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....
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....