Red Sea MAX E-Series 170 or something else

Urchinhead

New member
Hello and thanks in advance for the advice and help.

I have been out of the hobby for about 4 years now. I have had several tanks all the way up to 120 gallons with a 40 gallon sump so I have been around the block a few times. I am now thinking about getting back into the hobby. I plan to go Nano again for a few reasons.

1st reason is this is a tank that will be in my office. That means it needs to be small.

2nd reason is I absolutely do not want an external Sump! No external sump is a requirement because if there is a power outage and I am not there I need to have the heater and circulation run off of battery power and a sump doesn't make that possible.

3rd reason is I need to build this as fault tolerant and failsafe as possible because it will be in my office and I will not be there on the weekends to monitor it.

This will be a mixed reef with SPS slightly dominant. I have a good amount of experience with SPS as well as other LPS corals so I am good to go in terms of experience. The overall bioload would be:

One captive bred Black & White Clown
One Helfrichi Firefish
One Blue Spotted Jawfish
One Pink Streaked Wrasse OR Black Cap Basslet OR ORA Sunrise Dottyback

Inverts would be:

Two Maxima clams
Two Staghorn hermit crabs
One Tuxedo urchin
Two-Three Pom Pom crabs
Two+ Acro crabs if I can find them and when I introduce SPS to the tank

I had the original Red Sea Max as my first tank. It was nice but it was somewhat difficult to deal with and constraining. After that and a Cadlights 35 I designed and had built my own tanks. I don't have the time or energy to do that anymore and because of the no external sump requirement I am focusing on the AIO tanks. And so far I have seen the JBJ which doesn't impress me too much because of the LED's and the RSM E-Series 170. Or I could do a Aquamaxx 48 gallon Premium Cubiod Low E tank and just put all the bits and bobs in the tank with a HOB refugium. I would have a ATO setup using the Tunze Osmolator and a external reservoir that would be about 3-4 gallons of RODI water.

The lighting would be the RSM AI or the AI Hydra for the Aquamaxx. I would have the Neptune Systems controller to run everything including dosing with the NS doser system and for skimmer it would be either the RSM or the Tunze 9004 combined with the Tunze Multifilter 3168 in the Aquamaxx. I would be putting a Tunze controllable powerhead in the Aquamax and a Hydor Flo on the Tunze Multifilter and I would put two Hydro Flo on the RSM

What opinions do you folks have? Can I replace the RSM skimmer with the Tunze 9001? Both cost about the same when everything is factored in in terms of equipment.Which do you think is the better route to go?
 
This is kind of along the lines of what I want to do, kind of... I am big into "effectiveness" and doing things for a reason. I'm looking at a reefer 170 to replace a JBJ 28, but I'm looking to do that for multiple reasons, including external sump.

I haven't done it yet, but I've been looking into a battery backup system. A good one can be a few hundred, but depending on how many watts your system 'can' use at max would depend on which one you need. The main things you need if the power goes out are circulation and heat. I'd add up the wattage from your return pump, circulation pumps, and heater, and see how many watts that is and choose a backup based off that. We already spend thousands on these tanks, so having a backup is good insurance. The tank will live without skimmer, light, etc for a couple days no problem.
 
What about the Innovative Marine Lagoon 50? That's what I was looking at before I decided to go big or go home.

Whatever you do, with all firefish/jawfish/wrasses and clowns, you'll need to get a nice tight-fitting lid on all of these nice looking open-top tanks you've mentioned.

Tunze 9001 was crap. The JNS or Aquamaxx WS-1 is an EXCELLENT skimmer for a nano-ish tank. If I went with a 57g or less, I would have kept that skimmer for the tank.

Reefer 170 is a nice tank. I'm really enjoying my RSR build quality.

The heater is what kills battery backups. The pumps less so (some, like the vortechs, have a specifically designed and plug-and-play battery backup system).
 
I like the Max E 170 the only thing I don't like is the plumbing for the sump..it scares me but haven't had a leak yet. Also I just made an important message by upgrading sump and not to use the open grill that they recommend. If you get a power failure it will make a flood if u use open grill flow.
 
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