JeanR's Red Sea Reefer 450

[JeanR]

Well, after 2.5 years in the hobby I am finally upgrading. I started with a second handed Red Sea Max C130 I bought on Craigslist. The upgrade is a second hand Red Sea Reefer 450 I bought on Craigslist. I purchased this from a fellow BRS member out on Cape Cod - a super nice and generous guy that was a pleasure to meet and do business with.

I am not a handy guy and the DIY path would have probably been a disaster for me, though I am very impressed by the members on here who build their systems from scratch. I have been really happy with my first Red Sea tank, so hopefully the second will not disappoint.

The equipment is mostly standard for the system including the 92 gallon display tank and 24 gallon sump. It came with 3 AI Hydra26s with the standard arms, a Danner Aqua-Mag 9.5 return pump, an Apex Jr, 2 Jebao RW8 wavemakers and a custom lid to keep the jumpers in. It also came with a UV sterilizer and chiller I'm not currently planning on using.

I still need to figure out how to set the light schedule and how to work the Apex - I'm not a gear head and have been mostly doing everything manually on my previous tank. This will take a little time and commitment.

To finish off the equipment I purchased a second hand heater, a new Coral Box DC700 protein skimmer and a new ReefBreeders Exo-ATO from Dong. Very happy with everything.

I bought all this in early March, set it up dry in our dining room and stared at it for about two weeks. This is about 4 times bigger than my previous tank and my wife thinks I'm nuts. She may be right. There is something scary about having 1500lbs of water/glass in the middle of your family's living area.

The super generous previous owner also gave me about 50 lbs of cured live rock to help the set up and cycling process. I added an additional 60 lbs of dry rock and about 80lbs of Fiji pink sand (which I purchased from Marty at European Aquatics).

I got it wet and started the cycle in late March, so it's been about 4 weeks so far...it's ready for some fish....

 

[Chris A.]

Very nice setup. Don’t worry about the “ being nuts thing “ you get used to it lol

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Such a sleek setup. I like the caves you crafted.

 

[pokerfish]

That’s a dream set up. I’m jealous and happy for you at the same time. Looks great!
Best of luck!


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[JeanR]

I think the aquascape is finally done. I just got a nice final piece from @Fishing - which looks pretty decent on the left side of the tank. It's an articial Elkhorn coral piece with frag plug holes drilled in and a little cave underneath.

As you can see I need to buy some of those orange filters that allow you to take decent photos with your cell phone. Or I heard maybe there is an app that will also do it.

The nitrogen cycle has been happening now for almost two months and I'm starting to see the Coraline algae spots popping up on the rocks and pumps, so I think I'm pretty much there. For the cycle I added a small bottle of Microbacter 7, and a small amount of live sand/rock from my established tank. The diatoms are getting better and the skimmer is pulling out some nasty smelly gunk, like it should.

I've started to add fish and increase the bioload in there. So far I have an awesome cleaner wrasse and black cap jawfish from @gurumasta, and from LiveAquaria I bought: 4 Benghai cardinals, an ocellaris clownfish, blue hippo tang baby, ORA yellow tang baby, and an Indian Ocean Lyretail Anthias (bought a harem trio but only the male survived the first week which is too bad cause they looked amazing).

The captive bred yellow tank is awesome - it came in tiny and white but in two weeks has doubled in size and is turning yellow, worth the extra money.

I bought a few other fish that didn't make it. Gotta love LiveAquaria's 14 day guarantee. Typical scenario - the fish from local members and captive bred did great, the wild caught less so.

I put some tester corals from my established tank into the new system last weekend (Xenia, clove polyps, montipora setosa, few zoas, 3 mini colonies of seriatopora/birds nest). So far everything is looking decent.

One significant modification I have planned - moving the lights to a combination T5/LED rather than just LED. I saw a few member's tanks with the combo lighting and was very, very impressed by their coloration and growth. Was thinking about it and then saw those AquaticLife hybrid lights on sale so I couldn't help myself and ordered a 48 inch model. Should arrive this weekend and I'll start tinkering with it.