DF Red Sea Reefer 250

[Difrano]

Hi!

First of all a little of my background, in 2011 I started my first aquarium with a 55 Gal tank i got on Craiglist, for that aquarium I decided to do a low to none maintenance planted native freshwater tank, I used dirt and local lake bed sand as substrate, with several local fish, panfish, darts, mosquito fish, minnows etc, crayfish and snails from the lakes, that tank ran with a HOB filter for water movement and for 5 years never did a water change just top offs, also had to trim the macro algae every other month, this tank was on the garage and survived 2 moves. I was raised on the sea and was snorkeling in coral reefs almost every weekend during my young ages. I love the ocean and everything related to the sea, so in 2015 decided to start a saltwater tank and bought a Biocube 29, I started with a pair of clowns live rocks and sand, later I added a goby and a tiger pistol, later added some zoas and softies to the mix, the tank was very low tech no skimmer and only a ATO, I converted one of the back chambers into a fuge. It ran well for some years until I had a Dino outbreak that killed all my corals, so I decided to give up on corals and transferred some macro to my display and keep it as Fish only tank, I really liked it and I am not really this crazy about growing corals, I am more a fish person, so that bring us to 3 weeks ago.
My Old Bio (Didn't had trimmed the macros and GHA for a while 😞

After 5 years with a Biocube 29 and taking advantage that I had to stop my work travel due to the COVID crisis I started researching about doing an upgrade to my setup.I always loved the Red Sea aquariums so 3 weeks ago I went to my preferred LFS to buy RO and Saltwater for my Biocube and found this beautiful Red Sea Reefer 250 at a very good price, ready to pickup and take home... So I went for it. I just bought the tank and the stand. (Now I needed to convince my wife that this new tank will be better and nicer than the old one to get budget approval).

After setting the tank and stand in the living room, got my budget approved by the management. My plan for this tank is for now is to move all my current livestock to the 250 and then keep a soft coral and some LPS, I have no plans so far for trying SPS and also would like to keep the bioload low like I did on my Cube so I decided on this gear, good thing is that if in the future I change my mind i can always upgrade:

Skimmer: Octo Classic 110S.
Return Pump: Current eflux 1050 DC.
Power Head: 1 Vortech MP40
Lights: 2x Prime 16HD.
Controller: Apexel.
Fuge light: Finnex FugeRay Planted.
ATO: Hydor smart level (Existing from cube)
Sand: 40 lb caribsea ocean direct live + 20 lb caribsea live sea fiji pink.
Rock: super live 30 lb from existing biocube + 30 lb new live rock from LFS.
Livestock all from my old cube:
2 Oscelaris Clowns (5 years with me)
1 YWG
1 Tiger pistol shrimp.
2 Emerald crabs.
Several snails.

Why I choose those options?, based on my research those equipment will give me what I need without breaking the bank, I will try to update this thread with reviews on how each device is performing on my setup.

So there I went:

On a side note where the tank is now there was a Ikea bookshelf that my daughter used to keep her craft stuff, I disassembled it and cut it to do some shelving inside the tank cabinet

Initial sump work:
 

Shelving and cable management almost complete:

 

Initial fill:
 

Pool of mud:

Some Pictures of sump and shelving:
 

 

 

After a week and a mini cycle I added my livestock and finished the aquascaping, water was murky due to aquscaping and moving rocks around:
 

 

Sorry for the bad quality on the pictures but I was not planning to do a build journal, but after all i decided to give it a go so I can see how my tank evolve over the years.

So far I have no plans to add anything else for some months to let the aquarium settle and establish. Also will not run the skimmer for the initial 2 weeks to allow some nutrients buildup to kickstart the fuge and keep the snails feeded.

Will try to update this build as much as I can.

Cheers

[Difrano]

After a week Diatoms started to show up today! lets get to the uglies 🙂

[Ocean_dreamer89]

Just ran into your thread.  Love your cabinet setup!

 

Any updates on the tank?