Lavalle's Red Sea Reefer 350 - After a tank teardown coming back with a new tank

[SergioLavalle01]

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[SergioLavalle01]

I have been in the hobby for over 8 years. I started with an 80Lt bow front fish only tank, dipped my toes for 2 years keeping small fishes (clowns, pijama cardinals and similars). After I moved into a larger house I decided to go the DIY route, with a larger 150 Gal display with a 75 Gal sump.
It was an amazing experience, I started to evolve on the hobby, hosting larger fish and eventually created a full reef (the most notable Clownfish, Blue Tang, Yellow Tank, Fire Fish, Pijama Cardinal, Lawnmower Blenny and a full CUC) and on the coral side (Hammer, torch, montipora, GSP, zoas, blastos, etc)

All went well for approx 4 years, the tank was super stable and the reef was thriving, learned how to dose keep my levels and was enjoying so much, but after the global pandemic my tank had a quick and devastating crash. One day I put on the tank a new fish (I didnt had a Quarantine tank) and it was infected with Red Velvet, it was devastating in less than 24 hours all my fish died, after the emotional hit my corals started to die off so I sold all my corals and decided to teardown the tank (later found a cracked magnet that was leeching heavy metals)
I took the decision to tear it down since it was too hard to start new and I had an 8 month old baby that also required extra care)

Fast forward a year, and I am starting a new tank build that I decided to go with a smaller tank with a custom Red Sea Reefer 350 V3 (You'll see why I say its a custom built if its a Reefer 350).

It was a bit hard to get the reefer 350 since I live in Mexico and most LFS don't have that tank

Equipment at the moment:
Tank: Red Sea Reefer 350 V3
Display Lights: AI Prime 16HD (x3)
Flow Gyre: Red Sea Reef Wave 45
Flow: AI Nero 5 (2x)
Filter Roller: Clarisea 5000 Gen 3
Skimmer: Bubble Magus Curve 5
Refugium Light: AI Prime Fuge 16
Reactors: Phosban 150 (2x)
Sump Pump: Jebao 9000
Biological Filtration: Ceramic Blocks

The attached pictures show the Tank as it arrived in the curb, my previous stocked tank GIF and sump, and my first bowed FOWLR tank

 

[vetteguy53081]

I have been in the hobby for over 8 years, first with a bow front 80lt Fish Only tank, after 2 years I converted it into a reef tank.
After 2 years with that setup, I decided to upgrade with a massive DIY build 200G display and 75G sump, after 4 with that tank I had a severe crash (red velvet wiped my entire stock and a cracked magnet started killing all my corals) together with a baby in the family I decided to dismantle it.

One year later I am rejoining the hobby with a custom Red Sea 350 V3.

Equipment at the moment:
Tank: Red Sea Reefer 350 V3
Display Lights: AI Prime 16HD (x3)
Flow Gyre: Red Sea Reef Wave 45
Flow: AI Nero 5 (2x)
Filter Roller: Clarisea 5000 Gen 3
Skimmer: Bubble Magus Curve 5
Refugium Light: AI Prime Fuge 16
Reactors: Phosban 150 (2x)
Sump Pump: Jebao 9000
Biological Filtration: Ceramic Blocks

The GIF and the stocked tank were the previous tank that crashed

In other words- " This time youre not fooling around" lol. Looks good.
Stay away from API test kits and consider RODI unit

 

[blaxsun]

Best of luck with the Red Sea!

 

[SergioLavalle01]

Glad you’re back. Did you decide on the RSR350 because that size seemed more manageable and still large enough display area to look like the ocean rather than the ocean viewed through a porthole?

It was a mix of both, easier to do weekly maintenance as well as small enough to fit in a custom bookshelf I had in mind

 

[SergioLavalle01]

Is there anything I should be mindful of?
I've had it for 3 months now and I love it, although the back flow is a bit tricky since the in tank overflow

 

[SergioLavalle01]

After the tank arrived, I build the cabinet and started doing some customisation on the reefer 350.

The first thing was to adjust the sump to fit my Clarisea Filter Roller.
What I did was to carefully cut the silicone of the entire tray that holds the socks in the stock sump.

I had to completely remove the sump from the cabinet (good luck it was still empty) since the space was crammed and you need a lot of working space to be able to take cut the silicone with razors without breaking anything else.

After cutting the return line and glued a union I installed a ribbed hose pipe (the standard pvc washing machine ones) to have some adjustment on the filter roller and made an upside siporax bed to have biological Filtration that can be siphoned during maintenance.

 

[SergioLavalle01]

After a couple of days I got tired of not having proper lighting in the sump, so I went and bought a 3mts 5v ehite led lights strip and glued it where the walls meet the ceiling and now have clear light to work.

 

[SergioLavalle01]

I wanted to start using my Reactors (I have 2x Two little fishies 150) so I created a manifold that I could power up my Reactors as well as a large UV (18 to 25w in the future)

I will take some pictures during the next days.