Red Sea Reefer 625XXL - "The Big One"

[Smirkish]

For instance. How much yuma is too much yuma?

 

[BeltedCoyote]

Is there such a thing?

 

[MERKEY]

For instance. How much yuma is too much yuma?

There is never enough YUMA, those are super pretty!

They spread like wildfire hahaha

Mine love the light and started bouncing the higher I put them, have you tried to move any of the babies higher and closer to the light?

Wouldn't want you to melt them

 

[Smirkish]

@MERKEY I had some of the ricordea higher up and they drew up- the father down I put them the more of a color pop I got, actually. There’s a couple of them that were almost dead when I got the tank, and they’re full mushrooms now. One purple/pink one is starting to bounce.

Some of the yuma seem to be moving towards the light though. Think they want more light than the rics?

 

[MERKEY]

You could always see how 1 likes it amd just move it back if it starts to shrink up and look unhappy.

I noticed rics do like less light and yumas can definitely handle more in my experience.

 

[Smirkish]

They’ve gone crazy making babies since I swapped my AI settings over to D. Tumanov’s. I know everyone is all over the Saxby settings with these lights, but I have fallen in love with how the corals look at night on these. Everything just lights up, like a city at night. I’ll move one up in the morning before lights come on. I want BOUNCETOWN.

 

[MERKEY]

I'll hVe to check that setting out. I just use a modified AB+ schedule ;Cyclops

 

[LRT]

@MERKEY be blazing them shrooms up

 

[MERKEY]

@MERKEY be blazing them shrooms up

You know all about MOAR LAMP!

Kick up the heat slowly tho hahah

 

[Smirkish]

Blurry shots of the sps from the top. I just sit and stare sometimes...
Ignore the missing piece of the setosa. There may be new frags on my rack.

 

[Smirkish]

Top three came with the tank- bottom two I purchased.

Pics of the original three when I got the tank.

 

[BeltedCoyote]

Looks like they’re thriving!

 

[Smirkish]

I’ll trust your judgement on that, lol. I try to keep them happy, and they don’t complain (which is refreshing). I didn’t realize how much fluffier they had gotten until I posted that actually. I’m not even positive on what two of the original ones are.....

 

[Bo.]

I’ll trust your judgement on that, lol. I try to keep them happy, and they don’t complain (which is refreshing). I didn’t realize how much fluffier they had gotten until I posted that actually. I’m not even positive on what two of the original ones are.....

 

[Smirkish]

 

[N3mo]

Corals are looking great, going to look really nice as they grow and fill out..

 

[Staghorn]

For instance. How much yuma is too much yuma?

Too much!

 

[Smirkish]

Corals are looking great, going to look really nice as they grow and fill out..

;Shamefullyembarrased Thank you. I’m excited to see them grow in, yes! I thought growing orchids was rewarding, (wait three months for a spike to grow, get blossoms for two months or so), but this is a whole new game for me. It’s amazing how quickly they grow, really. It looks so empty compared to tanks like yours!

 

[69reefman]

Red Sea Reefer 625XXL
System Volume: 169g
(on 4/26/21)

Welcome to my build thread for my RSR, affectionately known around our household as, “the Big One”.
(You know, when someone asks, “Which tank?”)

I will continue to update this post with a current photo of the tank and what my setup includes. Feel free to comment, any input is welcome.

Inhabitants
* indicates ID or morph still uncertain​

Fish
*Phantom Clownfish (x2)
*Snow Storm Clownfish (x2)
Naso Tang
Purple Tang
Blue Tang
Yellow Tang
*Twospot Surgeonfish
*Lyretail Anthias
Bangaii Cardinalfish (x2)
Elegant Firefish (x2)
Blue Mandarin
Spotted Mandarin
Diamond Watchman Goby
Lawnmower Blenny
Pygmy Angelfish
Niger Trigger

CUC/Inverts
Nassarius Snails (x5)
Mexican Turbo Snails (x3
Blue Leg Hermit Crab
Emerald Crab
Peppermint Shrimp (x2)
Bubble Tip Anemone (x3) - *color morphs unknown
*Unknown Anemone
Flame Scallop

Coral
Brown Star Polyp
Green Star Polyp
Firework Cloves
Kenya Tree (x2)
Frogspawn (x2)
Hammer
Duncan (x2)
Acan Lord (x2)
Miami Vice Chalice
Hollywood Stunner Chalice (x2)
Tequila Sunrise Chalice
Alveopora (x2)
Candycane (x3)
Green Toadstool Leather
Carnation Tree
Atomic Sympodium
Mayan Sun Favia
Fungia Plate
Hi-C Cyphastrea
*Reverse Superman Montipora
*Stylo (x2)
Digitata (x2)
Ricordea Florida (several)
Ricordea Yuma (several)
Utter Chaos Palythoa
Rasta Zoanthid
Setosa

Equipment​

AI Hydra 26 HD (x3)
IM ChaetoMax Refugium LED 18W
AI HMS Mounting Kit (x3)
EcoTech Vortech MP40w ES
Jebao CP-90 25W Crossflow
Jebao DCP-6500 Sine Wave Return
Fiji-36 Advanced Reef Sump
Bubble Magus Curve 7 Skimmer
Aqua Ultraviolet 15W Classic UV
BRS Dual GFO & Carbon Reactor
Aquatop 400W Titanium Heater
(?lb) CaribSea Life Rock
CaribSea Arag-Alive Fiji Pink Live Sand (60lb added to existing bed which looked like Oolite)

Feeding​

I feed twice a day. Frozen is w/ juice. Corals and anemone get spot fed as needed. Return gets shut off for three minutes. Fish eat in less than two. Skimmer is off for 30 to allow it to circulate. Anemone get raw shrimp at least once a week.

12:00 pm
1 cubes of Spirulina Mysis
1 cube of Spirulina Brine
1 cube of Coral Gumbo
Mix in Reef Blizzard-A every three days.
Nori - 1/2 sheet cut into thin strips on multiple clips

6:00 pm
1 cube of Spirulina Mysis
1 cube of Spirulina Brine
30 ml phyto

Parameters
(on 5/7/21)​

Alkalinity: 8.7
Ammonia: 0
Calcium: 477
Magnesium: 1470
Nitrate: 20
Nitrite: 0
pH: 8.2
Phosphate: .17
Salinity: 1.024
Temperature: 78

Backstory:
In January this year we got into looking at saltwater systems, and wound up purchasing a Fluval Evo 13.5 new for about half price. I’d had the tank for about two months, and we were quickly realizing that it was going to be too small for what I wanted. So we started shopping!

Needless to say piecing together a tank is very expensive! :0 Go figure. We started looking through FB to see if we could find any deals, and we eventually came across “the big one”.

The tank was far bigger than I had planned on, the equipment looked good, and the livestock came “for free”, coral, fish, everything, due to FB having a policy against selling live animals. He had the tank since July of 2020, and was preparing to be restationed (Army), so he was getting rid of it all.

I literally talked myself out of buying it fifty different times, but then I saw it and all of that flew right out the window (along with the rest of my sanity).

This is a shot of the tank the night we broke it down and moved it;
(That’s the guy in pic- he was soooo helpful it was insane.)

And the “guts” that night;

(Notice the return is located before the refugium?)

I think my biggest concern, though, was the condition of the livestock. The flow was down lowwww (there was only the one vortech power head and you can see what it is set at above), rocks were coated in thick mats of algae on sand, and he said he was running the lights on “a basic setting”.

Now, here is how we moved it:

​

U-Haul truck, which we picked up in the city that the tank was in. Joe drove this, and the tank was “strapped” inside using a large ratchet strap minus the ratchet. We put the largest containers with water/sand/rock around it for bracing as well. I wish I took pictures of this, but it was dark, and we were in a hurry!​

​

Our CRV​

Loaded with lights wrapped up in the front passenger seat, cooler in the back seat, and the fish buckets in the wayyyyy back. Also loaded the more delicate equipment and plumbing in this car.​

​

Multiple battery operated bubblers​

* I don’t use bubble stones, I just tape the line down inside the bucket/container.​

​

1-gallon Ziploc Bags (with zippers)​

*Double bagged in case of leaks.​

​

Various hard plastic Tupperware containers w/ lids​

- For hard corals or anything attached to rock.​

​

(2x) New 44 gallon Rubbermaid Brute garbage cans​

- For water and large live rock.​

​

(7x) New Food Grade 5 gallon buckets with lids​

- For fish.​

* I have a few smaller salt buckets with lids that I used as well. Knowing that tangs are notoriously sensitive fish, susceptible to ich and other marine diseases, I was hoping to keep their stress levels as low as possible, and hope for the best. They were removed from the tank after the corals and some of the rock work and kept inside the guy’s house with bubblers and lids (still open) until we were ready to leave. I ran the heat in my vehicle to maintain the temperature in these buckets and the cooler.​

​

(5x) 18 gallon heavy duty storage tubs​

- For sand and live rock with some water.​

​

(1x) 27 gallon heavy duty storage tote with lid​

- For sand and the largest arch rock.​

​

(1x) Igloo Marine 120-quart insulated ice chest​

- For corals in bags and tupperware containers.​

* I cut several styrofoam pieces to make dividers to fit my cooler perfectly, so that I could separate the corals somewhat to keep them stationary.​

We started to break down the tank around 10:00 that night and didn’t leave his place till after 1:00AM. It was after 3:00 by the time we got home, and it was definitely one of the most anxious drives I’ve ever taken. We stayed on the phone the entire time nearly, and left the dang doors to the stand at the guy’s house, so he was following us for a little while too!

The tank actually ended up having to ride ON the stand because we couldn’t separate it off of the self leveling mat. I think it weighed around 600 lbs when we moved it, since the sump was also still in the stand. Fortunately our house is about level with the back of the truck, or we would have had a nightmare getting it down the ramp.

(Ignore the chaos.)

Part of the water was added into the holding tank (55g Acrylic), then the fish, and then the coral.

(I will not tell a lie: I had no time for identifying corals and rocks and trying to separate things here. I wish I had known he had so many different corals and fish, or I would have probably set up two holding tanks (one for sps and one for lps, and so I could have separated the more aggressive fish).

The fish and coral could finally rest! I, however, could not- I started working on setting the Reefer back up, and Joe headed off to work. (We are idiots, yes.)

Let’s call this chapter, “Day 1”. More to come!

You did a excellent job. Share where you obtained most of your live stock.

 

[N3mo]

;Shamefullyembarrased Thank you. I’m excited to see them grow in, yes! I thought growing orchids was rewarding, (wait three months for a spike to grow, get blossoms for two months or so), but this is a whole new game for me. It’s amazing how quickly they grow, really. It looks so empty compared to tanks like yours!

Seeing corals grow and thrive is extremely rewarding. Most of the corals I have were grown out from frags and were small.

Take lots of photos so that you can a look back at the growth.