red sea 250
 

hello people, im thinking about starting a sw tank

i have 2 f/w tank and have managed to have many species breed for me and now feel comfortable with the idea of having a salt water tank.

so first question, i was looking at he red sea 250 (65g started kit) is there any drawbacks to using a kit like this, or since the kit is $2150 at bigs alls, should i just get a custom one built with a sump/refugium.

any other tips will be greatly appreciated!

I have one, I have to get going this morning, will put up a report later.

I have a RSM130 and just upgraded to a custom tank.

Personally I find that the RSM is great for getting into the hobby but if you have some experience already you will want to get something custom done.

You will might spend what "seems" like more money on a custom right now but you will be able to get everything you want right away.

If you are just looking or plug in play then get the RSM you will end up upgrading things like the skimmer and may have to add a chiller on but it looks really nice I almost went that route.

Also the price at Big Al's may be the most expensive in the city so look around.

thanks for the reply's, ive pretty much made up my mind to go with a custom tank and sump, any suggestions as to where to go to get the set up built?

I bought pretty much everything at Red Coral, they can do it all.

You could also check the classifieds there are some really good deals that come up once and a while.

i was thinking of using them, out of all the stores i went to yesterday, they seemed really interested in helping me get started and taking the time to talk to me, big al's and pisces not so much.

+1 for red coral

i had a chat with the owner of red coral today and he really got me thinking, there are way more variables than i originally thought... im gonna have to draw up plans for what i want exactly, and they are willing to help me build the whole system, im sure theres a fee involved, but this way im sure its done right :P don't need 100 gallons spilling on my floor haha

Yup, nothing worse than 100 gallons spilling on the floor. Draw up your plans and you can also get lots of feedback from ppl here if you want.

Good luck

im a little curious about putting the sump intake on the exterior of the tank on the back, is this noisy, and for a tank with the dimentions of 36w x 24d x 24h how big of a sump intake should i have. how noisy are the exterior ones vs interior ones?