They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, with that being said thank you to @Eight and @Butuz for the inspiration on this one. This isn’t my first reef tank but is the first one that I wanted to spend the money and do it right the first time. I live in Nassau County New York And ordered the Reefer 250 on May 2nd (arrived May 14) during the very rare Red Sea sale through Bulk Reef Supply(***side note*** I work in customer service and I have never dealt with a better company. Every issue that has has come up, every problem and question I have had been answered and resolved within minutes. I could not say nicer things about the people I have spoken to there***end side note***). Along with the Reefer 250 I ordered some Dr. Tims one and only, 55 pounds of Real reef solutions real reef rock, Cor-20 return pump and a 20 LB bag of Fiji Pink Arab Alive!. Everything but the Tank arrived on May 7th so I started this process by unpacking the rock and starting on the aquascape.
The rock came in mediocre shape, a lot of Brocken pieces and chipped edges, after weighing what was usable it came to about 51 pounds of the 55 ordered(I hear they always ship more weight for this reason and If I weighed all the broken pieces it came to about 60 pounds.). I knew the risk when ordering it so the lose of a few pounds didn’t bother me.
Next was a few test runs on the aquascape to get an idea what my base/foundation will be and what the top rocks will look like.
I still had a few days until the tank got to the house so I went out and bought a 20 gallon brute garbage pale, added about 10-15 gallons of RODI, the rock, and Dr tims, a cheap heater, and a circulating pump to start/continue the cycle on the live rock. I unfortunately don’t have any pictures of the process but in the end it all worked out. I dosed some ammonia throughout the week and ghost fed, checked the levels daily and it seem to have completed the cycle in 7-10 days.
After dealing with one of the worst shipping companies in America (XPO Logistics) the tank finally arrived on May 14th
It arrived well packaged but the pallet was kind of busted up so I unpacked most of it in front of the driver to make sure it had no issues.
Tank took a few hours to put together and level, Filled the tank overnight with water to test and make sure it wasn’t leaking.
The rock came in mediocre shape, a lot of Brocken pieces and chipped edges, after weighing what was usable it came to about 51 pounds of the 55 ordered(I hear they always ship more weight for this reason and If I weighed all the broken pieces it came to about 60 pounds.). I knew the risk when ordering it so the lose of a few pounds didn’t bother me.
Next was a few test runs on the aquascape to get an idea what my base/foundation will be and what the top rocks will look like.
I still had a few days until the tank got to the house so I went out and bought a 20 gallon brute garbage pale, added about 10-15 gallons of RODI, the rock, and Dr tims, a cheap heater, and a circulating pump to start/continue the cycle on the live rock. I unfortunately don’t have any pictures of the process but in the end it all worked out. I dosed some ammonia throughout the week and ghost fed, checked the levels daily and it seem to have completed the cycle in 7-10 days.
After dealing with one of the worst shipping companies in America (XPO Logistics) the tank finally arrived on May 14th
It arrived well packaged but the pallet was kind of busted up so I unpacked most of it in front of the driver to make sure it had no issues.
Tank took a few hours to put together and level, Filled the tank overnight with water to test and make sure it wasn’t leaking.
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