Red Sea Reefer 170 Build

[mbeni4804]

This is my first time documenting a tank build. I have been out of the hobby for 2 years since my 75 gallon reef tank went on fire. The fire displaced me, my pregnant wife, and a few neighbors from our condo. It was a horrible experience but thankfully no one was hurt. Coincidentally 2 years to the day, I ordered my new tank because I got a 20% off deal. I'm not the brightest bulb in the box. My wife reminded me of the fire, all the work, and money that went into the hobby. I truthfully kind of felt horrible the rest of the day but Black Friday was still going strong and so was the hole in my pocket! I went home and ordered a bunch more stuff for the new tank. What else was going to cheer me up? lol

I will try to do my best documenting this build along with all my triumphs and failures. I will also be making this build as safe as possible and hopefully sharing a few tips with you along with way. I also hope people share tips with me and feel free to criticize anything. The only thing that will not be acceptable is personal attacks on me or anyone else who comments. Everyone is at different experience and maturity levels but no ones got time for these internet gangsters who attack people from behind their computer screens, who are at home, living their mom's basement, not contributing a darn thing to anything!

If anyone has any recommendations or tips I would love some input especially from other reefer 170 owners.

So far I have ordered,

Lighting- 24 inch Geisemann Aurora led/t5 (I believe I need to order the lamps separate if anyone has recommendations I would love input)

Return Pump- Reef Octopus VarioS-2 DC Water Pump

Powerhead- vortech mp10 quiet drive wireless

Skimmer- NYOS QUANTUM 120 Protein Skimmer

Heaters- (2) 100W Neo-Therm Submersible Heater - Cobalt Aquatics

Dry Rock- Marco Rocks Cherry Picked shelf rock aquascape (going to see how it looks, I may order something else if I don't like the Marco Rocks. First build with dryrock as well.)

Salt Mix- Tropic Marin Bio-Actif Sea Salt 32 gallon mix (When I was getting 5 pound buckets of red sea years back, I believe I was having consistency issues. Rolling a 5 gallon bucket of salt around on the floor to mix it wasn't something I ever did or want to do)

Cover- Artfully Acrylic no feed doors or cutouts.

Controller* (not ordered)- I plan to get a Neptune Apex. I still have some modules and sensors from the old setup but I burned up my credit cards to much already so it can wait.

Placement: The tank will be somewhere on the ground level close to the garage wall. I will hide as much of the maintenance items and electronics, etc. separate from the tank in the garage. I will plumb the tank to a 55 gallon Brute Garbage premixed to the proper salinity and temperature for water changes. I will have a separate tank for storing top off water which I will also plumb to the tank. I will T-off the return pump so I can open a valve to drain water from the tank to a slop sink in the garage. I have my Ro/Di unit from the fire I have to clean off the soot, plumb it and put in new filters.

I still have some things left from my old tanks, I had 3 running at the time of the fire but most of it I gave away or it was damaged in the fire. If anyone can suggest anything else I will need or why they would return something I already bought and get something else, I value peoples experience. I will post pictures once I start receiving some of the orders.

I think this will be a bare bottom tank. I am hoping to have a much more successful and safe setup this go around. I am thinking I should stick to similar corals vs a mixed tank which I did not have much long term success with. I really would like a wwc bounce mushroom as one of the centerpieces. Encrusting chalices completely covering the bare bottom, rock flower and bta, and some sweet acans and sps. But that's not sticking to my simple is better idea and I don't have the time or skills to maintain a tank like that. I have seen a really cool tank with all zoas, and some with all acans. That seems like it would be slightly less challenging especially because the tank isn't so large to begin with. I still have much thought to do on this.

Regards,
Mike Beni

 

[Fizzicks]

I just did a RS reefer 170 build!
You can check it out in my tank thread
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/first-saltwater-tank.327401/

The only thing I would try and convince you different on is getting at least the VarioS-4 or 6 Depending on how much stuff your going to run off your return manifold. I got the 4 myself but wish I would have got the 6.

 

[mbeni4804]

Thank you for the input. I still have a Chiller as well not sure I i will be running it but I'd imagine it will definitely be to small in that case. I wasn't sure as of yet what reactors I will be running if any. I think on my old tank I overdid everything to the point it was not good for the tank. I have heard people swear by contact time and water movement through the sump and red sea only recommends about 500gph. I think this pump is rated around 800gph but that is not accounting for head pressure most likely so you are probably right it may be to small. In that case I will use this pump for maybe a quarantine or grow out tank or for automated water changes.

Your build looks great. I will check it out in more detail tomorrow. Thanks again.

 

[Fizzicks]

If you're only using it as a return pump Im sure the Varios-2 would probably be over kill if you want to run it at 500 GPH circulation.

 

[mbeni4804]

I see you have the kessil 360 and reef octopus bio pellet reactor. Funny thing is about a month or 2 ago I gave most of my stuff away including those items. I hope the dude at least breaks me off some nice frags. I had the kessil on a frag tank and the biopellets I stopped running for zeovit. I also found you can accomplish the same thing by dosing vodka but a lot of my corals died off when I transitioned to a ultra low nutrient tank. Even though I got some high end equiptment I want to try to keep the tank as simple as possible this time and see how it works out, Its amazing you found room for all of that equipment. The external protein skimmer seems really cool to me but it scares me. I guess you don't have any overflow issues? I had a bubble king which worked great but it was prone to overflowing if the slightest change occurred. One of the reasons why I didn't get one again.

 

[Fizzicks]

Regarding the comment about fitting all the equipment under there, I spent hours looking a spec sheets and exact dimensions of equipment. And surprisingly it all worked out. I should note that I did rotate the sump 90 degrees counter clockwise to make the plumbing manifold work.
What scares you about the recirculation skimmer? I went with it because I had read that they were better, as well as being Ideal for biopellet systems where you plumb the pellet reactor straight to the skimmer. So I went with it without any caution.

Overflow wise no problems. I replumbed the RS fittings with a gate valve. I dont know how much Im recirculating but if I had to guess it would be around 650 gph.

Overflow for the Skimmer (which is what I assume your asking about) The only time it over flows is if I dont top up my ATO and the water level in my sump drops.
I live in Las Vegas and get ridiculous amount of evaporation. And the RS ATO is kind of small to begin with. So Its something I have to refill every couple of days.

 

[Joeydi]

I recommend the Skimz Chaeto Reactor...it barely fits with the Simplicity dc120 but grows Chaeto like mad. It’s a refugium on steroids. No plumbing needed.

 

[mbeni4804]

Regarding the comment about fitting all the equipment under there, I spent hours looking a spec sheets and exact dimensions of equipment. And surprisingly it all worked out. I should note that I did rotate the sump 90 degrees counter clockwise to make the plumbing manifold work.
What scares you about the recirculation skimmer? I went with it because I had read that they were better, as well as being Ideal for biopellet systems where you plumb the pellet reactor straight to the skimmer. So I went with it without any caution.

Overflow wise no problems. I replumbed the RS fittings with a gate valve. I dont know how much Im recirculating but if I had to guess it would be around 650 gph.

Overflow for the Skimmer (which is what I assume your asking about) The only time it over flows is if I dont top up my ATO and the water level in my sump drops.
I live in Las Vegas and get ridiculous amount of evaporation. And the RS ATO is kind of small to begin with. So Its something I have to refill every couple of days.

I think bubble kings and vertex skimmers are prone to overflows. It would skim really well then if a little something changed at all it would go crazy fill up the collection cup and bubbles of fish crap would be exploding all over the inside of the stand but most of it would wind up back in the sump since it sat in the sump. I used a reef octopus classic and eventually a kz skimmer and they seemed never to have that problem but I think that may have led to my tank going on fire it was definitely water spraying or overflowing in the sump and shorting out the apex outlets or a transformer. From what I have heard re-circulation skimmer are the best. I'm just worried about having any equipment that may possibly leak outside or not directly over the sump. Probably just a combination of me being careless at times and afraid now cause of the fire that I want to take as many precautions as possible.

 

[Fizzicks]

I think since recirculating skimmers are fed off a pump their less prone to water level fluctuations causing overflows.
But that would be my only guess. Ive only ran(briefly, for cycling) a Hydor slim skim which is a non traditional design and this Reef octopus recirculating type.
So my experience with other types is zero.

 

[Joeydi]

My Simplicity skimmer works great. I empty a cupful of thick smelly gunk every week. Never had a problem with overflows...has plenty of control between the outlet valve, air valve and variable speed pump. Plus I have my apex set up to shut down skimmer on a high sump level.

 

[mbeni4804]

Start of my salt water mixing station. Getting excited I think the first package is going to arrive tomorrow. I will try to post pictures.

 

[Fizzicks]

Start of my salt water mixing station. Getting excited I think the first package is going to arrive tomorrow. I will try to post pictures.

You may find you want more space/capacity for salt mixing and general maintenance for the RS reefer 170's 43 gallon system volume.