Jacked Reefer
Valuable Member
Alrighty, some back story. I am an aquarium enthusiast, I have had one in my house since I was 1 with almost no breaks. But unfortunately most have been freshwater. If feel like I’ve progressed to a point in fresh where I have two options. Convert my house into a dish breeding operation to cope with the amount of species I am buying, or tone it back and focus on something else for a bit.
Now I am not new to saltwater. I set up my first salt tank (De rimmed 10 gallon) in September of 2018 and about six months later upgraded to a Nuvo 20. Due to a lot of factors the tank fell into neglect, and a vacation for 2019 thanksgiving finally killed it. All coral and fish dead. I was a bit devastated despite being very lazy, and took a brief hiatus from saltwater.
On that same vacation I got a job offer from my lfs. Working there Allowed me to gain tons of knowledge and a decent sum of money burning a hole in my pocket. I was up to 8 freshwater tanks and hadn’t considered saltwater for a hot minute up until a couple months ago, when the store received a Red Sea reefer xl300 that I had to build. The build quality was spectacular, absolutely blew me away. And one thing I loved was the fact That it had a glass sump. If working at a fish store has taught me anything It is that acrylic scratches like nothing else and is annoying to work with to say the least. But enough of that. I had to get my hands on a Red Sea tank
Fast forward to today. After hours of planning at research as well as getting opinions from people at my job. I have now left imagination land and started making purchases.
As for the tank. I needed something small enough to move as I am going to college in a year. But big enough to have a sump and be a little stable. It's was originally going To be a reefer 170 black, But our distributor has been out of stock of those for a bit. So I decided to pull the trigger on a xl200 just today. This will arrive in almost exactly a week and I have already waited to long.
The goal for this system is an sps dominant tank with a diy bonsai structure in the middle. Chalices and montis on the bare bottom. And a high end lps Rock. I currently have around 30 pounds of dry rock (some of the old stuff harvested out of the ocean. But it was left outside after a rank downgrade and all died) in a bleach cure.
As for a formal equipment list this is what I have so far.
- AI hydra 64hd Black
- ReefOctopus 110-Int
- ReefOctopus 6in WasCollector
- Lifegaurd quiet one return pump
- x2 150w Aqueon Pro Heaters
- A bunch of nano circualtion pumps to clear off the bard botto
Equipment ordered and paid for but not yet received
- Red Sea Reefer xl200 Black
- x2 AI nero 5’s
- Brightwell biobrick that is curing in a friends tank for instant cycle
Planned equipment
- Aquaticlife t5 hybrid fixture 24 in black
- GHL 2.1 dosing pump
As you can see by my equipment list I am going for a system that requires only a moderate amount of matinence to keep up. And is virtually completely app controlled so I can really have a stable high tech reef even while I’m at school or on vacation. I did consider an aquarium controller for a bit but decided against that for the time being. Perhaps if I can make a few bucks from trimming the tank later on I will add the ghl. But for now the individual equipment is generally all controllable anyways.
If you’ve gotten this far into my essay I congratulate you. But here comes the good part. Planned fish and coral stocking. There are a few restrictions for my fish
1: They cannot max out under 2 inches. I absolutely love my gobies and barnacle blennies but these little nano fish are not in the cards due to horror stories of the Nero 5 meat grinders and my unwillingness to buy an anemone guard.
2: No sand fish. I don’t like sand in a reef tank. Period. And not even how much I love leopard wrasses will change my mind.
3: I will not be running a lid. I know how much you guys will disagree with me here. But I feel confident in my decision to not deface my tank due to the fact I work at and lfs that does not use lids on ANY of our tanks and the short list of jumpers that have resulted from it, these are hawk fish, six lines wrasses, Royal grammas, and fire fish. There have been no accounts of fairy wrasses, blennys, gobies, or any other kind of fish numbing from us or our customers. So onto the Fish list in order of fist to be added to last
3x Disbar Anthias
1x Pink Streak Wrasse
1x Black Comb-tooth blenny
1x African Flameback or Flame angel
1x Naokos or Ruby Longfin Wrasse
it’s not the craziest fish list you’ve ever seen but includes all my favorite fish we get into the store. And some we don’t.
I did touch on coral a while back and my plans for stocking but I realized how long this post has dragged out already and don’t want to bore you guys with specifics. Instead I will leave you with a teaser pic from my friends tank (the one who has my bioblock as well) and a coral he has on hold for me. Hope you guys will enjoy this build as Much as I am while it progresses. But for now, here’s a wild Aussie gold torch with green centers
Now I am not new to saltwater. I set up my first salt tank (De rimmed 10 gallon) in September of 2018 and about six months later upgraded to a Nuvo 20. Due to a lot of factors the tank fell into neglect, and a vacation for 2019 thanksgiving finally killed it. All coral and fish dead. I was a bit devastated despite being very lazy, and took a brief hiatus from saltwater.
On that same vacation I got a job offer from my lfs. Working there Allowed me to gain tons of knowledge and a decent sum of money burning a hole in my pocket. I was up to 8 freshwater tanks and hadn’t considered saltwater for a hot minute up until a couple months ago, when the store received a Red Sea reefer xl300 that I had to build. The build quality was spectacular, absolutely blew me away. And one thing I loved was the fact That it had a glass sump. If working at a fish store has taught me anything It is that acrylic scratches like nothing else and is annoying to work with to say the least. But enough of that. I had to get my hands on a Red Sea tank
Fast forward to today. After hours of planning at research as well as getting opinions from people at my job. I have now left imagination land and started making purchases.
As for the tank. I needed something small enough to move as I am going to college in a year. But big enough to have a sump and be a little stable. It's was originally going To be a reefer 170 black, But our distributor has been out of stock of those for a bit. So I decided to pull the trigger on a xl200 just today. This will arrive in almost exactly a week and I have already waited to long.
The goal for this system is an sps dominant tank with a diy bonsai structure in the middle. Chalices and montis on the bare bottom. And a high end lps Rock. I currently have around 30 pounds of dry rock (some of the old stuff harvested out of the ocean. But it was left outside after a rank downgrade and all died) in a bleach cure.
As for a formal equipment list this is what I have so far.
- AI hydra 64hd Black
- ReefOctopus 110-Int
- ReefOctopus 6in WasCollector
- Lifegaurd quiet one return pump
- x2 150w Aqueon Pro Heaters
- A bunch of nano circualtion pumps to clear off the bard botto
Equipment ordered and paid for but not yet received
- Red Sea Reefer xl200 Black
- x2 AI nero 5’s
- Brightwell biobrick that is curing in a friends tank for instant cycle
Planned equipment
- Aquaticlife t5 hybrid fixture 24 in black
- GHL 2.1 dosing pump
As you can see by my equipment list I am going for a system that requires only a moderate amount of matinence to keep up. And is virtually completely app controlled so I can really have a stable high tech reef even while I’m at school or on vacation. I did consider an aquarium controller for a bit but decided against that for the time being. Perhaps if I can make a few bucks from trimming the tank later on I will add the ghl. But for now the individual equipment is generally all controllable anyways.
If you’ve gotten this far into my essay I congratulate you. But here comes the good part. Planned fish and coral stocking. There are a few restrictions for my fish
1: They cannot max out under 2 inches. I absolutely love my gobies and barnacle blennies but these little nano fish are not in the cards due to horror stories of the Nero 5 meat grinders and my unwillingness to buy an anemone guard.
2: No sand fish. I don’t like sand in a reef tank. Period. And not even how much I love leopard wrasses will change my mind.
3: I will not be running a lid. I know how much you guys will disagree with me here. But I feel confident in my decision to not deface my tank due to the fact I work at and lfs that does not use lids on ANY of our tanks and the short list of jumpers that have resulted from it, these are hawk fish, six lines wrasses, Royal grammas, and fire fish. There have been no accounts of fairy wrasses, blennys, gobies, or any other kind of fish numbing from us or our customers. So onto the Fish list in order of fist to be added to last
3x Disbar Anthias
1x Pink Streak Wrasse
1x Black Comb-tooth blenny
1x African Flameback or Flame angel
1x Naokos or Ruby Longfin Wrasse
it’s not the craziest fish list you’ve ever seen but includes all my favorite fish we get into the store. And some we don’t.
I did touch on coral a while back and my plans for stocking but I realized how long this post has dragged out already and don’t want to bore you guys with specifics. Instead I will leave you with a teaser pic from my friends tank (the one who has my bioblock as well) and a coral he has on hold for me. Hope you guys will enjoy this build as Much as I am while it progresses. But for now, here’s a wild Aussie gold torch with green centers
