Megability’s RedSea REEFER 625 Build Thread

[James_O]

Now THIS is a tank! Adorable blenny by the way.

 

[Megability]

Now THIS is a tank! Adorable blenny by the way.

Hey thank you!
It’s comin’ along…

 

[Megability]

2 months in and happy with the progress…

Torch garden, a bunch of 3-4-5-head frags from my previous tank mounted to marco rubble, will probably sell/trade most for new corals in time…

side shot

 

[Megability]

My Chaetomorpha in the refugium has like 10x’d in size and works “too good” now… I’m having to dose nitrates and phosphates to get any detectable levels.

I cut back the ‘fuge light and skimmer to only 3-6 hours a night, and still feeding 1 cube of food daily, and expect more soon too as I just added 3 new fish…

 

[Megability]

After 2 weeks in observational quarantine I added some new fish to this tank; a six-line wrasse, the very cool Yasha high-fin goby, and this chunky chicken Falco hawkfish…

 

[Megability]

A little walkaround vid of the tank closer up…

 

[Mooses]

How's the flow with the 2 gyres setup this way?

 

[Megability]

How's the flow with the 2 gyres setup this way?

Thanks for asking, I need to add some updates here, but the flow is a little less ideal than I was expecting.

Initially 50-75% power really blew my sand around, but I went fine with Fiji Pink so I somewhat expected that… still thinking of adding some Special Grade on top.

But, between repositioning the outlets a little and them getting clogged over time (I need to clean them) running at 100% now and no sand blowing…

trying to aim them at some cyano and algae growths too to

 

[Megability]

Some updated pics since it’s been awhile, just tryin’ to keep nitrates and phosphates steady above zero and ideally in the 10:1 ratio or so, and been pretty close the last few weeks now…

color corrected with an orange filter lens

Left rockwork

Right rockwork

Sideshot

 

[Megability]

Sumpwork

 

[Megability]

Added a couple new fish recently, current list is:
-12yo Tomato Clown from previous BuoCube
-Lawnmower Blenny
-Blue Damselfish
-Falco Hawkfish
-Yasha Has Goby
-Ruby Red Scooter Dragonette, thankfully lots of pods now to keep him happy, I’ve seeded the tank 3 or 4 times now, both sump and display

and still in observation/quarantine tank are a Six-line Wrasse, Tail-spot Blenny, Orange Diamond Goby, and a small Royal/Hippo Blue Tang…

As for corals the tank is still dominated by the Torch I had so much of from my previous tank, but doing well. I plan on selling most of these pieces off eventually but keeping them for now as I haven’t added too many new ones yet to fill the real estate… also:
-Duncans
-Bam Bam and Blue Hornets Zoanthids
-Green Star Polyps (on a separate rock)
-Green Cloves & Pulsing Xenia
(both on a separate detached rock)
-Some Montipora Capricornis from previous tank

 

[Megability]

Still trying to knock down some cyano but getting better, likely a result of getting nitrates and phosphates too high first before bringing them down now, and maybe out of balance contributed to it as well, but I’m under 10 nitrates now and about 0.1 phosphates…

 

[Megability]

Hawkfish on the lurk…

 

[Megability]

Got one of the super-cool “Walking Dendro“ corals, just such a cool example of symbiotic commensalism where the coral polyp only grows on a particular snail shell, which is often eaten and their shell taken by a type of worm -like a hermit crab does- and then the worm drags the coral around the sea floor each night looking for food itself, but gives a new place for the coral too… pretty cool!

 

[Megability]

I haven't posted in a while but I'm so happy my cyanobacteria outbreak is now gone and the tank is looking more & more beautiful everyday

I credit the addition of a doser, and dosing small amounts of NeoNitro (Nitrate NO3)
and NeoPhos (Phosphate PO4) to dial in an almost perfect and stable balance of 100:1, brought my nutrients to about 8-13 Nitrate and 0.08-0.10 Phosphate and has been stable for months now.

 

[Megability]

I recently added a cute little Convict Tang, Magenta Dottyback, and 7 Lyretail Anthias, it will be cool to see which one turns into the male and changes colors...

And my favorite coral so far, Purple Hornet Zoanthids are growing out nicely, started from a 3 polyp frag

 

[Megability]

The tank is almost a year old and looking better and better by the day, I made some high-res videos, hope you enjoy

"Relaxation on the Reef" in 4K

 

[Megability]

Another video but zoomed in on the middle and my beautiful Montipora, this is 7 minutes long and the last 2 minutes are feeding time

 

[Megability]

Got a new Torch Coral, Euphyllia glabrescens I believe, pretty light green with pink tips…

-best part was I paid for it with some frags of my other torch coral that’s I’ve been growing out for 13 years and now have tons of…

Photobombed by my Falco’s Hawkfish and Convict Tang

 

[Megability]

DinnerTime on the Reef