Welcome to my Red Sea Reefer 350 V3 build thread.
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What's the matter with me?!
I said I was a die hard nano girl.
I said I would never get a bigger tank.
Good gosh I said I would never break the no-soaking-armpit rule.
I am not new to Red Sea Tanks, my first TOTM on Nano-Reef was a RSM 130D. It was also featured on Marine Depot and Fluval was interested in using the tank on their product packaging. When I was ready to upgrade from the RSM, it was because my corals were outgrowing the tank and I was over the rounded corners. At that time they had not come out with rectangle square edged tanks and so I went with a CAD and on to my second TOTM. In the meantime Red Sea took out many new series of tanks, the reefer being one of the most popular. I was initially going to get the Reefer 250 which is a 3 footer. Not sure why or how the thought of going bigger entered my head. I was about to move apartments and dreaming of a new tank. I was over the drop-off that I had for 1.5 years. I went to a couple of LFS to see the 250 and 350 in person and opted for the 350 because it really did not look like a 4 footer tank. The height makes it optically appear stockier and therefore not as big. Of course try making RO water for a "not-so-large-looking" tank. Uh huh.
I ordered the tank with some out of the ordinary requests and a lot of help from @Marine Depot. Well. It was a harrowing delivery. The company that brought it was just unprepared for a delivery of a 350 pound shipment. The truck was lower than the loading dock and the lift gate would not go all the way up. So the guys maneuvered the shipment on a manual forklift on the lift gate and lowered it to the floor. I was just cringing every second of that delivery. It was extremely stressful. So much so that I totally did not think to open the boxes and check if the contents were okay.
Clearly they were not. The right side of the tank was completely smashed
Red Sea was not only kind and gave me a taste of what awesome customer service is all about, I also got the good news that my replacement shipment was going to be the new V3 system which Red Sea had just revealed at Interzoo. V3 has a new refugium ready sump and different plumbing, also a bigger ATO. I think I am the first person in the US to get delivery of the V3 system.
The tank arrived and I began building the cabinet. @Mariaface came over and helped me with it that evening. While I am talking about Maria, let me tell you how incredibly helpful she was every single day during the long week it took me to move my fragile items and the contents of the tank to a temporary 40B that I have setup in the new kitchen. I could not have done it without her help, she came over every day after work to help me. I don't even think I have thanked her enough and I hope I have not taken her for granted but, honestly, not sure I could have done it without her. Thank you Maria.
Friday last week was a fish nerd kind of evening. Maria came over again and we worked on the cabinet some more. In the meantime I had made some mods to the tank and sump which I will detail in another post. My friend Michael drove all the way from Long Island to install my Nano Box ATI Retrofit to the ceiling. Unfortunately we were not prepared for the ceiling to be solid concrete! None of the mollies, or anchors I had were for a concrete application.
Anyway. By the end of Friday the stand was built, tank put on the stand, sump installed, overflow was leak tested and I plumbed the return. I put the sump on line and leak tested all weekend. Got 2K+views on the pump pumping water
https://www.instagram.com/p/BjSQUEYhqUZ/?taken-by=metrokat
Thank you for following my new build. #metrokat #reeflikekat #reefer350
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