Gtrains Australian Red Sea 250

[Gtrain]

Where up and running here is a current equipment list

 

tank: Red Sea Reefer 250

lights: 4x AI Prime HD 

wave maker: Jaebo cp-120 and Jaebo rw-4

skimmer: Eshopp s120

return pump: Jaebo dcp 6200

plumbing: custom manifold

dosing pump: Jaebo 4 head pump

chiller/heater: Teko 500

ato: cheap float switch and pump

dosing chemicals:

-Red Sea kh solution

-lfs calcium solution

-lfs magnesium solution

-acropower 

 

Sg: 1.027

kh: 7.7

cal: 400

mg: 1300

temp: 25.5-26.5 Celsius. (Chiller operation range)

 

stock

2 wild caught clowns

Royal Gramma

coral banned shrimp

various snails

 

coral 

gold torch

green stem purple head hammer

white tips aqua stem hammer

duncan 

oranage fungia 

scolymia

red acan

Jack-o-lantern leptosris

24k montipora

purple plating montipora

montipora digita

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Gtrain]

So next part is deciding aqua scape and mods for the sump. The August scape thinking the two bommie scape with maybe a bridge in between. Will be using my current live rock in my tank plus maybe a few more branching peace’s.

 

mods for the sumps is I want a refuge and fix up the cruddy filter sock set up and ato. Using my current ato on the 130 so no problems there. The fudge still thinking as I have seen a good one from @AusReefer with the ato reservoir so might look into that. Filter sock replacements is what stumping me so not sure there

[Gtrain]

Big shout out to @Clown79 for the heads up on how to carry out the transfer.

[NanaBanana]

Love the setup. Looks like you got some great gear. 
I have a 65 gallon with 3 AI Prime HDs. I know I have enough light but I am really tempted to get a fourth prime for my tank. I say if you have four lights use them all. If you are worried about it being too much light, turn them down a bit. 

[Gtrain]

Yeah keeping the 4th light looks likely as the wife has asked less about recouping cost through re sale on not needed items so might just keep that on the down low.

 

just finished cleaning the Eshopps s120 skimmer and looks the goods. Might give it another clean in a few days as the bottle brushes didn’t do that great of a job on the main tube. But I noticed that I am missing the Venturi intake water release cap. Tiny little peace but apparently it helps keep it relatively silent. Do u think I could find any where in spare parts on line. Looks like I will have to shop around for a different replacement. 🙄

[Gtrain]

So starting to finally come to a list of what’s going in the tank stocking wise:

 

• Anthias, not sure on type as only wanting to keep three really so see where I end up

• Khole Tang

• Yellow Tang, now this is up in the air as the wife wants this fish but will see about compatibility due to tang friendliness 

• wild caught Clown pair from 130

• royal gramma from 130

• cbs from 130

 

wanting input if I can have a couple more fish or would this be about it

 

bit of a edit forgot add a wrasse I want add. Not sure of type yet but definitely having one in this tank

[Gtrain]

This is first night of plumbing and what a pain in the arse to get the right fittings. I am using a jebao dcp-6500 as a return pump. A few reasons as it in my price range and has the extra flow to power my custom manifold. Second is I already have 3 jebao products and can’t fault them. 

 

I thought it would come in metric fittings but that’s my fault for assuming. It is imperial. No good for us Australians. So massive muck around at our local hard ware to find fittings and patch up something resembling a manifold.

 

The second point of frustration is coloured pvc. N/A in Australia so would have to pay $20-30 shipping from the states or uk so went with the plain white.

 

happy with stage 1 of the manifold. To add is chiller/heater that came with the purchase, refuge of the standard ato and a later date a carbon reactor. Will plumb those tomorrow and the glue and test 

[NanaBanana]

Looking good!

[Gtrain]

So did the chiller and fudge plumbing tonight. Have to drill the ato reservoir and plump and look how the chiller is going to plumb in from hard pipe to soft pipe fittings on the chiller housing.

 

apart from that all is coming along in bits a pieces.  Will be ordering next week a screen topper, random flow generator mod for the return outlet and a cross flow Jebao WaveMaker witch I am not sure on size yet. 

 

Heres some of the pics of the next bit of plumbing. It’s a pain but will help make it the tank I want so meh. Also haven’t put in the mounting brackets yet or glued as still working out how I want it so that will be probs a still away

[Christopher Marks]

I love hearing of great deals on used systems like this. Great work on the build so far @Gtrain, very tidy! Plumbing really takes a lot of careful and tedious planning, I remember feeling exhausted midway through assembly on big projects in my past. Looking forward to seeing this reef tank come online!

[Gtrain]

2 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

I love hearing of great deals on used systems like this. Great work on the build so far @Gtrain, very tidy! Plumbing really takes a lot of careful and tedious planning, I remember feeling exhausted midway through assembly on big projects in my past. Looking forward to seeing this reef tank come online!

Thanks still going slow hector time constraints with work. Lots of ideas floating around in my head so need to get a move on

[Gtrain]

So just glued and mounted the main manifold. Had to add a extra couple of 45 bends to make it work but think it will do the job. If your wondering on the weird shape of the manifold it’s mainly because I didn’t want to use 90 degree bends for flow restriction. I have read that 45’s help keep pressure up. Anyways here is some pics of the final mount of the manifold.

[Andreww]

Looks good. Yes you want as much of straight line as possible with the return but with drains it doesn’t matter much.

Space can be the limiting factor though ...

 

Also you might wanna look into using a piece of short vinyl tubing between hard PVC and the return pump to reduce vibrations. 

 

 

[Gtrain]

So drilled and plumbed the ato. Was a little scary but came up good. Finish the chiller plumbing then onto screen top and washing sand.

[Dantrasy]

Great work with the plumbing! Super tidy. 

 

I managed to source grey pipe with thick walls from Liquid Oasis, WA. 

 

Where are you getting your screen top from?

[Gtrain]

On 1/19/2019 at 8:24 PM, Dantrasy said:

Great work with the plumbing! Super tidy. 

 

I managed to source grey pipe with thick walls from Liquid Oasis, WA. 

 

Where are you getting your screen top from?

Happy for you getting the pipe. I had a week of internetting then gave up haha. Red Sea do a screen top of there own brand. Over my side of the great brown land there sold @100%reefsafe which have a shop just north of Brisbane. There a standard issue item and look very clean. Not sure where they sell in W.A but know there sold in most eastern states.

 

just look at the size chart and go from there. Do u have the rsr250? Looking for inspiration from the Australian side for measurements and what not so please share if u can

[Gtrain]

On 1/19/2019 at 2:24 AM, Andreww said:

Looks good. Yes you want as much of straight line as possible with the return but with drains it doesn’t matter much.

Space can be the limiting factor though ...

 

Also you might wanna look into using a piece of short vinyl tubing between hard PVC and the return pump to reduce vibrations. 

 

 

Never thought of that. When I test run the final test plumbing before tank transfer I will check for vibration. Thanks for the heads up

[Dantrasy]

13 hours ago, Gtrain said:

Do u have the rsr250? Looking for inspiration from the Australian side for measurements and what not so please share if u can

 

No, I have a 60x45x45 I'm converting from planted. I might get a screen top down the track. 

[Gtrain]

Just a little update. Work has slowed to a crawl due to large work hours per week and 3 young’s kids. Made a little progress painted 3 sides of the r/o storage black ready to be the fudge. Moving on to the final plumbing of the heater/chiller. Going to run a pressure test of r/o and a bit of vinegar through the system once completed plumbing

[Gtrain]

Have finished all the main plumbing to get this tank wet. Ended up soft tubing the chiller plumbing with a slight mod to the chiller end. Couldn’t get piping to match hard plumbing so just modified the input and output of the tk500.

 

have painted the drilled ato black and sealed the paint. Last thing to do is get my head around a wiring and power board set up that will work. Then to wash sand and get the transfer done

[Christopher Marks]

You're in the final stretch @Gtrain!

[Cutter79]

Nice work. Looking forward to more updates!

[Gtrain]

Just got my gyre pump went with the jebao cp-120. Which is just the update cp-40. Just need a few more things like my carbon reactor, return output mod then the screen top. Hopefully get the funds soon to finish but looking like it will be a week by week thing ticking one off at a time. In the mean time this is my female clown starting to host my gold torch. The vid is about 2 weeks old. She now fully lives there and the smaller male occasionally joins her.

 

 

[Gtrain]

So the tank transfer is done. Took about 9hrs total and still tweaking as I go. 

 

Really happy with how how it turned out. Only hick up was one of the primes power brick failed but have replay that so all four lights are running. My fudge light has turned up so the macro is in the display for now. Here some pics still don’t know how to take aquarium pics even with the wife’s iPhone X 

[Gtrain]

Here’s the final setup of the sump. Mounted the dosing pump and installed the ato mod and light. Happy with everything it just time to add some more livestock