Kaya's 425XL Red Sea Reefer Build

[Kayanarka]

It is late so I am just going to start the thread and post a picture or two. Will try to get ti.e to flesh it out tomorrow, but tomorrow is water change day on this one and my fish only 250, so lots to do.

This build start with a Red Sea 425 XL Reefer purchased from Biggs Lagoon in Firestone. This was Nick's personal tank at one point, and had been moved to the store. When I first viewed it, the tank was still filled with water and sand, so this was an established tank with bacteria ready to go. Nick and Mike moved it to my house and filled it with the water that had been in it already.

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I started off with two UV Nico Bars, a 4k Icecap Gyre, and a box of dry rocks.

I also picked up some more sand and some salt, a RO/DI Unit and a heater.

I am going to copy paste some of my build thread from reef2reef.

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[Kayanarka]

I wanted an easy way to raise the lights up for working in the tank, while also being able to adjust my light mount up and down as I add more lighting and need to adjust for proper par. I also wanted to hide the wiring, control boxes, and the door behind the tank. Hence this contraption was born. I am definitely more of a function over form kind of person.

 

[Kayanarka]

I placed the remainder of the (additional new) sand into the tank. My wife did the final placement of the rocks. In the evening I flushed out the filter material in the cups (The tank came with the slide in cup replacement for the socks) and almost all the cloudiness is gone this morning. I did not pre rinse the sand, which I initially regretted, but the filters were able to clean it up amazingly well and quickly.

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A tiny peice of Coral was left behind, and he has so far survived the tear down, transport, and rebuild of the tank, Our multiple dust storms from re doing rocks, and all the added sand. We have all grown quite attached to him and the girls say goodbye to him each morning. This little tiny frag of Zoa has grown pretty large since this picture. I will add a fresh photo of him tomorrow if I remember.

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[SynDen]

Looks like a great start. Your wife did a good job with the rocks too
Love the nico bars, have a few myself and they rock. They should likely get a better light rack though lol

 

[Kayanarka]

Looks like a great start. Your wife did a good job with the rocks too
Love the nico bars, have a few myself and they rock. They should likely get a better light rack though lol

I am not a big fan of the nico bars. I do not like trying to figure out what spectrum balance to run. I would much rather have a light that I plug in and push Auto setup.

I have a maxspect jump on my RS250 and the Auto setup feature with acclimation timer was great. No guess work on spectrum or intensity.

The light rack has turned out to be real handy so far. We raised the whole assembly up again a couple weeks ago so the lights are about 24" above the tank. As all the corals get acclimated we will be able to drop them down closer if desired, or just raise intensity and leave the extra room for the mangroves to grow. The guys at Biggs said there was someone else in the area with a motorized rack, but theirs was more professional looking then mine, I would love to see how they did it.

Would you be willing to share a screen shot of your nico bar program and picture of your coral layout? I would love to see how both compare to mine.

 

[SynDen]

I don't have a NICO bar program. I just run the regular bars without dimming so nothing to program there. I have mine mixed with metal halides too, and the UV pops make the perfect compliment to the MH.
You can find recent pics of my tank and the lighting setup in my build thread here https://www.marinecolorado.org/threads/syns-850g-t-v-deep-brain-system.19714/

 

[scmountain]

good looking build so far!
Jealous of the Nico Bars, and I like your solution for raising and lowering them. much easier and less "possible electrocution anxiety" as my hanging system.

Rooting for that hardy little zoa!

 

[Kayanarka]

Spoiler alert!

I need to work on this thread some more, but here is a shot of that little zoa.

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