Waboss's Red Sea Reefer 170 Build

[waboss]

I just realized that I never created a build thread over here for my new (well, new-er at this point) Red Sea Reefer 170.  I had a BC29 that I had started a thread on but that kind of grew into what I have now.

 

A little history first I suppose.  I just got back into reef keeping about a year ago and started back in with a Biocube 29.  Within about 6 months, I converted/tweaked/hammered/cut everything on it so that it wasn't really an AIO anymore (go figure) and I really wanted a little more real estate for rock work and such.

 

So.......I started looking around at all the reef ready tanks that were easy to get and decided that if I went that way, I'd go with a Deep Blue 20x20x16 or a 24x24x12.  So I kept looking around and checked on the Red Sea Reefer tanks but they were still too hard to find at the time (or so I thought).  As things sometimes go, I got busy and didn't really push it along for a month or so.  Which is a good thing since the more I kept checking out the reefers, the more I liked them.

 

On a whim, I decided to check with around locally again to see if any were available.  Well, as luck would have it, Quantum Reefs did have one in stock.  So there we go!  It must be fate right?  Well I picked up the 170 brought it home and set it up (let me tell you....that bloody thing is pretty darn heavy.....lugging it up my steps was I'm sure a comedic scene).

 

After getting it setup, the rest of the night (and on into the morning) was devoted moving it into the right place (after moving the BC29 out of it),  getting familiar with the overflow adjustments, and migrating all my crittters that were in the BC29 to the 170. It all went pretty smoothly though, just some of the "normal" issues one has when doing this stuff.  Like not premixing enough seawater, misplacing one of the clamps for the return, you know, stuff like that.

 

So now it's been up and running for 2 months and doing pretty well.  Of course I haven't stopped tweaking it a little here and there, but I think I need to just let it "grow" for a while before making any more large changes.  To be honest, now that I have had it up and running for a couple of months, I do really like it, I just wish it wasn't quite as tall as it is.  I love how tall the stand is, but I kinda wish the tank was about 4-6 inches shorter (no, I'm not going to cut it!).

 

And now for some pics.

 

Here it is right after I set it up:

(yes, there's a little cyano on the side of the frag rocks......annoying)

 

Inside the stand:

 

After I swapped out the MP10 for a Gyre 130:

 

Some shots of my "tenants":

 

 

 

 

 

When my Skimz SN123 skimmer froze up and I had to run a SCA-302 for a couple of weeks:

(also moved the marinepure spheres to the sump)

 

New look under an ATI 6x24w instead of the Kessil:

 

 

Only thing different now is that it's back under the Kessil instead of the ATI due to some relay issues on the ATI (I think).  I haven't decided yet which light I'm going to keep in the long run.

 

I'll try to keep this thread updated.

[flooddc]

Looking good!

[n8n]

Marine pure balls look like good choice for room you have. I was thinking of using those for bottom of my empty fugue

[waboss]

Yeah, they work out well, and they make a nice place for pods to spawn.

[s2nhle]

Beautiful. How is the ATI light? where did you get the clamp for the ATI light stand?

[waboss]

it's been a while, so I figured I'd post an update.

 

Tank's been through a few changes and I've been hemming and hawing on either just shutting it down and getting out until I buy another house, or changing it around to make it more "attractive" to me.  Currently I'm on a lagoon style kick but haven't made any decisions yet and I keep tinkering, so it's staying interesting.  I'm getting to the point where I really want to leave it alone and watch things grow, but that never seems to happen.

 

Since my last update on the tank, I've done the following:

 

-Changed the lighting again, first to a Nanobox LED (was not happy with it) and then to an AI Hydra 26HD.  I ended up adding a second one purely for coverage to minimize shadowing but I'm leaning towards taking both of them down and just using a single Hydra 52HD or 2x AI Prime HDs.  To be honest, I was getting fed up with trying to tweak the individual colors and was thinking of going back to the Kessils until I found the Kelvin settings on the AI software, now I'm very happy with the Hydras.

 

-Pulled my BRS dosers and installed 2x Netpune DOS's .  They're pricey but they made my life easier and the tank is more stable.  So that was definitely a good thing.  The "bad" thing is that I may end up dosing more additives  (KZ or red sea) and I'll need more heads.  So I may end up pulling 1 of the DOS's and adding a 5th Kore or Profilux.

 

-Picked up an Aquamaxx rimless cuboid tank and turned it into a sump.  Swapped it out with the stock one that comes with the Reefer and now I have much more room to see and work on things.  It was all about layout....had nothing to do with quality.  The sump Red Sea supplies is top notch, I just got tired of dealing with the layout.

 

-Went through a bit of a "flow changing" craze.  Had a Gyre xf-130, switched to 2x Tunze 6055's, then back to the Gyre, and finally landed on 2x RW-4's connected to my Apex.  They may be cheap, but they seem to be working better for me than my other options (similar to the Tunze 6055's, but they were just too big).

 

-And most recently, this past weekend actually, I pulled out all the rock that had aptasia on it (there's was a fair amount) and redid my rock work with reefcleaners dry rock.

 

 

 

[surf&turf]

Updates?