Somewhat Unique RedSea Reefer 525 G2+ Build

[Mikeltee]

Looks good. You will eventually learn that it's better to just leave it alone. Dinos takes a little elbow grease and I'm glad that you were able to get rid of them. The Pods helped a lot I bet. What is the school of blue fish? Do they actively school up and roam the tank? I love my white Tail! He's quite the character. What kind of Wrasse did you do with?

 

[slingfox]

Looks good. You will eventually learn that it's better to just leave it alone. Dinos takes a little elbow grease and I'm glad that you were able to get rid of them. The Pods helped a lot I bet. What is the school of blue fish? Do they actively school up and roam the tank? I love my white Tail! He's quite the character. What kind of Wrasse did you do with?

Thankfully I haven't had any major outbreak of uglies for three months now but the close to three month battle with dinos, cyano, and GHA from month 3-5 were rough! I recently had large patches green algae growing back in the rock but I didn't do anything and my snails and urchin have brought it under control.

The blue fish are blue-green chromis. I have 11 of them. I started with 6 and then added another 5 a month later. The chromis usually are hanging out in a group and do not fight each other since male Bimac anthia chases the chromis around every so often. I believe this keeps the chromis from turning on each other since they are safer in a group. The chromis are great since they swim at the front of the glass all day long which helps bring out the other fish.

The chromis all went through a quarantine of copper and metro. The first batch I had a 50% survival rate in QT. The second batch I had 100% survival. I believe the increased survival was due to maturity of my QT setup, lower fish load I. That round of QT, and/or luck.

 

[slingfox]

It has been a while since I updated this tank thread. I will do a comprehensive update later this weekend and include some pictures. Overall, things are going well. Coraline started appearing everywhere which is a good sign. It started ans a few dots ant first and within a month started appearing on the power head, drag racks, and rock work.

For recording keeping purposes I wanted to repost some commentary I wrote in response to one of the many dino outbreak threads in February 2024. For those starting a new tank and battling the ugly stage, keep at it! Eventually the ugly stage will end and you won't have much to do other than feed the fish, scrape the glass every few days, and do a water change every week or two!

"I feel your pain. I started my tank around the same time as you and fought a massive outbreak of dinos (all over the rock and thick layer of growth all over the sand bed) for 5 weeks starting in late October. I did almost everything commonly recommended. I believe the most important were running UV, dosing bacteria and silicate every day, and scrubbing the rocks and cleaning the sand every few days. Siphoning out the top layer of sand and rinsing it in saltwater multiple times until it runs relatively clear is important since that exports a lot of the dinos quickly. I probably had to do this siphoning and rinsing 8+ times during the height of the Dinos war. I did so with tap water but if I had to do it again I with salt water since that has a better chance of preserving more of the microbiome. Before adding the sand back into the tank I poured into the sand Microbacter7, Dr. Tim's Waste Away, or the Zeovit bacteria supplement (I had all three on hand).

Dinos decimated my copepod population. Before they were swarming all over my glass, even with limited Dino's now the pod population has not returned to the prior levels but that may be because my 4 wrasse keeping the pod population in check. Most of my snails died including the Nassarius which lived in the sand. I added Trochus during the Dino outbreak and some died and or spasmed when they touched the sand likely due to the Dino toxins. I had a few tester SPS and montis and they all slowly bleached then died. The only coral which survived are my torches and hammers and single mushroom coral. No fish died thankfully. I also had a strawberry conch which hid all day long. Once Dinos dissipated it started moving around a lot more. Most of my hermit crab population died but some survived. Urchins did fine since they seemed to just avoid Dino areas on the rock. I noticed that after a sandbed rinse and water change, my surviving snails and crabs would instantly appear and be much more active.

I have been mostly Dino free for the last two months or so. Even now though I see some growing on top of GHA. Those areas my CUC avoids like the plague. I tried putting three snails in an area with a mix of GHA + Dinos today. One snail would just detach from the rock and let the powerhead blow him to the sand. The other two got out of the area as fast as they could crawl.

Given my battle with dinos I have decided to only add soft corals for now. My tank is more stable (now dealing with GHA) but has a ways to go. Good luck with your Dino battle. Looking at your setup, I suggest rinsing out the top layer of sand. Then dose bacteria and silicate daily until the dinos get out competed. After my dinos got under control, I was hit by a cyano outbreak (more scrubbing of rock and rinsing the sand) which went away after two week, and then GHA took over. Since Dino's aren't killing my livestock anymore, I have been adding CUC which has done a great job at suppressing the GHA."

 

[slingfox]

Now that the tank is relatively stabilized I have started to add coral. The coral largely consists of hammers, frogspawn and torches with a few goniopora, mushrooms, favia, and a handful of SPS. Of the frags in my tank 80% have been in there for only a few weeks. Of the SPS all but two frags have been in for less than a day. A third of the euphillia have been in the tank for less than a day as well.

I made the mistake of putting in SPS frags too early and they all died during the various battles with uglies. I hope the recent additions live!

 

[slingfox]

My tank has been running for one year now. I recently dealt with an outbreak of greenish dinos and algae on my sand. I siphoned out the top layer, rinsed it with tap water multiple times, RODI (2x) and saltwater (2x) and added microbe life and silicate to the bucket and put it back junk the tank. One day later the sand looks good still.

Earlier in the week the sensor on the RedSea ATO died so I had to purchase a new sensor. I have added some SPS to the tank in the last month but they are small frags so barely show up in the photo.

Tank is relatively stable nowadays. My Biota Yellow Tang is 9 months old now and is a big girl. The Blue Star Leopard Wrasse became an adult and is a mix of purple and turquoise. The 11 Chromis added 9 months or so ago are doing great---zero deaths amongst them so far!

I hope to get some coral if there are good Labor Day sales. I hope everyone else is enjoying the last week of summer!

 

[Ryebreadiest]

Tanks looking good! Stories like yours really reinforce the power of wet from the ocean live rock and live sand. My two most recent tanks have used KPaquatics live rock and I’ve never had Dino’s or cyano or GHA.

 

[FindingNem0]

Very nice setup. How you enjoying the 525?

 

[slingfox]

Tanks looking good! Stories like yours really reinforce the power of wet from the ocean live rock and live sand. My two most recent tanks have used KPaquatics live rock and I’ve never had Dino’s or cyano or GHA.

Yeah, I do not plan to start any new tank without some sort of live rock or live sand, either from an existing tank or the ocean.

 

[slingfox]

Very nice setup. How you enjoying the 525?

The 525 has been operating without any notable issues. I sort of wish I got something bigger but I believe this is a common feeling amongst reef keepers!

 

[FindingNem0]

T

The 525 has been operating without any notable issues. I sort of wish I got something bigger but I believe this is a common feeling amongst reef keepers!

The 525 is probably the biggest size I want to upgrade too. Tossing between the 425 and 525. But I like the length on 525.

 

[slingfox]

T

The 525 is probably the biggest size I want to upgrade too. Tossing between the 425 and 525. But I like the length on 525.

This is my first tank and I was in the same position as you. I originally planned to get the 425 but am really glad I got the 525. The additional cost is not much in the grand scheme but you have a lot more flexibility to aquascape and can get some of the larger fish due to the 5" length. I prefer to get more small and medium size fish. With the 5" they have a lot of swim space so the tank is very peaceful.

The larger sump on the 525 allows you to fit the Reefmat 1200 (less frequent roll change) as well as a large protein skimmer (useful for the aeration and keeping pH more elevated).