it comes close.

I did make my first batch of RODI water and got my first TDS levels. Right now, line 1 of the 3-line TDS meter is after the RO membrane and is getting average of 17 TDS. We have very hard water in Arizona so I’m not surprised by those levels (which is why I got the BRS 7-stage 150 gpd water saving system). Line 2 is after both the canion and anion DI resins and that’s currently reading 0. I like having the line after these two DI resins to catch it before it his the last DI resin canister. Line 3 is after the mixed bed DI resin canister.

After making my first few gallons of RODI, I took my 32 and 44 gallon Brute trash cans and measured them up to where 10%, 15%, and 20% water change would be. My plan is to take a PVC pipe, put black zip ties at those measurements, so when I need to make water, I can drop in the pipe, fill up to the line I need, then I’ll know I have the correct amount of water.

I’ll post about my PVC pipe measurement device once I make it this weekend, but for now, getting ready for installation day tomorrow!

 

[ajtomase]

It's here! Thank you to the wonderful staff of Kona Reef Chandler! It was a bit fast paced that day but we got everything setup, water's in and good to go! I still want to play around the aquascape because one certain area isn't sitting right with me (aquascaping on a table with cardboard is so much easier than in a tank!

All was going well until the overflow area's water suddenly dropped at 9pm. Luckily I was able to figure out how to fix it while the pup likes my new work blanket

Happy birthday to me! Now let's get this tank cycled!

 

[ajtomase]

Started cycling with @DrTim products couple of days ago, and even turned up the tank to 84 degrees per his suggestion to aid the cycling along. Already starting to see a bacteria bloom so that's good. I'm trying so hard to not put my hands in the tank to fix all the valleys the mp60s are creating and want to tweak my aquascape one more time, but I'm gonna be patient and wait until my full cycle is complete before messing inside the tank...

 

[1ocean]

glad to see things moving forward....

 

[ajtomase]

It’s been a hot minute since I updated, but here’s what happened so far:


Cycling and recent parameters
I’ve been researching for a while on beneficial bacteria and decided to go with Dr. Tim’s since based on his research reputation in the industry. Long story short, even though my tank was at 84 degrees, and no lights on, it took a little longer than his schedule to get the tank cycled. by Day 14 I was still showing .25 ammonia total, .1 nitrite, 100 nitrates, and 7.9 pH (all tested with Salifert test kits). I decided to purchase the Seachem badge and that one has been showing .05ppm free ammonia so I spoke with my LFS and decided to schedule an 80% water change with them on Tuesday. The water change happened and even after testing several hours after it, the Salifert test still tested 100 nitrates.


Not only did I use Dr. Tim’s ammonium chloride, but I dosed 2x of his One and Only (once on initial day, the other on day 10 per email discussions). I eventually had some assistance with another tech company and brought in a tech to do 2 more 100 gallon water changes (the first being 2 days after the initial 80% change, and another a week later). I did some testing before he changed the water with my Hanna HR Nitrate checker and it was at 16! Turns out it just needed a few extra days to turn the nitrate into gas, and after the final 100 gallon water change, we managed to bring the Nitrate levels to 5.7. As of today, I did my measurements the day before my latest water change (20%) and nitrates were 6.1, phosphate at 0.04, pH at 8. I did get my salinity in my salt mix to 1.026, but I took out more saltwater from my tank than expected and when the auto top off kicked in, it brought my salinity for the tank to 1.025. Still within range, but I’ll try and get it back to 1.026 at the next water change.



Net top
If it wasn’t for my spouse’s dedication to help and love of power tools, this would’ve been the most frustrating project known to man. So many tiny measurements, but was able to get what I was looking for (4 modular sections). There’s still a bit of bowing in the smaller panels, but overall I’m happy with hose they turned out. I’m having a friend of mine going to 3D print some longer lips to sit on top of the glass for extra measures and print some covers to go over the gaps between the light stands and the net frame. With the black netting on there it looks really slick.

Other plumbing
Turned out that my emergency drain and diaphragm valve was installed wrong so the tech that did my water changes redid the plumbing and even installed a gate valve instead.



Sump updates
As I was removing the water for the initial 80% water change, my sump overflowed when i turned off the pumps. Turned out my water level was not only too high, but the return nozzles were also directed too low which caused a back siphon. after the mess was clean and the water was changed out, I turned on my protein skimmer to note where the water level should be, adjusted my Tunze ATO sensor there, turned off the protein skimmer (since I had no livestock), and turned off the ATO until the water level got to that level and turned it back on. After that, no more overflows (so far at least for this beginner). At least I can say i was baptized into the hobby now.


Carbon filter & Protein skimmer
Went ahead and installed the carbon filter for placement purposes, but waiting to turn it on at a later date. Same deal with the protein skimmer, waiting until there’s a little more bioload for it to be of use.



Filter socks
So far, the 2 mesh socks and 2 media cups with filter floss have been working great! I even used @FishOfHex sock silencers and can’t hear any trickling of water running over them. Such a great purchase!

Livestock updates
I finally got my first two fish in the tank (pair of orange storm clownfish from Sustainable Aquatics, QT’d by OceanDevotion) and they’re a weird pair. The front right corner of my tank is hosting them, though on occasion I’ve seen them each at opposite sides at night, but for the most part, they stick to the side of the tank that we introduced them on. sometimes on the rock, sometimes in the corner. Next up is a trio of Banggais to add (plan on adding new fish every 2 weeks).

Aquascape updates
Since I’ve been working with a technician, he convinced me that I needed more spots for smaller fish to hide in since there were lots of open spaces and arches for big fish, but nothing for the little fish. We added some branch rock from Caribsea and now the smaller caves they need and there’s still plenty of arch space and swim room for the larger fish.

Next items on my list:

1. installing the lights (new lights = Radion XR15 G5 Blues)
2. continue to add new fish
3. start adding pods and phyto once the right phyto is back in stock (podyourreef.com)