Ivan's Red Sea Max S650 Build and Red Sea s1000 upgrade

[ibondy]

Hello,
I am slowly starting my build of Red Sea Max S650. I was in the right place, at the right time, and had an opportunity to buy this tank lightly used. I love, how this tank and lights stand looks like.
I will heavily customize the tank's equipment to fit my goals.

First, my tenants for the tank:

• Mixed reef with SPS + LPS + bunch of fish
• Automation to run the tank for at least a week with out a touch, 2 weeks with minimal support
• Ease of maintenance is a priority
• Follow Red Sea Reef care
• Every technology will fail (sooner or later)

Major equipment plan:

• 5 - Hydra 26 - local shop is running with 5 lights and the growth is phenomenal
• 2 - Jecod 9000 pumps with Apex controller option - was considering other options like Apex COR, RO Varios, etc. but just could get over the price point and value. I got awesome support from Reef Breeders.com in selecting these pumps and controllers with Apex support.
• 1 - Apex controller - I am using and love Apex on my Clown breeding setup and would not run a tank with out it.
• 1 - Neptune EB8 Power Bar - I do have few of these around
• 2 - Neptune WaV - I choose these over MP-40 due to being a reasonably priced circulation pumps controlled by Apex, I did not used them before, but reviews and experiences of others are positive.
• 1 - Neptune ATK - I was planning to place ATK into tank's built in fresh water storage container, but floater is too big to fit in. I will use it in the sump instead and come up with a different solution for built in reservoir.
• 1 - Neptune FMM - Knowing your flows can tell you if something is going on with your system
• 1 - 36W UV light - I am big believer of UV lights and used them on my other tanks with a great success
• 1 - Clarisea 5000 - My wife is tired of cleaning filter socks and this seems like a great solution.
• 1 - NYOS 160 Skimmer - Choose this skimmer based on Shaun's recommendation and experience. I was thinking NYOS 220, but reading Shaun's experience and the way his tank looks like, 160 will do just fine.
• 1 - NYOS Torq reactor (large) - this is brand new product and will see how well it will work, but I like the promise and do not like bags with media in my sump.
• 2 - Coral Box 4 head dossers - I will be following Red Sea Reef Care and will be dosing all elements. Coral Box has nice reviews and price points for their dossers, I got free dossing containers and tubing holders.
• 1 - Skimz 157 Macroalgea reactor -I was planning create a refugium but the sump is relatively small and I run out of the space. This reactor seems nice combination of usability and size. Also it will keep my sump cleaner.

Hope to complete all electrical components this weekend.
Everyone loves pictures, so here is my starting point. I have to start somewhere.

 

[ibondy]

Not sure why the tank's picture is there twice. If anyone knows how to remove it, please let me know.

 

[SPR1968]

Not sure why the tank's picture is there twice. If anyone knows how to remove it, please let me know.

Don’t worry it makes a point and looks great! Lol

 

[GoVols]

Looks good and congrats on your S 650.

Please remember to leave a gap, at least 6" between the tank and your wall, so that you can service the down pipe's valve, down the road.

 

[PanchoG]

Looking forward for your thread, congrats on the S-650.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Nice Ivan!

FWIW, If you can still edit the post, or in the future, you can manage pictures better when editing a post by selecting “More Options.” At the bottom you can delete extra pictures under “Attached Files.”

 

[ibondy]

Nice Ivan!

FWIW, If you can still edit the post, or in the future, you can manage pictures better when editing a post by selecting “More Options.” At the bottom you can delete extra pictures under “Attached Files.”

Nice call, I completely missed that part and was looking in wrong places. Thanks.

 

[ibondy]

Looks good and congrats on your S 650.

Please remember to leave a gap, at least 6" between the tank and your wall, so that you can service the down pipe's valve, down the road.

Yes, got about 5'' of space between tank and wall. I already tested this as I will need to cut down pipe and plumb it into ClariSea. Waiting for 40 mm to 1.25" adapter.

 

[ibondy]

Made some progress last 10 days. All hardware plumed and and plugged into power. Just finished with my rock-scaping. Somehow, it did not come out as in my garage, but I like it even more.
Base pieces are very stable and I did cement only higher pieces, all feels solid. Plenty of caves, crevices and flow through and around the rocks.
Few items before I can start filling up with salt water.

1. I am still working on my water mixing/changing station in my garage.
2. I need to program Apex.
3. Need to finish auto-fill for a build in top-off reservoir.
4. Bracket for pumps floaters did not showed up, yet.

Planning to fill with a fresh water this week and do a test run for a few days.

Sump area:

Few pictures of tank with rock-scaping.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Wow, looks awesome. Really coming along nicely!

 

[ibondy]

@NY_Caveman Thank you! Appreciate that, I am excited to see a real progress, after planning and getting all pieces together.

 

[SPR1968]

The tank and aquascaping looks great and you certainly have plenty of equipment packed into the sump for sure

I’m guessing you have had to alter the down pipe plumbing to plug in the clarisea system ?

 

[ibondy]

@SPR1968 yes, I did cut 40 mm main drain and reduced it into 1" pipe + couple elbows and into Clarisea. Sump is surely full will hardware and the left compartment is full with electrical and dosing containers. Fortunately, the wall behind the tank is the garage wall and I have 3" pipe through the wall for supporting equipment. I am planning continuous water changes and setting up my fresh and salt water there, also my chiller (not sure will be needed) will be in garage.

 

[PanchoG]

Nice aquascaping! It is looking really good.

 

[ibondy]

Bunch of work done last week. Finished my water station in the garage. Run fresh water test for a few days, drained and filled with fresh RO water and added salt. Little over 1.2 bucket of Reef Crystals went in to hit 1.026. Auto fill of built-in water reservoir done and filling directly from RO line.
Got in about #80 of sand, and it was too much, got about #15 out and tank looks better, may need to take some more next week when I get back from my trip. Now, ready to cycle the tank, started with bottle of ATM and some life sand from my other tank sump. Dropped Wav's to 75% as 90% was too much flow for the sand.
Can't wait to start adding my clowns, but I will exercise a patience.

 

[ryanj60]

Looks great! What did you go with for the 36W UV light?

 

[ibondy]

Looks great! What did you go with for the 36W UV light?

Nothing special, I had old UV I bought of the Ebay few years back. Just got new bulb for it and set the flow to about 100 gallons per hour. Keeping UV off for now till cycle gets fone.

 

[ibondy]

Cycle complete, all steady. Time to put the first fish in.

3 matted pairs of clowns from my breeding farm. Black and White, Black Ice and Orange Ocellaris. After few hours it is clear pair of Ocellaris are bullies in the tank. They think they need to control everything on both sides of the tank. Will see if they will settle down in a few days or if a separation will be needed.

Also added few Neon Toadstools and Hammer corals from my kitchens 29 BioCube. Time to take that tank down.

 

[ibondy]

Over the last 2 weeks I started adding new inhabitants to my tank. All is moving long nicely with a few exceptions.
1: Unable to calibrate Neptune Ph and Salinity probes - Neptune is showing 7.65 and actual is somewhere around 8 (based on Red Sea and Hanna) Salinity is showing 39.7 and actual is around 35 based on calibrated refractometer.
2: Alkalinity dropped to 7.7 and I doubled Foundation B dosing and tank is now holding at 8.4. I am using Foundation B powder and with the next batch I will double or even triple mix strength, as some are suggesting. I am using 100 grams per liter, to mix the solution.

As I added new corals, I started acclimatization mode on the Nydra 26 lights as corals did not looked very happy.
Here are few pictures of what I got. Clearly, I am not in the same picture taking league as @SPR1968, as I do not poses his skills or equipment.
Did not realized, till now, that I need good camera and photo taking skills, my Galaxy 9 will go only so far.

With only 1 male and female clown fish everyone is getting along nicely.

 

[ibondy]

I will be putting in flow valve for refilling S650 built-in RO reservoir, which I am feeding directly from the RO. Right now, I am controlling the flow with a Neptune solenoid on the RO line + Neptune water sensor + standard float switch + Tunze Osmolator magnet + custom printed brackets for each, all connected to Apex. This valve will serve as a last back up and will physically shut RO water flow, if all other safety measures fails.

Standard floats do not fit in the tight space and I found this one on eBay. I installed RO line adapter on the top and now it is time to put it into RO reservoir chamber.