Starting Back Again

[DanielWhite1990]

Hello All

15 years ago I kept a reef tank in Ireland. Since moving to America, I want to start back up.

What I wasn’t good at was maintenance and maintaining optimal water quality. I’m actually slightly color bling so matching up test kits was not my forte.

I’ve found a maintenance company who have been doing this for 35 years and they will install my tank and get everything going for me and provide ongoing maintenance so this is fantastic. They’ve given me a lot of confidence to crack on with it.

I was set on the Red Sea Max 350 REEFER G2+ but after reading reviews and listening to the failures but also their lack of customer service to deal with it, I don’t think I want to do this anymore.

I’ve been looking at Innovative Marine INT 100 and CADE 1500 S2 Reef. I’m sure both have pros and cons but I’d love to get opinions back. I’m concerned the innovative marine option have a very flimsy cabinet and this tank needs to last a long time.

I’m not the right guy for a build it yourself option but up for comments and thoughts.

Thanks and good to get back to the salty side.

Daniel

 

[Tahoe61]

Welcome back to the hobby Daniel.

Both brands are good tanks. You sound like you have doubts regarding the IM stand so I would lean towards the Cade.

Thankfully you did your research regarding Red Sea.

 

[Fish Fan]

Welcome to Reef2Reef and back to reef tanks!

I can only say that I have a several of the smaller Innovative Marine AIO tanks from 10-25 gallons, and I really like them. However, I can't comment on the quality of their stands as I've never had one. I will suggest that the larger IM tanks are quite popular here on R2R, and I've personally never seen a post where the stand failed, but I'm sure someone will have a story :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:

By reputation, both IM and Cade would be a good choice; Waterbox is another popular choice you may want to consider.

If needed, rather than DIY'ing a stand, consider having a local cabinet shop build you one. Another option is aluminum framed stands, where you can order complete kits and simply screw everything together.

Good luck with whatever you decide!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Honestly, you can't go wrong with either of those tanks; both are good options!

 

[DanielWhite1990]

Since I posted this I did a lot of soul searching and ordered a custom built 230G tank which is acrylic so I am getting that, I am beyond excited to have such a big reef tank!

 

[Fish Fan]

Since I posted this I did a lot of soul searching and ordered a custom built 230G tank which is acrylic so I am getting that, I am beyond excited to have such a big reef tank!

Awesome! Good luck!

 

[DanielWhite1990]

Cant wait to get it wet! If you were aquascaping and putting lifestock in this tank, what would make it your dream tank? Its 230G, 60 x 30 x 30"

 

[DanielWhite1990]

Getting wet soon! Just waiting for. The filter!

 

[BryanM]

Hello All

15 years ago I kept a reef tank in Ireland. Since moving to America, I want to start back up.

What I wasn’t good at was maintenance and maintaining optimal water quality. I’m actually slightly color bling so matching up test kits was not my forte.

I’ve found a maintenance company who have been doing this for 35 years and they will install my tank and get everything going for me and provide ongoing maintenance so this is fantastic. They’ve given me a lot of confidence to crack on with it.

I was set on the Red Sea Max 350 REEFER G2+ but after reading reviews and listening to the failures but also their lack of customer service to deal with it, I don’t think I want to do this anymore.

I’ve been looking at Innovative Marine INT 100 and CADE 1500 S2 Reef. I’m sure both have pros and cons but I’d love to get opinions back. I’m concerned the innovative marine option have a very flimsy cabinet and this tank needs to last a long time.

I’m not the right guy for a build it yourself option but up for comments and thoughts.

Thanks and good to get back to the salty side.

Daniel

Either of those tanks is a fine choice.

I would urge you to take more control of your tank, but if you are going to have someone else do it for the long run then thats that :) I would think this would be very expensive though.

If you take control: Get testing kits that give you numbers so you do not have to rely on trying to decipher colors.

I personally found the though of water changes to be too much for me to handle (especially with a 230 gallon system), so initially I went in to this knowing I would not be doing water changes. I landed on dosing All for Reef to accomplish this, and I've been quite successful.

 

[Biokabe]

Exciting! There's something immensely fun and rewarding about setting up new tanks. I sometimes (okay, always) wish I had the space and the money to just constantly set up new tanks.

Are you still contracting with a local store to maintain the tank? As an aside, if you struggle with matching up colors on test kits, consider picking up the Hanna checkers. Compared to when you last had a tank, they now have checkers that cover most of the important parameters, and the checker does the color matching for you, so no more squinting at a test tube and trying to figure out if it's in the 10-20 range or the 20-30 range.

Do you have a plan for stocking yet?