Red Sea reefer 250

[Jonandjo]

Hi this is my first marine tank, but I have had 5 years of keeping tropical/planted tanks, so when I write something wrong on here please be gentle with me. This is being written 12 days after initial set up.
Small aside, if your new to fish keeping the first thing I would say is find your self a LFS where you feel comfortable with the staff and their knowledge. This is because alongside forums they will be your saviours.

Ok here goes:

Equipment list:

Red Sea 250 reefer (Tank, stand(white), plumbing and sump with auto top up system)
Evergrow IT 5060 lighting
Jebao DCT 2000 return pump (adequate and free) soon to be replaced by a Jebao DCT 6000(personal choice to increase flow rate and not to have to run at full power)
Jebao RW 8 wave maker
Jebao RW 15 wave maker(against LFS advice, should of listened it is slightly physicaly to big)
Nyos Quantum 120 Skimmer
Ehiem 200w heater
15kg sand
20Kg Rock (layout predesigned in LFS, more on this later)
8 Boxes of putty
230Ltr salt water
20Ltr RO water
ATM Colony
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Initial Fish:

1 x Cleaner wrasse
1 x Regal tang
1 x Royal Gama
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Initial Coral:

Small Zoa garden + couple of frags
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Pre-arrival checks

Made sure I knew where my tank was going to stand and made sure floor was as level as can be. My floor was concrete so I knew I would have no weightbaring issues, I would of hated to put 250kg+ on floorboards. Ensured I had adequate electric supply near by. Had buckets and towels to hand incase of problems.
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Day 1

Being a working man and eager to set up my aquarium I called in at my LFS on way to work to pick up the stand. After 10 hours at work I returned home and started buiding the base. Looking back this was a mistake, I mean how hard can it be to put together a flat packed cabinet? Because of the, IMHO, quality of the stand it took a lot longer than expected but then again when standing 200kg+ of fluid on it you want substance to it, which this has.​

Day 2

I was of work so it was back to my LFS for my tank, EXCITED muchly, Oh! boy! was it heavy. Luckily I was able to slide the pallet it came on into my car so I could transport it on a level surface, should I of paid for delivery? possibly. My brother-in-law arrived to help me remove it from my car, we got it out and removed the sump and all the parts from inside the box just to make it lighter. Once in place I began putting things together, I screwed the pipes into the weir holes, one was a little wobble so i got underneath and forcibly gave a little more of a tighten, this was a mistake which I will elaborate on later. So now I have my sump in place, all the plumbing done and sand in. All I have to do is wait for my wife to come in from work and put my three year old to bed then it will be time for me and the wife to rebuild our master piece we had designed in the LFS, sounds easy right? Oh no not even with all the pictures could we rebuild it. So 3 hours it took till we were happy with the new design. It was built on our kitchen table, tank right behind us, how hard could it be to move less than 5 feet and reassemble with putty, yes you got it, VERY!!!! at least we had the base stones and a small section we managed to putty together before we moved it. Another 2 hours past before it was nearly done, many "jovial" discussions were had throughout this period. One important piece of kit I didnt mention was a hammer, no not to hit each other but to reshape the rock.
​

 

[Jonandjo]

Day 3

Final bit of rock added before going for water. I was only able to transport 50ltr of water at a time as I only had two barrels. On returning with my first batch of water, I thought lets test the plumbing before I add to much water so I got a 2 litre jug and poured water down the weir. You know i mentioned in my previous post about that little extra tightening I gave the pipe, well a liter and a half of water came pouring through into the sump but not via the correct route, down a pipe, but it circumvented this and happily drained past the seal. I tried to remove this pipe to see if I could see the problem but couldnt budge it. Eventually I wrapped a damp tea towel around it and a little bit more leverage made all the difference, out it came and guess what, there was no bloody o-ring seal on it. Luckily my LFS had a spare he took off another pipe for me. Pipe back in, 4 liters poured down weir and no leeks, happy days. Black plastic bag put over my sand and rocks and in went the first two barrels of water, short on time now as the LFS would be closing another two runs seen mytank partially filled and the shop was closed. I decided to put the heater into my aqaurium to heat the water meaning when I came to completing the fill I wouldnt have to wait so long before I could add the colony and the fish.
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Day 4

2 more trips to LFS seen my tank and sump full, A couple of hours more and it was up to temperature. ATM colony added, fish added and corals now it was time to sit back and watch.​

 

[Jonandjo]

Day 10

My wife added 6 more fish 2 days ago, 4 x green chromis and 2 x clownfish. Today I started up my skimmer, OMG its a beast, shame I dont know how to work it properly. HELP!!!! straight to LFS as it is just bubbling throught the roof. Its now 4 hours on and I'm still playing with it, I raised it up and shut off the air supply and im now just slowly adding air back in. I know its going to take days if not weeks to set it up properly but hey i've noting better to do.​

 

[revhtree]

Great tank and nice start!

 

[Scubafrog]

Great looking tank. Love the story about the rocks. I did the same thing. I took a picture of my rock design at the LFS but was unable to easily duplicate once home.

 

[Jonandjo]

I took a picture of my rock design at the LFS but was unable to easily duplicate once home.

We did from multiple angles. Second time I even videoed it as we dismantled it. Last time I marked the rocks with a pencil and still struggled.

 

[powers2001]

@Jonandjo can we get an update on this tank?