[redseasteve]

Lighting

So now onto the lights. Lighting comes courtesy of 6 x 39w T5 tubes, three 10,000K and three actinic, which the manual recommends are fitted alternately. Cooling is provided by two fans on the left side of the hood that draw air in, and two exhaust fans on the right. This solution appears to work effectively, and I’ve not yet seen the lighting cause any significant rise in water temperature. A year ago, and I’d probably have been crying out for a Metal Halide option, but I think Red Sea have gone for the best solution here. Yes, MH looks nice, but the cooling issues in a closed tank would have been considerable – chillers would have been a necessity. And I really, really don’t see the need. There’s a lot of light in the tank now – comparing it to my Max it was obvious how much brighter the Max 250 is. There will always be those for whom it’s MH or nothing, but with T5 technology as it stands (and the rising cost of electricity and environmental issues) then I can’t see the need or justification. Then of course there’s the other option - LED lighting that I know a lot of Max 130 owners have added to supplement the standard lighting. I think there’s a great future in LED aquarium lighting, but right now the technology isn’t mature or cheap enough. Maybe in a couple of year time if we get another generation of Maxes then we should expect it, but right now, T5 is right.
When I got my original Max 130, I was mildly disappointed that the lighting timer was mechanical, rather than digital. Indeed, the timer on the early Maxes was a pig and I had two fail on me. However, Red Sea changed the spec and fitted a very good quality German timer, which has proved to be totally reliable ever since. So much so, that when I read the original spec for the 250 and it said it had a digital timer, I was disappointed – aren’t I fickle! Anyway, it would appear that Red Sea had trouble getting an electronic timer as reliable as the mechanical one, so – for now at least – the Max 250 comes with the mechanical timer, which I’m glad to see. The timer is the sort you get on plug-in timer sockets – a large dial graduated over 24 hours with segments around the outside that you set depending on whether you want the main lights to be on or off. Perhaps it would have been nice to have the lights on two independently switchable banks, so you could have the actinics coming on before the others, but I guess this would just have added to cost.

When the main lights are switched off, eight blue LEDs automatically illuminate under the hood providing the almost obligatory night lighting, although this function can be switched off if required. The night lighting is more intense and evenly spread than on the original Max, and fluorescing corals really stand out under its rippling glow.

Inside the Tank

Before I move on to the components, it’s worth just mentioning the inside of the tank. You’ve got the main viewing area of the tank, and at the back you’ve got the sump where the behind-the-scenes stuff happens. Now with the original Max, it was all very modular at the back with everything packed into it’s own little place. You don’t get the same feeling with the Max 250, with much more room in the sump, components are just “there”, if that makes sense. There’s also a feeling of quality – even with some of the most expensive tanks you still get the feeling that it’s just a lot of acrylic and glass rectangles stuck together with generous amounts of silicon, but this Max is different – it gives you the feeling that it’s been manufactured, rather than merely made. If that doesn’t make much sense, think of the difference between the interior of a luxury car and that of a utility vehicle.

At the back right of the tank are two fans to assist with water cooling when required, which are wired into the hood and controlled from a switch housed with the lighting control. Unlike some aquarium cooling fans, the Max 250 fans blow air into the tank, rather than extract it. This is a good thing, as it means that it’s “clean” air passing through the fan, rather than humid, salty air which would corrode the fans very quickly. Nevertheless, as Red Sea point out in the manual, operating in this environment the fans are going to have a limited life and should probably be viewed as consumables, like the T5 light tubes. Luckily, they’re fitted into an easily removable module, so changing them is easy and Red Sea assure me replacements aren’t going to be expensive. There’s also a convenient cable-management system that runs across the tank to keep the wires from the components out of the way. Most pass through a channel along the stop of the tank/sump divider, accessed by a hinged flap that clips over the top of the channel.

Circulation and Filtration

Circulation and filtration is controlled by two pumps, one at each side of the sump which feed water back into the tank through two adjustable nozzles on the rear wall. The nozzles aren’t quite as adjustable as they might appear, and although they can be rotated through 360 degrees, they’re always going to be predominantly forward facing. As both outputs are quite strong, directing the flows can be a bit restrictive – too low and substrate starts getting moved; too high and surface agitation starts to cause salt creep with salt crystals forming on the hood and light glass. I think a bit more flexibility in the nozzles would have helped here, but that would have been at the cost of restricting the flow. Perhaps a wider bore might have done the trick.

Pump 1 is rated at 2400l/h and Pump 2 1200l/h, giving a total of 3,600l/h, or approximately 15x tank volume/hour. There’s always a lot of discussion over how much flow you need for certain types of corals (especially SPS and LPS), and in my original Max I added a supplementary pump to increase the 10x turnover. HOWEVER, I later removed that pump and saw no decrease in growth/health of corals with 10x flow, so I’m quite happy that the Max 250’s 15x is appropriate for virtually all requirements. The pumps hang from the nozzles on standard pump hose, so changing them for any other pump shouldn’t be a problem should the originals “die” or a different spec is required. Both of the pumps are very quiet (practically inaudible).

Water enters the sump through a large grill on the centre rear of the tank with an adjustable shutter that slides up and down. Red Sea recommend that the shutter should normally be positioned about 2cm below the surface and my own experience supports that, though you can open the shutter a good 10cm (4”) or so if need be. The grill breaks the surface of the water, so permanent surface skimming isn’t a problem – something that was an issue on the original Max. The water cascades into to central chamber in the sump, which is predominantly taken up with the protein skimmer – more on that later. Also in this compartment is the 200w heater and a foam bubble trap. After the problems some people experienced with bubbles in the original Max, it seems that Red Sea are not taking any chances with the 250 – there’s more foam in the sump than in your average bed shop.

The water can then pass to the left or the right. To the right it enters another compartment that contains Pump 2, which expels it back into the tank. However, there’s also room in this compartment to fit a secondary pump and return to feed a chiller etc, and Red Sea have provided a well designed clip-in attachment that allows you to plumb your chiller in without having to faff around trying to fit u-bends and the like. If you don’t want to use it, you can just fit the blanking plate that’s also supplied. One thing that might have been nice to see would have been a spare socket on the power strip that an extra pump could have been plugged in to – although the power strip uses European type plugs, much aquarium equipment sold in the UK comes fitted with a Euro plug screwed into a UK adapter. Still, if you’re running an additional pump it’s probably going to be feeding something that needs to plug in anyway.

Water flowing to the left through the sump goes through the traditional filter media. Entering the bottom of the chamber, it passes upwards through a bag of synthetic biological media. I know many people will choose to replace this with live rock rubble, but it’s still an appropriate media for Red Sea to provide. There’s then a plastic drop-in “shelf”, on top of which sits the carbon, with plenty of room for any other media you might want to add (such as phosphate remover). Accessing the media for maintenance is easy, although due to the height of the tank it’s likely that you’ll need to stand on something to be able to reach right down into the compartment. The water then flows to the left, and into the final compartment. Between the two compartments, there’s a plastic frame full of filter floss that can be slid into place in for “water polishing”. The floss gets clogged pretty quickly, so apart from when dealing with very dirty water (such as after major maintenance), I think most people are going to leave this out. The last compartment contains Pump 1, which pumps the water back into the main tank.