Dante's Red Sea Max S-650 LED Build

[Dukie585]

Hello everyone,

Starting a forum journal for my new build. Quick bit of background info before I get into the new build.

I'm currently rocking a 46 bow front aquarium with an Eshopps nano cube sump/refugium (~15 gal). I've got some Chato growing very slowly in the refugium, not sure how much good it's doing. It's got a bunch of copepods living in it so that's a plus. Also have a HOB filter and overflow. This was my first tank set up and I've been running it for about 3 years now. Main reason for upgrading was obviously for a bigger tank, but also to get rid of any HOB equipment. Goal of the new build is hide every single wire from sight. Also, HOB overflows are a nightmare / disaster waiting to happen.

Livestock:
2 x Ocellaris Clowns - ~3 years in tank
1 x Green Chromis - ~2 years in tank
1 x Hoeven's Wrasse - ~6 months in tank (Probably not going to the new tank, kind of a limiting factor on what I can add to the tank)
1 x Chalk Bass - 2 years in tank
1 x Lantern Bass - 1.5 years in tank
1 x Yellow Tang - 2 months in tank (Just noticed small amount of ich on him 2 days ago :mad2: )
1 x Sand Sifting Sea Star - 2 years in tank

Livestock removed / lost during move to new house in May:
1 x Six Line Wrasse - He was a jerk, went after and killed any new addition to the tank. Was sold to LFS and replaced with the Hoeven Wrasse. Note to self: STOP BUYING WRASSE'S!)
1 x Green Mandarin - Had for almost 2 years. He ate flakes and was super fat and healthy. I think the wrasse out competed him for copepods and starved him out. I'm still pretty bitter about it.)
Pretty much my whole clean up crew. Bunch of Nassarius, Margarita, and Astraea. Also my fighting conch. Only snails that seemed to survive the move were the Ceriths and the Bumble Bee Snails.
Also, all my SPS corals died. I only had 2 and they weren't thriving to begin with. I'm sticking to softies/LPS for the time being.

I've been having problems with my tank since I moved to my new house back in May. I think a lot of nasty stuff got released from the sand bed during the move. Have been fighting to get water quality back in check since. Just started using Red Sea NO3O4-X a few days ago. I'll see how it performs for the next week or so before I decide to stick with it or not.


Alright, so on to the new build. As stated in the title of this post, I decided to go with the new LED Red Sea Max S-series 650 (~150 gal DT, 25 gal fuge). The main driving force for such a large tank is that I didn't want to spend all this money only to feel the need to upgrade a few years down the road. Plus, I just moved into my new house a few months back so I've got plenty of space to fill. After a lot of convincing, I finally got the wife on board when I told her it would be much less noisy than the current set up... most of the noise is coming from the HOB overflow gurgling which I cannot get rid of.

Here's a list of the additional equipment that I've got waiting to get set up along side the standard stuff that comes with the tank and stand..

• 2x 200W Eheim Jager heaters
• BRS duel carbon/GFO reactor (from current tank)
• Kessil H380 Halo II LED algae grow light + gooseneck mount for refugium lighting
• Apex controller with lab grade PH probe + power bar 8
• 100 lbs of special grade arag-alive reef sand (may get more, I want a deep sand bed)
• Tonga branch & shelf rock both large and small pieces. (These have been curing for about 3 weeks, will be another week or 2 before I use them)
• BRS reef saver dry rock (I have an additional ~40 lbs of this established in my current tank as well that I will use to help seed the new rock)
• Fiji refugium mud - Walt Smith
• HW-Marinemix Reefer Salt
• 2x BRS dosing pumps

I'm sure I forgot some stuff... I'll add it to the list later or when I remember.

The Red Sea tank arrived Friday (9/23), but was unfortunately damaged during shipping. I'm in the process of getting a new one sent at the moment. Kind of a bummer, but also a blessing I suppose since I now need to deal with fighting my yellow tangs ich.

At the moment, I'm soaking food in garlic to up everyone's appetite to keep them nice and fat and healthy. I know garlic doesn't cure ich, but a healthy fish can fight off ich relatively easy. Hopefully this will hold me over till I can turn this tank into a QT tank in a month or two. As of now, the only fish that has it is the yellow tang. He is pretty skinny at the moment, so I'm working on fattening him up. He has been devouring the Nori soaked in garlic. Even though I have a love/hate relationship with my wrasse, I've seen him gently pick the white dots off of my tang.

Right now I'm working on my set up plan for the new tank so I can start cycling it ASAP. The plan is to use the 46 bow front as a QT tank once the new tank is up and semi-established. Once I'm getting good parameters from the Red Sea tank, I'm going to move the live rock that have corals and all the invertebrates from my current tank over to the 650. After that, I'm planning on removing the sand bed from my 46 bow front and begin using copper based ich medication on the tank. After that treatment and all signs of ich are gone, I'll move all the fish over. I'm worried about starving the snails/star fish in a newly established tank though. I'll probably ghost feed the tank to supply nutrients for the cycle, hopefully that will leave some goodies in the sand bed for when I add the inverts later on.

Like I said, I'm debating whether I want to keep my wrasse or sell him back to my LFS. I want to add shrimp to the new tank, and I know he'll go after them. So my options are to get rid of him, or keep my QT tank constantly running and keep him in there with some of the established live rock. I don't want a sand bed in my QT tank though, and I know he needs one since he buries himself at night. Also, I'd feel like a jerk putting potentially sick fish in there with him every time I got something new....

I will try to take pics and update this as much as possible in the coming weeks/months. Anyone who has any pointers or recommendation, please let me know!

Thanks,
Dante

 

[myaquariumpro]

That a great list, I have a similar to this list. My 650 arriving tomorrow, can't wait. Very exciting...
did you get LED version, also would you post some picture please?

 

[Dukie585]

The replacement tank came in on Friday (10/14), so I've been working on getting everything up and running all weekend..... It has taken WAYYYYY longer than expected. The float valve from the freshwater top off chamber was broken during shipping, so I E-mailed Red Sea for a replacement today. Hopefully they can get that here quick so I can start using the top off as it's intended.


To answer the previous posters question, Yes I did get the LED version. I will post picture soon, the tank is still a bit cloudy at the moment.

First of all, this tank is HEAVY! I had 3 friends come over to help me move it and it was much more difficult than anticipated. We ended up putting it on couch cushions and dragging it across the floor to get it from my front door to my living room. Lifting it from the garage to the front door was unpleasant to say the least. Once it was up, I spent the rest of the day finishing the balancing and assembly of the stand, trim, and refugium.

I wanted to put water in it before I went to bed Friday, but by the time I was ready to put water in it was already 2AM. I wanted to keep an eye on it once it was full to double check it wasn't leaking anywhere, so I held off until Saturday morning before filling it. I water tested it with tap water while I was cleaning it in my garage, but I only filled it about 60% of the way. It's been filled with water for about 48 hours now and no leaking issues.

This morning I added my bacteria kick started (Dr.Tims one and only), as well as some flake food to get some ammonia in the tank to feed the bacteria. Even though the instruction state it's fine to add a fish right away, I'm still not comfortable with that so I'll be added my own ammonia via ghost feeding the tank for the time being. Also, if/when I move rock over from my 46 bow front, I'll be bringing ich along with it. So this tank will (unfortunately) be fish less for 72 days after I move the last bits of rock, coral, inverts, and chaeto over from my established tank.

I'm going to watch the ammonia in the 650 for the next week or 2. Once I stop seeing spikes, I'm going to move the rock and corals over. At this time I'll also start using my protein skimmer. If ammonia start getting crazy high, I'll turn the skimmer on to help combat it. Lighting is at 10% intensity for the time being to avoid potential algae outbreaks. After I move the rocks, if I don't see any new ammonia spikes I'm going to move my inverts over. Once all the rocks, corals, and inverts are out of my established tank I'll remove the sand bed and begin copper treatment for Ich. Once the rock is out I'm also going to grab my Wrasse and give him back to the LFS (who I've informed about the ich), since I want to have cleaner shrimp in the 650.

Other than that just messing around with my heaters and apex controller to get things figured out.

Hopefully I'll have pictures up today or tomorrow!

 

[Dukie585]

Here's a pic I took yesterday. The rock work isn't finished yet, I still have some rocks I want to move over from my 46, but I'm waiting for the Ammonia to go down in this tank first.

I'm doing a fish-less cycle because I'm going to be bringing ich over from anything I bring from my 46, so no point in introducing it to a new fish. The S650 will be fish-less for 72 days from the last time I add something from the infected tank. By that time the fish in the 46 will be ich free as well since I'm going to be using copper medication.

More pics to come this weekend. Ammonia is down from 2ppm to 0.8ppm and Nitrite is up to 1ppm... so we're getting there! Hopefully this will speed up once I introduce some of the seeded rock from my established tank.

 

[Thornbreaker]

Hey,

Nice tank! Quick question, as I've looked at getting a Red Sea Max as well. When you say "refugium" are you referring to the sump or is that an actual space for a refugium in the provided sump that you plan to use as a refugium? I've been trying to get clarification on that from the manufacturer.

Thanks and good luck on your transition to the new tank.

 

[Dukie585]

Hey Thornbreaker,

I'm referring to the sump, but there is a large compartment in there for what I'm assuming is intended to be used as a refugium. At least that's what I'm going to be using it as. My only concern is that the flow through that area is a bit high for a refugium. I'm thinking about putting a thin plate of marine pure between the refugium area and the outlet of that area that goes to the return pump... But marine pure might be too restrictive. I'll play around with a few ideas and come back with the method that works best.

I've been doing a bad job keeping this up-to-date.... I'm planning on doing a bunch of work on the tank tonight and tomorrow since I'm pretty sure my fishless cycle is finished. Things really sped up when I moved a few pieces or rubble rock from my 46 to the S650. I will try and get pics of the sump and plumbing up tonight.

 

[Dukie585]

Status Update:

Monday (10/24) I measured ammonia at 0.2ppm and nitrite at 1ppm. I then added 1 ppm ammonia to the tank before bed and moved a few pieces of established rubble rock over from my 46gal to the 650's refugium area. Tuesday (10/25) I measure ammonia at 0.2ppm and nitrite at 0ppm. I added 2ppm ammonia to the tank afterwords. If I read ammonia and nitrite <0.2ppm tonight, then I'm going to do a water change to lower phosphates (~0.08ppm) and nitrate (~9 ppm) atm.

After the water change, I'm going to throw in my refugium mud with the return to the tank off for a few hours to let the mud settle. Once that's cleared up (hopefully before bed), I'm going to hook up my GFO reactor to help bring down phosphates even more. The phosphates are coming from my dead rock, which I cured for about 5 weeks. I was expecting a little bit of phosphate to still be coming from the rocks. 0.08ppm with water that has been in there for 2 weeks should easily be manageable with water changes and GFO. Once I see phosphates and nitrate come down, I'll be moving my inverts and corals over.

I recently had a hair algae outbreak in my 46gal tank. Nothing crazy, and it's already starting to recover. However, I'm trying to move as little hair algae as possible over to my 650. The rocks that are heavily covered (~50% of them) are going into a new 20gal tank that won't have any light. I do have some corals that I'm pretty sure I won't be able to get off those rocks... so those are more than likely going to die from the lack of light. They're all very small and nothing expensive (mostly zoa's) so not a huge loss.

Any rock with little/no hair algae will be moving over to the refugium of the 650 soon. I'm not using the light in the refugium yet, so the tiny bit of hair algae that will make it's way over will die off pretty quickly. The DT is also getting no light... and will only have very low intensity/exposure time once the inverts & corals come over so I can acclimate them.

Once all the rock, inverts, and corals are out of the 46gal, I'm taking that refugium offline and moving over all the rubble rock, algae, and pods to the S650 refugium. Then it's time to vacuum the sand out of the 46gal and start prepping it to become my QT for all the fish. My Wrasse will be heading back to the LFS before I remove the sand bed since he needs sand to hide/sleep in. I've got a bunch of PVC pipe I'll be throwing in to provide hiding spaces for the others.

I've also got 2 sponge filters sitting in the 46 tank at the moment that I'm hoping will have enough established bacteria on them to help me keep up with the water quality since I won't have any sand or rocks in there. Fish to be treated with copper are 2 clowns, a yellow tang, chalk bass, lantern bass, and a green chromis. 6 fish in 46 gal with no LR... we'll see how it goes. Also, I'm going to throw my HOB protein skimmer on the 46 to help keep up with water quality as well. I'm using Seachem Cupramine copper medication, and have confirmed that you can skim while using this. Key thing is to remove carbon and UV.

And that's it for now. Sorry for the long post. If anyone has any further question, concerns, or pointers please let me know. Appreciate all the feedback!

 

[Thornbreaker]

That's really helpful. Thanks for the quick reply.

I want a Mandarin down the road so a refugium will be a must have to keep food supply high.

I'm thinking of picking up the 450 or 500...if I can talk my wife into the extra expense for the Red Sea

 

[marleesan]

Just an FYI by moving the sand over you have moved ich over to the new tank and will need to wait out the fallow period

 

[Dukie585]

That's really helpful. Thanks for the quick reply.

I want a Mandarin down the road so a refugium will be a must have to keep food supply high.

I'm thinking of picking up the 450 or 500...if I can talk my wife into the extra expense for the Red Sea

I will post a few pictures of the sump/refugium tonight. I also plan on having a mandarin once everything is all set up... will probably be my first new fish after everyone come over from the QT. They are, in my opinion, the most interesting fish in this entire hobby. I'm hoping that the pod population that I have in my 46's refugium survive the move.... my macro algae is visibly crawling with pods and I haven't added any to the tank in probably over a year now.

The Red Sea is expensive, but I'm very pleased with it and I think it was worth it. I feel your pain with getting the wife on board, that was not easy for me either. I may have fudged the numbers a bit when I initially pitched it to her.... Best of luck! :thumbsup:

 

[Dukie585]

Just an FYI by moving the sand over you have moved ich over to the new tank and will need to wait out the fallow period

Sand bed from my 46 isn't moving over, it's going in the garbage. I have all new live sand in the 650. Even still, I'm moving rock over from the 46 as well as inverts which have the potential to carry ich if it's in the right life cycle stage. That's why I'm waiting 72 days after the last of anything from the 46 comes to the 650 before adding fish.

I never quarantined before, and now I have ich so I've learned my lesson. I've already got a 10gal and 20 gal tank on standby for coral and fish quarantine respectively. No fish will be going into the 650 until I'm 110% sure the tank and the fish are ich free.... even if (unfortunately) that means my 650 won't have fish until 2017

 

[Dukie585]

Update for 11/08/2016:

Things done since last update:

1. Added refugium mud to sump refugium area
2. Added marine pure balls to carbon rack in sump
3. Added some LR from 46 to the S650 in DT and sump/refugium. Replace with PVC elbows in 46 to keep hiding places for the fish.
4. Added a small amount of un-cured rubble rock to sump/refugium area
5. Started running carbon & GFO in BRS dual reactor
6. Added some macro algae from the 46 to the S650
7. Moved over all corals from 46 to S650
8. Moved LR from 46 that was heavily covered in hair algae into 10gal "black out" tank to kill algae. Tank is running with water from 46 as well as sponge filter that was sitting in 46 refugium for about 3 weeks.
9. Started running protein skimmer on S650 (it's super loud since the aeration pump isn't submerged in the water, and every time I go to adjust it or do regular maintanence I feel like I'm about to rip the knobs off. Don't think this will survive regular wear and tear for more than a year. I'll be replacing this as soon as my wallet recovered from this whole tank.
10. Moved ~50% of inverts over from 46 to S650 to stir up sand bed and avoid diatoms. (2x Astrea, 2x Nassarius, 2x Cerith)
11. Started feeding the S650 tank so the snails don't starve.
12. Sold my Hoven's Wrasse back to the LFS. I think my LFS changed ownership. It used to be top notch, now I'm less than impressed with the staff knowledge & inventory. Many of the tanks were full or algae, dead fish, and/or dead snails. Also, I bought 2 Nassarius snails but the person who bagged them marked their were 3... even though she only grabbed 2. Shotty stuff.
13. LED lights are running at ~18% for 8 hours/day
14. Refugium light running when DT lights are off.

Things I'm going to do this week:

1. Remove the last of the LR from the 46. (I didn't take it all out at once in an attempt to avoid shocking the system/fish.
2. Remove the rest of the inverts from the 46 and move them to the S650
3. Remove sand bed from 46 and throw it out
4. Take the refugium offline on the 46
5. Remove carbon from 46 so it doesn't soak up the copper medication
6. Move the rest of the macro algae to the S650
7. Let the fish get used to the new tank layout before I start medication.
8. Hookup HOB protein skimmer to 46 tank. CAN I DO THIS!? I've read conflicting things online about protein skimmers during copper medication use. Still not sure what I want to do.
9. Start dosing Kalkwasser in S650. I've been using HW Marine reefer salt mix, which mixes with a low pH and Alk (~8.0pH ~7.5-8 dKh). Going to keep an eye on Calcium. If it start to go too high when trying to get pH/Alk up I'll probably just move to a 2-part so I can independently control them.... we'll see how it goes. Tank has very low alk/cal demands at the moment so I'm not too worried about it.

Pics below. I'm really happy with how the mound turned out on the right.

 

[Thornbreaker]

That's looking really nice. So the extra space in the sump is working out nice for a refugium?

 

[Dukie585]

Update for 11/17:

I woke up this morning and went to feed the fish in the 46. I noticed my chalk bass was missing. I was upset, because I assumed he died but I could not find the body. He was alive and well when I fed everyone yesterday around 7PM. Well, when I went around the back of my tank, there he was on the floor about 4 feet from the tank. I walked by the tank late last night (~11PM) and must have spooked him. I have a glass top on that tank, there's only a 6"x2" opening he could have jumped out off. Crappy way to start the day, he was one of my favorites to watch swim around.


The 650 is doing great. If it wasn't for this stupid ich I'd have everyone moved over already. I moved the rest of the inverts over from the 46, as well as removed ~70% of the sand bed and the remaining live rock. I was using a suction line to get it out. I stopped sucking out sand when ~50% of the water was gone from the tank. Didn't want to do too big of a water change. Later today/tomorrow I'm going to get the rest of that sand bed out, replace whatever water was removed, and then finally start copper dosing.

I've been feeding the 650 inverts a mix of pellet food and algae flakes... They all seem to go nuts over the algae flakes. I used to use these for my lawnmower blenny once he ran out of hair algae. He never was crazy about them and he started loosing weight quickly so I sold him back to the fish store.

The refugium is nice. I adjusted the float valve to keep the water level in the sump higher and it has helped lower the flow in the fuge area. Some pics below. Quality isn't the best, and the purple light doesn't help. Let me know if you have any specific areas of the sump you want me to take a picture of and I'll try and get one.

 

[Thornbreaker]

Thanks. What are you planning to use for a top on the 650? Glass, screen? I'm a little disappointed that Red Sea doesn't seem to include an option for it. Lots of fish like to jump :\

 

[Dukie585]

I've had a saltwater tank for a bit over 3 years and today was my first suicide jumper, so I'm not sure yet. For the time being I'll risk fate and continue with the open top. I would like a lid to help cut back on evaporation. With my lights running 8 hours at 15% and holding temp ~78.5F, a full top off chamber last maybe 4-5 days.... Not sure yet how I'm going to work in my ATO for trips when I'm gone for 7+ days.

I found this website that has nice custom tops, but it's a bit pricey and my wallet is still recovering from buying the tank, haha.

http://artfullyacrylic.3dcartstores.com/Red-Sea-MAX-S-Series-650-ClearView-Lid_p_1921.html

 

[Dukie585]

Anyone have recommendations on a good skimmer for 175gal? The C-skim that comes with this is awful. Fine adjustments are near impossible due to the poor build. I'm either skimming extremely wet or not at all. And as I said before, it's soooooooo loud. If it wasn't helping to keep oxygen levels in the tank up I would just turn it off until I can afford to get a new one. It's also causing micro-bubbles which I can live with for the time being.

The wife is less than pleased with the constant loud humming noise the air pump makes. Why they wouldn't design it so that this pump is submerged to dampen the noise is beyond me. It's already a closed system with the air inlet hose routed up to the top of the collection cup. Also, since it's not submerged the pump gets pretty warm to the touch.... If anyone is buying this in the future, I'd ask Red Sea to cut the price and not send the Skimmer. Complete and utter waste of money. :hammer:

Outside of the skimmer though, I'm very happy with my purchase still. :thumbsup:

 

[garrettp36]

I've had a saltwater tank for a bit over 3 years and today was my first suicide jumper, so I'm not sure yet. For the time being I'll risk fate and continue with the open top. I would like a lid to help cut back on evaporation. With my lights running 8 hours at 15% and holding temp ~78.5F, a full top off chamber last maybe 4-5 days.... Not sure yet how I'm going to work in my ATO for trips when I'm gone for 7+ days.

I found this website that has nice custom tops, but it's a bit pricey and my wallet is still recovering from buying the tank, haha.

http://artfullyacrylic.3dcartstores.com/Red-Sea-MAX-S-Series-650-ClearView-Lid_p_1921.html

Just ordered this top for mine. Have had 4 suicides in 6 months. They look beautiful. Pricey. Buy very nice.

 

[2una]

Anyone have recommendations on a good skimmer for 175gal? The C-skim that comes with this is awful. Fine adjustments are near impossible due to the poor build. I'm either skimming extremely wet or not at all. And as I said before, it's soooooooo loud. If it wasn't helping to keep oxygen levels in the tank up I would just turn it off until I can afford to get a new one. It's also causing micro-bubbles which I can live with for the time being.

The wife is less than pleased with the constant loud humming noise the air pump makes. Why they wouldn't design it so that this pump is submerged to dampen the noise is beyond me. It's already a closed system with the air inlet hose routed up to the top of the collection cup. Also, since it's not submerged the pump gets pretty warm to the touch.... If anyone is buying this in the future, I'd ask Red Sea to cut the price and not send the Skimmer. Complete and utter waste of money. :hammer:

Outside of the skimmer though, I'm very happy with my purchase still. :thumbsup:

The Bubble Magus D8 fits in with only lifting out the shelf.....a D9 fits in but you need to slice off one of the shelf holders......thats if the sump is still the same - i have the T5 s650.
Both of those are DC pumps & quiet as a mouse,only thing they don't do vrs the AC ones is they don't come back on when power goes off/on - you need to manually hold the button to restart them.

 

[wanyburger]

Great thread here. I just set up a RS S-650 myself and transferred everything over from my C-250. I added another 50lb of live rock in addition to the 100in my c-250 (corals and all) and 60lbs of new sand (I took old sand over after cleaning with fresh salt water. ) Everything is doing great and I'm sure I avoided a cycle as I had over 100 marine pure balls cycled for 4 months in the old tank. ANYWAY...I'm curious...where did you put your APEX probes? I have the new Neptune with 4 probes (temp, PH, ORP and salinity) I have them in the APEX acrylic rack in my fuge area of the sump but the readings bounce all over the place. MY ORP bounces up and down which is weird but I think its because the miracle mud is still settling and throws it off. I was considering putting them in the back of the tank where the circulation pumps are. I figure it may be a more accurate reading of the display water parameters. Curious where you put yours