LegalizedReefers “4th times the charm” Reefer 350

[legalizedreefer]

Tank: Reefer 350 (V3)

Current FTS (Oct 3,2023)

Lighting:
2x 3x Hydra 32 with 3D reefing diffusers

Filtration Equipment:

• Red Sea Reefmat 500
• Bubble Magus Curve 7 skimmer
• AquaUV 15W (likely will upsize to 25W)
• Nyos Torq reactor with carbon and marine pure spheres (likely going back to Zeo instead of spheres)
• Aquavitro Element Z zeolite reactor

Controller/dosing:
newly added apex
ORP, pH, salinity, temp
ATK kit
ReefDose 2


Return pumps/wavemakers
Jebao DCP 6000 (return)
IM mightyjet (for the UV)
1x MP10QD
1x Nero 5
1x Tunze 6025

Heater:
Finnex titanium 500W with an extra on hand
Inkbird

Livestock:
1x small BIOTA yellow tang (the reason for the upgrade)
2x clownfish (1 black with white stripes, 1 midnight clown)
1x Bynoe Goby
1 spot cheek tank
1 tiny blue tang (GF’s request)
1 harlequin sweetlips
1 neon dottyback
2 blue eyes cardinals
2 lyretail anthias
1 green mandarin



After 1 year with a Nuvo 40 following a 6 year hiatus from the hobby, I’m finally upsizing to a tank larger than I nano. When I was 18/19 and started the hobby I had a Nuvo 20 and an IM Pico (I think it was 4 gallon)

so why the title? 4th times the charm? Well…. I bought this tank in October. I took it home and set up the stand. All excited to get the tank up as I unwrapped the cellophane on the display I heard the sound of glass. Turns out there was a large “shell” taken out of the front corner presumably by a forklift or something along those lines.

Red Sea was great and sent a replacement, but didn’t end there. My LFS called me a few weeks later to inform me that the replacement arrived with a massive hole in the side from a forklift (again) and had a broken side pane.

the trucking company refused to take responsibility… at first. Luckily, my LFS has a camera at the loading dock and had footage of it coming off the truck already destroyed. The trucking company agreed to replace it.

BUT…. It didn’t end there! The trucking company called my LFS a few weeks after that and informed them that they had received the new tank (3rd attempt) absolutely shattered.

now I’m here, Feb 3, with a
display tank in perfect condition placed on top of my stand and ready to go!

frustrating, I know. But I took the opportunity to make sure my stand was absolutely dead level, to accumulate equipment and supplies I needed, and to make my aquascape.

I’m a rusher, so had the first tank been in good working order I probably would be looking at it now thinking “I wish I would have made more caves, I wish I would have made this structure taller, etc”

The extra time was absolutely worth it. I set up the broken display in my living room for months and looked at my scape every day. I know for absolute certain I’m happy with it and I won’t feel the itch to change it in a couple months.

now, I won’t bore you any further. Here is a photo of the tank in it’s location:

 

[Snowxcross]

Nice, probably fate then right ? It sucks going through the hassles of shipping and the damage you had to deal with, but that gave you an opportunity to really think it through, and of course the less you rush in this hobby the better off you are. Keep posting your progress - i'm doing the same lol

 

[legalizedreefer]

Nice, probably fate then right ? It sucks going through the hassles of shipping and the damage you had to deal with, but that gave you an opportunity to really think it through, and of course the less you rush in this hobby the better off you are. Keep posting your progress - i'm doing the same lol

Exactly! Gave me time to do little things like mod the sump for the reefmat, and I even rebuilt the drain with a spears gate valve. Figured it was easier to do these things before filling with water so the extra time was welcomed.

 

[legalizedreefer]

And here is the scape:

each structure is cemented together with 2 little fishies STIX.

each structure has 3 entrances at the bottom and 2 from the top. I wanted lots of ins and outs

 

[legalizedreefer]

Last night I rinsed and added sand. Unfortunately I only had 10 gallons of RODI mixed up despite having 4 whole months to plan ‍.

I added all 10 gallons to start a leak test, if you can call it that at this point.

my Aquaticlife booster pump is arriving today, so I should be able to make enough water to fill it over the weekend.

I’ve been making sure to keep track of how much water I’m adding to the tank for future dosing calculation - something I wish I would have done with my current setup as it becomes a bit too much of a guessing game without knowing true volume.

 

[legalizedreefer]

Upon initial setup of the equipment down below, I was immediately ticked off with the cords. I don’t know, but for some reason cords just make my blood boil. So I went and got some cable raceway, usually used for server rooms

here is a before:

and here is the after

the difference is more noticeable on the other side. The yellow box drawn on the second photo below is where I plan on mounting my 8 switch panel.

before

after

I’ve already improved upon this since these photos were taken. I’ll provide updates on that this weekend.

 

[legalizedreefer]

Here is a GIF walkaround of the scape. I will be moving over small islands of live rock from my current setup and stuffing as much of my live rock in the sump as I possible can In order to skip cycle

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Here is a GIF walkaround of the scape. I will be moving over small islands of live rock from my current setup and stuffing as much of my live rock in the sump as I possible can In order to skip cycle

Aquascape looks neat!!!

 

[legalizedreefer]

Aquascape looks neat!!!

Thanks Gumbies! I took a lot of time with it. The joints are rock solid. Wiggling rocks in the scape drive me insane!

 

[Snowxcross]

Here is a GIF walkaround of the scape. I will be moving over small islands of live rock from my current setup and stuffing as much of my live rock in the sump as I possible can In order to skip cycle

You know i discovered that using baking soda and water based superglue did the job for me. I did reenforce the heavier areas with E400 cement, but man what cheap alternative and i had a blast building the scape, looks like you did too! I like your server room quote, i'm IT and wires boil my blood too! Good Job.

 

[legalizedreefer]

You know i discovered that using baking soda and water based superglue did the job for me. I did reenforce the heavier areas with E400 cement, but man what cheap alternative and i had a blast building the scape, looks like you did too! I like your server room quote, i'm IT and wires boil my blood too! Good Job.

I’ve never heard of that method! I used the cement and some epoxy stick as well

 

[HudsonReefer2.0]

Tank: Reefer 350 (V3)
Lighting:
2x Hydra 32 with 3D reefing diffusers
- will be adding more. Either a 3rd hydra, AI blade, or both. OR I may explore an option not often talked about on here - the GHL Mitras 7206

Filtration Equipment:
Red Sea Reefmat 500
Bubble Magus Curve 7 skimmer
AquaUV 15W (likely will upsize to 25W)

Return pumps/wavemakers
Jebao DCP 6000 (return)
IM mightyjet (for the UV)
1x MP10QD
1x Nero 5
- I’ve been using the MP10 on my current tank and love it. If I end up happy with the performance of the Nero for the price, any extra pumps will likely be more Nero’s (just have a tough time justifying the cost of more Vortech’s in an already expensi

Heater:
Finnex titanium 500W with an extra on hand
Inkbird

Livestock:
1x small BIOTA yellow tang (the reason for the upgrade)
2x clownfish (1 black with white stripes, 1 midnight clown)
1x Bynoe Goby
- these are all moving over from my 40. All new additions are TBD

After 1 year with a Nuvo 40 following a 6 year hiatus from the hobby, I’m finally upsizing to a tank larger than I nano. When I was 18/19 and started the hobby I had a Nuvo 20 and an IM Pico (I think it was 4 gallon)

so why the title? 4th times the charm? Well…. I bought this tank in October. I took it home and set up the stand. All excited to get the tank up as I unwrapped the cellophane on the display I heard the sound of glass. Turns out there was a large “shell” taken out of the front corner presumably by a forklift or something along those lines.

Red Sea was great and sent a replacement, but didn’t end there. My LFS called me a few weeks later to inform me that the replacement arrived with a massive hole in the side from a forklift (again) and had a broken side pane.

the trucking company refused to take responsibility… at first. Luckily, my LFS has a camera at the loading dock and had footage of it coming off the truck already destroyed. The trucking company agreed to replace it.

BUT…. It didn’t end there! The trucking company called my LFS a few weeks after that and informed them that they had received the new tank (3rd attempt) absolutely shattered.

now I’m here, Feb 3, with a
display tank in perfect condition placed on top of my stand and ready to go!

frustrating, I know. But I took the opportunity to make sure my stand was absolutely dead level, to accumulate equipment and supplies I needed, and to make my aquascape.

I’m a rusher, so had the first tank been in good working order I probably would be looking at it now thinking “I wish I would have made more caves, I wish I would have made this structure taller, etc”

The extra time was absolutely worth it. I set up the broken display in my living room for months and looked at my scape every day. I know for absolute certain I’m happy with it and I won’t feel the itch to change it in a couple months.

now, I won’t bore you any further. Here is a photo of the tank in it’s location:

Nice tank. Good luck w it.

 

[blaxsun]

The irony here is that you got four (4) tanks is less time than it took my 750XXL to arrive!

 

[legalizedreefer]

Nice tank. Good luck w it.

Thanks! Lots of work to do yet

 

[legalizedreefer]

The irony here is that you got four (4) tanks is less time than it took my 750XXL to arrive!

that’s what you get for ordering a tank the size of a fiat!!

 

[legalizedreefer]

Not much to report…. My 40psi at the tap makes for some slooowwwww RODI production. I’ve got the AquaticLife booster arriving tomorrow so I’ll report back on any improvements on production time/waste water reduction.

about 1/3 full now. Rinsing sand made a huge difference…. I hadn’t done that in previous tanks.

 

[legalizedreefer]

One thing I never thought too much about until now is direct sunlight. I have an east facing living room with full floor to ceiling windows across the whole room. I didn’t stress about direct sunlight because:

A) my windows are tinted to block some of the heat

B) the only direct sunlight I get is the low morning sun during our cold Canadian winters.

that is until this morning. I’m at work and my girlfriend just sent me this photo



the sunlight through the living room is being refracted through the tank, down a hall, and into my bedroom.

is this something to be concerned about? If the only concern is algae growth, I can live with that for the small period of time in the winter where I get direct sunlight to the tanks location.

but what about something worse? Is there potential or real risk of a fire being started by something like this or am I overthinking it?

 

[legalizedreefer]

Update: installed the AquaticLife Booster Buddie and wow is it a game changer.

before, it took me 3 to 3.5 hours to make a 5 gallon pain of RODI. Now it takes 1.5 hours.
still a lot of waste water. I’ll likely route my waste water through a second membrane and then through the DI canister to cut down on that. Thinking the BRS water saver kit.

 

[legalizedreefer]

did some reading on RODI units. Sounds like I can improve my production even further by swapping my 50 GPD RO membrane with a 100 GPD. Perfect timing as I’m due to replace mine anyways. Now that I have the pressure for more production I’m curious to see what I can do. Should cut down even further on waste water. Will report back once I have the membrane.

 

[Snowxcross]

One thing I never thought too much about until now is direct sunlight. I have an east facing living room with full floor to ceiling windows across the whole room. I didn’t stress about direct sunlight because:

A) my windows are tinted to block some of the heat

B) the only direct sunlight I get is the low morning sun during our cold Canadian winters.

that is until this morning. I’m at work and my girlfriend just sent me this photo



the sunlight through the living room is being refracted through the tank, down a hall, and into my bedroom.

is this something to be concerned about? If the only concern is algae growth, I can live with that for the small period of time in the winter where I get direct sunlight to the tanks location.

but what about something worse? Is there potential or real risk of a fire being started by something like this or am I overthinking it?

I've had tanks by the window and noticed glare on the floor or wall - never a problem. Other reefers may have different experience though. In most cases a curtain of some sort eliminated the glare.