"New Frontiers" Red sea reefer 350 build thread

Happyschneider

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I don't think I ever posted on this forum before. So, hello everyone! I am a biochemist working in an office and terribly missing my lab days. That and my love for diving had me starting a reef a couple of years ago. In my youthful light-headedness, I thought I could do it in a small (180 litre) sumpless tank without any export except water change. I guess it could have worked would I not have travelled so much and had way too much rock in there. So, it had to come the way it did, I lost the battle with the algae and the corals were only the occasional colour within a sea of green ;Nailbiting Wife not happy; me not happy.
But now I caught up with all the essential to-dos in the house, the family is in a happy place, Christmas is coming and I found some cash to blow on a new saltwater project.
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Purchased a used Red Sea Reefer 350. That was an adventure in itself to get it to my place. Who would have thought glass could be that heavy. Not that every single thread that begins with an aquarium move does not mention exactly that of course.

What I like about the Red Sea Reefer is that I get more volume, a sump (such a luxury) and a straight front glass. My previous aquarium was a bow front which makes taking photos difficult at best. So now I have 350 litres (90 gallons?) to play around in the system. Not huge, and I will not be keeping any sharks but plenty enough for a nice mixed coral garden with a few fish to keep the water full of nutrients
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I especially am looking forward to keeping all the technology out of the display and allow me to work in the sump. Now all I have to do is sort my knees out so I can get into that cupboard
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This thread will be a point of reference for me (more like a journal), a lot of input from you guys (feel free to shout support, criticism or ideas) and finally give me a place to reflect my plans and decisions to get this going and keep at it.

By now you probably realised that I am not American (get used to those metric numbers), actually not even a native English speaker. I am born, raised and living in Switzerland, although I had many stops all over the world. I do enjoy the exchange with different cultures and I do believe that the European reef community can learn a lot of what is done over the Atlantic. Maybe there are one or two things you guys can pick up in my thread that is unusual in the States and point it out. I would love to hear where the differences lie and how to move this fantastic hobby forward by learning from each other.
 
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Happyschneider

Happyschneider

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I have a reefer 170 and they are well made good looking aquariums. Always wondered if they had an imperial branding in the States.

Very happy with the quality and look of the aquarium. Can't wait to see it in action!
 
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Happyschneider

Happyschneider

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The tank will be in the basement, nice and cool in the summer and not freezing in the winter. No sun light, perfectly controlled conditions. Need to make sure the humidity will not rise too much. In summer it rose to 70% even without an open tank, need to see what happens if we add this aquarium on top. Currently, it is at 58%.

I don't like that the Red Sea Reefer stand comes with these tiny little plastic feet. It will stand directly on a tiled floor with underfloor heating.

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I will therefore place a wooden board underneath. Found one which is surfaced in the exact size I need. Only one side is untreated so I quickly painted it with water repellent wood paint. will need several layers though. Should be ready to be placed by the weekend.

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Don't mind the pictures. I know they are not that interesting. I just want to make this thread a little bit more visual and want to play around with my second favorite toy
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Happyschneider

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Water mixing Station
Until now I only had a bucket to fill with RO/DI and mix salt in it. I lugged that over to the tank and used a pump to move the water into the tank.

New plan: Saltwater mixing station to allow me mixing enough water to do a 30% water change at the time (100 liters). Obviously, I will normally do less, but like this I could do it if I needed to. It will be 2 rooms over in the laundry room where my RO/DI is.

Ordered two of these:

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The one for RO/DI will be on the top shelf, gravity feeding lower one which will be for the saltwater mixing. I plan to plumb it so that I can mix it with an external pump and have a hose to directly pump it into the new aquarium which will be approximately 10 meters away. Not decided on which pump to use but I don't think I will invest in a very expensive one. This saltwater tank will still be higher than the display so I do not expect a lot of power needed to get the saltwater over there.

Do people have heaters in their saltwater mixing stations? Not sure if I should have one in there.
 
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Happyschneider

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QT setup

Next to the saltwater mixing station there will be the QT tank. Currently, I have two 50 liter (13 gallon) tanks that I will be using. I have an old ATI hybrid lamp which I will mount so that I can have it lighted in a controlled way. Somehow that lamp seems to be a shame for a QT system but maybe I will have some frags in there one day. Not sure if I will connect the two or keep them separate.

In any case, I will try to have new fish go through TTM. Interestingly, TTM is not really known here in Switzerland. People look at me as if I had two heads when I talked about it. I just use some rubber bins to do it the last time and will continue doing so. As catching the fish was always a little bit stressful for both, me and the fish, I want to come up with an easier way (something like having the strainer already inside the rubber bin so that I can just lift it out, fish stays in and I slide it into the next bin, containing also a fresh strainer for the next transfer.
 
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Happyschneider

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Pulled the trigger on some of my still needed equipment. Should all fit in there.

The biggest decision was on the skimmer. I have no experience with skimmers as I did not have any in my smaller tank so far. Some of my local fellow reefers helped me though and I ended up with the Royal Exclusive Bubble King Double Cone 180. It is a sweet looking piece of technology, supposedly silent as a whisper and reliable. Bonus, the manufacturer is just a couple of hours away so I could visit them if there was ever any problems. This version comes with a controllable pump, so hopefully this will help me to adjust it to my needs more easily.

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The lights are a given, as the previous owner gave me his two AI hydra 26 HD for an excellent price. They are currently over my previous tank as the T5 driver broke and I do not plan to invest in it anymore.

Finally, I need flow. As I had good experience with the MAxspect Gyre, I decided to go with them again. The newer models seem to have a much better control, especially if you install two. I ordered two Maxspect XF230 with controller. One for each side to generate a lot of flow. The plan is to maybe have different flow in the left and right part of the tank and group the corals accordingly. Not sure if this will really work though!

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Ludders

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Yeah the skimmer is an essential bit of kit and investing in a good one is always best.

You wait until you see the junk it pulls out and you'll then appreciate where your money spent went. Well worth every penny.

On another note, I found out that Red Sea keep their metric branding for the US market.

Those Gyre's look good, keep the updates coming.
 
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Happyschneider

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Filling the tank

We had a slow morning. We had friends over and the head was not feeling like doing much. However, the guests helped me to move the aquarium to its final place before they received any drinks, so I had this little voice bugging my pulsating temples to start working on the tank. Did all the plugging, connecting and so on. The beauty of these systems is that everything fits and seems well thought through. At least to a complete beginner like me ;) I made some pictures of the setup so that people can get the idea if they ever consider getting a Reefer system. I particularly like the extra black surface the previous owner added. It is supposed to reduce noise coming from the stand even further. We will see. Hopefully it will not get moldy after some time. It feels rubbery so fingers crossed.
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The shelving on the right hand side seems like it wastes a lot of valuable space. There is absolutely no space in the main compartment to fit anything else in there anymore unless you put in some extra shelves. With the skimmer choice I made, I do not believe that there will be much headroom for anything like that. I am planning to use balling light for replenishing the consumables. So I will need at least 3 pots for the usual consumables.
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The RO/DI for the top off is in a small glass vessel above the socks. I don't think I will be using this. Most people online seem to say that the volume is not near enough and that they do not necessarily trust the Red Sea standard ATO. I have a tunze one, so I plan to have also a reasonable big RO/DI container on the right hand side to supply the ATO. That means, I need to get that shelving out of there and start thinking what I want to place where and how. But I will wait until I have all the electronics here so I can see how big the transformers are and how many plugs I will need.
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Finally, there was the time where I could start filling the aquarium. Not a friend of lugging canisters around, I decided to have the RO/DI line directly hooked up to the tank. It looks a little bit rough, but it is not supposed to look nice but functional. At the current rate it will take me almost 24 hrs to fill the top tank. So I will let it run through the night and hopefully by the time I come back from work tomorrow evening it will be nearly finished. Can't wait to get the rock in, already starting to make mock ups of the aquascape on dry land. I hope to get a tower on the left and something like an "airy wall" on the right to provide plenty of hiding space for the fish and shelves to place corals.

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Happyschneider

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And here is the tank in its full glory. Had to turn off the lights as the glass was mirroring like mad. Need to find my old polarizing filter again.
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Ludders

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Yeah all looks familiar. The ATO does work reliably, its capacity like you say is limited and I get only 2 days out of mine.

I like the idea of your aquascape. From an artists perspective, it should give you interest and draw your eye from high, then down to the right.
 
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Ludders

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Here's my 170, I went for a tower on the left too. Obviously you have more to work with from a size perspective compared to this. I look forward to seeing your final scape.

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Happyschneider

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Here's my 170, I went for a tower on the left too. Obviously you have more to work with from a size perspective compared to this. I look forward to seeing your final scape.

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Gorgeous! That looks like unusual rock, what is that? Fantastic colors. Are those Xenia on top of the lower right part? That would be courageous to have there :)
 

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Oh I hate Xenia, it grows like weed. I have a hammer coral on the far right and a goniopora to the left of it.

The rock is ocean rock, I just picked a scape and bonded it together.

This is a better picture of the scape when I first set it up. The rock was very white, it's more mature now, but still a way to go till complete.

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Ludders

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This is a better pic of that hammer on the right, the aussie ultra on the left is much nicer though.

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I thought a pic of my sump might be useful. As you can see it's as tight as and I've crammed as much as I could.

I have a 3 channel dosing pump on the ATO res, with the ca, mg and kh solutions in the containers squeezed into the space to the left of the sump.
I have a seperate pump feeding the UV steriliser. This was to keep the flow slower and to direct the return at the intake of the skimmer.
The skimmer is a Reef Octopus and I have 2 media reactors, one with bio pellets and the other running Rowaphos. There is a back up heater in there, but the heating is controlled by an Aqua Medic thermostat and combined chiller outlet, with an Aqua Medic titanium heater, located in the weir. I keep the Vortech controller in there as well. I don't generally mess with the flow settings, as it can disrupt the nem.

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Happyschneider

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Very nice! I love how your rock has a very small footprint on the sand. I am trying to achieve something similar but need hammer and chisel as my rock is massive at the moment. Will get lots of rubble for fragging in the process ;)

That is a very tightly packed sump! Wow. Looks very tidy though! And super clean. I need to see what I will be doing in terms of reactors. Probably will have some phosphate remover at the beginning and some carbon depending on the softies that will be in the tank.
 
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Happyschneider

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I think it is the Goniopora that I was confusing for a Xenia. Looking at it on the bigger screen it definitely does not look like Xenia o_O
 

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The sump is clean because I had probably just cleaned it all, it isn't the most recent pic. The first chamber I have fine gravel in to help with the bio and that's mainly where any algae grows because of the light. I leave that part alone mostly as it keeps it out of my display tank.

This is the goniopora, just taken this photo.

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