Red Sea Reefer 250 - My first tank ever!

[bduff925]

Ahoy-hoy fellow reef lovers,

Willkommen, bienvenue, and welcome! Brief intro can be found here, but as stated this will be my first tank ever! As such I'm sure there are a hundred things I've forgotten to look into and many hundreds more I don't even know I should have, hence why I want to get in on this lovely community of knowledge-sharing. But enough about me- let's get to the good stuff!

My goal is eventually to have an SPS dominant reef tank, but overall I would like for the tank to be an exhibit of symbiosis and peace (at least so much as you can find it in nature). Low aggression fish, corals, and inverts will be the name of the game. The tank will be a Red Sea Reefer 250 and is going in the downstairs den/office area of my loft, which is as far as possible from our 16'x18' outer facing all-glass wall all glass, so temperature is at its most stable and natural light at a bare minimum. It's also under our "bedroom" so hoping the noise will be minimal at night. The room does have a thick wool area rug over hardwood, so if anybody has experience setting up a tank on thicker carpet would love to hear if you placed something under or around the stand or put it straight on the carpet or what.

I have tried to go with what seemed from research and a professionals advice to be the best equipment I could afford and still be able to pay my mortgage. Here is the main equipment I have to work with once the tank arrives next week, I'll also throw all the various minor equipment and foods at the end of the post. Any and all feedback is welcome:

Tank: Red Sea Reefer 250 w/stock sump (ships next week)
Lights: 2x Kessil A360WE Tuna Blue w/Spectral Controller
Powerheads: 2x Vortech MP40wQD (more flow than is needed but I believe I would rather run MP40's low then MP10's high, and the price difference was negligible in the deal I received.)
Skimmer: Vertex Omega 180i
Doser: Bubble Magus BM-T11
Chiller: Artica 1/10hp w/Lifegard 1200 pump
Return Pump: Reef Octopus HY-3000
Reactor: TLF Phosban 150
Heater: Aquatop Titanium 200w
Substrate: CaribSea Special Grade Reef Sand 80lbs
Rock: "Real Reef Rock" 55lbs (will be ordered once tank is set up and ready for water)

All RO/DI Water will be coming from a local aquarium servicing company, since unfortunately I have no real room to set up a station. Anybody else living in limited space with recommendations on efficient water use for testing equipment before adding rocks/sand/etc. your advice is most welcome!

At this point I will also be quarantining new purchases there, since I don't think I'll have anywhere to set up a permanent QT tank either unless I can co-opt part of my girlfriends desk (unlikely!); however I do plan on picking up a cheap 10 gallon or so ER tank that can be set up as needed if/when somebody does get sick.

I know equipment won't help much if I don't know what I'm doing, but most importantly I am extremely excited to finally learn firsthand how my favorite natural environment functions in extreme detail. I'm a voracious reader and am also currently self-employed working from home, so several hours a day are open to both book and observational learning. I also have some background in research and study design as well as building and modeling data sets, which I'm hoping will come in handy jumping into this from square one. Nothing beats firsthand experience of course but hopefully between investing in quality equipment, taking it extremely slow, and gathering as much external knowledge I can, I'll be able to successfully build a reef that not only looks great but is a safe and healthy place for all the living things within from the cheapest snail to the most expensive corals.

Bitter-sweetly we have a previously planned trip to Canada at the end of the month so I won't be putting water in until the first week of September at the soonest, but in the meantime PLEASE feel free to criticize, proselytize, and generally verbalize any and all of your thoughts on any aspect of my thinking so far! Otherwise I'll continue to post things as they arrive and thoughts as they come up, and eventually outline the setup of the tank itself. Especially interested in Reefer 250 specific equipment any other owners would recommend getting ahead of time, I know it's supposed to be plumbed and ready to go but when is anything ever that simple?

Thanks for stopping by and hopefully joining in my journey, and an extra special thanks to anybody who takes the time to chime in!

Cheers,
Duff


Not much exciting to show for now I know, but if anybody would like to see anything in more detail let me know:





Extended Equipment List:
10x 10ml Syringes
3x 5-Gal Buckets
4x Fish Bagger Large
4x Fish Bagger Regular
6x F&S Acclimation Kit
Algae Scraper
AP Master Saltwater (pH,Ammonia,Nitrate,Nitrite)
Aquarium Gloves
Aquarium Tongs
Belkin Surge Protector
B-Ionic 2-Part Calcium Buffer 64oz
B-Ionic Magnesium 32 fl oz
Frozen Mysis Shrimp - 14oz
Frozen Rotifer Cubes - 14oz
Loctite Marine Silicone
New Life Spectrum Algaemax Wafers Water Stable Herbivore 125g
New Life Spectrum Grow Sinking Pellets 200g
New Life Spectrum Marine Fish Formula 250g
New Life Spectrum Premium All Purpose Formula, 2000g
New Life Spectrum Thera+ A Sinking Pellets 250g
PhosBan 1200 g
Phytoplankton - 64oz
Premium Activated Carbon Granulated 4.73 L
QuietOne Pro 800
Refractometer
ReVive Coral Dip
Rock Chisel
Rock Hammer
Salifert Alk Kit
Salifert CA kit
Salifert MG kit
Step Drill Bit
Synthetic Sea Salt Reef Crystals 200 gallon mix (box)
Turkey Baster
Xacto Knife Set
Zooplankton - 17oz

[sylocal]

Any progress with your planned setup?


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[foozed]

1 post. All those goodies. He's probably still unboximg things

[sylocal]

Originally Posted by foozed

1 post. All those goodies. He's probably still unboximg things

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[calvi]

Wow this post was from 2016...

[gprdypoo04]

Yeah. Probably all boxed back up.