Reef II: Finally doing a build thread

[Jfinn]

Better late than never - I’m 3 months into a new build and wanted to begin documenting some of the progress. My first tank is now almost 2 years old and is a 20 gallon IM AIO. She is still up until the new tank can house all of the inhabitants. This old reef turned out much more successful than I could have hoped, so time to graduate...

New Tank Specs
Red Sea Reefer 350 Mixed Reef
30-40lbs Live Rock
Sand Bed (because, well...)
Aquamaxx Cone S Q3 Skimmer
Current EFlux 6009 Return
Ecotec MP40 x 2
2x AI Prime HD 26s
2x Marine Pure Ceramic Block

She’s just getting started and I was trying to hold to the BRS 4-month Cycle as much as possible - basically waited for cycle to complete, ugly phase to wane, and coralline algae signs before adding coral.

FTS (Old):

FTS (New Build):

Current Params (new):

Next Steps:

- scape improvements
- move rest of IM20 over (rock/coral/fish)
- improve plumbing
- refugium partitioned in return chamber
- Tunze kalk reactor or 2 Part

Open to advice and input.

Jason

 

[Auquanut]

Nice tanks. Old and new. Doesn't look like there's a lot of room for a fuge in the return section. Might consider an ATS. I've heard some pretty good things about them, and I really like mine.

 

[Jfinn]

Update- more rock transferred, new rainbow bubble tip, and new fish (3 Lyretail Anthias).
Sorry for the lighting - full lights didn’t want to put on filter

Disco effect on full display

 

[strange33w]

coming along nicely.

 

[Shawn_epicurious]

Update- more rock transferred, new rainbow bubble tip, and new fish (3 Lyretail Anthias).
Sorry for the lighting - full lights didn’t want to put on filter

Disco effect on full display

Nice tank, nice setup. Everything is looking really good! This is obviously not your 1st picnic : )

Question (still learning) you sand is really deep compared to mine. Is that depth just aesthetic, or is there an advantage to that depth? It looks nice : )

 

[Jfinn]

Nice tank, nice setup. Everything is looking really good! This is obviously not your 1st picnic : )

Question (still learning) you sand is really deep compared to mine. Is that depth just aesthetic, or is there an advantage to that depth? It looks nice : )

Thank you. It’s aesthetic for me but the hobby did have a deep sand bed phase (DSB), where many reefers were aiming for denitrifying bacteria in a deeper sand bed where anaerobic (low oxygen) conditions were available.
I’ just dig the look ;-)

 

[Shawn_epicurious]

Thank you. It’s aesthetic for me but the hobby did have a deep sand bed phase (DSB), where many reefers were aiming for denitrifying bacteria in a deeper sand bed where anaerobic (low oxygen) conditions were available.
I’ just dig the look ;-)

It does look really cool : )

 

[acropora4u]

Nice reef