Red Sea Reefer 350 Build

[New&no clue]

Wow, you should sell this stuff, my “Hose clamp” is hopes and prayers

 

[i_declare_bankruptcy]

Made a bunch of progress last night. Got everything shimmed up and level with water added. Took a lot of shimming, about 7mm on the low end. Looks ugly right now but will go back with white filament and custom print each shim so it looks nice. I also think I’ll go ahead and add reinforcing shims along the length of the stand as the feet are spaced apart too much for my liking (though thanks to the feet for making this shimming extravaganza possible without emptying the tank lol).
The sump glass just barely (like fraction of a mm) doesn’t touch the stand on at the corners so I think the bottom piece of MDF the sump rests on is very slightly bowed. I’m sure the foam mat will cover this difference without issue when water is in the sump.

overall I’m disappointed in the stand which is such a bummer. The older 525XL I had seemed to be made of different materials and was super stout, could be remembering wrong though. I won’t be ordering another Red Sea tank unless it is a Max series but those are $$$$. The reefers are a good value but not worth the trouble. Shame.

I spent hours the past few days shimming and checking the stand to get it perfect so I’m confident it is level and safe. I just would rather have a steel stand with four feet that are adjustable and have large pads to spread the weight. Way easier to level and prevents any sort of high points or weird leveling issues like I encountered. I have a feeling I will be replacing this tank in the near future which is frustrating because all I want is a stable tank after all this moving dang it!
I’m probably overreacting as the engineer within desired perfection. The stand is level and supported and that’s what matters.

on a positive note I’ve been 3D printing some parts and I’m working on a filter cup now since I don’t want to waiT for shipping and I definitely dont want to give Red Sea my money. In the future I’m going to prototype a roller mat system that is plug n play for the reefer sump because I also don’t want to give clarisea or theiling $400 for a few pieces of acrylic, a motor, and a float switch dang it! Haha

 

[i_declare_bankruptcy]

Made the medium sized spacer today. Hoping I got the thickness correct. Took ~1:30 to print, not bad!! Also made a filter sock holder just need to glue it up. Things are coming together, tank is almost ready for salt then sand then rock!

 

[i_declare_bankruptcy]

Spacer works perfectly! If anyone reading this wants the STL let me know

 

[i_declare_bankruptcy]

Just ordered a second MP40 ...ouch...

My icecap gyre refused to work after being unplugged for several months. Took it apart and rebuilt with no luck. Stupid.

Mixing salt and heating as we speak... hope to add the rocks and sand, add bacteria, and start breaking in the skimmer tomorrow.

 

[i_declare_bankruptcy]

Entertaining the idea of buying a tank mounted light fixture like the zetlight qmaven ii or maxspect razor. I was originally going to tank mount my T5 fixture but I’m worried about the weight and don’t think it will provide enough PAR. If anyone has experience with those products I’d love to hear it. I can’t stomach paying thousands for radions or Kessils.

 

[fishguy242]

hey..hope you didn't fall through the floor.. been a while

 

[i_declare_bankruptcy]

No updates because the waves have been soooooo good! SoCal just got a nice swell for the past few days so I've been surfing all day.

Anyways, I ended up buying the A360x's (2) for the tank. I'm glad I did -- they look amazing. I wanted to go with a MH setup but I can't because of the heat (I don't have AC and we get a month or two in socal where my house will get to ~80 inside during the day). My tank is already jumping from 78 to 82 so I need to figure out how to mount some fans to cool it off. If I can keep it at 78 I may look into MH in the future because it's ultimately what I want to do for the tank.

All livestock has been transferred to the new tank and everything made it, no casualties Corals are still coloring back up after being stressed but so far so good. I splurged on Aqua SD's sale and have four frags coming in tomorrow

I think a mistake I've made with my previous tanks is going tooooooo slowly. It's important to go slow but I wait far too long to get the tank stocked with sufficient livestock every time; I wonder if it's part of why I can never get a NO3/PO4 reading in my tanks. Especially since I like a lot of live rock in my tanks. So I'm going to try something different and stock this tank a little more.

What I have:
1 small blue tang
1 chalk bass
2 fire fish

What I want to add:
1 small yellow tang or spotbreast angelfish
2 clownfish for the anemones
idk...

Oh and my alk is 7dkh.... uhhh WHAT. I guess I mixed the salt too fast. Slowly bringing that up to 8.5 as of yesterday.

Will post a pic once the lights come on. Having a small bacterial bloom so it's ugly haha.

 

[Semper.Reefing]

Updates??

 

[Semper.Reefing]

I have a RSR350 coming in soon. Using two A360s. What height and how far apart did you mount yours? Did you make a control board?

 

[revhtree]

Great build so far!

 

[i_declare_bankruptcy]

Been really crazy at work, but I've been working diligently on my reef too! It's definitely, completely, undeniably, in the ugly stage. This one is really ugly too -- I've never had an ugly stage that hit it all: diatoms, cyano, dino, hair algae, brown algae, crusty sand, and more. Add to that that I haven't been on top of my water changes because of my schedule and you get an ugly tank.

On a positive note all params are all in line and I'm mixing up a batch of SW for a change now. Oh yeah, I converted the ugly guest shower to a mixing station. Can't remember if I mentioned that, but yeah that's a perk of being single I guess?

Stu-Tanks: I am prototyping a control board right now. The area of the cabinet under the RSR350 is just too small to have a layout that I like so I'm considering having my dad who's a great woodworker build me a matching cabinet on the side that will house the dosing setup and control setup. I'll attach a pic of my ugly prototype. The kessils I had spaced in thirds, but I recently abandoned them.

I switch to MH 150w DE 14k ... I love the Kessil's but MH was always something I wanted to try. I'm not super stoked on the PAR or color though -- which is frustrating -- so I'm accenting with a couple blue T5's to bring color and PAR back. I will record PAR figures once the bulbs burn in (hoping PAR increases and color improves over the 100hr burn in period). Overall though it's a much better blanket of light and shimmer which makes me happy. I think the T5's will bring it home.

I also bought a cheap Jebao doser. Corals are using up Alk steadily (but not Ca so that's odd) so it was time to start dosing. Only a few mL a day but stability is key. Once I get everything stabilized I will start looking into easy SPS that will be stoked under the halides.

Originally this was going to be an LPS heavy tank but I've recently caught the SPS bug (part of the switch to MH -- cheapest way to coverage) and I'm watching my future money burn in front of my very eyes.

I added some fish too. Now I have:
Baby blue tang
Baby tomini tang
2 firefish
2 clowns who refuse to go in their BTA of course
Striped blenny

Want to add a spotbreast angelfish and a few smaller fish and call it.

I also switched to the Hanna checkers and wow that was 100% worth the investment. If you're reading this and you don't have them... get 'em.

Parameters:
Alk: 8.2
Sal: 1.025
Ca: 450
Mg: 1350
Nitrate: undetectable
Phosphate: 0.04 (Hanna ULR)
pH: gonna start testing that more oops

Still not seeing good growth from the corals (some I've had for a while from a previous temporary tank) but I'm thinking that's because this tank is still new and in the ugly phase and getting everything figured out. Once I get the lights stabilized, nitrates detectable, and stop messing with it, I'm expecting growth to pick back up again. If there's anything I've learned it's that growth takes time, nothing happens fast (that's good, anyways), and patience is everything.

 

[i_declare_bankruptcy]

I also made my own light rack out of 2020. It’s sort of a prototype. I think I’ll add a valence of some sort and switch from chains to aircraft wire to clean it up.

 

[fishguy242]

hi ,does not look that bad at all!! i think looks pretty darn good!! no turning back ya know ,it only takes 1 tiny acro..bam ..hooked for life

 

[Semper.Reefing]

Been really crazy at work, but I've been working diligently on my reef too! It's definitely, completely, undeniably, in the ugly stage. This one is really ugly too -- I've never had an ugly stage that hit it all: diatoms, cyano, dino, hair algae, brown algae, crusty sand, and more. Add to that that I haven't been on top of my water changes because of my schedule and you get an ugly tank.

On a positive note all params are all in line and I'm mixing up a batch of SW for a change now. Oh yeah, I converted the ugly guest shower to a mixing station. Can't remember if I mentioned that, but yeah that's a perk of being single I guess?

Stu-Tanks: I am prototyping a control board right now. The area of the cabinet under the RSR350 is just too small to have a layout that I like so I'm considering having my dad who's a great woodworker build me a matching cabinet on the side that will house the dosing setup and control setup. I'll attach a pic of my ugly prototype. The kessils I had spaced in thirds, but I recently abandoned them.

I switch to MH 150w DE 14k ... I love the Kessil's but MH was always something I wanted to try. I'm not super stoked on the PAR or color though -- which is frustrating -- so I'm accenting with a couple blue T5's to bring color and PAR back. I will record PAR figures once the bulbs burn in (hoping PAR increases and color improves over the 100hr burn in period). Overall though it's a much better blanket of light and shimmer which makes me happy. I think the T5's will bring it home.

I also bought a cheap Jebao doser. Corals are using up Alk steadily (but not Ca so that's odd) so it was time to start dosing. Only a few mL a day but stability is key. Once I get everything stabilized I will start looking into easy SPS that will be stoked under the halides.

Originally this was going to be an LPS heavy tank but I've recently caught the SPS bug (part of the switch to MH -- cheapest way to coverage) and I'm watching my future money burn in front of my very eyes.

I added some fish too. Now I have:
Baby blue tang
Baby tomini tang
2 firefish
2 clowns who refuse to go in their BTA of course
Striped blenny

Want to add a spotbreast angelfish and a few smaller fish and call it.

I also switched to the Hanna checkers and wow that was 100% worth the investment. If you're reading this and you don't have them... get 'em.

Parameters:
Alk: 8.2
Sal: 1.025
Ca: 450
Mg: 1350
Nitrate: undetectable
Phosphate: 0.04 (Hanna ULR)
pH: gonna start testing that more oops

Still not seeing good growth from the corals (some I've had for a while from a previous temporary tank) but I'm thinking that's because this tank is still new and in the ugly phase and getting everything figured out. Once I get the lights stabilized, nitrates detectable, and stop messing with it, I'm expecting growth to pick back up again. If there's anything I've learned it's that growth takes time, nothing happens fast (that's good, anyways), and patience is everything.

Thanks for the update! My RSR350 came in Friday. Built a control board yesterday and mounted it 6 inches from the back leaving around 11inches front to back space in the cabinet. Definitely agree it’s a little tight. I was trying to find an old radio cabinet To make my control center but just decided to keep it in the stand. I think I might make a build thread as well.