Red Sea Max 130/34 Gallon Reboot

FJReck63 · Feb 16, 2022

Hi fellow Reefsters!
After approximately 10 plus years I’m finally ready to relaunch my 2008 Red Sea Max 130/34 gallon reef tank,,,, A lot has changed since ‘08-09 when this tank was originally started….Hurricane Sandy, the flood that night, and 15 days of no power took this tank out back then, a few weeks after the initial storm, I quickly emptied the tank of the dead rock and sand, and then put it out of my mind….
A recent trip to a new LFS has inspired me to get it running again, this time with some soft corals, a pair of decent clowns, and eventually a CUC to help out….
Have everything clean, all the original pumps still run and are clean, even my original coralia powerhead too!
Any ideas of suggestions to add some LED’s for corals? The original hood fits really well but only has T5 white fluorescent bulbs as of now, is there a way to mount some LED’s inside the existing hood?
Also, I could use some suggestions for what filtration media to use now, I can’t remember what I had used back in ‘09…The skimmer is clean, it always worked well before….
Aquascape is trial set for the moment, trying to make it a peninsula type arrangement diagonally across the tank….
Any ideas, suggestions, or other encouragement would be appreciated!
Thanks for reading this!
Franz in NJ

Idoc · Feb 19, 2022

Looks nice.

One thing to consider now, though. I looks like you placed your rock on top of the sand. This can/will lead to problems with your rock structure as the sand shifts and erodes out from under the rock. I'd suggest putting the rocks directly on the bottom of the tank and placing the sand around the rock structure for stability.

FJReck63 · Feb 19, 2022

Idoc said:
Looks nice.

One thing to consider now, though. I looks like you placed your rock on top of the sand. This can/will lead to problems with your rock structure as the sand shifts and erodes out from under the rock. I'd suggest putting the rocks directly on the bottom of the tank and placing the sand around the rock structure for stability.

Thanks!
Will do! I'll scoop out the sand a bit under the bigger bits of rock, I actually laid down a base bed of crushed coral stone on the very bottom, then 2 10lb. bags of Carib Sea live aragalife sand on top....
Was planning on getting this wet this weekend, but I'm having problems with the new outlets that I installed on the wall near this tank....Need reliable power full time first!

Thanks for the advice!

Franz in NJ