Red Sea Reef 250 - Faulty Drain Pipe Dial?

[braindump]

Hi,

I just set up my Red Sea Reefer 250 and it's looking great. I'm a first time salt water hobbyist & the live Coral/rock & fish (5 damsels) are doing well. Luckily I inherited my friend's live coral & fish & water eliminating a lot of start up overhead.

When measuring the noise from the 250, it's about 45 - 50 decibels with the cabinets closed. I suspect that much of the noise is coming from the high output in the drain pipe. However, when I try to rotate the dial (either clockwise or counter clockwise), it doesn't change the volume output. I'm wondering if I have a faulty o-ring in the internal valve/dial which is preventing the dial to open/close. Does anyone have a solution to this? I emailed Red Sea support for advice, but curious if this is common among other owners.

A second question is what type of water to do you add to the top up unit? Do you use treated tap water or saltwater? We haven't utilized the top up unit yet.

Thanks for any help,

Cliff

 

[gentlefish]

Congrats to your new tank! Happy reefing ... lots to learn.
You do not want to add salt to the existing display as this would increase salinity. The top of should be filled with reverse osmosis deionized water (rodi). Can be bought from the fish store, I bought a rodi unit on eBay for 100$. Best investment. The float switch has a tendency to get stuck, hence most of us will upgrade to a Tunze auto top of system. Tab water is unlikely to satisfy the needs of your extra sensitive house guests.
The gate valve changes return flow. You want an equilibrium of return to drain, actually slightly more return than primary drain to decrease volume. Clockwise shuts the valve and less air can Tavel in the tube for noise control. To service, the pump has to be off. The squared valve assembly has 4 black nibs in each corner that can be lifted off to reveal hex screws. Removing them let’s you remove the diaphragm to see if there may be an issue. Red Sea gate valves are know to be difficult to dial in precisely. A fraction movement makes a difference. You want to look in the overflow box. You want to drain a few drops through the secondary drain. YouTube may help.