New-to-Me Red Sea Reefer 250 Build Out

[Westside Guy]

Any particular reason??

I liked the porous look of the Marco rock.
It looks even better now that the rock has darkened and changed color!

 

[Aaron Shapiro]

Well, I just finished plumbing the sump after moving it inside. Everything went together pretty easily — always nervous putting together something that's gonna circulate ~70gallons of saltwater 24/7. But it seems good to go, so I'll roll with it. The original owner put some cool LED lights in the cabinet. Kinda dig it, may look for something similar that I can install a little differently myself.

 

[Aaron Shapiro]

Received 100 lbs of dry reef rock from Reef Cleaners on Friday. I took some time this evening and attempted scaping. I taped out the inside dimensions of my tank on my dining room table (thank god for supportive spouses)... and began to fool with the rocks.

I originally thought I wanted to do two separate islands with a channel between.

It quickly became apparent that these rocks were really lending themselves to an arch type configuration:

I wanted to maximize the cave/arch potentially so I refined a bit more:

Forgive my quick and dirty PS job on the image. I wanted to replicate the background it will be up against. I will epoxy the main pieces together once I've landed on a design but this allows a lot of surface area for coral placement and tons of hidey holes for fish. I wanted to sit with this for an evening before I commit.

Any thoughts or feedback? I'm hesitant to take this apart...I had one solid design the took it down and found it to be a real chore to reassemble.

I also thought it'd be cool to be able to have some little islands in the sand in front of the main stricture for a little acan mound or zoa garden. That's the two rocks on either side at the bottom, these are easily moved though.

Thanks all!!

 

[Aaron Shapiro]

Fussed with it a bit more this AM... this is probably the final version. Wanted to get a little more asymmetry going on...

 

[darkrabbit]

Following!

I really like that sump.... I'd rather have that than mine, frankly. Mine's way too tight.

Make sure those rocks are stable... Don't want one tipping over and falling on a coral One mistake I made when I did mine was not to put acrylic rods through them to hold in place or epoxy. Now I can't easily do it, and they're balanced on a wing and a prayer.

 

[Aaron Shapiro]

Following!

I really like that sump.... I'd rather have that than mine, frankly. Mine's way too tight.

Make sure those rocks are stable... Don't want one tipping over and falling on a coral One mistake I made when I did mine was not to put acrylic rods through them to hold in place or epoxy. Now I can't easily do it, and they're balanced on a wing and a prayer.

Thanks! I'm definitely going to epoxy them together tonight. From what I've been reading using some of the Coralstick stuff plus super glue on either end does the trick pretty well. I'm just going to do the major pieces, but enough to keep it stable.

Gotta figure out the setup I want in my sump, I have the NYOS skimmer and a BRS mini carbon reactor, not sure where to put everything...

 

[infinite0180]

Nice score! Did you decide to just keep the tank instead of ordering a new one?

 

[Aaron Shapiro]

Nice score! Did you decide to just keep the tank instead of ordering a new one?

I did, a new tank alone is nearly as much as I paid for all of this stuff. I think some of the earlier folks were right that once there’s sand, water, and rock in here it won’t be as noticeable.

 

[infinite0180]

I did, a new tank alone is nearly as much as I paid for all of this stuff. I think some of the earlier folks were right that once there’s sand, water, and rock in here it won’t be as noticeable.

Smart move

 

[Aaron Shapiro]

Got a little care package today from AlgaeBarn... It's starting to come together...

 

[infinite0180]

Got a little care package today from AlgaeBarn... It's starting to come together...

Nice. I love the fritz glass cleaner. Its seriously awesome!

 

[Aaron Shapiro]

Nice. I love the fritz glass cleaner. Its seriously awesome!

Slick, I need it for my Biocube too. Hoping to get this Red Sea wet sometime later this week.

 

[pelphrey]

Welcome to RedSea! I like the reef cleaners rock, that is what I have in my tank! I loved that COR pump when I ran it!

 

[Aaron Shapiro]

Welcome to RedSea! I like the reef cleaners rock, that is what I have in my tank! I loved that COR pump when I ran it!

Thanks!

 

[Aaron Shapiro]

Welcome to RedSea! I like the reef cleaners rock, that is what I have in my tank! I loved that COR pump when I ran it!

Oh dude! I follow you on Youtube

 

[pelphrey]

Oh dude! I follow you on Youtube

Learn from my mistakes and don't do them! haha I appreciate you following along, its been a heck of a journey!

You visit aquatic critter in Nashville, I thought I saw a mention of Nashville in an earlier post.

 

[Aaron Shapiro]

Learn from my mistakes and don't do them! haha I appreciate you following along, its been a heck of a journey!

You visit aquatic critter in Nashville, I thought I saw a mention of Nashville in an earlier post.

Yessir, I work just north of the Nashville Zoo so I'm right down the road from the Critter. In there probably 1-2x a week just to kick tires and see what's up.

 

[Aaron Shapiro]

Tonight's the night!

 

[pelphrey]

We all love buckets!

 

[Aaron Shapiro]

We all love buckets!

.....15 GD buckets...