Red Sea Reefer XL 300 Build NSA (Second Tank)

scoger

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Starting a build thread for my new system. Currently have a BioCube 16 with a YWG, 2 Clowns and they need more friends and room for projects.

Hoping to build a NSA scape (first try at this)

Ordered
RedSea Reefer XL 300
2xRL 90 + arms - Lights
2xRW 25 - PowerHeads
1xRSK 300 - Protein Skimmer
ReefDose 2 - Dosing Head
Slide-out control panel 25
BRS 300W Titanium Heater (w/InkBird 306A)
Varios4 DC Pump
40# Special Grade Arag-Alive!
55# Marco Reef Rock
4# Marco Shelf
2 Marco Small Flats
BRS GFO/Carbon System (will not get turned on for some time)
Microbacter Dry Rock Bacteria Starter Kit


Going to go with rinsing the sand bed and rocks before install (you know after I destroy and glue back together the rocks) and hopefully get quick cycle to move little buddies and corals over to new system. Likely going to end up with some rock (XPORT_NO3) in the sump to help with bacteria

Assembly should start this weekend. Wish me luck!!!
 
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OK here we go.
First of all, Tom at Liquid Kingdom helped me order all the ReadSea stuff and I super appreciate it! Most of the extras for scape and what not came from BRS.

Once the WAY heavier than thought tank and stand were in the house and I thoroughly had the wife freaked out. It was time to start building.
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The stand went together nicely and had some nice features like plastic inserts where the pins go to prevent stripping, wood decay. If you've assembled IKEA furniture, you can build this AND it's higher quality than IKEA furniture. The stand can go together all by yourself, but putting the tank on top will take some assistance. Love how the tank fits on top of the stand the front edge floats above the doors and gives it a cool look.

Once the stand and tank were together, attaching the hard plumbing was next. All of the pipes in the overflow can be locked into place from the bottom and is really nice. Once these are in place, the routing of the remainder of pipe to the sump is next. Really simple and clicks into place with the included pipe clips.

While I was working on wiring and making the cabinet look nice, I also decided to torture myself with NSA and mostly with buying the wrong ind of super glue (thin) before obtaining the correct kind (gel). Breaking the Marco rock was pretty satisfying. I had a cardboard mock stubbed out of the tank and attempted to use a decent amount of rock, give it some height, and space. Aside from arms randomly falling off because I looked at them sideways, this was actually kinds of fun. You'll notice that the finished scape is a bit different than what I had planned because that left to right arm fell off one day and I attached it on the wrong section of the base. Changed stuff a bit. Once I had the design kind of set, it was Thick Peanut butter Mortar Time. I used that consistency for most of the joints and had pretty good luck. Wetting the joints before the mortar does help, but the one thing that Ryan forgets to talk about is all that sweet Marco Rock dust you just created to cover the joints. He used sand in his demo, but I used the dust from the broken rocks on a LOT of the joints and then got tired of doing it. That's why you'll set some covered joints and some naked joints as well. Once all the mortar was set, time to go into the tank.

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Once it was time to set up the display, I did rinse the sand first before adding to the display. I places each 20lb bag of sand in a 5 gallon bucket and added RO water, swished it around and poured out the dust as best I could. I didn't have an industrial size sieve to use, but I did get a lot of nasty out of the sand.
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Wiring the cabinet was actually fairly easy and I still have some left to do because the pump, skimmer and doser are not in yet. I chose the TrippLite power strip with the OPTIMAL power switches and then wire managed the crap out of everything to try and make it look clean, keep maintanable, and route in drip loops. The toughest part of this whole thing was getting the ReefWave and ReefLED to connect to the 2.4Ghz WiFi in the house. The AP on this floor is on the other side of the house and apparently the antenna in these devices is pretty weak. Ultimately they work and they are on my "SmartDevices" WiFi. I have a complicated WiFi life :)
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Once I had everything ready to go, time to add water. 2 Trips to the LFS for water and a lot of leg-day movement, we had a full sump (with an improvised Sicce 1.5 pump doing it's job until the real pump shows up) and a full display. Added the Microbacter and seed material last night to a somewhat cloudy setup. Will be testing today with the ammonia kit to see next steps. Thinking about adding one of the rocks from the BioCube 16 to this sump to help the biome grow faster. Today, the display is much less cloudy than last night.
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So far no problems other than I am going to need another power strip and gotta figure out what to do with the filter socks (socks, filter floss, nothing) etc. Getting exciting!!!!
 

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scoger

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Tested ammonia yesterday and still at 2ppm. Getting flow in the down pipe consistent is a bit tricky, but I think mostly because I have an undersized pump until the real one shows up.

Also, I made a mistake with the InkBird 306A (becasue I didn't read the directions) I didn't put both probes in the sump and at 3:30 AM I got Beepy McBeeperson becasue the two probes were different temps. Now both probes in the sump. One in the skimmer chamber and one in the pump chamber (pump chamber low alert maybe...)
 
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Got my Varios4 pump and RedSea Skimmer 300 this weekend and got them installed.

The Varios got turned down to 3 to make flow work optimally (higher and it runs the sump dry, lower not enough flow) The only trouble I had is with the float switch. Doesn't seem to go deep enough into the sump to be at the right height and has a tendency to thrash when water level is low. Off, sump fills and ATO stops, on sump empties. This can happen quickly.

The protein skimmer is my first foray into this piece of equipment so working on learning here. Washed the skimmer parts with vinegar/water, assembled and installed into the sump. I'm not planning on running it regularly since I'm still cycling, but when I turn it on, it's a bit noisy AND is overflowing. Saw somewhere that I need to tighten the bubble plate to make it more quiet. Not sure how to address the over-skimming outside of letting it spit overflow everywhere for some period of time. Also, read that I need to raise the skimmer out of the sump (or perhaps lower the water level in the skimmer chamber), but Need to test some stuff.
 

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Tank looks fantastic.
it will take some time to get adjusted with the return valve and the skimmer air intake. It’s fine if the skimmer is overflowing in the beginning , keep the outlet pipe from skimmer cup on, and aimed at the sump. This way water will go back to the tank till the skimmer breaks in. A few days use the air intake knob to adjust the skimming. It will depend on water level, so make sure you have ato.

take it slowly , you are off to a great start. I have the exact same tank , and learning as I go :)
 
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Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate cycle finished last weekend so tank got some new inhabitants. Clowns, a few snails, a crab, and most of the coral moved from the old tank to the new spacious apartment. They still haven't ventured too far from the back corner and that hammer is in the wrong place, but it's getting there. The YWG is moving in next weekend and it fish shopping weekend!!!! Anyone have and good go to utility fish. I'm thinking blue tang but I don't know what else.
 

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Update:
Installed the RedSea top net kit and figured out how to run the RSK 300 in break in mode;

RSK 300 Break in: Set water level in the reactor chamber to the bottom of the water level mark (Its the jolly cnady red sticker on the adjustment handle), open the drain tube and point back into the sump, and pop the lid off a little bit so the excess foam just overflows instead of exploding out the normal top lid holes. The top lid holes make a salty mess due to the pressure, whereas if you raise the lid a bit, it just kind of overflows. (it's at the point now, 2 weeks in, where it's just barely running too wet. I suspect in another week it'll be good to go.

Netting build: Not too bad, but I have a chop saw with a metal cutting blade and that made it MUCH easier. RedSea doesn't actually have the dimensions for a XL 300, but the 200 I think was pretty close. There is a reason I pay people to install window and door screen into the frame.... All built with only tiny gaps but the overflow.

Added some new friends: Cleaner Shrimp, Royal Gamma, Whipfin Fairy Wrass, Molly Miller Blenny, Longnose Hawkfish.
Yesterday I found the Blenny ON TOP OF THE NETTING. I don't know how they got there, but was crispy when I found it. :(

Still battling the Browns at the moment, only on the rock, not the sand bed. All params look stable at this time, ALK a little low, but all in all everything is good!

Last Measurements:
Phosphate: .02 mgL
Nitrite: .05ppm
Nitrate: 2ppm
Ammonia: 0
Salinity: 1.026 (working on lowering)
Alk: 7.6 dKH
Calcium: 440 ppm
Mag: 1600 ppm (I may have messed this test up...)
 
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Annnnd the Royal Gamma died..... Bad week. :(

Salinity started creeping up and got to 1.0265 as tested this morning. I removed 2qt of water from DT and added back 2qt RO and we are back at 1.025 (will be testing this with water changes going forward as I suspect that's what got me.

Tested params and everything seems to be in the right place.
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0.025ppm
Nitrate: 2ppm

Must have been salinity issue or fight or starvation.....(working on adding more food for the crew, but slowly adding more as to not spike the above)

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Lost a little buddy today.
My clowns got sick and I noticed what everyone is thinking is brook, mostly on one of them. Lots of pics and videos attached here. Somehow I think this picture makes it look worse than he actually appeared, because it didn't look like this in real life....
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Had to emergency set up a hospital tank and thankfully I have a 10G that used to be a fresh water tank. That got hypo salinity water and raised the temp a bit. Took both fish and did a fresh water (RO) dip for 5 minutes each then got them in the hospital. I didn't have any meds on hand other than stress reducer and so I ordered ParaGuard but it hasn't made it here yet.




Both fish were doing OK on Sunday and Monday and even early this morning were moving around. When I went down to feed them this morning, one had died.


This sucks and it's a really important thing I haven't really learned about yet. How to identify and treat sick fish. I've had these this clown for a year and hopefully I can save the second.
 
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Funny, not funny, you should ask. The other clown made it to yesterday and gave up the ghost this morning. I lost the lawn mower blend last week, he was fat and happy on Wednesday and skinny/crab munched on Sunday. Right about now is the point where I’m thinking I’m not good enough to keep these little guys. The fairy wrasse, long nose hawk fish, YWG still remain, but given the mortality of everyone else, I suspect they won’t last long. Trying my hardest to keep everyone rolling, but this stinks.
 

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