Rich’s Reefer 250

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They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, with that being said thank you to @Eight and @Butuz for the inspiration on this one. This isn’t my first reef tank but is the first one that I wanted to spend the money and do it right the first time. I live in Nassau County New York And ordered the Reefer 250 on May 2nd (arrived May 14) during the very rare Red Sea sale through Bulk Reef Supply(***side note*** I work in customer service and I have never dealt with a better company. Every issue that has has come up, every problem and question I have had been answered and resolved within minutes. I could not say nicer things about the people I have spoken to there***end side note***). Along with the Reefer 250 I ordered some Dr. Tims one and only, 55 pounds of Real reef solutions real reef rock, Cor-20 return pump and a 20 LB bag of Fiji Pink Arab Alive!. Everything but the Tank arrived on May 7th so I started this process by unpacking the rock and starting on the aquascape.

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The rock came in mediocre shape, a lot of Brocken pieces and chipped edges, after weighing what was usable it came to about 51 pounds of the 55 ordered(I hear they always ship more weight for this reason and If I weighed all the broken pieces it came to about 60 pounds.). I knew the risk when ordering it so the lose of a few pounds didn’t bother me.

Next was a few test runs on the aquascape to get an idea what my base/foundation will be and what the top rocks will look like.
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I still had a few days until the tank got to the house so I went out and bought a 20 gallon brute garbage pale, added about 10-15 gallons of RODI, the rock, and Dr tims, a cheap heater, and a circulating pump to start/continue the cycle on the live rock. I unfortunately don’t have any pictures of the process but in the end it all worked out. I dosed some ammonia throughout the week and ghost fed, checked the levels daily and it seem to have completed the cycle in 7-10 days.

After dealing with one of the worst shipping companies in America (XPO Logistics) the tank finally arrived on May 14th

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It arrived well packaged but the pallet was kind of busted up so I unpacked most of it in front of the driver to make sure it had no issues.

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Tank took a few hours to put together and level, Filled the tank overnight with water to test and make sure it wasn’t leaking.
 
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Long Island Reefer

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Next up dumped the sand into the tank and mixed a whole lot of Salt water, added the rock and started on the aquascape, after a few try’s I think I found one that I like but and feedback is greatly appreciated.

A562C6E6-3BD5-4E11-ADA7-FFA4C225B969.jpeg


612F0CF8-B2A9-4330-BF17-4740C0AD4F3C.jpeg


Set up the Cor-20 pump to the stock hoses and started to get the water moving through the tank. I had plans for the plumbing so it was all temporary.

This is when it started to get fun for me, ordered all PVC fittings from PVCfittingsonline.com (also great customer service, changed my order 3 times with no issues.) and started working on the plumbing underneath. Also Purchased 2 aquamaxx reactors online and a 200 watt BRS heater/controller.

8D0FD718-C32F-46B9-BF12-500B1E81A611.jpeg


I installed cheap strip LED’s under the tank and when they are on it makes the fittings look red but they are actually orange with black piping. I also through in some of the Rocks that came broken into the sump so it wasn’t a complete waste. Tank was fully cycled at this point and water levels were looking good.

B3198459-F78F-4D8A-81AD-482004B77D85.jpeg


Next up added some cheap chromis to the tank to get some waste and food going through the tank, I added 4 and they killed one overnight but the rest survived.

26F17B2B-A9C7-40E8-9F2D-22154D8B143A.jpeg
 
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Long Island Reefer

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The next day the Lights arrived, I ordered 2x Hydra 32’s with HMSSA mounts and a single Nero 5 Power head, After adding the lights the tank finally felt like it came alive, love the way the tanks looks with these lights on it.

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Had a spare Tunze ATO and container laying around(not the final one I want but good enough for now) and installed those, I also Bought a Nyos 120 Skimmer off of a member here and installed/tuned that.

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The clearance was tight with the reactors but thankfully everything fits with no issues and I am able to get to everything for maintenance.

When I started this whole project I knew what I wanted in the tank and planned for it, I ran in to some speed bumps but overcame them. One of the things I wanted to do was use the stock ATO as a Fuge but ran into several space issues with adding it above my sump. Long story short am going to externally plumb it to a cabinet on the side of the sump.

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Im not sure if anyone has tried to order anything from IKEA since COVID Started but I found it near impossible to get anything shipped to me, finally a few weeks ago retail stores were allowed to open and I was able to place an order for my cabinet and ATO container.

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I have leak tested the fuge with no issues, piping didn’t line up perfectly and maintenance would have been a pain with this pipe in the way so I added a few extra unions to it.
 
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Long Island Reefer

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A few of my coral from my other tank were starting to get beat up by a hungry peppermint Shrimp (didnt think this was the issue until I physically watched him going up to one of my hammers and start eating it.) so I was forced to move some over to the new tank(couldn’t catch the shrimp). My dragon soul torch ended up not making it because of how beat up he was but thankfully my hammer is making a comeback.

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I also started to catch the fish from the old tank, had a tough time with it, bought a trap but it didn’t work, and ended up waking up early one morning and catching a bulk of them that way. Fish made it over with no issues.

Next project was the Electrical for the tank, I couldnt justify going out and buying a full apex at this point in time so I did a little research and found a few Kasa Surge protectors that will do for now. They have a lot of functionality built in, I can check the energy use of each outlet at any given time, turn on or off outlets through WiFi and can even set up a schedule for each outlet which is perfect for the fuge light(tunze eco chicc).

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All in all I think the electrical looks pretty good, still have a few things to add but have plenty of room for expanding, moving the electrical from behind the tank has made it a breeze to feed and maintenance the tank.
 
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Next up dumped the sand into the tank and mixed a whole lot of Salt water, added the rock and started on the aquascape, after a few try’s I think I found one that I like but and feedback is greatly appreciated.

A562C6E6-3BD5-4E11-ADA7-FFA4C225B969.jpeg


612F0CF8-B2A9-4330-BF17-4740C0AD4F3C.jpeg


Set up the Cor-20 pump to the stock hoses and started to get the water moving through the tank. I had plans for the plumbing so it was all temporary.

This is when it started to get fun for me, ordered all PVC fittings from PVCfittingsonline.com (also great customer service, changed my order 3 times with no issues.) and started working on the plumbing underneath. Also Purchased 2 aquamaxx reactors online and a 200 watt BRS heater/controller.

8D0FD718-C32F-46B9-BF12-500B1E81A611.jpeg


I installed cheap strip LED’s under the tank and when they are on it makes the fittings look red but they are actually orange with black piping. I also through in some of the Rocks that came broken into the sump so it wasn’t a complete waste. Tank was fully cycled at this point and water levels were looking good.

B3198459-F78F-4D8A-81AD-482004B77D85.jpeg


Next up added some cheap chromis to the tank to get some waste and food going through the tank, I added 4 and they killed one overnight but the rest survived.

26F17B2B-A9C7-40E8-9F2D-22154D8B143A.jpeg
Build looks awesome!! I love the hard plumbing it came out really good
 

Phil D.

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Nice! looks good. I run the Hydra 26 HDs also on my Red Sea E-260, 65% UV, 68% blues, 0 red & green and 8% whites and get great growth. Suggest using Aquaforest Component 1-2-3 as the corals love it!

IMG_20200324_1751315.jpg
 
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Build looks awesome!! I love the hard plumbing it came out really good

Thanks! Hard plumbing it was a lot of fun and leaves me open to add and remove any number of things. Just wish I added a few more unions.

I just checked out your build thread, I love your scape! Awesome job
 
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Nice! looks good. I run the Hydra 26 HDs also on my Red Sea E-260, 65% UV, 68% blues, 0 red & green and 8% whites and get great growth. Suggest using Aquaforest Component 1-2-3 as the corals love it!

IMG_20200324_1751315.jpg

Thanks! I’m currently running my hydra 32’s at 118% uv, 101% v, 82% ry, 65% b, 5% g, 5%DR, 0% ml, and 20% cw which I believe is the brs recommended AB+.
There are so many options for dosing it’s overwhelming! I feel like every other day I’m changing which manufacture I want to use based in different recommendations. For the past 2 days though iv been set on using aquaforest.
 

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Thanks! I’m currently running my hydra 32’s at 118% uv, 101% v, 82% ry, 65% b, 5% g, 5%DR, 0% ml, and 20% cw which I believe is the brs recommended AB+.
There are so many options for dosing it’s overwhelming! I feel like every other day I’m changing which manufacture I want to use based in different recommendations. For the past 2 days though iv been set on using aquaforest.
AF component 1,2,3 is great. Been using that for a long time. consider buying ingredients and mix yourself with rodi, as it reduces cost by at least 3x.
 

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@Rhogan4 Great to see another Reefer 250!!! Subscribed. I have one too and love it. I also have a couple Kasa smart Wi-Fi power strips, they’re really nice but I wish they’re cords were longer. Where did you get the frag rack in post #5 with the orange boarder?
 

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@Rhogan4 Great to see another Reefer 250!!! Subscribed. I have one too and love it. I also have a couple Kasa smart Wi-Fi power strips, they’re really nice but I wish they’re cords were longer. Where did you get the frag rack in post #5 with the orange boarder?
It looks like an Oceanbox Glo frag rack to me
 
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AF component 1,2,3 is great. Been using that for a long time. consider buying ingredients and mix yourself with rodi, as it reduces cost by at least 3x.

Thanks for the heads up, that is the way I’m leaning now. What are you using to dose trace elements? Still tropic Marin a and k?
 

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Thanks for the heads up, that is the way I’m leaning now. What are you using to dose trace elements? Still tropic Marin a and k?

yep, TM A and K On two separate dosers. I also manually dose Iodine, Vanadium and Manganese twice a mont, since trace dosing can;t keep up with the needs for those. However, before you start adding anything outside of AF 1,2,3 and TM A and K traces, do a few ACP tests to see what you need. what you need extra and how much may be different due to your stocking and coral needs.
 
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Livestock update:
4 clown fish
3 chromis
2 fairy wrasse
1 mandarin
1 striped sleeper goby
1 purple firefish
(Think it’s overstocked? I’m thinking about adding a Midas blenny or one spot foxface)
Medium CUC

2x hammers
1 acan
4 zoas
2 GSP
1 clove polyp
1 bubble tip anemone
1 alveopora

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