mikereefing
Active Member
- Joined
- May 17, 2020
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I just crossed my 2nd year being in the reefing hobby and I think it's time for another expensive project! Around New year's, I had the fortunate opportunity to pick up a used tank from a family friend who had left the hobby a few years ago. This was a Redsea Max E-260 with presumably the "sump upgrade". The tank was covered in dried vermetids, the usual dried coralline/gunk, and strangely a layer of black grease over every flat surface. For context, I have never purchased a large tank brand new and have always acquired used tanks because they're so much cheaper. My current system is a 66g tank that I purchased used as well. It grows my koji wada nephtheas/hammers/torches way too well and my acros are finally starting to take off after 2 years. Based on this, I wanted to make this new system into a SPS-dominanted system. Here's a picture of the redsea tank when I first got it:
I spent a week trying to scrub everything off manually and running vinegar and tap water through the system. A bunch of razor blades later and two ruined brushes later, I was able to get the black grease layer off or the bottom of the display and sump tanks. I have no idea what this gunk was but not even 3 days of vinegar or citric acid would loosen this gunk off.
I performed a leak test with the system and lo and behold...there was water leaking from all 3 pipes (drain, emergency drain, return). It looks like the tank sitting out in the air for the past 3 years has caused the O-rings to crack. I bought a set of aftermarket o-rings and luckily the leaks went away!
After cleaning up the tank, I got to work with my first draft of my rockscape. I used a combination of fiberglass rods and marco cement to get the overhangs to stick...but something was off about this design and it never sit well with me. This was how it looked like initially:
After days of trying to rearrange things, I decided to grab my chisel and destroy the entire rockscape into pieces. I watched the BRS video on NSA rockscapes and spent the next week with a bunch of superglue, insta-set, and cement to get to my final design. I am super happy with this design because it looks so different depending on the angle you're looking at. I wanted to take my experiences from my other two tanks and craft something that will make it easy for me to position SPS frags all along the rockwork. I also wanted a lot of overhangs to allow for adequate flow. Here's the end result from different angles.
I purchased another MP40 to match with the one that came with the used system so that I can have antisync'ed, random flow through the system. I absolutely hate noise so I'm running a jebao DCP-4000 (the quietest return pump I have ever owned). There is currently no skimmer running right now as the old octo skimmer hums more than I would like. I'm waiting for the aquamaxx skimmers to come back in stock (if they ever do...). For lighting, I slapped a couple of hydras to the back and plan on adding two T5 bars w/ ATI coral plus bulbs right between the two LEDs in the future. Here's the current result:
I'm using bottled bio-spira to get things going as well as some large pieces of the caribsea "live rock" that supposedly has bacterial spores to help with the cycle. Dosing ammonium chloride every couple of days to feed the bacteria. For sand, I'm running caribsea special grade live sand knowing that I'll be using a ton of flow in this system and special grade tends to not blow off as easily. Now it's currently cycling! Thanks for reading, will update as I go on.
I spent a week trying to scrub everything off manually and running vinegar and tap water through the system. A bunch of razor blades later and two ruined brushes later, I was able to get the black grease layer off or the bottom of the display and sump tanks. I have no idea what this gunk was but not even 3 days of vinegar or citric acid would loosen this gunk off.
I performed a leak test with the system and lo and behold...there was water leaking from all 3 pipes (drain, emergency drain, return). It looks like the tank sitting out in the air for the past 3 years has caused the O-rings to crack. I bought a set of aftermarket o-rings and luckily the leaks went away!
After cleaning up the tank, I got to work with my first draft of my rockscape. I used a combination of fiberglass rods and marco cement to get the overhangs to stick...but something was off about this design and it never sit well with me. This was how it looked like initially:
After days of trying to rearrange things, I decided to grab my chisel and destroy the entire rockscape into pieces. I watched the BRS video on NSA rockscapes and spent the next week with a bunch of superglue, insta-set, and cement to get to my final design. I am super happy with this design because it looks so different depending on the angle you're looking at. I wanted to take my experiences from my other two tanks and craft something that will make it easy for me to position SPS frags all along the rockwork. I also wanted a lot of overhangs to allow for adequate flow. Here's the end result from different angles.
I purchased another MP40 to match with the one that came with the used system so that I can have antisync'ed, random flow through the system. I absolutely hate noise so I'm running a jebao DCP-4000 (the quietest return pump I have ever owned). There is currently no skimmer running right now as the old octo skimmer hums more than I would like. I'm waiting for the aquamaxx skimmers to come back in stock (if they ever do...). For lighting, I slapped a couple of hydras to the back and plan on adding two T5 bars w/ ATI coral plus bulbs right between the two LEDs in the future. Here's the current result:
I'm using bottled bio-spira to get things going as well as some large pieces of the caribsea "live rock" that supposedly has bacterial spores to help with the cycle. Dosing ammonium chloride every couple of days to feed the bacteria. For sand, I'm running caribsea special grade live sand knowing that I'll be using a ton of flow in this system and special grade tends to not blow off as easily. Now it's currently cycling! Thanks for reading, will update as I go on.
