RED SEA REEFER S1000 265g+25g Frag Tank

[Maxcmo]

I was about 6 months in to this new Waterbox 105.4 when I decided to just go for it and buy a Red Sea Reefer S1000 my LFS Owner had at his house. He had planned on setting it up but the renovation at his house was taking ALOT longer than he thought it would and it was collecting dust in his garage so he offered it to me one day. I was considering the WB Reef LX 270 at the time which is pretty much the comparable tank to the Red Sea I really liked that the WB cabinet was well built and it came already built but the Red Sea extra 25 gal sump addition that you can turn into a frag tank, refugium, or whatever and the fact that the Red Sea was 2 miles from my house in a garage ready to go made me go with the Red Sea. Here is a quick recap of where I am at so far:

First step was to get my Water Box 105.4 out of the way. The plan was to get everything out, slide it across the room and then get everything back in the WB. I would then have the RS1000 delivered set up, get it up and running, and move everything into it so here is how that is going, the good, the bad, etc.:

Step one was getting this tank out of the way. Of course my daughter wanted to help, be in the pictures, etc. lol.

I searched the internet looking for something reasonable (100 gal) that was not to heavy the right size to fit my coral and found a bunch of different stuff all in the $400-$600 range which was more like big water tanks. This actually held me up for a bit I couldn't get myself to spend that much money on something I would have to probably sell or store and never use again. This was all going down around November and we spent Thanksigiving on my brother in laws farm and thats when the idea of using a horse trough popped into my head. 100 gallons for just over $100 bucks. This happen to be the perfect size to just fit all my rocks as well. Check them out here:

https://www.acehardware.com/departm...TVaqJoi9NcH7nuigwMQaAjvVEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

After putting 6 months into this WB and getting everything growing nicely I was not really looking forward to breaking this all down and putting it into a horse trough. To much OCD I guess but I had to get it done and when the horse trough finally arrived I jumped right into it. I mixed up about 40 gallons of new water since I would be draining the WB and it would leave my corals high and dry for some time. This way I could drain as much water as possible into the trough and then transfer all the rock and corals and submerge them immediately. I also took one of my MP40s and slapped it onto the trough as well as a brand new heater I happen to have around as a back up for my sons cube tank.

The time to get this water up to temp was not something I had accounted for so I lost a few hours just waiting for that to happen. So tip#1 make sure to plan on getting your water up to temp. This was a long 2 hours and it never got up to 78 but I figured once I started to transfer the WB water in I would get close enough.

I was hoping to get this done before the lights went on for some dumb reason which in hindsight I guess didn't really matter but OCD is bad sometimes.... Here are the tank lights just turning on when I started to pump out water.

I was using a decent size pump and this was a pretty slow process. Here is the set up this hose and the ability to close off the flow and hang it with the python hang on accessory is legit.

So after about 30 minutes of so I had enough water to start moving over rock. The plan was to move all the small stuff out of the way that is not attached in the Waterbox and move the 2 main rocks I had in my Aquascape:

So far so good. If you notice in the picture above I had bought some cool little skate board type things along with some jacks that were rated for over 200lbs each. The plan was to jack up the cabinet, place it on these skates on one side then do the same thing on the other side and just slide everything over to the other side of the room while I set up the Red Sea in the next few weeks and then moved everything into it. I still had a sump full of water, all my sand about 15-20 gallons of water in the DT. I went to jack up the first side and up it went and down onto the skateboards. I was really concerned at this point because if this didnt work I needed to empty the tank water and sand and empty the sump to be able to just slide it over which I was hoping I would not have to do.

So I moved around to the other side and this happened:

The literally lasted about 4 minutes. The second one broke about 2 minutes after this one. I thought I was going to have to remove more water, sand, etc. and then my wife had an idea. She brought me a can of PAM and sprayed the floor right infront of the leveling legs on the cabinet and we sat down and pushed from the bottom of the cabinet and boom it slide pretty easily. We were pretty methodical in just doing a little bit at a time and about 30 minutes later we finally got the tank in its new temporary spot.

Next step was to get everything back into the Waterbox and get it up and running as quickly as possible. Unbelievably that went without a hitch and 2 and half hours later I had it up and running.

Zero casualties, all the corals looked good and everything was doing well.

And then I noticed this:

Its probably more likely this was going on for a day or two and I just happened to notice but I had thought everyone was extremely happy. To much to do to worry about that other than testing everything and not finding any issues I couldn't get bogged down doing mental gymnastics trying to think what is causing this. I needed to concentrate on getting the RED Sea to my house which was the only drawback in it being at my LFS Owners house. It meant I had to figure out how to pick it up and get it delivered.

Here is a shot 3 days later at night and everything still looking good and the birdsnest not looking any better or any worse:

This same day I received a phone call from Marine Collectors about a Melanurus Wrasse I had ordered month back. It was out of quarantine and ready to ship. A day later:

My first Wrasse. A very cool fish definitely not scared to mix it up with the other fish and was eating within 5 minutes of being in the tank. I was a little concerned the next morning when he was know where to be found but apparently he is a late sleeper and is alway out and about about an hour later than everyone else.

Tough to get a good shot with an IPhone....

So working up the plan to pick up this beast. The flat bed I am going to use only has about 4" on each side of clearance so I am a bit concerned about that and the 1000lb lift gate capacity...

 

[A Young Reefer]

Looks good! also a very pretty and unique clown you got there.

 

[Sgchick]

Well done. Hard moving a tank that big!! I’m about to get a leopard wrasse form Marine Pleasures. Also have some Randalls Anthias coming. Love that these companies do the qt’ing. I had a wrasse in my last tank and I love their personalities. Fun to watch them dive into the sand at night. Looking forward to your new build!!

 

[Maxcmo]

Well done. Hard moving a tank that big!! I’m about to get a leopard wrasse form Marine Pleasures. Also have some Randalls Anthias coming. Love that these companies do the qt’ing. I had a wrasse in my last tank and I love their personalities. Fun to watch them dive into the sand at night. Looking forward to your new build!!

Thanks and for sure awesome fish.

 

[Maxcmo]

So luckily I have access to a flat bed from my office with a 1000 lb lift gate on the back. I never imagined that this tank would possibly not fit on this truck but as you can see from the pictures below its was a very tight squeeze:

Less thank 2” on each side once it was in the truck kind of crazy but thank God it fit. Sitting no that one horrible looking pallet in the back of the Flat bed in Miami traffic had me a little nervous since at that point there is no shipping carrier to cover any damages so I was extremely anxious to get it home, down off the truck, and into my garage.

Last challenge of the day was to get the tank off of the cabinet parts with just three guys. Red Sea packs the cabinet under the tank which is kind of ****** but it is what it is…Luckily between the three guys we were able to get it done but I borderline thru out my back making it happen. The tank is incredibly heavy. Having got all that behind me I started to search for one of those Ikea cabinet building contractors I figured this was the one part of the build I didn’t mind skipping. $375bucks and 24 hours later I had someone building the cabinet. My main concern other than building it correctly was making sure it was level which I have to say was done perfectly and I was glad I hired someone to know this out quickly while I was at work.

This wall was almost made for this tank it fits perfectly.

I was finally ready to get the tank in the house. I had 7 guys coming over the next day and I only had 4 suction cup glass holders and two furniture dolleys. The plan was to push it out of the garage around to the back of the house and in some double doors into the den. Even with 7 guys and me being the smallest at 5’10” 170lbs this was f hard to do but all went to plan and we got the tank up on the stand. I checked the level and it was perfect and it was pretty easy to slide it around into place even by myself. I ended up leaving a little more space on the right side to be able to squeeze by the side and access the back to set up the hardware and do any maintenance in the future.

Next step installing the plumbing and getting all the equipment set up. Including the tank move I am about 3 weeks in at this point when I notice that on my Waterbox my ALK is down to 7.4. I have dosing TM All For Reef for 2 months increasing the dose every week as it had been dropping or so I thought. It turns out my Ecotech Versa dosing pump hadn’t dosed a drop. Took about 5 minutes to figure out the tube that came on the dosing container I bought from Amazon must have been blocked or had a hole in it. Once I used a new tube it started working right away so I cut the dosage back in half of the recommended dose and started thinking about getting the new tank going my plan was to spend all weekend doing as much as I can.

 

[Maxcmo]

The plan for the aquascape was I wanted to take my time and do something nice so I was going to throw what was in the waterbox into the red sea on the left side and leave the right side free to put in a new aquascape. I happen to find these nice Tonga branches at my LFS Strictly fish in Miami a few months ago so I bought them and had them in my garage ever since hoping to incorporate them into the Red Sea since I knew I would need some height and something dramatic to compliment the size of this aquarium. These pieces are close to 3' each.

 

[Maxcmo]

But before I could get to that I needed to get this tank up and running and the first step was connecting the plumbing. Here is the unboxing of the sump and the sump extension that can be used for ATO, Refugium, Frag Tank, Etc.

Sump extension connector kit:

Sump divider in:

Built in leveling mat and once I got it propped up I was able to slid it in myself.

 

[primalpete]

That tank is a beast.

 

[Maxcmo]

Next up was the additional sump extension which I thought was extremely cool. It is around 25 gallons if you were to fill it but I am guessing its really probably more like 17 gallons at the level it will really be filled up to:

These are the parts that go with it which initially had me extremely concerned but once I got it all together it worked out perfect and was easy to do. I think I set it up a little to close to the side so the extension tubes stick a little to far into the extension but I just left it this way once I had tested it and it was not leaking I didn't want to mess with it and my Frag racks will probably be a little higher than the tubes anyways once I get them in eventually.

The plumbing itself was very easy I got it all together in 20 minutes by myself. I did over tighten one of the supply lines cracking the fitting:

This was disheartening but totally my fault and I had some time before I was going to get this tank wet so I reached out to Red Sea who not only sent me the pipe in a week but sent me another one because I sent the wrong part # and all at no charge after admittedly having broke it myself. No questions asked they just require proof of purchase and serial #. So shout out to them for taking care of me.

So here is all plumbing hooked up, sumps in and now on to the best part!

Here is a list of the equipment I will be using (Mixed Reef / SPS Dominant):

-RETURN PUMP - Vectra L2 and I am keeping my S2 from the WB as a back up. I did not want to do two return pumps I will have battery back ups on all the powerheads and having a back up in storage would take me 20 mins or less to change out. Less stuff jammed into the sump the better.

-POWER HEADS - 3 - MP40 Power Heads - This will change in to 4 eventually and I am running them on the sides this may change to running them all on the back once the tank gets grown out. I would love to hear any feedback regarding this if anyone wants to put their 2 cents in...

-SKIMMER - I am going to use my Reef Octopus 150 Int which I know once this tank gets full grown out is probably not enough but from now till I get there I think will be fine (I will be running a refugium).

-LIGHTS - I am re-using the Ecotech XR15 PRO's from my Waterbox on the outside and adding one Ecotech XR30 Pro in the middle along with the Reef Brite XHO 60" kit. If you go by the numbers that should cover 82" no problem. Would love to hear any opinions on this as well... IN my refugium I am running 2 Ecochic tunze refugium lights. One just is not enough and 2 has been great and I run them on top on each side both angled in to get the top and sides of the Chaeto and I have 0 light spill into the sump.

-CONTROLLER - I will be using an Apex along with a Trident for the first time.

-HEATERS - 2 - 600w BRS Titanium Heaters each on a separate Ink Bird Controller and then plugged into the Apex. The Inkbird will be the primary controller. I have read this will help the longevity of the Apex Power Board and will be some extra redundancy to avoid any failures.

-ATO - I will moving over the Tunze ATO 3155 which my RODI holding tank will be plumbed into as it is now on the WB.

-REACTOR - Aquatop MR-30 Reactor which I will run intermittently as needed with mostly GFO and Carbon as needed.

I also recently purchased this thing:

Link: Sump Cleaner

$35 bucks and this thing really works to clean crap out of your sump. I will get into that later but this was extremely handy and I highly recommend for anyone that may have a sump full of crap and they are procrastinating cleaning it up. You can clean it all in 10 mins with this thing.

 

[Maxcmo]

I got my sump plumbed in and wired up and also got the heaters in so

I am going to be making 75 gallon of RODI a day and getting it transferred over until the tank is full. If no leaks and all is good I will add salt and run the just the return pump and one MP40 for few days before I do anything else.

My RODI set up is basically a BRS 75gallon per day system I have set up in the garage that is plumbed into this 40 gallon holding tank. Once its full I rinse the DI and shut down the water into the system. Its gravity fed into the waterbox right now which eventually will be into the red sea and usually lasts a month before I need to fill it back up. This is painfully slow (4 days) as I am sure everyone that has set up a tank can relate and I also have my couch kind of sideways since it does not fit back in place until I move the Water Box out of the way so the wife is on me daily for that lol. This sump has a leveler which I thought was pretty cool to be able to raise or lower the sump level water. I am not sure why it would be raised up any higher than the bottom height especially since I am going to be running a skimmer so I left it at the bottom setting.

 

[Maxcmo]

Its been a minute since I updated this thread but a lot has happened since I started it! Picking back up on my progress in the thread I got the water into the new tank. Let it run for a couple days tested salinity, and made sure all my parameters were pretty close and planned on moving everything over in one shot which is exactly what I did and unbelievably it went pretty much without a hitch. I thought I had lost a fish that I could not find even after I had taken everything out including most of the sand in the waterbox and by the end of the day with no pump running, no heater, he just popped up out of the sand lol. New little Wrasse which I put into a bucket, re-acclimated to the new tank and then transferred him in without any issues. Here is the tank with one light and everything out of the old tank move into it.

The following day was going to be all about getting the new lights over the tank.

 

[Maxcmo]

I ordered an Ecotech Radion G5 XR30 PRO and the plan was to make this the center light with my XR15's out on the sides with two Reef Bright 60" lights to tie it all together and according to the numbers this was enough light to cover the tank. I initially made a stupid mistake in putting this all together. I assumed that the RMS mounts would have to go on the back of the tank since the brackets would not open wide enough and I did place the lights this way:

This of course looked horrible, the mounts sagged and I figured there had to be a better way and thats when I read that the lights can be mounted on the sides without the entire bracket assembled it just rests in place which I thought would be really unstable but it turned out to work perfect and the lights sit perfectly straight. The only issue would be one of my kids throwing a football or something like that in the house it would literally knock the lights over into the tank possibly.

Here is how it ended up:

 

[Maxcmo]

For anyone wondering setting up the Reef Brite lights was fairly straight forward and I am using the Apex to control them which allows you to program intensity, timing, etc. fairly easily to coincide with my Radions.

Here are some shots of the lights going together:

 

[Maxcmo]

Next up was some wire management. I really just tie wrap everything together and try to make it as neat as possible and I did not use the slide in terms of it being able to slide out I instead just mounted everything on it and tucked wires behind it when possible. My goal one day is to convince my wife to let me empty out the pantry cabinets behind the tank and use this area to put all this stuff in there in an organized manner but for now this will have to suffice. This is pre-trident and a few other items:

I still need to rig up my trident, some power heads in the frag tank, a light in the frag tank, a second inkbird since the Apex doesn't like 2 heaters on one plug, and a Optical Water level sensor for my sump return area to let me know if the ATO stops working.

 

[Maxcmo]

Next up was aquascaping the right side of the tank. I also want to do something behind the left side to get some corals higher up in the water column and since I have so much room behind my current scape. As a reminder this is what I need to fill in:

I also needed to add some more sand and here is tip #1 because this cost me about 3-4 weeks of cloudy water for not listening to EVERYONE. RINSE your sand even if it has bacteria in it forget about that bacteria and rinse your sand clean until no dust is present. You could always dose MB7 or any other bacteria to make up for what you lose. I of course tried to get my sand in without rinsing it and it took a month to clear up completely.

The idea for scape was to use some Tonga rock I had bought a few moths ago and combine with some Marco I had as well and create some height and room for SPS to grow in different directions. It took me a couple days to get some inspiration but here was my first attempt at a middle rock to transition into the higher Tonga rocks which will be on the right side. My thinking was this will be where I put the nicest, rarest, SPS right in the center of the tank:

In a couple days this was about all I had gotten done so I decided I needed a change of scenery and moved everything outside:

A few drinks into the day and I started to speed up the process and this is my final middle section:

I filled in a few more gaps and then called it the day. I know that does not look like much but its about 13 pieces glued together with sand and glue multiple times until I could pick it up from any angle without it breaking.

On to the right side which was going to be even slower since the pieces were bigger and much heavier:

Starting to come together:

and here is the final result:

I still need to add another piece of Tonga behind going up behind the existing scape I just haven't figure out how to do that yet.

 

[hja99]

It's looking really great.

 

[Sgchick]

It's all coming together!! Looks great!

 

[Maxcmo]

That was 1 month ago I now have Coraline all over the back glass but very little on the rock on the right side. I have pineapple sponges growing in the sump and my Chaeto is doing well. Its Amazing how quickly things can get going when transferring over an entire system. I am excited to start adding some SPS soon...

 

[mstgkillr]

Any chance you could measure the inside opening of the tank lengthwise? I understand the tank is 82.7" in length, but I believe that is the outer dimensions. I would like to know the inside dimensions, accounting for the side panes and eurobracing.

 

[blaxsun]

Awesome looking tank!