Red Sea Reefer 250 Deluxe - Full Triton Build

[PiscesPower]

End of Day 2

Wet & Salty.
Rocks & Sand in.
Room a disaster.

The single layer of flat rock on the left is a placeholder for a rock from my existing tank. Didn't want to cover the area with sand.

Plan for tomorrow:

Switch out old return in existing tank and install my eFlux return and get the sump filled and going. Still making water....seems like I have made and carried about 200 gallons LOL.
Try to even out sandbed.
Go to Home Depot with BF, he is going to construct something for mounting power bricks etc for the right side of the sump.
Program the Lights.

 

[Giraffe0621]

Today is the big day, tank delivery and set up.

;Woot;Woot;Woot

I have every vessel I have full of RO/DI water.
Tank should arrive and get set up in the early afternoon. I need to go the my LFS and get some more live rock and a new bucket of salt.
I just ordered an Avast Marine Spyglass media reactor kit. My BF doesn't know it yet, but he'll be putting it together. Was hard to pass up the price different of kit vs assembled. There is some sale going on.
As soon as the tank is set up I plan to measure the top and order a lid from ArtfullyAcryllic.com so I can add a Flasher Wrasse.

Foolishly we went and adopted a new cat yesterday. I would post a picture but we have not seen her since she arrived. LOL. A wee bit skittish. I found her collar on the kitchen island and I'm hoping my boyfriend put it there and she didn't drop it off on a counter excursion. My big, boy cat, is being catered to in the master bedroom like he's at a resort, to give her time to settle in.

I love it. "My BF doesn't know it yet, but he'll be putting it together." Little jealous -- where can I order one of those for myself?!

Hopefully your new cat is just getting her bearings & will be out soon. My experience is whatever they do the first few days, they'll do the opposite after they get comfortable. Congrats on being a new mom!

 

[PiscesPower]

I love it. "My BF doesn't know it yet, but he'll be putting it together." Little jealous -- where can I order one of those for myself?!

Hopefully your new cat is just getting her bearings & will be out soon. My experience is whatever they do the first few days, they'll do the opposite after they get comfortable. Congrats on being a new mom!

Order what the boyfriend or the lid? The lid comes from artfullyacryllic.com. Well the BF, trust me, it is a chore to get him to do this. I tell him exactly what I would like and he completely redesigns it to what he thinks is best, with no knowledge of reefing or the equipment I need. I show him pics from the web. 'This is exactly what I want'. His response 'You know what we need to do?....sigh. I am asking for a 30 minutes job, and he is going to make furniture...guess I shouldn't complain but I just want it NOW, not a week from now...

 

[PiscesPower]

Ran into my first wet snag this morning. I was having a great deal of trouble getting my 1/2" pump output into the 5/8" return tubing. I needed to remove the tubing from the tank to get leverage after warming up the tubing. I guess I did a bit too much wiggling and basically emptied the overflow into the sump, and not in a nice controlled way. Water splashing everywhere. Thankfully I had no other water in the sump.

Now of course, after getting the tubing on, I can't get the 'O' ring pipe back into the tubing. I have short arms and no strength. Going to have to wait until BF gets out of bed, has a few cups of coffee, tells me what I should have done, and then puts in on. I do appreciate his help. It's just sometimes the micro-managing gets a bit old.

 

[Blue Spot Octopus]

Congrats on your new tank. What is the dimension of your sump?

 

[PiscesPower]

Congrats on your new tank. What is the dimension of your sump?

19" long x 17" wide x 14" tall

 

[PiscesPower]

Nearing the end of day 3

Land Ho!! I can see my rocks through the clouds. I need to blow the sand off them, but I just want to look at them for a little while before I cloud it up again.
In other news...
- Feel like ****, have a cold
- Power Mgmt stuff did not get built, boyfriend a bit ***** since I gave him my cold LOL.
- Temporary power mgmt table set up.
- Tank is running with just the return.
- Skimmer pulling out some of the junky beige sand foam
- Modified a felt sock and added that and some filter floss in 1st mesh sock to speed up clearing
- Took the skimmer and return off my 24g and added an air stone to keep it oxygenated. If I have to go past tomorrow evening before I can move things over I'll set in a back up return pump I have. Still running my eFlux Wavemakers, changed them to stream instead of surge.
-Seneye is connected. Not sure how accurate it's reading, but if the pH is in fact 8.1 I'll probably need to do something to bring it closer to the existing tank, which was 8.38 yesterday before it removed the Seneye. Haven't bothered to check Alk yet, with the water so cloudy I'm sure the Hanna Checker would not be accurate. I'll check everything just before trying to move things as well.

Here's some pics, since everyone likes pictures.

 

[jeflen651]

Congrats on your new tank. Natalia @ Barrier Reef has been trying to talk me into buying this set up. I am going to follow your build, and if all goes well i will probably move forward with my own. Just curious, will you be doing any upgrading on the skimmer or any other parts of hardware that come with the tank?

 

[PiscesPower]

Will have another update shortly. I have all the pics. My daughter is visiting from out of town AND I've had a crappy cold. How bout this to hold everyone over.
Turn up the sound. Its PG - 13 as well.

This was in my tank this morning. I found my daughter playing this song, while watching the Sexy Shrimp.

 

[powers2001]

Don't know if you saw them or not, MACNA reviews of Current's eFlux controller. They have a new controller for eFlux return and wave pumps, lights and AUDIO capabilities.

 

[PiscesPower]

I've been very remiss on my thread. Family, work, illness...Well I guess its time to catch things up.
Getting things moved to the new tank went well but I lost some softies, although the Xenia is coming back, of course....My loved cloves and Nepthea leather are toast. I had my lights on acclimation mode and unplugged the lights to do something and didn't realize the time reset AND acclimation mode went off. I think I cooked them.

It is my plan to use Triton method for this tank, so I had to fashion some kind of refugium. I looked for a new sump that would fit the RSR and be set up for Triton (Fuge first chamber) and found nothing, that was not a custom job. There's a complay in Britain that does a baffle, but they are not in production right now. It was time for the totally non-creative person to get into the DIY mode...

You have to love plastic canvas and zip ties....I was able to create a decent sized fuge in which I added Chaeto and Dragon's breath. I seeded it with pods from AlgaeBarn as well, and tossed to Astrea snails in it.
The only decent light I had was the AI Prime from my 24g so I added that temporarily.



Livestock at this point:

2 black and white extreme misbar clowns (paired juveniles)
2 Pajama Cardinals
1 2 color pseudochromis
Orange spot goby & Pistol Shrimp pair
5 or 6 BTA - 2 decent sized and 3 or 4 small ones, oddly it's these little ones that split
2 cleaner shrimp
2 Emerald crabs
Assorted snails

Corals
Assorted Acans
Zoas
Sytlophora
Hammer
Encrusting Pavona
Plating Monti

 

[PiscesPower]

My biggest issue with the tank and the hobby is trying to contain all the STUFF. I bought and built a kitchen island $104 on Amazon, that has the same finish as the RSR cabinet. Once I have my cords cleaned up I will replace the chaos. I spent a full day sorting through all of the stuff I have and putting together an Emergency box - Reactor, heater, power, filter floss, etc in case I do something really stupid and need to clean up a mess.

I added a small size AVAST Spyglass. It didn't fit into my chamber so I shaved off some of the acrylic on both sides of the base to make it fit! I love that it can house both GFO and Rox Carbon and fluidize them together.

I also brought the AI Prime to work and put it on the Pico and put the Tuna Blue on the Refugium with the plan to replace it with a Tuna Sun in the near future.

Here's a FTS as well.

 

[jimmyzhou]

I've been very remiss on my thread. Family, work, illness...Well I guess its time to catch things up.
Getting things moved to the new tank went well but I lost some softies, although the Xenia is coming back, of course....My loved cloves and Nepthea leather are toast. I had my lights on acclimation mode and unplugged the lights to do something and didn't realize the time reset AND acclimation mode went off. I think I cooked them.

It is my plan to use Triton method for this tank, so I had to fashion some kind of refugium. I looked for a new sump that would fit the RSR and be set up for Triton (Fuge first chamber) and found nothing, that was not a custom job. There's a complay in Britain that does a baffle, but they are not in production right now. It was time for the totally non-creative person to get into the DIY mode...

You have to love plastic canvas and zip ties....I was able to create a decent sized fuge in which I added Chaeto and Dragon's breath. I seeded it with pods from AlgaeBarn as well, and tossed to Astrea snails in it.
The only decent light I had was the AI Prime from my 24g so I added that temporarily.



Livestock at this point:

2 black and white extreme misbar clowns (paired juveniles)
2 Pajama Cardinals
1 2 color pseudochromis
Orange spot goby & Pistol Shrimp pair
5 or 6 BTA - 2 decent sized and 3 or 4 small ones, oddly it's these little ones that split
2 cleaner shrimp
2 Emerald crabs
Assorted snails

Corals
Assorted Acans
Zoas
Sytlophora
Hammer
Encrusting Pavona
Plating Monti

Try get a black color mesh or some thin block the refugium light hiting the skimmer that will helps you reduce maintenance and skimmer run longer

 

[PiscesPower]

Bought the Tuna Sun for the fuge, of course ordered the wrong one and had to send it back...
Went to a great sale at Barrier Reef Aquariums, and got a few green chromis'.
Not sure what it is with that fish, but one died, pretty sure he got damaged in transit and over the next week 3 of them just disappeared without a trace...I'm still waiting on my top from Artfully acrylic. Ordered it on August 25th.
They had a few local vendors selling corals and i got 3 really nice Acans. I showed such great restraint LOL.

 

[PiscesPower]

Rather than go day by day, I will catch things up to today.

DT - I got my first Triton test back
https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/aquarium/auswertung-b/icp-oes/44413/

I have checked all equipment in the DT and can find nothing that would account for the tin/zinc. I did have a used ATO float which is no longer in the tank. I was already dealing with the Ca & Mg which are now in normal range. I was not doing my Hanna CA test correctly and values were much higher.

I mounted all my corals that were on the frag rack to get it out of the tank, in case the magnets are leaching something. Did the 15% water change as suggested by Triton.

Equipment
2 x Hydra 26 HD lights that came with the RSR 250 Deluxe
Current USA eFlux 1050 Return
Current USA eFlux wave pumps x 2
Split return created with 3D printed random flow outlets and some 1/2" locline
Skimz Mini Monster 123 DC Skimmer - I used plastic canvas to create a cage around this to help keep macroalgae bits out if it. I needed to take it apart last week as it go noisy.
Avast Marine small Spyglass reactor w/ BRS Rox carbon and GFO
Cobalt heater (forget the wattage)
Kessil Tuna Sun Flora
Seneye Reef monitor

*Still need to set up a Reefkeeper lite that I got in trade from a friend. Its in a tangle in a box, that is today's task...

Livestock now:

2 extreme misbar clowns that completely ignore 6 BTAs...sigh
2 PJ Cardinals
1 bicolor pseudochromis
1 Tailspot blenny
1 lonely green chromis
Orange spot goby & pistol shrimp pain
Yellow Eye Kole tang
Fathead Sunburst Anthia

Still waiting on the arrival of my cover.

I have 12 sps corals arriving next Friday from the Fraghouse Corals live sale last week.

Here's some Eye Candy from my tank from yesterday, all of the Acans have since been mounted on rocks and are off the terra cotta disc.

 

[PiscesPower]

Today I spent about 6 hours getting my cords and cabinet organized. Holy crap what a job... but its finally done. I still need to program the Reefkeeper, but I have all the ports turned on. I did however plug everything in, tuck it all back into the cabinet without marking what cords were in what outlet...sigh....out it comes and notes taken.
Fuge light on just for effect, running it opposite the DT lights.

 

[powers2001]

Do you have the Skimz SN 123 with the Quiet Pro pump or the old pump. Wondering because I'm curious how much quieter the new DC pumps are. I have the Skimz SM 122 recirculating skimmer with AC pump and it's annoying. I really thought this skimmer is what I was looking for but now I'm having second thoughts.

 

[PiscesPower]

Do you have the Skimz SN 123 with the Quiet Pro pump or the old pump. Wondering because I'm curious how much quieter the new DC pumps are. I have the Skimz SM 122 recirculating skimmer with AC pump and it's annoying. I really thought this skimmer is what I was looking for but now I'm having second thoughts.

I do have the one with the DC pump. I have had it for about 5 months, first running it on my 24g cube and now on the RSR. Its quieter than my original, but its not as quiet as I would hope. I have been having issues with bits of chaeto in the intake and pump and I pulled it apart at about 11 PM one night last week and cleaned it all. I didn't vinegar rinse it. I have since created a plastic canvas cage for it to reduce the bits, I still feel its a bit loud but everything else in the tank is quiet (I have all DC motors), except a sicce nano on my Spyglass, so it stands out a bit. I am going to tear it down again and give it a more through cleaning and try to isolate the intake a bit better. I'll let you know if it improves.

 

[powers2001]

I do have the one with the DC pump. I have had it for about 5 months, first running it on my 24g cube and now on the RSR. Its quieter than my original, but its not as quiet as I would hope. I have been having issues with bits of chaeto in the intake and pump and I pulled it apart at about 11 PM one night last week and cleaned it all. I didn't vinegar rinse it. I have since created a plastic canvas cage for it to reduce the bits, I still feel its a bit loud but everything else in the tank is quiet (I have all DC motors), except a sicce nano on my Spyglass, so it stands out a bit. I am going to tear it down again and give it a more through cleaning and try to isolate the intake a bit better. I'll let you know if it improves.

I'm not clear. You have the new QuietPro DC or old DC?

 

[PiscesPower]

Sorry not sure which, when I go back to the site they are selling one with a motor with a blue casing and calling it Quiet Pro. Mine has an all white casing. So I'm going to guess I have an older motor, which is a drag since I purchased it in May...