Luke’s Reef - Red Sea Reefer XL525 build

[Luke’s reef]

Well after owning a second hand RSM 400S tank for a few years I have finally decided to go ahead and buy my first ever brand new tank, the red sea reefer xl 525.

The tank is due to arrive next month and I will be starting it off from scratch, new equipment, dry rock the whole 9 yards.

The setup:-

Red Sea Reefer XL 525 V3 white
3 x Red Sea Reef Led 90’s
2 x Red Sea Reefwave 45’s
Red Sea PSK 600 skimmer
Maxspect turbine duo 9k return pump
20kg Aquaforest Bio Sand
40kg d-d Natural aquascape rock
D-d p4 pro dosing pump
Aquaforest 110 Media reactor
Tk 1000 Chiller
Kessil H80 (fuge light)

Filter media:-
1x Marine pure bio block
3x mesh bags with ceramic rings from previous tank (live bacteria population)
Aquaforest Carbon
Aquaforest Zeo Mix
Aquaforest Nitraphos minus
All three above will be used in the media reactor.
In sump refugium.

Also starting fresh on live stock with the exception of my mated pair of clowns, as its a bigger tank I have a larger range of fish I can buy and wanted to eliminate any agression by putting as many of the fish in at the same time.
Also starting fresh on live stock with the exception of my mated pair of clowns, as its a bigger tank I have a larger range of fish I can buy and wanted to eliminate any agression by putting as many of the fish in at the same time.

Will be posting and making videos of the build as it goes on along with any mods I do to it.

Any advice, criticism and help is most welcome

 

[dwest]

Sounds like a good plan. I love the idea of seeded ceramic rings. If it were my tank, I would be careful with the other media and also wait to install the fuge to let nitrates and phosphates rise naturally. Good luck.

 

[Chrisfish]

Welcome to R2R!!

 

[Luke’s reef]

Hey @dwest, yeah I wanted to start the system fresh zero pests and exactly knowing what is it in it is going to help so much in the long run as my old rock had a massive infestation of asterina and colonista snails (not exactly bad) but it was at such a large scale that loads were all over my lps and causing them to get quite angry lol even lost a few due to it. By seeding the ceramic and using live sand I am hoping to cut down on the cycle a little hopefully helping keep the nitrate phos settled faster. As to the reactor well thats not going on till after the cycle is over.

Thanks for the welcome @Chrisfish glad to be here, been meaning to join for some time now just never did ‍‍

 

[jp_75]

Congrats! Xl 525 is super nice size!

 

[Reefnman2]

Welcome to R2R and good luck on the new build!

 

[Luke’s reef]

Congrats! Xl 525 is super nice size!

Thanks, I was originally going for the xl 425 but the change from a max 400s seemed to have no logic as it was neither an upgrade nor a downgrade but rather a large amount of money for a change of tank dimensions. So at the end of it the wife agreed and we decided on the bigger one yey lol must say my son was well happy a new tanks on its way, after all it is his reef

 

[rsumner]

Since you're running the H80 as a fuge light, I'm assuming you're going to have macroalgae running in the fuge. You may find that running a fuge and that large collection of chemical media will result in your nutrient levels being too low. The result will be slow/nonexistant coral growth and/or your macroalgae dying out. The H80 isn't too powerful, so you won't see record breaking chaeto growth with it, but it will be more than enough to keep the chaeto alive to house a pod population assuming you've got enough nutrients in the water to keep the chaeto cranking.

I've been running a 525XL for a few years now and run a H160 fuge light. I rarely run chemical media now with the exception of throwing in a little GAC every now-and-then to remove any smells in the water that doesn't get addressed by water changes.

 

[Luke’s reef]

Since you're running the H80 as a fuge light, I'm assuming you're going to have macroalgae running in the fuge. You may find that running a fuge and that large collection of chemical media will result in your nutrient levels being too low. The result will be slow/nonexistant coral growth and/or your macroalgae dying out. The H80 isn't too powerful, so you won't see record breaking chaeto growth with it, but it will be more than enough to keep the chaeto alive to house a pod population assuming you've got enough nutrients in the water to keep the chaeto cranking.

I've been running a 525XL for a few years now and run a H160 fuge light. I rarely run chemical media now with the exception of throwing in a little GAC every now-and-then to remove any smells in the water that doesn't get addressed by water changes.

Thanks for the advice, this ones by far the largest tank I've had so what Ive planned to use is based on past experience. My last tank was a ULNS tank (never again doing it) it was so much work to keep corals fed so this time ill just control it rather than eliminate it completely. The aim would be to eventually once the cycle is done to only have the fuge running with macro algae & use carbon in the reactor every now and then to eliminate any coral warfare or nasty chemicals from the water.

 

[WIReefer]

Welcome to R2R!!! Congrats on the build

 

[Biglex]

Awesome omg new build!!! So exciting!

 

[Luke’s reef]

Awesome omg new build!!! So exciting!

Indeed the hype is real, not my first tank my it is my first one straight out of the crate. Sucks its gonna take around 15 days for the tank go get done and sent to distributor then another week or two to get here

 

[Biglex]

Indeed the hype is real, not my first tank my it is my first one straight out of the crate. Sucks its gonna take around 15 days for the tank go get done and sent to distributor then another week or two to get here

Yea I had my first big tank is the Red Sea 450 I upgraded from jbj 45. Check out my build thread

 

[Luke’s reef]

Yea I had my first big tank is the Red Sea 450 I upgraded from jbj 45. Check out my build thread

Will do.

 

[Luke’s reef]

Quick question to anyone and I am sure this has been asked a million times, I am planning using full artificial dry rock in the new tank but a friend has offered to give me a full bucket of his old artificial rock which has been dry for about a year. Since it was previously live rock would I need to do anything to it before using it in the tank?

Would a quick wash with salt water be enough to clean out any dead stuff on it if any, or would a good bleaching be needed?

Asking because I do not have the facilities or space to have the rocks sit in buckets full of water/bleach and do weekly changes to it.

 

[Luke’s reef]

So the tank finally arrived It was delivered during two days as I had to balance work and delivery times so I was unable to do the video blog I wanted. But I had the wife do a few pics while I was building the cabinet and then I took photos of everything else.

My thoughts on the build so far:

The new version of the red sea cabinet is very nice, the new extra screws on the side panels make it extra sturdy. Everything went together without a problem and took just over two hours to put together that being said It was with my 3 year old helping (not helping really) . I have however found one of the screw on legs did not have a threat so ill have to get a friend with a tool set to thread it for me as I rather not have two feet on one side instead of the three it requires.

The v3 sump is absolutely massive and the new configuration means I can have a fuge on it without having to modify anything which is nice. The plumbing was a little hard to get in and i found that when trying to clip the pipes into the stock holders the do force the pipes going up to the tank quite a lot and I am not quite comftable with that much force on the joints so I might move them to better fit the pipes. Leveling the beast also took some work as every time I adjusted one another kept getting of the floor.

All in all the tank looks very good quality and money well spent so far. Few mods are already being made at my dads work shop including a custom cable tidy board and extra plumbing for my chiller and reactor. Ill post more about it when they get made.

Next step is making the rockscape and adding sand, order still has not arrived so hopefully that will come next week along with a few other goodies ive sent for.

 

[Luke’s reef]

Ok so now comes the exciting part of the build “the rockscape”. I have my order arriving on Monday so it should get delivered to me on Tuesday and my its a nice order.

List:
• 20kg x2 of D-D natural rock, one box is small/med the second box is large rocks.
• 4x 7Kg (28kg) bags of Aquaforest bio sand.
• large marine pure bio block
• Tunze refugium Led
• D-D camera lens
• hanna phos test kit
• Maxspect turbine duo 9k return pump

Plan is to build the rockscape on tuesday using the cabinet packaging as a template to avoid scratching the new tank. The idea so far is two separate structures with large open sand space in the front center for sand dwelling Lps. Looking at plenty of the similar tanks in this forum has given me a good idea of what Id like to come up with but till the rock arrives thats all in the air.

After the scape and sand have gone in I will most likely fill the tank with RO water on thursday and leave it like that till I back home from my trip out of town, cycle on hold lol

I am going to be running the 21 day red sea reef mature for the cycle and will be doing it 100% as stated on the book so plan for stock is as follows.

Start reef mature cycle, as per instructions on day 10 add herbivore CUC (possibly one or two turbos, a brittle star and a hermit/mitrax crab) to help with the algae growth and keep it under control. On day 14 it states I should introduce 1 herbivore fish Per 100 L so thats 5 in total (ideas are lawnmower blenny, foxface (from my old tank), yellow or kole tang, yellow watchman gobby and possibly a wrasse of some kind). Once the 21 day cycle finishes ill start slowly adding a few corals and other fish.

What you all think? All suggestions welcome

 

[Luke’s reef]

So today was the big day, went for my order and they forgot to mail me my return pump and refug light. Oh well, got to do the scape and I must say it turned put good considering I have very little creativity for these things lol. I made a few attempts at using AF stone fix to get the rockwork Done but no matter how long i left it to cure or what consistency I used even following their video it was very brittle. Ended up using a mixture of the AF stone fix and some two part epoxy hope it holds up when wet.....

So tomorrow I think ill fill the tank with water and get the salt mix ready and see if i can borrow a return pump from a friend so I can atleast start to cycle the tank.

So thoughts on the products ive used today. D-d natural reef rock is awesome, very nice look and feel to them and very clean albit a little dusty they stack very well come in a nice variety of shapes.

Af stone fix left a lot to be desired, it harderned very quick and it did give me enough time to bond rocks a little at a time but found it was very brittle, maybe its best if left for 12/24 hrs Instead of the 15mins it states or the hr i waited. Sad really because I love AF products.

AF bio sand is absolutely spectacular, incredibly white and has a few purple/brown spots which give it an awesome look. And as an added bonus bring two bottles to make it live sand.

Marine pure bio bricks were absolutely massive and I had to stack them in the skimmer compartment just before the return pump, it feels very porus hoping it will become a massive bacteria hive very soon.

More to come soon, for now ill leave some pics of todays work hope you all enjoy.

 

[Luke’s reef]

Ok so day two of the cycle and the tank was crystal clear this morning when I woke up, the floss I put in the media cups did its job in clearing all the dust from the sand and I replaced it with new ones making my skimmer go nuts for a while lol

proceeded to start the redsea reef mature kit and added all the bacteria plus no-pox as advised along with a small amount of a pellet food as the ammonia levels in the tank where only 0.2 and seeing as I am starting with dry rock the cycle prob would not start unless i add more ammonia. Wish the kit would account for people not using live rock as part of the cycle but alas it is what it is. I will continue ghost feeding for a week and see how it goes from there.

Got the salinity perfect at 1.024 and temp stable at 25.5 along with ph at 8.2. Alk was a little low at 7Dkh so as per the mature kit I dosed the relative amount of coraline grow And should be at the desired level tomorrow when I retest.

ill update on parameters tomorrow & will try to post a daily photo to monitor progress

 

[Luke’s reef]

Another day another project. So today has been a productive day and I finally finished and fitted the custom cable tidy along with a second manifold for the chiller/media reactor. I forgot to grab a pic before I started tho so I got the stock pic to see the difference, Hope you all like it.

Basically I made an L shape cut out from plywood so I could fit the chiller on the right hand side with the vent going out the back of the tank. I then drilled a large can size hole just below the plug sockets to fit the cables behind the plywood. After this was done I decided to add a shelf for my doser in the future and then fitted it all.