House Reefer 525

[.Pandy.]

Hello folks

A few months ago I ordered a Red Sea Reefer 450, and before I took delivery of it from my LFS I found out about their upcoming Reefer XL/525, and was kindly offered to hold fire on the 450 if I wanted to find more details on the 525.

"Narrrrr" I thought to myself
"Is it really worth the extra money and long wait for an extra 3"?

The 450 was delivered and I built it all up, but there was something in the back of my mind that told me not to put any water in it. So now I have a Reefer 525 sat in my garage, and a never been wet Reefer 450 back at my LFS to try and move that on for me.

Here we go again :spin3:

 

[.Pandy.]

So, to set the scene because I only have a poor picture of a couple of boxes...

House Reefer 525 is a Red Sea Reefer 525 in black, which will be designed to take a lot of inspiration from the house reef on the island of Vilamendhoo, Maldives.

The idea is to have a minimal rock scape, with plenty of open sand areas, filled with carefully selected SPS (but not on top of each other) which I'm hoping will grow into nice big colonies with time.

Fish wise, I will be transferring my current stock from my 3' tank, but the new additions will be tailored to represent the Maldives as much as possible.

I am a big lover of Fauna Marin products, so once again the tank will be ran on the BallingLight and ZeoLight methods, with the introduction of their Bacteria strains Bakto Blend and Therapy.

Equipment wise, I have been collecting and upgrading for a little while now, knowing that an upgrade was eventually on the cards. I do still have a few more bits to get, mind.

A quick snapshot of the tanks details:

Tank: Red Sea Reefer 525
Lights: 3x EcoTech Radion Gen1 TIR (will add another one or two eventually)
Return pump: EcoTech Vectra M1
Powerheads: 2x EcoTech VorTech MP40wQD
Skimmer: Deltec SC-1456
Zeo Reactor: Bubble Magus Zeofilter
PO4 and Carbon reactors: undecided

I will hopefully have some picture to show after Christmas when the tank can come into the house - this is a long term build though so ill not be rushing things too much, I've been there before and it's definitely better to get things right from the off.

Thanks for looking, will update soon.

 

[.Pandy.]

Right then, update!

The stand is built, tank is in, there's some water, and it's salted!

Red Sea at Christmas by Andy, on Flickr

The Stand by Andy, on Flickr

Door gaps by Andy, on Flickr

The first drops of RO going in

First Drops by Andy, on Flickr

Starting as I mean to go on, with the best of the best

Only The Best by Andy, on Flickr

Salty by Andy, on Flickr

As you can see, I only have around 350L in the display, and the sump is still sat in the box in my garage waiting to be wrapped in vinyl, but I'm getting there.

This week I'll try to get the sump wrapped, should be selecting my rock on Friday, have ordered my sand with my LFS, and will hopefully get the system running as it should by the weekend.

Ive still not decided how I'm going to mount my lights, but that's not important right?

 

[Q8Voodoo]

Congrats, waiting the updates.

 

[Redrosetuscan]

Vilamendhoo house reef is a very nice reef to take inspiration from! I'm lucky to have been twice, I love the little outcrops which are just a few meters from the beach but still quite far from the drop off (Northern side) a nice couple of acros and it's resident fish.

I'd love to have a realistic reef tank with just a few colonies but my problem is I love the acros too much haha

 

[Wrangy]

Looking sweet as! Definitely tagging along

 

[danny1496]

Any updates looking to setup one my self.