xCry0x's RSM 250

[xCry0x]

Think I am going to move my build thread from the reef sanctuary red sea max club forum over to here since:

1) That forum is fairly quiet

2) I am going to be giving a SPS focused tank a go and am a relative novice in that area.

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forum/index.php?threads/xcry0xs-rsm-250-build-thread.97223/

The short intro is that I recently upgraded from a 20g AIO nano that I have had for about 6 years to a used red sea max 250. Big upgrade for me - super excited. I love the larger tank.

And the new frags

 

[xCry0x]

Ok to expand a bit.

I have had a 20G AIO tank for about 6 years. Nothing super impressive in it - some nice zoa colonies at one point until I introduced a zoa eating nudibranch plague. Had a really nice spongodes plating -- until I introduced monti eating nudibranches.

You can see where this is going =)

Lots of learning. Wife and I bought our first house in April which gave me the space needed to upgrade the tank size - hooray. Then wife actually gave me permission to get a larger tank, double hooray!

She had pointed at the red sea max AIOs a few times at various fish stores, so I stalked craigslist until I found one.

Am a fan of the overall tank, I know some people poo poo on hoods and AIO tanks. I personally like the look a lot -- low profile hood and beveled glass corners. Tank was used so it had a few small scratches, one in the front kind of sucks but nothing awful.

Got the tank, then started the upgrades. Covered a lot of this in other thread but to highlight:

• Replaced all the hood fans with quiet fans.
• Replaced all the T5s with new ATI bulbs
• Added two bags of BRS High capacity GFO/ROX carbon
• Bag of seachem matrix
• Truelumen 36" LED strip w/ the ecoxotic controller (dawn/dusk effect + a few extra hours of actinic lighting)
• Replaced the heater side return pump w/ a Sicce 3.0 - now the tank has two Sicce 3.0 returns
• Replaced the return nozzles with spin streams -- reduces flow but causes a bit of random action.

Current stocking list is

• Banggai Cardinal
• Orchid Dottyback
• Yellow Watchman Goby + Pistol pair
• African Flameback Dwarf Angel (new with this tank)
• Carpenter's Flasher Wrasse (Just got today - new with tank)
• Cleaner shrimp

As for corals

• A large-ish acan I have had forever
• 2 large chalices + 1 newer avatar chalice
• A grafted monti cap that was all dead in the middle but is recovering now! (yay)
• Bunch of new beginner-ish SPS. Mainly about 4 types of stylos and a few dif montipora. I also have a few birdsnests and 2 green slimer frags growing out.
• Misc Zoas (Rastas, Sunny D, Fruit Loops, Fairy Tales, Blueberry fields, Fire & Ice, Eagle Eyes, Lazer lemons, Paly Grandis
• Blueberry merletti
• Starburst Favia

Really excited about the SPS end - not planning to add any more zoas. MAYBE another nice chalice. Hoping I can get what I have now growing out and possibly expand into some cooler Acans if I have success with what I have.

Was able to get a hook up from a local reefer and got about 13 SPS frags for $130 -- so great start =)

New guy - already happy with that purchase. Tank was lacking activity. The angel moves around a lot but the dottyback hides all day, the YWG is a YWG so it does what they do and the cardinal is a cardinal so it kind of sits and floats.

 

[reefmutt]

So far so good..
Do you have any fish in there?
What's the lighting?

 

[xCry0x]

The RSM 250 tanks have a 6x39w T5 fixture on them and then I added an actinic strip to supplement for dawn/dusk and am/pm lighting. Emphasis on supplement - not expecting the strip to provide meaningful PAR.

Oh, and I got this today:

Had thrown my old tank mp-10 on there. But that thing is loud as heck and didn't move enough water. The crossflow is perfect. No issues so far with it, quiet as can be and moves a ton of water as expected. Will see how it holds up =)

Another picture I just snapped of the fish being out now

Tank is a bit dirty -- everything is on track but new sandbed of reefflakes plus about 50 some odd pounds of dry rock causing a bit of diatomes. Really minimal though.

 

[biggles]

That's a big upgrade so i'm not surprised you're pleased with all the room you now have

Looking great so far, those gyre flow pumps are very cool once you get the hang of using them - great move imo

 

[xCry0x]

Have had an interesting situation over past few days - I hate when multiple variables change.

I was in the habit from my last tank of not regularly checking parameters and more gauging overall health by eye. Algae growing, refresh gfo. Corals not looking happy - check alk/calc.

With an intent to focus on SPS I figured I should get a baseline for my tank, so I tested it this past weekend and to my surprise my parameters were way out of wack.

Alk measured in at 3.8 dKH, calc was 330 and mag was 1300. Pretty confused on that since there isn't much in my tank that would be consuming alk/calc - but I verified the alk test and it seemed accurate.

So I started slowly dosing alk to bring the levels up targeting ~1 dKH/day change.

As I started raising alk my green slimer that has been fine from my last tank and growing like a weed in this tank started to lose polyp extension and brown out big time. Figured it was due to the alk swing? (coral is fully browned out now and alk is up to about 5.5)

Well, silly me. I also unplugged the water cooling fan on the tank a few days ago.. the water temperature was almost 87* this morning.

Opened hood up, put another fan on it. Had 5g of water ready for a water change so I cycled the water in 2.5g at a time and brought the temp back down to the normal higher end of its daily range ~84*.

So now I am not sure if the coral's reaction was due to the Alk raising or the Temp raising.

Also a bit confused on:

1) How alk got so low in the first place
2) Why all my coral seemed completely fine and were growing really well with it so low.

*edit* Should add that I have a 5G bucket of ATO kalk water. However, over the past week I was manually doing top offs w/ rodi since my ATO pump was failing and couldn't pump water up into the tank due to head loss. I just finished taking apart my old tank and took the Sicce 1.0 out of there to use as my new ATO pump -- although I should probably get a new maxijet since using a nice sicce in kalk kind of makes me cringe.