Ged's reef, Red Sea reefer 350 build thread

[geddavis]

Hi, all this is my first build thread but not my first build. this reefer 350 will be replacing my old 50-gallon custom tank that has recently sprung a leak. I plan this to be a mixed reef mainly focusing on LPS and softies like zoanthids and favias along with some SPS mainly birds nest and one or two Acros. in the sump I will be runing 3 jeabo pumps a dp-2 3 and 4. the dp-2 will be on continuous water change of 10 gallons. the dp-3 will dose calk alk and mag. the dp-4 will run red sea coral colors. I may also add an extra doser for my phyto farm and other adetives/medications. I will be using the hydor smart ATO and the hydor smart wave controller. I will be using a GFI power strip and apex. my heater will be a jaguar 150w x2. for lighting I will use either 2x kesile a360 or 2x AI. my skimmer will be a vertex 250. I also am planning on a refugium chamber built out of egg crate and a cheap led waterproof grow light from Amazon. outside there will be a single chamber mixing station of 100 gallons with a powerhead and a heater. my return pump will be an Echo-tech mp1. my substrate will be Fiji pink and rock work will be cured pukani (I am curing it now) and a mix of other random rocks from my other tanks. my current fish stocking list is a coral beauty angle, hawkfish, snowflake eel, yellow tang, toby puffer, possum wrasse and maby a yellow tang. when everything matures I plan on adding a mandarin. I know this list is way too much for the reefer 350 but those are the ones I want most and also I will have to test out the toby puffer and the coral beauty in QT to see if they eat coral and if so send them back to the LFS. any suggestions for a cheap ATO reservoir that looks nice? also, give me some feedback and suggestions overall down below.
I already ordered the tank and received almost everything except for two of the dosers some extra dosing fluid the mixing tank and the lighting along with some marine pure.

PS the tank arrives Monday
PPS sorry for any Grammer mistakes I make a lot of those

 

[James M]

Following along for the build. I would be most concerned about the puffer and coral, the CB is most likely going to ignore the coral but everyfish is different.

 

[geddavis]

Yes I know how challenging finding a puffer that dose not eat coral can be. I just reall want a puffer They were my first fish in the hobby and my favorite one. It might not work out but I can’t help but try.

 

[geddavis]

Hi everyone the last two days have been a lot of work but finally the tank is filled and aqua scaled with some rock I have been curing for the past few months.

The packaging was impressive and the shipping was ok. The sump came inside the main tank and the RO reservoir was inside the sump. This made for a fun little bubushka doll like unboxing. Overall very impress with the packing of the tank it even came with a custom made pallet.

The cabinet was like an ikea furniture but with three times the normal amount of connectors. I absultly love the cabinet. It looks nice however the doors are a pain to aline and the opening mechanism is pretty cheap and flimsy. The inside has two compartments one for a chiller/electronics the other for the sump. The sump fits perfectly into its slot there is no way to make it any bigger. The electronics area is awesome for mounting controllers and dosing pumps. I even put a photo farm in it. It is perfect for making sure there is no chance of your electronics falling into the water or even getting wet.

I also love the sump disighn. I got the v3 sump and every thing about it is perfectly disighned and made. One detail I love is how the beffwels are held on with dots of silicon instead of a line allowing for better visibillity into the sump. My few complaints are how dark it is and that the overflow is a pain to adjust and get right.

The main display is super clear and makes everything inside look way better than any tank I have owned. I did not think extra clear glass would really change anything but it actually made a huge difference. The silicone on the edges is also super strait and consistent and done in a way so it is not even obvious it is there.

My vectra s1 pumpwas probeblly the biggest problem with the build as its power block randomly shut down intill I pushed the cord in really hard and taped it up. I need a new power brick. Another pain was mixing a hudred gallons of water all at once. Let me just say a hundred gallons of water is not twice as hard to mix as 50 but rather more like 4x as hard mainly because a was using a million old pumps and 2 twenty five gallon coolers for mixing.

Overall though a love this tank and can’t wait to start stocking it and see how it evolves. Here are the pics.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Congratulations! Looks excellent!

 

[geddavis]

Hi everyone just want to talk about my near tank crash today. So today I added in some corals a clown and a cleaner shrimp along with a small cuc ie two snails. Any ways befor I started aclimation I tested my water and double checked temp and salinity. I used a swing arm and a refractometer to meseaure the salinity. They were really difrent so I assumed my old swing arm was Brocken and trusted my refractometer I had just calibrated. Anyways it said my salinity was way low and so I mixed up some super salty water and added it to raise my salinity. My refractometer read that it was just right and so I aclemated everything and added it. However right after I added the fish they slowly started to act very strange and so I went into my apex to find my salinity was sky high. Frantically I started adding in tons of prefillterd RO water and siphoning out the old water. The only way for me to check the salinity was with the apex probe wich only updated once every 10 minutes. Finally the salinity was right. Sadly I had 2 corals die and the cleaner shrimp die. Moral of the story don’t buy a $10 refractometer off of amazon instead get something high quality that won’t fail you. I personally am going to get a Red Sea refractometer.

 

[geddavis]

Hay guys I am going to Reno California today I may be picking up two kessils a360s at one of my favorite fish stores Strictly Reef. Anyways even if I don’t pick anything up I want to show there awesome display tank.

 

[geddavis]

Hay everyone. Today is when my algae really started to bother me. I have a sand bed coverd in Dinos and green hair algae poping up every where. So today I am doing a 72 hour black out period and buying some hydrogen peroxide. Also my birds nest started bleaching due to the transition from tank to tank. I divided to chop it up into five frags and place them all over the tank. Three are coming back and looking good, one died, and one is on the way out. The three that are doing good are in high light and flow areas. Any ways I’ll update about the algae after the blackout.

 

[geddavis]

My algae went away and scraped out the green hair algae. However soon the Dino’s came back stronger than ever and my uv light burnt out. I am now doing another 72 hour blackout along with more hydrogen peroxide and I am prdering a new uv bulb. Here is the tank. Any other ideas to minimize further algae and also kill off what I have now.

 

[geddavis]

My algae is a oat the same but I am not here to talk about that but rather something I built. I made a frag rack out of black acrylic that blends in perfectly with the back of my tank and is flush with the overflow. I always thought that the clear frag racks held to the side of tanks were ugly. This rack though looks like it is just part of the tank and blends in to the point most people don’t notice unless I have a lot of coral on it. I will post some photos later. Also if anyone wants one of these racks for a Red Sea reefer or wants the plans just ask down below. It’s 15 for the rack + shipping(the acrylic is quit thick). The 15 only covers the cost of acrylic so I’m out a few hours however I love working with acrylic.

 

[1Blazer]

What are your nitrate levels?

 

[geddavis]

Last I checked right above 0
That was about a week ago I do weekly testing every Monday I’ll post test results next Monday

 

[1Blazer]

Last I checked right above 0
That was about a week ago I do weekly testing every Monday I’ll post test results next Monday

I dont know a ton but something I think you may want to study up on is the Redfield Ratio--- It may seem counter intuitive but the lack of Nitrate vs. your Phosphate may be the culprit for the dinos. Typically for me--- when I see dinos or algae I check both NO3 and PO4 to make sure I have trace amounts and that they are balanced--- Also note that if you dose Nitrate it will lower your phosphates and alkalinity so adjust as slowly as possible! This is just my 2 cents--- Also you said you are in the bay--- I am in Monterey- far from me?

 

[geddavis]

I live in peteluma. Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll check the red-field ratio out and tell you what I do.

 

[geddavis]

its been awhile, sorry about that but I'm back with an exciting few updates. first is that all of my bird's nests have made a great recovery and are now having amazing polyp extension and coloration. I also got new fish algae and lights. my 3 new fish are a firefish, bangeye, and coral beauty. my lights are 2x kessil a360w that are connected to my apex. I am super impressed with the kessils and ever since they went on my coral look 10x better both cosmetically and as far as I can see in health too. my coral beauty was being a bully to the fire fish so I moved her to isolation for a week and now they are getting along fine. my refugium is also coming along great with a pompom and a few hermits along with some cool looking macroalgae. my goal with the refugium is to make it into a rare algae display and also keep invasive or problematic animals like crabs, GSP, and ziena. my diatom problem is getting better but I think one of my problems is just not enough snails I only have 6 and 3 of which are nasiruos so they don't clean my rock. I think 6 snails is way to small of a population for a hundred-gallon system so I'm going to try out 2 snails a gallon with the addition of 14 trochus snails. I assume at some point I will not have enough algae to feed the snails so ill just chuck a few in my refugium and lend them out to some local reefers who need them. so if you live in norcal and have some algae issue in the next month or 2 send me a pm and ill loan a few. a post some pics latter from my phone below.

 

[geddavis]

 

[geddavis]

 

[geddavis]

I posted this in another thread but as I am getting 2 new fish on Tuesday I thought it was appropriate to talk about my QT and fish adding process so here it is. I have a QT tank but I am very relaxed about QT. I freshwater dip and I wash all inverts. inverts and corals are added after close inspection and clean/dip. fish are put in my frag tank to rest and get healthy and eating. I only acclimate normally if the fish are from an LFS all online orders are floated and then I take a sample of the bag water and make sure to do this quickly then I match a small holding tank to the salinity of the bag. once the holding tank is set up I dump the fish into a net and then put them in the holding tank. next, I do the freshwater dip and then they are put back in the holding tank and drip acclimated to my DT. this method makes sure the fish are never exposed to high amounts of oxidized ammonia and prevents pests along with being the most stress-free process as possible. if a fish is showing any signs of disease it is put in the QT tank that is filled with live rock where it is observed for two weeks. if it still shows signs I will take out the LR and medicate the tank. the QT is mainly used as isolation and hostable tank. this is very helpful when I need to add a peaceful fish to my DT which has some aggressive fish it also works well to dissipate conflict.

 

[geddavis]

It’s been a while...
sorry
Anyways all my new fish are doing great and swimming. All I have algae wise is a tiny super light dusting of diatoms on my sand bed. I also went to aquashella and now my tank has 55 difrent corals!! They are all doing great and I’m testing my water everyday to make sure I’m dosing enough. I also got a Neptune dos that I’m using as a AWC and I won a algae barn refugium pack. The last thing I got was 2 fancy clowns and a fire shrimp. My tank is looking great and running well.

 

[geddavis]

so a little update!!
everything is doing great and growing already except for my goniapora-I don't know how to spell it. I think my angle might be nipping on them but overall the whole tank is doing great. it still has a tiny bit of algae but now that I got my skimmer better tuned and refugium better setup I think it will go away.