First Reef "furniture" - 65 gallon Reefer 250 G2

[Makara23]

First post, so hi reef fam and happy new years!

I’ve had goldfish and tropical fish for a decade in the past, but this is my first saltwater aquarium. My end game is to eventually have a custom 400 gal system, with the display tank in the living room that plumbs to a sump in the garage. But for now, it’ll only be an intermediary 65 gal mixed reef build that’s central to the house, between the living room and kitchen.

• Tank/sump: Red Sea Reefer 250 G2
• Lights: 2x Radion XR15 G6 Blue
• Controller/probes: Neptune A3 Apex Pro
• Return pump: Neptune CORE-15
• Powerheads: AI Nero 3, Maxspect Jump 4k Gyre
• Heater: BRS 300w titanium element
• Rocks: TBS 30lbs live rock, Marco 30lbs dry rock
• Sand: TBS 10lbs live sand, 20lbs agraalive sand
• Biomedia: MarinePure 67x 2” cubes, and 1x large block
• RO/DI: BRS 7-stage Pro Plus 150 GPD

I’ve cheated and started this build a couple months ago. It’s still not completed yet, as I know this will be a long journey and I’m taking things really slow, and also as time permits. Updates with indexed key dates are below:

09/28/2022 - tank ordered
10/12/2022 - tank delivered
10/20/2022 - cycling started in a plastic bin
10/26/2022 - live rocks and sand, with CuC added
12/03/2022 - RO/DI system installed
12/07/2022 - cabinet and display tank setup
12/09/2022 - cycled rocks, media, sand, and CuC transferred to display tank
12/14/2022 - first livestock and macroalgae added
12/17/2022 - sump plumbed into system
12/18/2022 - Royal Gramma fish added
12/22/2022 - firefish, chromis, and molly added
01/15/2023 - first coral added, fire cleaner shrimp added
01/25/2023 - algae CuC added
02/01/2023 - first LPS added
02/12/2023 - added 13 new corals
03/09/2023 - added 11 new corals

Most recent tank shot: 02/12/2023

 

[Makara23]

Oct 20, 2022
I kicked off the cycling process using large amounts of bio media and bottled bacteria, all inside a 25 gallon bin with a heater, air stone, and powerhead.

• Bio media was MarinePure 8x8x4” block, and 67x 2” cubes
• Bacteria was Fritz TurboStart 900
• Ammonia source was ammonium chloride
• 18 gallon of store-bought distilled water

 

[Makara23]

Oct 26, 2022
Added 20lbs of live rock and 10lbs of live sand, and handful of hermit crabs and snails, all from TBS.

I greatly reduced the amount of ammonium chloride, and instead switch to pellets for the hermits. I was a bit worried the snails might not make it from the lack of algae.

Everything was cycled in this bin for the next 6 weeks, with testing of ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate every couple of days. There was one 25% water change halfway through. In total, cycling was almost 2 months in this bin before going into the display tank.

 

[Makara23]

Dec 3, 2022
RO/DI installed. I used the BRS 7-stage Pro Plus 150 GPD. As a non plumber, this was semi involved for me.

The product water from reverse osmosis filter gets split, one goes to the drinking water tank and the other goes to the DI canisters for fish tank. The storage tank is again split into 2 outputs, one for the drink water faucet and the other for tubing to fill 5-gallon drinking containers. A permeate pump was also plumbed in to help with efficiency.

 

[Makara23]

Dec 7, 2022
It took a couple hours to build the cabinet, with the help of this handyman.

Wife and I used heavy duty suction cups to pick up the tank to place on the cabinet.

Then I used a laser leveler and adjusted the feet accordingly to make sure everything’s level.

Shortly after, the same handyman went inside the tank to spot check our work.

Water from the RO/DI system was filtered directly into tank using 25ft tubing, no buckets were used. It took overnight to fill the 55gal display tank.

Salt mix was weighed and dumped directly into the tank with water. Specific gravity at 1.025

 

[Makara23]

Dec 9, 2022
Everything from cycling bin transferred over to the display tank: TBS live rocks and sand, bio media block and cubes, heater, powerhead, air bubbler, hermits and snails.

This is basically a 100% water change, as all the water from the cycling bin was discarded. At this point, everything should be well cycled and ready to add the “first” purchased livestock.

The sump has not been plumbed and setup yet, that why you see all the bio media stacked in the back corner and sand temporarily held in containers. Another 10lbs of TBS live rocks added in addition to the 20lbs I already had. So far, they’ve just been thrown in there. Zero attempts at aquascaping yet.

 

[Makara23]

Dec 14, 2022
Finally added some creatures and macroalgae!

• 1x Scarlet Skunk cleaner shrimp from LFS
• 3x Peppermint shrimp from AlgaeBarn
• 1x Yellowtail Damsel from LFS
• “Galaxy” copepods from AlgaeBarn
• Red Ogo macroalgae
• Sea Lettuce macroalgae

I know, the damsel is probably one of the worst choice for the first fish because of aggressiveness, but I was looking for something cheap and hardy as a starter.

 

[Makara23]

Dec 17, 2022
I finally got the sump setup. The delay was from not having the proper fittings for the return pump. All the bio media macoalgae, sand, heater, and probes were moved to the sump and everything running great.

It’s pretty much stuffed full already, so I ended up moving about a dozen bio cubes to the pump return chamber. Does anyone see any issues with doing this?

 

[Makara23]

Dec 18, 2022
Added a Royal Gramma Basslet. As expected, it was bullied into a corner by the damsel. This continued for 2 days until I separated the damsel into a floating mesh breeder net where he stayed for the next couple of weeks.

 

[Makara23]

Dec 22, 2022
More fishies added! I know generally we’re suppose to wait at least a couple of weeks before adding new livestock, but the system has been cycling for 3 months at this point with more than enough bio media and live rock, and these are relatively small fishes.

• Blue-green Chromis
• Firefish Goby
• Sailfin Molly

I acclimated the molly from freshwater to saltwater in a full day, released him, and he was doing great swimming around and chomping algae. Unfortunately, a week later it jumped out and was too late by the time I found it R.I.P.

I felt horrible. I’ll be making a mesh lid soonish.

 

[Makara23]

Jan 15, 2023
Added my first coral (Pulsing Xenia)! And also a Fire Cleaner Shrimp.

The Xenia is temporarily on a frag plug holder until I can aquascape some dry rock.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Tank is off to a great start!!!!

 

[Makara23]

Just a quick update as of today, and for the most part I couldn’t be any happier with how things are going:

• I’ve dodged the “ugly phase”. Unnoticeable diatoms, no cyano, and only a few spots with GHA.
• Coralline algae is starting to take over the rocks, but none on glass or powerheads.
• All fish are fat and healthy.
• Scarlet cleaner shrimp molts weekly (is this frequency normal?)

I’ve only done one water change so far, and scrapped the glass once every 2 weeks. I think this minimal maintenance is due to having lots of macro algae, dosing phytoplankton, and copepods that outcompetes the nuisance algae.

 

[McCarrick]

What do you think your final stocking list is going to be? Your tank is off to a great start! Keep up the posts!

 

[Makara23]

What do you think your final stocking list is going to be? Your tank is off to a great start! Keep up the posts!

Fish and inverts, and ideally adding them in this order:

- Blue-Green Chromis (added)
- Scarlet cleaner shrimp (added)
- Red Firefish (added)
- Royal Gramma Basslet (added)
- Ocellaris Clownfish pair
- Red Fire cleaner shrimp (added)
- Yasha Goby / Candy Cane pistol shrimp pair
- Mandarin Dragonette
- Yellowtail Damsel (added)
- Purple Tang

All relatively small animals except for the tang, which I'm still undecided. Really would like a tang but feeling guilty for having a small tank.

Corals will be mixed reef.

 

[Makara23]

First real purchase of algae CuC from ReefCleaners arrived! They were temp acclimated, washed with tank water in a bowl and examined for hitchhiking pests.

This amount was $75. It felt like a large order but after combining them in a bowl, it’s really not that much. A couple of them were almost $5 a pop.

Word of advice: Dwarf Ceriths and Periwinkles are useless, unless you literally buy hundreds. And any type of Trochus snails are not cost effective.

Full CuC list below

added today:
5x African Cerith snails
5x Florida Cerith snails
5x Stocky Cerith snails
20x Dwarf Cerith snails
3x Trochus snail
4x Dwarf Trochus snail
4x Tectus snails
5x Zig Zag Periwinkles
2x Ninja Star snails
1x Smooth Turbo snail

been in:
7x hermit crabs
2x Astraea snails
3x Peppermint shrimps
1x Scarlet Cleaner shrimp
1x Fire Cleaner shrimp

 

[McCarrick]

Fish and inverts, and ideally adding them in this order:

- Blue-Green Chromis (added)
- Scarlet cleaner shrimp (added)
- Red Firefish (added)
- Royal Gramma Basslet (added)
- Ocellaris Clownfish pair
- Red Fire cleaner shrimp (added)
- Yasha Goby / Candy Cane pistol shrimp pair
- Mandarin Dragonette
- Yellowtail Damsel (added)
- Purple Tang

All relatively small animals except for the tang, which I'm still undecided. Really would like a tang but feeling guilty for having a small tank.

Corals will be mixed reef.

I keep going back and forth on adding a tang to mine- I've been contemplating a tomini tang but with a 3' tank... I'm in the same boat and keep flip flopping on it. I'm battling algae so I keep thinking "add a tang" but then I think that's not the best solution right this second.
Are all of your different species of shrimp getting along? I've wanted to add a few species but wasn't sure if they'd compete or not.

 

[Makara23]

I keep going back and forth on adding a tang to mine- I've been contemplating a tomini tang but with a 3' tank... I'm in the same boat and keep flip flopping on it. I'm battling algae so I keep thinking "add a tang" but then I think that's not the best solution right this second.
Are all of your different species of shrimp getting along? I've wanted to add a few species but wasn't sure if they'd compete or not.

Me personally, I wouldn't count a tang as part of the CuC. They have a higher bio load than the algae they're able to remove. If I do decide on getting one, I'll be adding it last because it would be the largest and most aggressive fish in the tank.

One or two urchin would be best against nuisance algae, but the reason I went with a bunch of snails at the stage is because I'm still trying to grow out the coralline algae, which urchins would also strip away.

I have Peppermint, Scarlet, and Red Fire shrimps. They all get a long in a sense that they don't associate with each other, good or bad. I'm realizing that there are pros and cons to having shrimps. For one, as members of CuC, they look nicer than snails haha. They're also very quick and efficient at scavenging leftover food, much better than snails. In fact, so efficient that this could be seen as a con: they find and steal food from coral. Not an issue for me at this point, but I know eventually this will become a problem when I get more corals.

 

[McCarrick]

Me personally, I wouldn't count a tang as part of the CuC.

I don't really either, it's just something I see over and over again. So it gets tempting after awhile!
As far as the shrimp go, it definitely makes it tricky feeding corals. I have one urchin that does a good job in certain areas

 

[Makara23]

I just added a Candy Cane and Hammer coral into the display tank after dipping them with Coral Rx.

Hammer is plump and fluffy, Candy Cane can be seen engulfing a mysis shrimp. It radiates a crazy amount of green!