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FTS 8/29/21 1st full tank shot 7/12/21 Yep, It finally happened. After years of contemplating, the BC 29 is finally gone, it's habitants awaiting a new and improved abode. My dreams of a custom built tank and stand eventually turned to nightmares, so I finally settled on the Redsea Reefer 250, which I'm learning, as I put this thing together, was probably the smartest move. Having no experience with sumps, I would have been totally lost trying to put something together on my own. I'm still not sure what to do with all of the chambers, but I'm sure, with the help of everyone here, I will figure it out. So far alI have is the tank the sump and the stand, slowly get put together as we find a little time here and there to get the jobs done. I've no doubt that eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later, the coated MDF stand will be replaced with something much nicer-I'm thinking reclaimed wood... More to come

Hello! About a year and a half ago, I started my first reef aquarium which was a BioCube 16. Even though I had been told nano tanks can be hard to maintain due to the small water volume, I had a great time with that tank and learned a TON. For me, it worked very well to "get my feet wet" in the reefing world. The small size and (relatively) cheaper cost, allowed me to get started and find out if I really enjoyed it and would stick with it. I always knew that if I did really enjoy reefing, that I would eventually upgrade to a larger aquarium. I had originally wanted to go with a RedSea Reefer 425XL, but a friend of a friend decided to sell his RSR 250 and it was a deal that I could not pass up! The tank had been up and running for about six months before he took it down and it is in near perfect condition. I bought the tank back in August 2020 and today (2/5/21), I am finally adding water to it. I'll add more details in subsequent posts, but just wanted to get this thread started and say Hello! As this thread continues, I'll try to keep this first post updated with the latest equipment and livestock. Tank: RedSea Reefer 250 Salt: Fritz RPM Aquascape: About 50 lbs CaribSea Life Rock (40 lbs regular rock/10 lbs arches) Sand: 20 lbs CaribSea Arag-Alive Special Grade Live Sand (about 1 inch deep) Lighting: RedSea ReefLED 90W x2 Return Pump: Octopus Varios-6 Powerhead: Ecotech Vortech MP40wQD Skimmer: Nyos Quantum 160 Algae Turf Scrubber: IceCap 20W Heater: Finnex 150W Heater with Inkbird WiFi controller Chemical Filtration: TBD Mechanical Filtration: RedSea Filter Cups filled with matrix and topped with filter floss ATO: TBD, Innovative Marine HydroFill Reservoir 15 Gal Tank Modifiations: Removed stock plumbing and replaced with custom plumbing P.S. I love hearing other people’s opinions and suggestions! Please comment all you want!!! Edited: 3/2/21 Livestock: TBD Will be transferring over 2x Ocellaris Clownfish and 1x Blood Fire Shrimp 1x Melanurus Wrasse in QT Corals: TBD - will be transferring: Duncan 1x Green/Purple Hammer 1x Toxic Green Hammer 2x Ricordea Florida (orange and green) Ultra Orange Rhodactis Mushroom Blastomussa merletti (I believe, could be wellsi) Green star polyp Frogspawn Candy Cane Plating red Montipora Solid pink Scoly Meteor Shower Cyphastrea JF Burning Banana Stylocoeniella Encrusting white/green Montipora Neon Green Cabbage Leather Rainbow Trachyphyllia

We'll start this thread with an overview. Tank wet date: December 19, 2016 Equiptment: RedSea Reefer 250 (55 gallon ID plus 10ish in sump) AquaticLife EDGE LED Aquarium Light Fixture - 36 Inch Reef Octopus Classic 150 INT Protein Skimmer Hydor Smartwave Wavemaker Kit w/ Koralia 3rd Generation Powerheads - 1350 gph Sicce Syncra Silent 3.0 Multifunction Aquarium Pump (714 GPH) Eheim Jager 150 watt heater 2 Coral Box QP-5 wave makers Aquamaxx eco-rock CaribSea Arag Alive Fiji Pink sand Marine Pure Ceramic biomedia Santa Monica HOG upflow algae scrubber Eco Tech Marine XR15W Gen 4 Pro LED lights Bacteria: Live rock from LFS RedSea Reef Mature kit Sand and water from Petit Manon in Maine Sand and water Microvert Starter Culture from Inland Aquatics Fishes: 2 Amphiprion ocellaris (Ocellaris clowns) Vivid Fancy - Mary and Louis Leaky Gramma loreto (Royal Gramma) - Hedy (Lamarr) Emblemaria pandionis (Sailfin Blenny) - Ada (Lovelace) Meiacanthus nigrollineatus Blackline Blenny - Rosalind (Franklin) Elacatinus oceanops Neon Blue Goby - Mae (Jemison) Cryptocentrus cinctus Yellow Watchman Goby - Fossy (Dian) Assesor flavissimus Yellow Assessor - Trudi (Elion) Invertebrates: Skunk cleaner shrimp 3 Sexy shrimp Candy stripe Pistol Shrimp Hairy Chiton - Acanthopleura granulata Black Elephant Limpet 1 Tiger (Fighting) Conch 3 black Nassarius snails 3 small Nassarius snails (different species) Gold Ring Cowrie Snail Cerith snails Ninja Star snails Nerite snails Stocky Cerith snails Trochus snails Stomata snails 3 Feather dusters - pink, green, striped Red Brittle Starfish - Ophiocoma wendti Brittle Starfish (brown) Common Starfish - Echinaster sentus Red Tuxedo Urchin Black Longspine Urchin Brown (?) Longspine Urchin Emerald Crab microbrittle stars Asterina starfish Bristle worms Blue legged hermit crabs Zebra hermit crabs [lone survivor of the Great Hermit and Snail Massacre of 2017 moved to refugium] Corals: Acans: Aussie, Aussie Gold Giant, Candy Stripe, Unknown "freebie" Brains: Alien Maze, unk green Cyphastrea meteor shower Duncan coral (2 different types) Favia dragon soul Frogspawn Candy cane, green Green paly that I will probably regret one day Branching GSP Hairy green mushroom (which is AWESOME) 2 hammer corals Mushrooms: blue and green striped Red Goniopora (ORA) Ricordea - blue, yellow, ultra (and maybe more - several of them went for a walk and I can't find them) Toadstool, plain Toadstool, green Pagoda green cup coral Zoas: army of God, blue hornet, oxides, radioactive dragons eyes, rasta, Goochster, unk Other: FTS June 29 (still learning to photograph tank but I thought I should give you SOMETHING to look at while I'm working on developing this journal)