Red Sea Reefer 250

[Davy Jones]

Hey guys, New to the forum and my first tank build so bear with me!

Little info about myself, This is my saltwater tank (as in the 4th one ive had not how many i have set up lol) first one ended in disaster like most new people in the hobby, second one was a biocube 29 and was fairly successful until i left for military training. Third one was a red sea max 130 which i had for 7 months and that brought me to this tank, the Red sea Reefer 250. I decided with this one to stop buying used items off CL or whatever was cheap and on sale, bought the bullet and went full out and got high end stuff.

Now to the boring part, the tank specs..

Tank: Red sea reefer 250 and stock sump
ATO: Stock gravity fed ATO
Lighting: ATI/Nanobox Reef LED/T5 hybrid (4x39 t5 bulbs, 6 nanobox v3 13up led pucks) Bluefish mini wireless controller
Return: Eheim compact 3000+
Flow: 1 Mp-10WeS
Skimmer: Vertex omega 150
Filteration: 2x 200 micron Filter socks
Approximately 50 lbs of Agronite reef sand and 55 lbs rock

Current stocking list:
Randalls goby and pistol shrimp
Yasha goby
Yellow eyed Kole Tang
Baby 2 barred rabbit fish (Holding for a friend)
1 Cleaner shrimp
1 Fire shrimp

Corals and such:
2 RBTA's (started as one, split soon after tank transfer)
1 green slimer frag (been in tank 5 days)
1 forrest fire digi frag (been in tank 5 days)
1 red monti cap (been in tank 5 days)
1 purple monti cap (been in tank 5 days)
1 purple stylo (been in tank 5 days)
Splatter hammer
Torch coral
green and orange rhodactis mushrooms
Green and orange Ricordia mushrooms
various zoas

And finally to the fun part, the photodump.






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The fun of getting it setup... It was pretty easy to setup and install everything, filled with water and did a leak test. Nearly silent when it is adjusted correctly Very happy with quality of tank and stand.




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First picture after transfering from the 130 to this tank after it cleared up. Thought i liked the idea of an open scape but in the end it just didnt work for me.






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Added rock and changed the scape, provides nice shelves for differing coral needs


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Newest coral additions and a close up of my green rhodactis mushrooms!

Sorry for the bad quality pics, theyre just being taken with the cell phone and under pretty blue lighting. Ill try and get a better FTS now that the sps has been added (although not placed in permanent locations.)

Whatcha guys think?

 

[kschweer]

Welcome to R2R!!! Everything looks great! Looking forward to seeing it progress.

 

[Broadfield]

Just letting you know that I started a Reefer specific thread if you want to join in, show off your setup, give advice and ask questions there. Once we get some traffic on that thread, it should blow up with good info and be a great place to gather ideas etc.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/show-off-and-discuss-your-red-sea-reefer-series.219309/

 

[Davy Jones]

I absolutely will! Will need to get better pics of the actual equipment and setup though, Ill try and get some this weekend and post on monday or tuesday!

 

[Broadfield]

Sweet, I want to get that thread going. There's one over on the "other" forum and it's very informative. So I figured there should be one on R2R!

 

[Davy Jones]

Hope you like cell phone pictures then lol

 

[gpinto81]

looks really good, what kind of sand are you using in your tank?

 

[Davy Jones]

Im not 100% sure i remember but im pretty sure its
CaribSea Aragonite
I wanted something a little larger than the sand i had in the other tank so i went with this stuff.

 

[Davy Jones]

so update. Kole tang has a slight ich infection. He swims and acts healthy but we all know the truth. Im hoping he will pull through as he is a beautiful fish. I do not have access to a QT system as i have a very small apartment so im just gonna have to let this ride. So far the other fish seem to be doing fine though with no signs of infection.

Also a plating Monti I got off divers den when i first set up this tank started to STN about 3 weeks ago due to the MP 10 being shut off (my best guess to a cause) and it has started getting worse, Im all but certain its a gonner.

My torch looks like ****, my anemones still arent the right color after the tank swap and split but other than that everything looks stunning. My hammer is better colored and more extended than ive ever seen, the ricordias have doubled in size. the rhodactis shrooms are spreading like crazy as are my zoas. The new acros i put in on the day of this post are colored awesome with great PE, Just waiting on them to encrust.

Any ideas on the anemones? Ill get pics tonight but they dont look too hot from what it looked like in the RSM 130 under ****** lighting. And what can i do to help my torch? It never has extended tentacles and always looks ******.

 

[abecker]

Have you checked your water parameters? Also, did you use live sand or anything to cycle the tank? When I upgraded tanks I ended up with a small cycle and my BTA looked like it was going to die, but it pulled through and now looks great.

 

[Davy Jones]

I added the sand first, and put 3 cups of live sand from the old tank. Then i moved 20lbs of live rock from the old tank as well. A month or so later i bought about 15-20 lbs of dry rock from a LFS and put in there, i never experienced much of a cycle to be honest, i figured since there was nothing dead being broguht into the system there wouldnt be any die off and the live rock could handle what was already in the system.

The bta split about a month after swapping tanks. And since it has split its gone to a deeper pruple/blue/green color from its old Pink/Green color

As far as params i tested a week ago and everything was good, Also testing tonight before i do the waterchange for the week.

 

[Davy Jones]

New phone with better camera so here are some pics.

 

[Davy Jones]

Lost my kole tang to ich... I live in an apartment and dont have room for a QT tank (plus the GF says NO until i get rid of some of my **** in the livingroom) This is a sad day. However, the rest of the fish in the tank are showing no signs of being infected so hopefully they are gonna be okay. Im going to Increase feeding for a week and do a 10 gallon waterchange this week to help. Hopefully everyone makes it. If not i wont have fish in the tank for 3 or 4 months to make sure the ich has died. Which will be sad. I am a bad fish parent

 

[Jsieger89]

Hang in there, killing stuff is unfortunately part of the hobby

 

[Davy Jones]

I know, I just feel bad cause I know that fish could have lived 15 years plus

 

[Davy Jones]

UPDATE.
So as my tank progressed so has my stocking plans. (since i just lost the kole tang i wont be adding fish for a couple of months to see how everything else in the tank does.)

Right now i have:
2 False Perc clowns.
1 Randalls goby and pistol shrimp
1 Yascha shrimp goby
1 baby 2 barred rabbit fish (holding for a friend)

Planned stock:
1 Tomini tang
1 Starry Blenny

Potential stock..
2-3 lyretail anthias OR 2-3 Helfrichis firefish. I think i would do the firefish hands down if they didnt seem so hit or miss in terms of swimming around the tank and lifespan.. But then again the anthias need to be fed multiple times a day and im already having slight nutrient export issues.. Not sure where i want to go with this.

Any other suggestions?!

 

[Davy Jones]

 

[Davy Jones]

AAAAAND PICTURES.



From the right side





PEEKABOOO





Bubbles Finally!





dang Brown Jelly

This is the hammer coral that used to be in Scorched's 3 foot tank.





Purple Horrida Frag





SSC frag. Starting to color back up and get some PE, I was told that this is because this frag was from the bottom of the colony.. we will see.





BEAUTIFUL Cali Tort Frag. Really love the color on this one. Probably my favorite.





Pink lemonade mini colony. Little on the green side, hoping it turns to yellow after being in my tank for a while. If not its still nice looking.





Lavendar Cream Acro, Nice blue/purple color with brown/purple polyps. Hard to get a representative picture but very nice looking.





The old frags. The Bali slimer has started encrusting on the rock finally! As for the PE on the others, my giant hermit crab had just run around the top of the rock knocking into everyone just before picture time. Jerk.





AAAND FTS

 

[Devesh]

Tank looks great man.

 

[Davy Jones]

Appreciate it! Doing my best!