Frenzel
Community Member
The journey finally begins!!
My wife and I have talked about getting a tank for years and nearly got one in our last house but there was never quite the ideal position to put it.
Fast forward, we moved house and kinda of left the furniture where we placed it when we moved in a couple of years ago. Still no place for a tank.
However, thanks to some extra time at home recently, we decided to have a rethink about how the house was working as is, and tried some different rearrangements to a large chunk of the house for a bit of a change. Amazingly, and coincidentally after all this we were left with a reasonably sized chunk of wall in the living room that was looking a little bare and needed a feature. Operation “should of bought a bookcase” was born!
We talked about getting a freshwater setup for their ease of maintenance and cheaper setup, but the appeal just wasn’t there. We had a tropical tank before but the experience of creating a marine ecosystem just seems so much more interesting and exciting as a long term journey. Salt it was then! This will be our first foray into saltwater so there’s bound to be some rookie moves.
I’d been eyeing a Red Sea tank for years, so it was just a matter of selecting the right size and the reefer 425xl was decided on after going to a lfs to compare some displays. The world being what it is at the moment, unfortunately I found out that in Australia at least, these were hard to get a hold of for the foreseeable future as we wanted one in white.
After chatting with my lfs, I found out the new aqua one tanks (Reefsys range) were in-bound soon. Unlike their aquareef packages (which I had also researched as a possibility) these are without any electrical equipment and are rimless and come packaged basically with the same setup as the RedSea reefer series with a much keener price. Whilst this 326 compares more fairly to the Red Sea 350, it’s $900 less and $1400 less than the 425xl I had in mind.
There’s only 1 review or really any mention of it from an owner online that I could find, and this was favourable so I took the risk knowing that I now had some newly found budget to play with on any sump upgrades and other equipment if there were any issues.
I was told it was going to take till the end of July as part of an existing pre-order which would give me some time to build up my equipment. However, the day after I paid my deposit I get a phone call to say the shipment arrived to everyone’s surprise. So much for the kit shopping and research over the weekend. It was building time instead now.
Long story, still longish, I got it home and with the help of my wife and a few fairly tense (read totally OMG) moments have it all unpacked and on the assembled cabinet.
Assembly was fairly straight forward to anyone used to flat pack, so really nothing remarkable to report. The fit was quite good. Thankfully the finish for this white model is quite nice too which given this was a previously unseen purchase was a relief! Not full gloss, more of a semi gloss white.
It needs to be levelled properly yet. We have rough slate floors which are a nightmare in this situation. This cabinet doesn’t have adjustable feet unlike the reefers, so not sure if shim or new feet are a better option yet. I’ve used folded packing tape as shims in the meantime to stop it rocking about, but need something more permanent.
On the tank it self, everything seems well put together. The glass is ~12mm (have to measure) and good quality (no to low green). I have noticed a small variation in the edge of the silicon at the bottom of the front seal (pics to follow). It’s minor, but once you see it! Not sure if this is a structural problem to be concerned about yet, but if not, a sharpie could be the visual fix I need. Will post some pics soon and get some opinions.
The central overflow on this tank is trapezoidal rather than rectangular. Think it looks nicer and might help flow around it. I’m not sure about being able to buy a tank cover which will fit snugly around this overflow shape though as they all seem to come with right angled joins. High on the list is preventing fish jumping out, so want this to be resolved before fish move in.
The overflow comes with a cover, however this is slightly too small and useless as it keeps falling down the back after placing it there a couple of times already. I’ll probably end up getting some acrylic to cut for the tank lid around the overflow, so could use some off cuts to fix this at the same time.
The sump is fairly well laid out. There are two drains with a gate valve on the main. It has a small ATO chamber (11 litres I believe) which really seems too small to be useful so is probably a waste of space. The only review online of the tank I’ve seen had already removed this so may copy that.
The pair of downpipes feeds into a pair of inline filter socks with plastic diffusers on them. The refugium, skimmer and return sections are separated by height adjustable baffles with three brackets to change the division of size between the skimmer and fuge.
I will post some photos of tank and sump soon. Still haven’t got the doors on as want to have a bit of freedom yet if I need to move things around a little easier for the levelling.
I’m still trying to finialise my equipment list, but right now I don’t know enough to know what it is I don’t know enough about There are lots of parts out of stock in the country, so may have to comprise on some but will see how my patience plays.
My wife and I have talked about getting a tank for years and nearly got one in our last house but there was never quite the ideal position to put it.
Fast forward, we moved house and kinda of left the furniture where we placed it when we moved in a couple of years ago. Still no place for a tank.
However, thanks to some extra time at home recently, we decided to have a rethink about how the house was working as is, and tried some different rearrangements to a large chunk of the house for a bit of a change. Amazingly, and coincidentally after all this we were left with a reasonably sized chunk of wall in the living room that was looking a little bare and needed a feature. Operation “should of bought a bookcase” was born!
We talked about getting a freshwater setup for their ease of maintenance and cheaper setup, but the appeal just wasn’t there. We had a tropical tank before but the experience of creating a marine ecosystem just seems so much more interesting and exciting as a long term journey. Salt it was then! This will be our first foray into saltwater so there’s bound to be some rookie moves.
I’d been eyeing a Red Sea tank for years, so it was just a matter of selecting the right size and the reefer 425xl was decided on after going to a lfs to compare some displays. The world being what it is at the moment, unfortunately I found out that in Australia at least, these were hard to get a hold of for the foreseeable future as we wanted one in white.
After chatting with my lfs, I found out the new aqua one tanks (Reefsys range) were in-bound soon. Unlike their aquareef packages (which I had also researched as a possibility) these are without any electrical equipment and are rimless and come packaged basically with the same setup as the RedSea reefer series with a much keener price. Whilst this 326 compares more fairly to the Red Sea 350, it’s $900 less and $1400 less than the 425xl I had in mind.
There’s only 1 review or really any mention of it from an owner online that I could find, and this was favourable so I took the risk knowing that I now had some newly found budget to play with on any sump upgrades and other equipment if there were any issues.
I was told it was going to take till the end of July as part of an existing pre-order which would give me some time to build up my equipment. However, the day after I paid my deposit I get a phone call to say the shipment arrived to everyone’s surprise. So much for the kit shopping and research over the weekend. It was building time instead now.
Long story, still longish, I got it home and with the help of my wife and a few fairly tense (read totally OMG) moments have it all unpacked and on the assembled cabinet.
Assembly was fairly straight forward to anyone used to flat pack, so really nothing remarkable to report. The fit was quite good. Thankfully the finish for this white model is quite nice too which given this was a previously unseen purchase was a relief! Not full gloss, more of a semi gloss white.
It needs to be levelled properly yet. We have rough slate floors which are a nightmare in this situation. This cabinet doesn’t have adjustable feet unlike the reefers, so not sure if shim or new feet are a better option yet. I’ve used folded packing tape as shims in the meantime to stop it rocking about, but need something more permanent.
On the tank it self, everything seems well put together. The glass is ~12mm (have to measure) and good quality (no to low green). I have noticed a small variation in the edge of the silicon at the bottom of the front seal (pics to follow). It’s minor, but once you see it! Not sure if this is a structural problem to be concerned about yet, but if not, a sharpie could be the visual fix I need. Will post some pics soon and get some opinions.
The central overflow on this tank is trapezoidal rather than rectangular. Think it looks nicer and might help flow around it. I’m not sure about being able to buy a tank cover which will fit snugly around this overflow shape though as they all seem to come with right angled joins. High on the list is preventing fish jumping out, so want this to be resolved before fish move in.
The overflow comes with a cover, however this is slightly too small and useless as it keeps falling down the back after placing it there a couple of times already. I’ll probably end up getting some acrylic to cut for the tank lid around the overflow, so could use some off cuts to fix this at the same time.
The sump is fairly well laid out. There are two drains with a gate valve on the main. It has a small ATO chamber (11 litres I believe) which really seems too small to be useful so is probably a waste of space. The only review online of the tank I’ve seen had already removed this so may copy that.
The pair of downpipes feeds into a pair of inline filter socks with plastic diffusers on them. The refugium, skimmer and return sections are separated by height adjustable baffles with three brackets to change the division of size between the skimmer and fuge.
I will post some photos of tank and sump soon. Still haven’t got the doors on as want to have a bit of freedom yet if I need to move things around a little easier for the levelling.
I’m still trying to finialise my equipment list, but right now I don’t know enough to know what it is I don’t know enough about There are lots of parts out of stock in the country, so may have to comprise on some but will see how my patience plays.
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