Dante's Red Sea Max S-650 LED Build

[wanyburger]

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...........


I could not agree with you more the skimmer is a giant POS. Noisy, hard to tune in. Can't wait to get rid of this thing.

 

[scottmccray]

I just bought a red sea reefer 525 which is the same tank without the skimmer, pump, and lights. I am putting in a reef octopus classic 202s in mine. They are supposed to be workhorses and easy to dial in.

 

[Dukie585]

I put the APEX probes in the back chamber with the circulation pumps, right next to the opening for the top off water. I like it there because it's far away from the return pump, so the water has time to "equalize" and get a better reading. Probably doesn't make a difference but it helps me sleep at night, haha.

I woke up this morning and my protein skimmer (still the crappy Red Sea one) was making a god awful noise. I had finally got it to start skimming good a few weeks ago, and now it's dead. Sounds like the impeller fan broke. Probably a cheap fix, but I hate the thing so I just bought a Bubbel Mangus D8. My wife wanted a quite one over everything else (since it's in out living room) so I thought the DC pump would be great. We'll see how it goes. From the picture, the cup looks a bit small. But then again I'm used to the monster size of the Red Max skimmer.

 

[SPR1968]

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

Hi Dukie nice thread and tank!

I set my 650 LED up in June 2016 and for the top off and for the holiday reasons you said, I installed a 100 litre plastic box into the chiller cupboard and have hooked it up to a Tunze Osmolator. The inbuilt top off is still there as a backup and I just set the water level for the Tunze slightly above the built in float valve.

With 100 litres I only need to fill it every 2 weeks and is makes life much better. It would last around 2 to 2 1/2 weeks including the built in ATO when it would cut in when the box runs dry although I never let this happen.

It's quiet funny actually because I had spent months looking at water tanks and all sorts were and how I could store extra water. The box was in the chiller cupboard already for storage of tank stuff. One day my wife said why don't you just fill that with water.....!! My idea of course!

I don't currently have a chiller and got away with it last year (in UK) but I'm about to get the Teco TK1000 so that's why I used the chiller cabinet. The new chiller will be located elsewhere for ventilation etc.

I have managed to tune in the C Skim but to be honest I read that many people hate it and I have looked around and will probably replace it very shortly.

Anyway great build!

 

[Dukie585]

Put in a bubble mangus D8 about a week ago. This is the 4th skimmer I've had over my saltwater "career", and I'm blown away by this skimmer. It started making thick green waste within minutes of installing it. The pump is so quite I had to check every few minutes to make sure it was still running because I've become so awayccustomed to the hum of the c-skim.

Dropped right into the skimmer compartment, all I had to do was list the shelf out. Works great and am soooo happy I bought it. Went a week with no skimmer and the corals were not happy. Running this for a few days and everyone's back to normal.

I cannot recommend this skimmer enough!!

Next thing on the list is to get alk up and hold it there with kalk. I was dosing soda ash but it ended up lowering my alk. Any thoughts?