My Reefer 250!

[Verdict]

Equipment & Setup:
Red Sea Reefer 250 V3A (65g Total)
2x MyAI Hydra 32HD
2x MyAI Nero 5 Powerheads
2x 100W Icecap Titanium Heaters + Controller
Octo 110SSS Skimmer

Current livestock (05/22/2026):
2x - Clownfish
​

Hellooooooo everyone!

I guess I’ll take advantage now too and introduce myself. I’m a young new reefer from Sunny South Florida. I’ve always been interested in fish tanks, and not too long ago, I committed to finding a saltwater tank for our home! I won’t lie, it was completely daunting and overwhelming at first to research everything online - especially with how quickly I ran into the "extremely expensive and labor-intensive to upkeep" warning that gets parroted quite often.

I put all that aside and told myself this tank will be a reflection of MY ability to hold motivation, discipline, and confidence that I, too, can make and preserve a nice-looking reef tank. At first, I wasn’t sure if I should go new or used, AIO or a sump tank. But then I began my extensive and exhausting hunt on Facebook Marketplace for a decent deal on a used setup.

Fast forward to a couple of nights ago (05/15). I was doing my usual pre-sleep scroll on Marketplace when a Red Sea Reefer 250 popped up for an extremely decent price. I saw the post, read that it included equipment + rocks, and INSTANTLY sent them a message while anxiously waiting for a reply. Luckily, the seller was responsive and engaging, so within 5-10 minutes of chatting, I decided to throw them an offer.

The following day (05/16), I told them I was on the way to pick it up. We secured the tank, stand, equipment, and rocks, and were southbound on the way home just as fast. Luckily, I called one of my LFS to see if they were available to give me some last-minute help installing the tank. To my surprise, the LFS closest to my house was EAGER to give us a hand!

We got home and started unpacking everything. Obviously, to my untrained eye, I thought it was all smooth sailing. Unfortunately, however, the 35-year veteran in the hobby and shop owner noticed a couple of things: glass heaters, a small return pump, missing filter socks, and missing nozzle heads. To be completely honest, for the price I paid, I wasn’t angry at all. I was expecting and prepared to spend 3-4x what I actually spent just to start up, so you win some, you lose some. I'm not saying by any means that the seller was intentionally being untruthful, but everything wasn't quite made out to be as they said.

We started the installation, and within an hour, we were already filling it up with water and plugging in all the electronics and tech.

As you can see, I took this picture about 45 minutes to an hour after we had gotten most of it set up. Super excited!

Now, we did score 2x Nero 5 myAI powerheads and 2x Hydra 32HD lights as well, so that's a +1 for me! :) Unfortunately, somehow the Hydras have burned/melted in the center of the LED lens, which even the LFS guy said was extremely weird and something he hadn’t seen much of before. Luckily, they still work! I haven’t checked yet, but I'm gonna see if I can order replacement LED inserts/lenses instead of purchasing a whole other set of two.

As for the inner workings of the cabinet, we believe it’s an earlier model of the Red Sea Reefer 250 (G1 maybe?) just because of the filtration system. So it's easily a 4-5 year old tank from what we calculated. Luckily, the LFS guy checked the seals and said that while they obviously looked a bit worn, he wasn’t worried enough to do a reseal - so another +1 for me! The pump is somewhat okay for the first cycle, however, he did recommend I upgrade to something a bit more modern and capable ASAP. The heaters weren’t made of titanium, so we didn't even put those in. He also recommended a skimmer and a UV sterilizer within the very near future, so with the "saved" money, I have some upgrades to look forward to.

As of right now, I’m extremely happy with the purchase. Obviously, it’s a used tank so it’s not perfect, BUT in due time I will have this baby smooth sailing (wishful thinking). As far as the cabinet itself, originally we were going to sand it down and paint it. But since we were given live rock, the seller and LFS recommended getting water in the tank immediately so I wouldn’t lose the ecosystem that was present on the rocks. So instead, we just bought some decent wallpaper and will apply it to the cabinet sometime this week.

I probably missed some details, but I tried to point out everything important.

I’m excited to have you guys along on my journey as I navigate my first saltwater aquarium. Thank y’all! I’ll be posting an update sometime real soon.

 

[Tahoe61]

Hi and Welcome to the hobby and Reef2Reef.

Congratulations on your new tank!!

 

[X-37B]

Nice start! And...

 

[Fish Fan]

Looks like you're off to a great start, good luck with your new build!

 

[Verdict]

Thank you to everyone who responded! much appreciated.

Update time!!
Woke up and the tank was MUCH MUCH clearer since last night, almost crystal clear I'd say. Really allowed me to get a grasp of the aquascape and what I should and shouldn't move around. LFS decided I should put the 2 powerheads on the rear facing outward so I guess that's fine?! I'm honestly not too worried about it since I currently don't have any livestock in it and we're just trying to move water around for it's first cycle.

Didn't really do much to it today except clean the exterior glass and interior glass. Really let it set in for me that this is really MY tank. However I did start my search for upgrades in equipment. And I've decided the following:
Skimmer: 110SSS Octo
Reefmat 250
2x 100W Icecap Titanium heater + Icecap controller
Also getting 4x Hydra 32HD LED lens replacements since these are pretty much burned through.

I think that's a pretty good place to start tbh. I'm going with the 110SSS Octo and not the 300 DC Reefer since the 110 will be more than enough and don't see a need to spend the additional $130 for something that is basically overkill for my tank ATM. Aside from that, everything else is okay for now and just want to get past the cycle so I can drop in 2x clownfish + hardy coral (haven't decided yet).

I'd also like to add that my cabinet wallpaper came in the mail today so SOMETIME this week I'll install it and post update here.

 

[Verdict]

Happy Wednesday everyone!

BIG BIG stuff since last update.
I installed the 2x 100W Icecap Titanium heaters + controller and the skimmer too! Everything was pretty straight forward - very much plug and play. Skimmer was a bit more of a hassle though, I had to keep a keen eye on the water level. But, on the manual it mentions a 2-week break-in period so I know I'm going to keep tinkering with it for the next several weeks. I took some time on Monday and rearranged/redid the cable management and cleaned it up a bit. Everything's still kind of tossed in there but it's an organized chaos as I like to say. This weekend I'm going to hopefully install the cabinets' wallpaper and finish off the cable management before finally adding in the reefmat.

Now, how's the tank doing itself? Pretty neat except I unfortunately caught a mild case of the DINOS. Although expected I didn't see it happening this fast - caught me by surprise honestly. But, since I did receive live rock I guess that sped up the process + new sand & water didn't help. HOWEVER, earlier today I took water sample to my LFS and explained the dino situation. They checked out my parameters and said that it's expected with such a new tank. However, with the live rock and the numbers the water was showing they suggested to take 2 avenues to combat the dinos somewhat... either start dropping in food and letting it rot to start getting more appropriate parameters OR getting lifestock. OBVIOUSLY I went with the ladder. Soooo.... WE PICKED UP 2 CLOWNFISH, my wife was ecstatic to say the least since she was getting impatient looking at an empty tank.

In terms of the dinos LFS advised instead of dosing chemicals already into such a brand new tank to let it play out on its own. The plan is the 2x clownfish for now and then a week or so from now maybe throw in a small CuC to start munching on the algae & combating the dinos a bit. I did research an in-sump UV sterilizer from Icecap however, I'll spare my wallet for now and take the much much MORE knowledgeable answer from LFS.

I'll most likely post another update sometime this week once bigger changes happen. Thank y'all!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Following along!

 

[Verdict]

Hey everyone!

Forgive me for the lack of updates, HOWEVER there is some BIG news since my last post.

The clowns are thriving and really enjoying the tank. Unfortunately, I did notice that I was feeding a bit too much and it was throwing off my water parameters. I decided to cut down from half a cube of Mysis to a quarter a day, but I noticed it was still way too much for such a new system. I got some advice from my LFS to do a quarter cube every other day instead, and surprisingly, the clowns seem even more active now! I am not sure if this is a placebo effect considering I only got them about two weeks ago and they might just be settling in. I did watch them start establishing their relationship and that spooked me a bit because one of the clowns was fighting the other. They are totally fine now though.

What has changed? I ended up swapping out the lenses on the Hydras and the light is looking much much better. Also, I found out that the burning of plastic on the lenses will continue to happen as time goes on so that is a bummer, but they will do for now since they are in pretty good shape internally and externally.

I added a coral! Yay, this was super exciting since I was not really expecting to add any sort of coral for another month or two. However, when I visited my LFS on Saturday and we tested my water parameters, he said I could throw in a GSP, AND SO I DID LOL! I was warned that they can easily take over a tank if you allow them to, so I went the smart route and decided to put them on the island rock completely separated from the main rockwork. It took about 24 hours for it to open up so I was worried at first, but it looks so happy and flowy now which makes me happy :)

I also added 20 hermit crabs to start mowing down the algae because it is seriously getting out of hand. This upcoming weekend I am going to visit the LFS and test parameters again. I stopped dosing two caps of MicroBacter7 since the algae was getting the glass extremely cloudy from one day to the next. Also, I will probably add one or two snails so they can start dealing with the longer hair algae that came with some of the live rock.

This weekend I will be doing a 30 percent water change since I was waiting on supplies to get here from Amazon so I could do it properly. I am going with RODI plus my own salt mix.

Also, this week I will be receiving my ReefMat 250, Sicce 6.0, and my ReefATO. Decided to pull the trigger all at once so I would only have to cry once... LOL. I am already thinking of getting my hands on that in sump 27W IceCap UV sterilizer since I do not want to continue with diatoms. On that note, they have definitely decreased heavily since adding the skimmer so I am happy about that. Obviously there are still some left but that is basically a given as the tank continues to mature.

And that is all for right now! I will try and get another update out much sooner than last time so be on the lookout for that. I will be attaching pictures of all the changes.

Water parameters as of Saturday -
ALK - 148
pH - 8.0
PHOS - 0.6 (going down very fast, first test came back at 1.1. Decreased heavily THANK GOD)
CA - 453
Mg - 1255
AMMO - 0.0
NITRITE - 0.0
NITRATE - 17

Thanks everyone for taking the time to read :)