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Teejay's Reefer 250


teejay

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Hey all, got a killer deal during black friday at a LFS on a reefer, and I would have liked to go larger, but my apartment will really only allow 55g or smaller so the reefer 250 was perfect. Previously I had an IM 30L, which was sold so most of the livestock from that has been split into two 20g long tanks that I'll slowly be transferring over to this as it gets set up.

Tank & Stand: Red Sea Reefer 250, White stand

Skimmer: Vertex Omega 130

Lighting: Giesemann Matrixx II 8 Bulb + 2 x Kessil A360WE

ATO: Going to use tunze osmolator to top up the built in top up

Heater: Eheim Jager 100w x 2

Flow: 2 x Ecotech mp10wQD & 1 x Ecotech mp40wQD

Substrate: Caribsea SeaFlor Reef Sand

Rock: Tonga Shelf, Pukani, possible Tonga Branch

Livestock:

2 Lightning Maroon Clownfish

1 Royal Dottyback

1 Yellow Tang

2 Emerald Crabs

Many Red Stripe Trochus (they breed quite readily)

3-4 Nassarius Snails

1 Ultra Blue Tridacna Maxima Clam

1 Rose Bubble Tip Anemone

Corals:

Red Digitata

Cali Tort

Oregon Tort

Bonsai Acropora

Blue Acropora Tenuis

Superman Monti

Smooth Skin Amethyst Acropora

Purple Millepora

Purple Tipped Green Acropora

Green Pocillopora

Tyree Pink Lemonade Acropora

Aussie Golden Torch

Purple Tipped Branching Hammer

Hollywood Stunner Chalice

Caribbean Mist Chalice

Golden Eye Favia

Purple/Green Favia

Gold Branching Frogspawn

Red Blastomussa Wellsi

Green/Red Acan

Ironman Mushrooms

Blue Mushrooms

Green Star Polyps

Ultimate Rasta Zoas

Fruit Loop Zoas

Japanese Deepwater Red Zoas

Devils Hornets Zoas

Scrambled Eggs Zoas

Blue Hornets Zoas

Tubbs Blue Zoas

Watermelon Zoas

Horizons Zoas

Alpha Omega Zoas

Orange Bam Bam Zoas

Blue Steel Zoas

Emeralds on Fire Zoas

True My Clementine Zoas

White Velvet Zoas

Utter Chaos Palys

Sunny D Palys

Candy Apple Red Palys

Psychosis Palys

___________________________________________

Here's a picture of the tank all set up in its corner, it was a bit off level so I've filled it about halfway to get the carpet under it compressed before I shim it to make sure it's completely level.

 

nQd4IYy.jpg

  • Like 5
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great choice in tank =)

 

Thanks, I had been looking at one for a long time but I decided to wait until the holidays to finally buy one. Only took 2 days to come in after I ordered it through them, I've spent more time looking at it in the corner more than anything, been trying to decide what skimmer to use. My friend has an old 60 cube with a bubble magus curve that works quite well, but I might end up going vertex.

 

On another note, the light came in yesterday. I ordered the 6 bulb version, but the store sent me an 8 bulb at no extra charge because they mislabeled their inventory, and as an added bonus, Giesemann fixtures come with a free set of bulbs to get you started.

 

Here are a few pics of the fixture and bulbs:

Click on the thumbnails (to save load time) to see full version of pics

 

2ITJPUcb.jpg Y9mIPFHb.jpg QtA77vqb.jpg YFWC6tpb.jpg

  • Like 1
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That tank is super sexy. Im jelly. You have a nice equipment list too, not to mention I am also jealous about the lightning clowns.

 

Continue with my dream build, Ill be watching

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i am also looking for a skimmer for my 350. not happy wit my bubble magus

 

I know a few people with them, and they are pretty happy with them. The water depth for them is nothing like what the recommended is. My friend had to prop his up on an acrylic stand but his pulls out some pretty good gunk otherwise.

 

I'm currently looking at either a vertex or a nyos. I had a tunze 9004 on my 30L but unfortunately it's too tall for the sump water line else I would at least give it a go for a while with that.

 

That tank is super sexy. Im jelly. You have a nice equipment list too, not to mention I am also jealous about the lightning clowns.

 

Continue with my dream build, Ill be watching

 

Thanks :) . The lightning maroons have been with me for almost a year at this point and they get along pretty well these days. Here's a couple pics of them in their current hangout:

 

rLJLcgqb.jpg xnGTcqgb.jpg opwbctZb.jpg

 

The only real question I have is the transfer, because I basically just transferred water and rock from my 30L to the two 20's. I assume I can basically do the same thing to the reefer from those tanks, and fish wise I'm not really worried, moreso worried about a few sps that I have in there that I would rather not lose, like an oregon tort frag I've been growing for a few months. I might leave one of the two 20's up and running a little while until the alk is stable around 8-9 in the reefer.

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I added some liverock that's been running in my other systems for over a year into the reefer tonight and made a little island on the left side. It's a mix of pukani, fiji and there's a tonga branch you can only see the top of that supports the shelf rock that I plan to attach some corals too. I'm not totally sure about the structure if it'll stay this way yet. This is only the left side and I plan to do something similar on the right hopefully tomorrow that adds some sort of depth to the aquascape.

 

ZuhVmUx.jpg

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I added some pure ammonia to see how the bacteria were doing from the tank transfer and I went from 4 ppm to 0 within the time I checked which was about 8 hours. Alk tested a good 8.8 using the hanna checker and everything seemed ok so I decided to finish the aquascape on the right side and adding some corals that I really couldn't kill even if I tried.

 

For the right side I decided to go with something my shelfy so I can have a good zoa garden, and I had some shelfs with zoas already attached and needed a decent way to fit them into the scape so I came up with 3 shelfs separated slightly and having a bit of an overhang in the front.

 

I added most of the non-sensitive livestock and using a seneye to monitor ammonia and just testing for everything else over the next week religiously to make sure nothing goes wrong. Here's a picture of the finished up scape for the moment. The lights only have the blues on and using my phone camera for the moment to take pictures.

 

QAO0l3g.jpg

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I repurposed my old kessils to add some shimmer to the tank. So now there's a combination of the 8 bulb giesemann fixture and 2 a360we's on the tank. I have the kessils come on about an hour before the t5's and ramp up to when the t5's come on. When the t5's go off, the kessils ramp back down as well. Love the look inside the tank right now.

 

Still haven't decided on a protein skimmer, not hurting much right now running without one for a week or two. Would love a vertex but the space in the sump is the big issue as I still want some room for a reactor running some carbon/gfo.

 

Here's a few quick pics from today, need to get a new FTS still though:

 

vKNzSS7b.jpg p1iFFGkb.jpg p0zNr3Wb.jpg mZDYPzsb.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

A place in Canada, comes with a free set of bulbs from most retailers, just not BRS unfortunately.

I think BRS is the only one that has them...I didn't see any other major retailers with them.

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I think BRS is the only one that has them...I didn't see any other major retailers with them.

 

That's true, but the giesemann website sells them as well, saying they come with a set of bulbs for free as part of the built in price. A couple canadian vendors sell them with bulbs included, as well as other countries that aren't North American. That's a 200+ dollar bulb package, depending on bulbs of course, for free that BRS doesn't offer.

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That's true, but the giesemann website sells them as well, saying they come with a set of bulbs for free as part of the built in price. A couple canadian vendors sell them with bulbs included, as well as other countries that aren't North American. That's a 200+ dollar bulb package, depending on bulbs of course, for free that BRS doesn't offer.

Thanks for the info. Do you have a link to the website you got it from in Canada? I'd rather order it from Canada instead of waiting over 2 weeks to get it from Europe.

Sorry to side track your thread with these questions. I think that the Matrixx II is the best looking fixture on the market. You thought about adding LED supplementation?

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Thanks for the info. Do you have a link to the website you got it from in Canada? I'd rather order it from Canada instead of waiting over 2 weeks to get it from Europe.

Sorry to side track your thread with these questions. I think that the Matrixx II is the best looking fixture on the market. You thought about adding LED supplementation?

 

Not completely sure how up to date their website is, but they had a bunch in store when I was there. It's J&L Aquatics in BC.

 

For LED supplementation, I'm using 2 Kessil A360WE that shine through the space between the glass and the fixture. Adds a little something to the visual appeal of the tank with the shimmer.

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Not completely sure how up to date their website is, but they had a bunch in store when I was there. It's J&L Aquatics in BC.

 

For LED supplementation, I'm using 2 Kessil A360WE that shine through the space between the glass and the fixture. Adds a little something to the visual appeal of the tank with the shimmer.

Ok. I checked. Only 8X54W. Looking forward to your next update.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Update:

I ended up going with a vertex omega 130 for the skimmer. I had read about some people having issues with overflowing and dialing it in, etc. I never really had those issues after about 3 days of breaking it in. The pump is larger than really needed for the size of the skimmer and it's actually pulling too much air, making the bubbles a little bigger than you'd really want. I added a small piece of tubing out of the top to restrict air flow and it now skims very dry and I'm incredibly happy with what it pulls out.

 

As mentioned above, I added 2 kessils that I had lying around just for the extra bit of shimmer for the t5's, and they add a little ramp up in the morning and a ramp down in the evening.

 

On another note, I started adding some zeovit additives based on a thread I saw a few years ago that decided to do the zeovit system without actually using a reactor or the stones. So far I've been following his dosing schedule, as he had a very similar sized tank, but I'll be updating the thread as things go along, but after a week or so of dosing I've seen a decline in phosphates on my hanna checker, but they weren't overly high to begin with.

 

Finally, I got around to updating the livestock list, so here it is and added it to the OP.

 

Will get a few new tank shots and coral photos once I have the time when work is a bit less busy.

 

Livestock:

2 Lightning Maroon Clownfish

1 Royal Dottyback

1 Yellow Tang

2 Emerald Crabs

Many Red Stripe Trochus (they breed quite readily)

3-4 Nassarius Snails

1 Ultra Blue Tridacna Maxima Clam

1 Rose Bubble Tip Anemone

Corals:

Red Digitata

Cali Tort

Oregon Tort

Bonsai Acropora

Blue Acropora Tenuis

Superman Monti

Smooth Skin Amethyst Acropora

Purple Millepora

Purple Tipped Green Acropora

Green Pocillopora

Tyree Pink Lemonade Acropora

Aussie Golden Torch

Purple Tipped Branching Hammer

Hollywood Stunner Chalice

Caribbean Mist Chalice

Golden Eye Favia

Purple/Green Favia

Gold Branching Frogspawn

Red Blastomussa Wellsi

Green/Red Acan

Ironman Mushrooms

Blue Mushrooms

Green Star Polyps

Ultimate Rasta Zoas

Fruit Loop Zoas

Japanese Deepwater Red Zoas

Devils Hornets Zoas

Scrambled Eggs Zoas

Blue Hornets Zoas

Tubbs Blue Zoas

Watermelon Zoas

Horizons Zoas

Alpha Omega Zoas

Orange Bam Bam Zoas

Blue Steel Zoas

Emeralds on Fire Zoas

True My Clementine Zoas

White Velvet Zoas

Utter Chaos Palys

Sunny D Palys

Candy Apple Red Palys

Psychosis Palys

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Looks like a great start!

 

Any pics of how you have the lighting? Would like to see how you mounted the kessils with the T5s.

 

I'll get a pic for you tonight, but basically there's enough room between the back glass and the fixture and I used the goosenecks to shine them through the gap between the fixture and the glass. The goosenecks look a little off but that's ok mainly because I can't hang the fixture from ceiling in my apartment, or it would be a bit more of an elegant setup.

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Looks like a great start!

 

Any pics of how you have the lighting? Would like to see how you mounted the kessils with the T5s.

 

Here's a FTS so you can see how the kessil goosenecks are mounted to the sides and not the back of the tank to allow them to curl into the gap created between the T5's and the glass.

 

4UJNeaV.jpg

 

Here's a couple pics of how the sump is looking as well as the skimmate from the skimmer after a day or two.

 

i6kytV0.jpg

URH48mG.jpg

 

And finally since I was just screwing around with the camera at the time I decided to grab a quick few shots of some corals in the tank for something I can possibly look back on when I'm checking out growth. Enjoy! :)

 

pXnD9L8.jpg

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rBCfkPr.jpg

oyOt2ik.jpg

8ItWEAc.jpg

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  • 1 month later...

Just realized I haven't updated this in a while, things have been going quite well, as in I haven't lost a single coral and everything has been showering great extension. I had a minor green algae problem for about a week or so and since then everything has cleared up and coralline is starting to really take over the dry rock I started with.

 

I got a rescue coral from a friend, it just really wasn't going well in his tank, it's an orange plate that I have in a cove in the tank. I honestly don't believe it'll make it, it seems too far gone at this point but there's still a little orange left so I'm keeping up hope until it completely deteriorates.

 

Here's a new FTS, and a little pic of some psychosis palys in the middle of my shelf designed to be a zoa garden.

 

ETcBHFt.jpg

 

kcF6Dji.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

I do my water changes during my days off and took the opportunity to take a few coral pics, mostly zoanthids as I was just doing top down photos last night while the pumps were off.

 

Going to post thumbnails that are clickable to large versions since I ended up taking quite a few pics.

 

OHCnpemb.jpg 0otiKcXb.jpg yOd1Hw6b.jpg Rpp1ffdb.jpg

 

19i5wKjb.jpg oWS7lKqb.jpg lWmBJMhb.jpg 87gtneib.jpg

 

7mU35fDb.jpg sEmqbeyb.jpg G3hi4OZb.jpg 1YkaVAFb.jpg

 

R3v5rdUb.jpg KKQNrIvb.jpg jLw57dFb.jpg YfkxEYFb.jpg

 

ztyDkRDb.png JqPwOXdb.jpg IX3cSVmb.jpg BQpbVpLb.jpg

 

LB7t0HIb.jpg

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