Red Sea Reefer - S 1000 Build

davidrod8

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Any updates? I'm planning on buying this tank when the G2 comes out and would love to see what you have done
 
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hja99

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Any updates? I'm planning on buying this tank when the G2 comes out and would love to see what you have done
Everything is running really well. I really like the tank. No complaints at all from me. However, I lose about 2 and a half gallons of water per day to evaporation, so I wish that Red Sea would have a better ATO solution as part of the package. I have a 15 gallon tank in the stand, but it takes up almost all of the available room. I will try to get some updated pictures uploaded this weekend to show you what I did with my dosing pump and containers too. I will try to do a more detailed update then as well.
 

Redbeardz

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Everything is running really well. I really like the tank. No complaints at all from me. However, I lose about 2 and a half gallons of water per day to evaporation, so I wish that Red Sea would have a better ATO solution as part of the package. I have a 15 gallon tank in the stand, but it takes up almost all of the available room. I will try to get some updated pictures uploaded this weekend to show you what I did with my dosing pump and containers too. I will try to do a more detailed update then as well.
Very nice. I have the S-1000 myself. I ended up using a 10 gal ato res on the outside of the stand. I didn’t want to give up the space under the cabinet. It would need to be refilled every other day. So I installed a float valve inside the res and ran a 1/4 inch poly line into the basement where I have my mixing station. I picked up an extra brute can just for top off R.O. Water. I hooked up a small pump on a timer to run twice a day for 30 mins. Keeps my ato full and I couldn’t be happier to not have to fill the res every 2 days. I just fill up the brute every 20 days or so.
 
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hja99

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@hja99 Thanks for detailing out your build. How's the S-1000 coming along? Still satisfied with the purchase?
Hi, the tank is coming along well. Yes, I am still very happy with the Red Sea purchase. It's a great tank and I still believe the quality is just top notch. I am also very happy with all the other equipment choices that I made. I have the tank just about completely stocked as far as fish go, and I have a decent variety of SPS, LPS, and softies. Still have room for more LPS, but that will come with time. All the equipment that I chose seems to be working very well for everything.

I am running the Triton method and have been happy with that. I still do a 38 gallon water change every three weeks though. I am using the Red Sea dosser for the four Triton liquids and all parameters are very stable.

The only real "problem" that I've had is that Nitrates and Phosphates always read 0. I know they are in there, but the refugium and everything else sucks them out of the water column right away. I have no real algae to speak of in the display, except some greenish brown (what I believe to be) cyano on the gravel bed in some spots in the back where the flow is a little less. I do clean the glass every other day or every third day. When I first put some SPS colonies in the tank, the uptake of the nitrates and phosphates was too great and fast and I started getting some burnt tips and lost a couple colonies. A lot of the LPS pieces started bleaching out too. I started feeding the tank with Red Sea Reef energy every morning at about 4 while it is still dark, and also phyto. The nutrients still register 0, but now all the corals are growing well and have colored up very nicely. The burnt tips on the SPS have almost all grown back over the dead parts. I thought my test kits may have been off, so I tested some of the water that came with some frags I bought and they registered both nitrates and phosphates. Everything seems to be doing well now.

The other mistake I initially made was with the lights. I had metal halide and T-5s on my last tank so this is my first experience with LEDS. After what I thought was a good period of acclimation, I slowly turned the lights up to 90-95% over the course of a few days. These lights are very strong and it bleached a bunch of the LPS and made the zoes close up on the sand bed. I currently ramp them up to 65% over two hours, and then up to 75% over the course of two hours for four hours, then the ramp back down to 65% over two hours, and then ramp down to dark over three hours. This seems to be a good balance. The lights are still a little strong for some of the zoes and LPS, but I think I will be able to mitigate some of that once the SPS colonies grow out more and provide some more shade for the rocks below them.

Really the only two things I would have changed are the routing of cables for the protein skimmer and the return pumps. I put them in wiring conduit which keeps them very organized and looking good, but it does make removing them for maintenance a bit more of a pain than it needs to be. The second thing I would have done different is to have placed the protein skimmer in a different chamber. The Triton method wants you to have a relatively large refugium, so I have red gracilaria and caulerpa in the first chamber after the filter socks, and then I have the supplement chamber that is connected to the sump with pipes filled with chaeto. The protein skimmer is in the last chamber before the return chamber, and it sucks up some pieces of algae when it breaks away or when I trim it. The Triton method recommends to have the skimmer in the last chamber after the refugium, but I would have put it before in hindsight.

Let me know if you have any specific questions, I hope this information is useful to you.
 
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hja99

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Wanted to know how well the build is going as well and if you had photo updates of the build as well!!!
I've tried taking some photos, but I haven't gotten good at it yet, especially with using a filter so that they don't come out too blue. I'll try to get some taken though and get them up. If there is anything specific with the tank or equipment that you want photos of, just let me know and I'll try to get them.
 
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hja99

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You should get the reef mat. I hated the socks on the s-1000.
Sorry this is such a late reply. I didn't see that you had posted. I thought about the reef mat, but I'm running the Triton method and it suggests not even using filter socks let alone the reef mat. So initially, I only put two of the four socks in. My current situation is that my nutrients are on the very low side (always test 0), so I don't even worry about trying to remove the stuff that the reef mat and the socks usually catch. I only clean the socks once every other week or so, and I put a piece of Marineland bonded filter pad on top of the bubble diffuser foam block that sits right before the return pump chamber. That catches everything from going back up into the display and keeps the water in the display looking very clear. I just roll up the filter pad and throw it away every three or four days.
 

Dad’s_reef

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I'm coming back into the hobby after about a six year break. I've been wanting to start up a new tank for the past two years, but we had been thinking about moving and I didn't want to start a new tank only to sell the house and then have to break it down and try to move it. Moved into a new house last March and bought everything for the new tank during the November/Black Friday sales. I have followed this forum and one or two others regularly and have received a lot of valuable information, but I have rarely posted anything. The types of threads that have always been the most informative and enjoyable for me are the build threads. So, with this new build I have decided to start a thread in hopes that I might be able to share some information or points that might help someone else who is contemplating the Red Sea tank and other equipment I've chosen, and possibly learn from the invariable mistakes (not too big I hope) I will make along the way.

I wanted a six or seven foot tank and was considering various custom options, Cade, Waterbox, Innovative Marine, and Red Sea. I finally decided on the Reefer - S 1000. I decided on the Red Sea mainly due to the metal stand, the Euro bracing, the bracing on the bottom panel, the armored seams, and the price. I ordered the tank mid-November, but like many people who also ordered one around that time, it took a couple months to get. It finally arrived last Thursday, February the 10th.

A single guy delivered the tank. Both the outer rails of the pallet were gone and it was just balancing on the center rail, so I had to help the guy unload it from the truck using his pallet jack and a floor jack that I have. The way it had been loaded into the truck made it incredibly difficult to get out to the loading gate, and in the process we had to remove the center rail from the pallet. This turned out to be a good thing because the stand is packaged under the tank on the pallet. You have to lift the tank off the stand first. My plan was to lift the tank onto two furniture dollies, and with the center brace of the pallet gone the plywood base of the crate now could sit directly on the ground. This allowed the height of the bottom of the tank to be almost as the same height of the dollies, so all I had to do is basically move the tank straight across from the pallet to the dollies without having to lift it up or drop it down too much. For anyone interested, I got the Milwaukee dollys at U-Haul for $19.99 a piece.

To unpack this thing, move the tank to the dollies, and then build the stand, at least two strong people would be the best. Unfortunately, I didn't have anyone to give me a hand, so it can be done with one person, but I'm still pretty sore two days later. I'm 53 and in decent shape, so it can be done, but the more the merrier on this one. Anyway, I bought two sets of FCHO glass suction cups from Amazon ($25.99 per set of two) to lift and move the tank. I am really happy with the dollys and the suction cups, well worth the money.

After unpacking everything out of the tank, and removing all the sides of the crate, I managed to move the tank onto the dollies one side at a time. My God this thing is heavy. To unpack everything from the tank, it took me about 45 minutes. Then, to remove the sides of the crate, move the tank to the dollies, move the tank into my courtyard, unpack the stand, finish breaking down the crate and cleaning everything up, it took me about another hour. I will hire a LFS to place the tank on the stand and level it for me.

I then laid all the stand parts out and began putting it together. Some people have said that the instructions are bit hard to understand but I thought they are pretty straight forward. You do have to look at the diagrams really carefully to make sure you orient the pieces correctly, and in a couple of steps I found it helpful to look a couple steps ahead to make sure everything was oriented correctly. The only steps that had me stumped were steps 4 and 5. These steps have you attach part of the door hinges to two panels. They label the part as "L1" and the parts page shows two separate parts, "L1" and "L2" for the hinges, but in my parts box, I only had eight hinges. I couldn't for the life of me find the hinge base plate L1. I thought I was going to have to contact the retailer to let them know that I had parts missing. It turns out that L1 is packaged as already being connected to the L2 hinges though. You have to remove L1 from L2 to install L1. The instructions were not very clear about this. But for me, everything else was pretty easy to follow. You will also need to have a couple hand tools. Most of the screws have a torx bit head. You get two torx bits in the kit, but you need a screwdriver and/or power driver that can accept bits to be able to use the tools. A few screws are Phillips head, so you need a Phillips screwdriver too. It takes a bit of strength to get all the screws into the metal frame. To get the stand assembled to the point in the instructions where it says to place the tank on the stand, it took me about five hours.

My impressions of the tank are that it is very, very well made. The extra bracing everywhere gives me a lot of confidence that this will be very reliable. All the edges have been cut and polished perfectly, and all the silicon seems to be perfect. The glass is very clear, and they even used low iron glass on the back panel which is black, so they didn't really even need to. The quality of the sump and all the plumbing is also very high. I am also very, very impressed with the quality of the fit and finish of the stand. Anyone who has purchased furniture and things like that online that require assembly by the purchaser knows that the fit of a lot of that stuff is questionable. Holes don't line up, gaps between panels and parts, cheap hardware, and flimsy materials are not uncommon. However, every single hole on all this stand's parts lined up perfectly. Nothing had to be "massaged" into place. No gaps between the panels and the braces. The hardware is high quality stainless. The panels all seem to be real plywood instead of MDF. The door hinges are soft close. It's really a very high quality stand. There are cheaper options than Red Sea, and this is the first Red Sea tank that I have ever had, but in my opinion the premium quality of everything so far really justifies the premium price. No corners have been cut on anything to do with this tank, stand, sump, and plumbing. I have absolutely no complaints at this point.

If anyone has any questions, please let me know. I will try to do an update with pictures once a week as I go through the process of getting the tank fully set up, cycled, and then filled with life.

Enjoy!

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I just started reefing last year when I purchased a Red Sea 350 G2. I really got into the hobby quickly as my 350 is full of corals. So, during Reef A Palooza Texas ( 2023 ), I ordered a Red Sea S1000 G2. It's being delivered today, only 5 days after ordering. I liked your detailed pictures of the unpacking, etc. I purchased 3 dollies as it's going to be setting in the garage until my aquarium maintenance people can move my Red Sea 350 and set the S1000 up.
 

DCMW1

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Any updates? I've enjoyed reading this thread.
 

Mastering the art of locking and unlocking water pathways: What type of valves do you have on your aquarium plumbing?

  • Ball valves.

    Votes: 66 51.6%
  • Gate valves.

    Votes: 67 52.3%
  • Check valves.

    Votes: 32 25.0%
  • None.

    Votes: 29 22.7%
  • Other.

    Votes: 9 7.0%
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