Red Sea Max e170 for noob

[acshaw80]

I’m not exactly a noob. I had a Nano reef about 15 years ago, but I want to get back in to the hobby.

I’m looking for an AIO aquarium and came across the Red Sea Reefer 170 and the Max 170.

my question is what is the limitation of these systems? What do they not include that I would need. What might make me have buyers remorse in 2-3 years? I think I read the Max does not have ATO is this a big problem?

 

[WIReefer]

Those aquariums are nice for people that just want it all. When you check out for the tank you have the option to add lightning, skimmer all that jaz so it could be a almost one shot deal they are nice for people that are not wanting to do diy or piece things together. ATO are very nice and in my opinion are a must have. They keep your salinity stable and you can get for a fair price. But you don’t have to buy one. Personally I would not buy a Red Sea tank but that’s me I like doing diy projects and custom made. But the Red Sea tanks are very nice lookers.

 

[acshaw80]

ATO are very nice and in my opinion are a must have. They keep your salinity stable and you can get for a fair price. But you don’t have to buy one.

Have you seen anything about not being able to out an ATO on the Red Sea max models? I thought I read this somewhere and I wasn’t sure why that would be unless it was a doce issue. I never had an ato for my Nani cube so am not familiar with how they work.

 

[BaronReef]

If you’re talking about the RedSea E-170 tank, and you’d be buying it retail, it comes with everything you need aside from water, rock, salt, etc. Has a skimmer, has a light, and I believe there should be a gravity fed ATO reservoir that sits above the pump chamber. If you have the money and don’t want to deal with a separate sump and plumbing, it’s a great tank. My experience with RedSea is via owning their Max Nano 20 all in one. Very high quality stuff. Out of the box you could start up a great LPS and softie tank. Adding some supplemental flow you could do SPS as well. FWIW, I’d recommend it.

 

[acshaw80]

Has a skimmer, has a light, and I believe there should be a gravity fed ATO reservoir that sits above the pump chamber.

Thanks I appreciate your thoughts. I also looked at the nano. Any thoughts on the stock protein skimmer?

 

[BaronReef]

Thanks I appreciate your thoughts. I also looked at the nano. Any thoughts on the stock protein skimmer?

I would say that the stock skimmer in a RedSea all in one is mediocre. It is supposed the be sized well for the tank it comes with, but I did find it just a tad on the loud side and I had difficulty getting anything from it but a fairly wet, clearish brown skim, which I don’t think is ideal for many reefers. Then again, it’s possible that I didn’t have that much to skim to begin with.
I’d recommend checking out Bulk Reef Supplies site and check out the details of the tanks you’re looking at for RedSea and their reviews. It’s a good site to see all the data about those tanks without too much vendor marketing. They also have a good video detailing the E-170 and E-260 feature set and they have used the E-170 in a lot of their testing videos as well.