Neptune Aquatics

Andrew's Red Sea Reefer 250

PizzaOven

PizzaOven

Supporting Member
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Hi All,

Decided to start a tank journal for my RSR 250. I'm about 11 months in, so a lot of this is written after the fact.

I decided to upgrade from my old acrylic 55g. Below is a photo of my mature 5 year old reef tank, which really sparked my interest in reefing:

65189288715__29A81839-CFFE-44B6-A61B-7B0E58FB3B6C (1).jpg


I really enjoyed this tank, but the acrylic was getting pretty scratched up from scraping coralline, and starting to annoy me. I also had a lot of zoas/discosoma which became somewhat of a pest.

Out with the old, in with the new! I purchased a new Red Sea Reefer 250 and planned to build it with the following equipment, some of which I harvested from my old aquarium.

Equipment:
2x Kessil A360x
2x MP40
2x Eheim Jager 100W heaters
Reef Octopus Classic 110SSS Skimmer
Neptune Apex Jr. + PM1, PM2 modules
Current USA eFlux 1900GPH DC Return Pump
Jabao 4 channel doser

The aquascape:
66517410536__9F647F27-3744-4D66-A3E5-3A134571AC74.jpg


Filled with water and started cycling:

IMG_2628.jpg


About a month after the cycle finished, I decided to try a few test corals from my old tank, so far so good!

IMG_2678.jpg


IMG_2681.jpg


IMG_2680.jpg


IMG_2683.jpg


10 months later, with everything I wanted to keep transferred + a few new additions. I ended up selling off a lot of my old coral:

IMG_2950.jpg

IMG_2944.jpg


I'll continue to update this thread as things change.

Thanks for looking, happy reefing!

-Andrew
 
PizzaOven said:
Hi All,

Decided to start a tank journal for my RSR 250. I'm about 11 months in, so a lot of this is written after the fact.

I decided to upgrade from my old acrylic 55g. Below is a photo of my mature 5 year old reef tank, which really sparked my interest in reefing:

View attachment 44124

I really enjoyed this tank, but the acrylic was getting pretty scratched up from scraping coralline, and starting to annoy me. I also had a lot of zoas/discosoma which became somewhat of a pest.

Out with the old, in with the new! I purchased a new Red Sea Reefer 250 and planned to build it with the following equipment, some of which I harvested from my old aquarium.

Equipment:
2x Kessil A360x
2x MP40
2x Eheim Jager 100W heaters
Reef Octopus Classic 110SSS Skimmer
Neptune Apex Jr. + PM1, PM2 modules
Current USA eFlux 1900GPH DC Return Pump
Jabao 4 channel doser

The aquascape:
View attachment 44126

Filled with water and started cycling:

View attachment 44127

About a month after the cycle finished, I decided to try a few test corals from my old tank, so far so good!

View attachment 44128

View attachment 44130

View attachment 44131

View attachment 44132

10 months later, with everything I wanted to keep transferred + a few new additions. I ended up selling off a lot of my old coral:

View attachment 44133
View attachment 44134

I'll continue to update this thread as things change.

Thanks for looking, happy reefing!

-Andrew
Click to expand...
Are the lights under the containers purely for the visual? If so I love the excessiveness!
 
I figure I should post the good along with the bad. So here comes the bad...
About a month ago, I discovered the dreaded montipora eating nudibranchs :(
I suspect they came in on a maricultured frag I got from an online vendor a while back. I always dip and scrub frag plugs with a tooth brush, but some eggs probably made it through.

monti.jpg


I ultimately decided the best course of action was to remove all of my montipora colonies. The only montipora I saved was a small digitata frag which wasn't affected. I removed it from the plug and dipped it as a pre-caution before gluing it on a new plug and placing it back on my frag rack for monitoring. I haven't seen any nudibranchs since removing the affected colonies.

Full tank shot taken today sans Monti:

IMG_3054_crop.jpg


Man what a bummer... this pest sucks!

I won't be adding any montipora for a few months or until I'm confident this pest is gone...

Keep calm and reef on!!
 
I added a webcam to my sump, so that I can keep an eye on things while at work/on vacation. The webcam is light enough to mount to the cabinet ceiling with double-sided adhesive tape. Cool thing about this webcam is that you can pan/tilt from the web application, which is a nice feature.

IMG_3031.jpg

IMG_3058.jpg

Screenshot 2023-01-04 at 9.20.31 AM.jpg


I also have a webcam for the display:

Screenshot 2023-01-07 at 8.35.15 AM.jpg


Happy reefing!

-Andrew
 
PizzaOven said:
I added a webcam to my sump, so that I can keep an eye on things while at work/on vacation. The webcam is light enough to mount to the cabinet ceiling with double-sided adhesive tape. Cool thing about this webcam is that you can pan/tilt from the web application, which is a nice feature.

View attachment 44541
View attachment 44543
View attachment 44542

I also have a webcam for the display:

View attachment 44544

Happy reefing!

-Andrew
Click to expand...
Is this the one you use @FullerReef ?
 
Shout out to @under_water_ninja at High Tide for recommending a tuxedo urchin to help with my hair algae. This is hands down the MVP of my cleanup crew. Eats the stuff that my trochus army and ermerald crabs ignore. Kenny has an awesome store with a great selection of corals, inverts, and QT fish. He was kind enough to walk me through his store and share some of his reefing wisdom. Also picked up some Utter Chaos and a nice Favites which are both settling in nicely.

Tuxedo bulldozing hair algae. You can see it left a track of bare rock:
tuxedo.jpg


Utter Chaos have been on my wish list for a long time now :)
UtterChaos.jpg
 
I decided to replace the stock gravity fed ATO that comes with the RSR250.

Even with regular cleaning, I found the float valve still gets clogged, preventing the ATO from filling. This seems like a very narrow passage:

IMG_3064.jpg


Also, the stock ATO takes up a lot of space in the cabinet, and only holds ~3g. I decided to try this ATO I found on Amazon for $65:

1673541792733.png


Installed the optical sensor in the return section of my sump. The magnet on the dry side holds the sensor pretty firmly in place:

IMG_3071.jpg


I plumbed a 5g reservoir from the closet adjacent to the aquarium. This is a big upgrade from the old 3g reservoir, and a lot easier to fill:

IMG_3073.jpg


IMG_3067.jpg


Removing the stock ATO opens up a lot of space. Before:

IMG_3058.jpg


After:

IMG_3066.jpg


I now have better access to changing the filter floss in my two cups, which used to be a PITA:

IMG_3075.jpg


So far, so good. That being said, It will take some time to build trust with this device. Hopefully this will be more reliable long term.

Happy Reefing!
 
PizzaOven said:
I decided to replace the stock gravity fed ATO that comes with the RSR250.

Even with regular cleaning, I found the float valve still gets clogged, preventing the ATO from filling. This seems like a very narrow passage:

View attachment 44703

Also, the stock ATO takes up a lot of space in the cabinet, and only holds ~3g. I decided to try this ATO I found on Amazon for $65:

View attachment 44704

Installed the optical sensor in the return section of my sump. The magnet on the dry side holds the sensor pretty firmly in place:

View attachment 44706

I plumbed a 5g reservoir from the closet adjacent to the aquarium. This is a big upgrade from the old 3g reservoir, and a lot easier to fill:

View attachment 44707

View attachment 44708

Removing the stock ATO opens up a lot of space. Before:

View attachment 44712

After:

View attachment 44709

I now have better access to changing the filter floss in my two cups, which used to be a PITA:

View attachment 44710

So far, so good. That being said, It will take some time to build trust with this device. Hopefully this will be more reliable long term.

Happy Reefing!
Click to expand...
Just an FYI that your ato is on eBay for $40 shipped. I like it a lot for the price.
 
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