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FISHnChix REEFER 250 BUILD *! New SPS🤞🤞🤙 *🍻


FISHnChix

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So this is my first go round with starting a build thread. Will be a snooze fest for awhile as I am still gathering equipment and parts for this build, but I figured I would never start a thread if I had all the fun stuff up and going.  So after a long hiatus in reefing (over 10 years) I jumped back in the hobby a little over a year ago and bought a biocube 32. Funny thing is when I was a younger I thought I was a reefing pro but much too my surprise I quickly realized that I didn't know jack shit about reef keeping. This is where nano reef came in. I have gained a wealth of knowledge from many of you, so much so I have decided to start a larger reef. 

 

Just ordered a Reefer 250 that should be here in a couple weeks so for now I will make an equipment list and add a few pics from my biocube to show you why I needed to start over .

 

Equipment :

 

Tank: Reefer 250

Salt: Red sea Blue Bucket

Rock: 60-70 pounds of BRS Reef Saver Rock

Substrate: CariebSea Special grade reef sand 60-80 pounds live

Return Pump: jeabo dc 4000

Heater/controller: Inkbird controller with neotherm 150 watt and jager 100 watt EDIT: inkbird failed!!! Would not buy again after researching.. now controlled by APEX...

Skimmer : Bubble Magnus curve 5

Dosing/Doser: Jeabo dosers and BRS 2 part EDIT: APEX fail safe controlled via PH probe safety limit...

Lighting: 1 kessil 360 wide and 1 Kessil 360 narrow, Kessil Controller

Flow: 1 MP10 , jeabo gyre 120

 

 

I will post a few picturesof the scape I think I am going with and some equipment from my phone later.

 

also feel free to add some suggestions on things I am missing!  Happy reefing:)

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12 minutes ago, Weikel said:

So this is my first go round with starting a build thread. Will be a snooze fest for awhile as I am still gathering equipment and parts for this build, but I figured I would never start a thread if I had all the fun stuff up and going.  So after a long hiatus in reefing (over 10 years) I jumped back in the hobby a little over a year ago and bought a biocube 32. Funny thing is when I was a younger I thought I was a reefing pro but much too my surprise I quickly realized that I didn't know jack shit about reef keeping. This is where nano reef came in. I have gained a wealth of knowledge from many of you, so much so I have decided to start a larger reef. 

 

Just ordered a Reefer 250 that should be here in a couple weeks so for now I will make an equipment list and add a few pics from my biocube to show you why I needed to start over .

 

Equipment :

 

Tank: Reefer 250

Salt: Red sea Blue Bucket

Rock: 60-70 pounds of BRS Reef Saver Rock

Substrate: CariebSea Special grade reef sand 60-80 pounds live

Return Pump: jeabo dc 4000

Heater/controller: Inkbird controller with neotherm 150 watt and jager 100 watt

Skimmer : Bubble Magnus curve 5

Dosing/Doser: Jeabo dosers and BRS 2 part

Lighting: 1 kessil 360 wide and 1 Kessil 360 narrow, Kessil Controller

Flow: 1 MP10 ( hopefully it will work on the thicker glass)


I need more flow for sure and looking for a used mp40. Think that will be enough?

 

I will post a few picturesof the scape I think I am going with and some equipment from my phone later.

 

also feel free to add some suggestions on things I am missing!  Happy reefing:)

 

Yay!!!! 😊

 

Can’t wait to see this happen!

 

 

 

also, first!!

1 minute ago, Weikel said:

20180729_112942.jpg

20180722_134955.jpg

Me likey! 

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4 minutes ago, WV Reefer said:

 

Yay!!!! 😊

 

Can’t wait to see this happen!

 

 

 

also, first!!

Me likey! 

Thanks! I am pretty stoked to get a big boy tank and too start getting some good looking coral. I am also pretty excited to be able to house a few more fish and maybe some bigger ones! Oh and to have a sump again.. man I have missed having one..  

 

Will be hard to take it slow though. That's one thing I am worried about haha

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1 minute ago, MrsK said:

This is exciting! Nice scape!

Thanks! It's not done 100 percent yet I still need to expoxy it together . I did measure the tank dimensions pretty well but I know the reefer has the over flow in the center of the tank and that might change a few things

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I really want it to be clean under the stand too. I have a couple of those American DJ power strips that I am going to use but I will need some sort of shelving inside the stand. Any ideas or better yet pictures of your setups?? Uhhh and wire management too that should be fun

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20 minutes ago, Weikel said:

I really want it to be clean under the stand too. I have a couple of those American DJ power strips that I am going to use but I will need some sort of shelving inside the stand. Any ideas or better yet pictures of your setups?? Uhhh and wire management too that should be fun

I made a shelf for my stuff...... but I don’t have a sump in the way.  I used the dj strips on top of the shelf. 

 

E2148767-97AB-4D12-8B41-1B3B48E6F1D2.thumb.jpeg.b9711b892ffb414529c2e8c271a90620.jpeg

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9 minutes ago, WV Reefer said:

I made a shelf for my stuff...... but I don’t have a sump in the way.  I used the dj strips on top of the shelf. 

 

E2148767-97AB-4D12-8B41-1B3B48E6F1D2.thumb.jpeg.b9711b892ffb414529c2e8c271a90620.jpeg

Looks clean! I like it.. wish I had the room but with the little sump in there I think I am going to have to build some shelves on the right of my sump. I don’t really know where I will mount the power strips I might have to make a shelf over the sump or something..  I wish I could find a little shelve type thing prebuilt but I don’t even know where to look for that..

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4 hours ago, DaveFason said:

Looking like a great start. Jugs of two part in the bottom? Will the sump be external?

Thanks Dave! Yea it's the 2 part from brs.. the 3rd jug is hidden. I have been using it in my cube and virtually stopped with water changes and the cheato is keeping nitrates at zero still lol... I am getting the read sea reefer 250 so it comes with a small like 12 sump..

 

On a side note you want to email me where you want me to send the warranty led stuff?? Oh and I am digging the mint leds too 😊.. they look great in person I just can't take photos worth a crap

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Since I am bored I thought I would post a couple growth pics.  I never really thought my corals have grown but since Feb my hammer has grown 3 heads, frogs spawn has gotten huge and candy cane has went from 5 heads to 10.. 😊 thanks to nanobox!! Not the most colorful corals bc I bought some cheapos each 10 bucks but I do like the growth..

Screenshot_20180730-173418_Gallery.jpg

20180730_173438.jpg

20180730_173442.jpg

20180730_173451.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

So on a bright note I got my stand built. Was a pain in the butt but only took a little over an hour.  So I put the stand in place to see how it looked and I remembered I have been meaning to see what all I had on the electrical circuit I plan on using. The tank is going in a little nook just off the kitchen so I was hoping it wasn’t on the same circuit with any devices that used a lot of power like the dishwasher or fridge. I was pretty confident that it wouldn’t be bc it’s a code that kitchen outlets must be on their own 20 circuit. So I started flipping breakers and quickly found out that the outlet I wanted to use was not on the same one as my kitchen . Now I started checking other lights and outlets to see what would be sharing power with my tank. As I found only A couple lights I was incourged that I would be ok until... yep my main living room had one outlet on the same circuit as my tank and of course it is where I have my tv and stereo plugged in at. Good news is new led tvs don’t use much power but my amp for my stereo well shit that pulls a ton.  I turned on all my lights , tv , and cranked the stereo and put an amp meter on the circuit to find out I was already pulling 9 amps before I even have the tank on the 15amp breaker. What to do what to do.... now for a little lesson in ohms law. I needed to figure out how many amps my tank would pull . So our equipment expresses power usage in watts and we want to find out amperage. Using a formula from ohms law where amps=watts/voltage , we can find amperage. First things first I added up all of my equipments watts (at full power of pumps and lights).

 

heater 1- 150watts

heater 2- 75

return pump-32

mp10- 18

mp40- 38

kessil 1- 90

kessil 2- 90

fuge light-12

skimmer- 18

total watts- 523

 

measured the voltage at my house bc 110 vs 125 makes a small difference . I have 120vac in my home..

 

 

so. 523watts / 120volts= 4.4 amps

 

4.4 amps plus the full load of 9 amps puts me barely under the 15 amp breaker rating , NOT IDEAL.... sadly without cutting my ceiling I can’t run another separate circuit to my tank. While not ideal to run the circuit at full load I think I will be ok bc odds are I will not have that damn stereo cranked with all the lights and fan on plus all my equipment at full power. (Note with the stereo off that 9 amps drops to 3 amps) one other thing is the wire going the the outlet for the tank is 14awg with 90c insulation which is technically good for 25 amps so while most inspectors would not let you put a 20 amp breaker on number 14 wire I just might do it lmao...

 

 

so whats the point of this this long boring rant? Check your electrical capacity before setting up your tank , bc if you don’t you might be spending more money on adding a circuit or moving the tank!

 

 

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Leak testing done!!! Starting to get excited...😃.. man putting this this together was a chore. Pretty disappointed in red sea instructions.  Not one part was labeled on any of the stand pieces or plumbing.  The plumbing was super easy to put together at least. And getting this thing to run silent took a minute to do as well... well any how there is no leaks so time to make my perminate aquascape!!

20180812_100248.jpg

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23 hours ago, Weikel said:

So on a bright note I got my stand built. Was a pain in the butt but only took a little over an hour.  So I put the stand in place to see how it looked and I remembered I have been meaning to see what all I had on the electrical circuit I plan on using. The tank is going in a little nook just off the kitchen so I was hoping it wasn’t on the same circuit with any devices that used a lot of power like the dishwasher or fridge. I was pretty confident that it wouldn’t be bc it’s a code that kitchen outlets must be on their own 20 circuit. So I started flipping breakers and quickly found out that the outlet I wanted to use was not on the same one as my kitchen . Now I started checking other lights and outlets to see what would be sharing power with my tank. As I found only A couple lights I was incourged that I would be ok until... yep my main living room had one outlet on the same circuit as my tank and of course it is where I have my tv and stereo plugged in at. Good news is new led tvs don’t use much power but my amp for my stereo well shit that pulls a ton.  I turned on all my lights , tv , and cranked the stereo and put an amp meter on the circuit to find out I was already pulling 9 amps before I even have the tank on the 15amp breaker. What to do what to do.... now for a little lesson in ohms law. I needed to figure out how many amps my tank would pull . So our equipment expresses power usage in watts and we want to find out amperage. Using a formula from ohms law where amps=watts/voltage , we can find amperage. First things first I added up all of my equipments watts (at full power of pumps and lights).

 

heater 1- 150watts

heater 2- 75

return pump-32

mp10- 18

mp40- 38

kessil 1- 90

kessil 2- 90

fuge light-12

skimmer- 18

total watts- 523

 

measured the voltage at my house bc 110 vs 125 makes a small difference . I have 120vac in my home..

 

 

so. 523watts / 120volts= 4.4 amps

 

4.4 amps plus the full load of 9 amps puts me barely under the 15 amp breaker rating , NOT IDEAL.... sadly without cutting my ceiling I can’t run another separate circuit to my tank. While not ideal to run the circuit at full load I think I will be ok bc odds are I will not have that damn stereo cranked with all the lights and fan on plus all my equipment at full power. (Note with the stereo off that 9 amps drops to 3 amps) one other thing is the wire going the the outlet for the tank is 14awg with 90c insulation which is technically good for 25 amps so while most inspectors would not let you put a 20 amp breaker on number 14 wire I just might do it lmao...

 

 

so whats the point of this this long boring rant? Check your electrical capacity before setting up your tank , bc if you don’t you might be spending more money on adding a circuit or moving the tank!

 

 

 

Today we had an electrician over, he quoted $175 to run another 15a circuit behind the 300g. We need it as the tank alone pulls about 14 amps, and for redundancy- will have equipment divided accordingly. That sucks that it’s not alone on a circuit 😞

 

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6 minutes ago, HarryPotter said:

 

Today we had an electrician over, he quoted $175 to run another 15a circuit behind the 300g. We need it as the tank alone pulls about 14 amps, and for redundancy- will have equipment divided accordingly. That sucks that it’s not alone on a circuit 😞

 

Yea sucks but thinking I will be ok.. 175 for adding a new circuit isn't bad either. I bet you will really appreciate the extra juice down the road..

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 7/29/2018 at 12:09 PM, WV Reefer said:

I made a shelf for my stuff...... but I don’t have a sump in the way.  I used the dj strips on top of the shelf. 

 

E2148767-97AB-4D12-8B41-1B3B48E6F1D2.thumb.jpeg.b9711b892ffb414529c2e8c271a90620.jpeg

U know I love those little clear cup/shelf deals on your doors. I have no idea what you would call them so I can’t find anything like them haha. Do you happen to remember where you got them? If you don’t mind me asking how did you attach them too?

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