Zach's Reefer 250

[zromano]

Hey everyone! Been lurking here for a while and posted here and there. About a year ago I began my reefing journey and started with a 32g Biocube. Great first tank and have had some successes and failures with it. Taught me a lot about the hobby and I'm ready to take the next step - so I'm upgrading! I'm purchasing a used reefer 250 on Saturday and wanted to get my build thread up and going. I'll continuously update the photos on the top portion of this thread and try to provide intermittent updates as I progress. There's a lot of items I don't currently have and a lot that I will be adding later. As time progresses and I upgrade equipment I'll also try to reflect that here. Any feedback is much appreciated, especially regarding cycling this tank!

Tank: Red Sea Reefer 250 [White]

Sandbed: Bare bottom tank

Lighting: 2x AI Prime 16HD [White]

Flow: 1 x AI Nero 5 and 1 x misc. pump from my Biocube 32

Controller: To be purchased later

Rock: Dry rock purchased from LFS

Protein Skimmer: Bubble Magus Curve 5 [Purchasing in a few weeks]

Return Pump: Ecotech Vectra M2

ATO: Tunze Osmolator 3155

Sump: Trigger Systems Triton v2 26"

Dosing: To be purchased later

Tank Goal: To have a high flow system with large amounts of SPS (specifically acropora)

Current Livestock [Fish]: 2 x Clownfish, 1 x Purple Fire Fish - fish not in system yet, waiting to cycle

Current Livestock [Coral]: Hammer coral, candy cano blasto, two sets of unidentified zoanthids, montipora, mushroom coral


None of my livestock is in the tank because it's not set up and cycled yet. I'm buying my live rock from my LFS and it's using saltwater to keep the bacteria alive, but not cycled saltwater. I have bacteria to seed the tank and do not want to use the old live rock from my previous tank because of bryopsis issues and dinos or cyno in my current biocube.

My question is this: given that I'm not going to be using live sand, how soon is too soon to be adding my fish and, ultimately, my corals? Which should I add first?

Can't wait to get this started!!

Updated photo:

 

[Sailfin11]

If you haven't bought your rock yet, I would recommend getting dry ReefSaver rock from BRS; this way, you can start off with clean rock and no pests. It is also MUCH easier to aquascape with dry rock than live. After you fill the tank with saltwater, I would recommend about 6 weeks of ghost feeding before adding your first fish. Then, maybe at the 3-month mark, you can add your coral. It sounds like you have a nice system planned out!

 

[saan1wu4]

The time needed for a tank to cycle varies so the best way is to just test your water almost everyday to check where your ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates levels are like.

Here's a general guide from reef builders:

Beginners Guide To ‘Cycling’ A Saltwater Aquarium | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

No we don’t mean strapping your tank to a bike and taking it for a spin! Cycling your saltwater aquarium is a critical process all aquariums must endure before they are ready to be populated with fish…

reefbuilders.com

Here's a thread about cycling:

Cycling an Aquarium

Cycling a new aquarium. One of the earliest topics a new aquarium hobbyist needs to learn is how to properly cycle their aquarium. There is a ton of information on this process and many different methods on how to accomplish it. There are many different chemical and biological cycles our tank...

www.reef2reef.com

Hope this helps! Good luck!

 

[zromano]

Thanks everyone for the great advice so far! I’ll give you an update of where I’m at:

I’m currently traveling for Thanksgiving so what better way to start a tank that just needs left alone? I just bought a Tunze Osmolator 3155 for auto top offs. I had large variances in my salinity in my Biocube I currently have and I equate most of that to my failure of ATO. Hoping this is a good system and works well for me.

Before leaving for Thanksgiving I dosed ammonia and the live nitrifying bacteria to get my tank kickstarted. I also added in a small bag of live sand to help with the process. That sand will be siphoned out in a few months, I wanted that in there to give some additional surface area for the bacteria to adhere to.

I bought the AI Hydra 5 and it’s working great. The AI Prime lights are great too and I plan on running one of the signature series modes on those once my tank is ready for lighting.

I’ll have a ton of questions relating to moving my existing livestock over to the new tank and will seek some advice here over the next few days. In the interim, here’s my tank photos updated:

 

[powers2001]

@zromano just a heads up. Once you start seeing some patches of algae and you're thinking about a clean-up-crew hold it right there!! You will have to feed your CUC some fish food. The initial cycle produces micro algae (slime) has very little digestible nutrition especially for hermit crabs (meat eaters). The experts claim you don't want to have more than 3 algae eating snails per 25 gallons of display tank.

This is my ranting and pet peeve. Too many people jump the gun getting a CUC and they sadly starve to death.

 

[zromano]

@zromano just a heads up. Once you start seeing some patches of algae and you're thinking about a clean-up-crew hold it right there!! You will have to feed your CUC some fish food. The initial cycle produces micro algae (slime) has very little digestible nutrition especially for hermit crabs (meat eaters). The experts claim you don't want to have more than 3 algae eating snails per 25 gallons of display tank.

This is my ranting and pet peeve. Too many people jump the gun getting a CUC and they sadly starve to death.

Great advice! I won't be adding more than 6 snails into the tank and will not be adding crabs to this tank fortunately.

I'm progressing through the cycle nicely. My ammonia is almost down to zero so next step is to wait for the nitrite to drop to zero. At that point I'll do a 10% water change. What I'll do next is to dose ammonia back up to 1-2 PPM and wait to see if that dosage turns from ammonia to nitrite to nitrate in a 24 hour time period. If so, I'll begin adding my first fish to the tank.

A few questions:

• I'm transferring corals from my old tank. This tank had issues with bryopsis and most recently dino. I'm doing well with both, dosed the bryopsis away mostly and the dinos are working away through UV and dosing vibrant over an 8 week period. This tank is eventually going to be broken completely down. I have a ton of zoanthids on a rock that I'd like to get moved over, though. How do I do this without introducing algae and dinos into my new tank?
• Corals adjusting to new lighting: I am massively upgrading my lighting from the old tank (baseline Biocube 32g) so the corals should love the new LED lighting I have on this tank. I'll put them under the lighting and acclimate them over a 20-30 day period. After this first batch of corals are loaded in (shouldn't take long) how do I bring in new corals? Do I also turn the lights on acclimation mode or is this something I shouldn't even worry about? I would think it would hurt my current corals to get less lighting once they're in the new tank during that new coral's acclimation period.

 

[zromano]

Progressing well through the process. Nitrite is still high and nitrate is high. The process between converting nitrite to nitrate is taking longer than I’d like but I’m remaining patient. I could use some guidance on the two questions above, though!

 

[zromano]

Tank Update:

I'm finally on the very end of the cycle! It's been difficult being patient but I'm almost fully cycled. My final nitrites are reducing to zero and my nitrate is being held in check in the interim by water changes and some chaeto I've had in my refugium for the past week or so.

Pods Galore:
I've added some pods to the tank and have begun feeding them as well. Haven't had any issues with nutrients in the tank during the cycle either. I have been cycling this with my lights fully off.

Addition of first live stock:
I'm very torn on this and could use some feedback. I'm working on a Red Sea Reefer 250. 54 gallons in the display, about 6-8 in the sump. I'm interested in adding a yellow tang first, I have two clown fish and a purple fire fish in my other tank I will be adding after a few weeks. I realize there could be a size of tank issue with the tang but have seen many people keep a yellow tang in a tank this size - thoughts?

Another option for me would be adding blue tang into the tank. My LFS has many that are about 1" so it would do well in this tank for about a year. After that there's no doubt in my mind I would most likely need to sell this fish and potentially restock with a new, smaller tang (think this would be kind of cool to do over and over again?). What are your thoughts on yellow tang versus blue tang? Neither? Either one?

 

[zromano]

Tank Update - 12/18/19

As of today I have transferred over my two clown fish, have a new yellow tang, and have transferred over a few corals:

• Hammer Coral
• Candy cane coral
• Three zoas
• Montipora coral
• Hollywood Stunner

Reason for transferring these is really related to the failure of my Biocube 32. The conditions in that tank were impairing these corals so much that it was worthwhile transferring them and risking total loss in a new system compared to the old. This new system allows for me to manage my nutrients significantly easier and has an ATO (THANK GOD).

The Ugly Stage
I've reached the ugly stage of my tank's growth (I believe). I never had this phase in my last tank so this is new to me. Ironically enough you'll see in the photos that the diatoms on the sand bed and white dry rock are only where the light is located. I'm using David Saxby's lighting and the corals seem to really enjoy it but want to make sure it's not the lighting that's causing this and is the natural progression? Any feedback is appreciated.

Next Up:
I'll be posting my full set up of my ATO, triton method sump (not full triton method, yet), powerheads, and corals in the light. First off I'll need to finish the transfer of my old tank which includes a Purple Firefish!

Any feedback is appreciated!

 

[noobreefer2]

Got an update? Looks great!