xCry0x's RSM 250 build thread

xCry0x

New Member
Hey all,

First off, thanks to everyone who has posted great build threads here for their 250s. Lots of great tanks to use for inspiration, also great to see so many tanks that run fairly stock have so much long term success.

Danreef's tank thread was one that gave me some recent inspiration in particular.

I just got a used RSM 250 two weeks ago. Had my eye on the tank because a few LFS I have been to run them as display tanks and I always liked the clean AIO look with the beveled edge glass.

I have had a 20g AIO running for about 6 years now, this is my first jump into a larger tank and I am super excited.

I would have posted this sooner, but my camera died on my phone so I had no good way to take pictures!

Here is a shot of the full tank so far.

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Have got most of my rock moved in from old tank and almost all of the coral. My old tank had a Zoa eating nudibranch problem, so I have spent the past week and a half dipping zoa rocks in fresh RO/Lugols idodine to nuke the nudibranch population. Seems to have worked well, hopefully zoas do not die -- but there was no question it had to be done.

A couple of closer pics -- my main corals that I had to transfer over were two large chalices, the miami hurricane is about 7-8" across and the (i think) mummyeye is a bit smaller but similarly sized. The one in the center was bought as an avatar chalice, although I have seen it with a few dif names. Might be hard to see in the picture but the avatar chalice had sweepers going crazy.

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Acan, about the size of a tennis ball, one of the first corals I ever bought.

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Cardinal -- being it's normal self. It spent the first week floating in one spot staring at the back wall of the tank.

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African flameback - New addition for the larger tank. Will see how this one goes. I know you usually add the more aggressive fish last, I know dwarf angels can pick at corals. Regardless, when the wife sees a fish she likes (and it isn't a fish like a clown trigger or naso tang) I had to get it =) Will see how it goes.

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Stocking list right now:
1x African Flameback
1x Cardinal
1x Orchid Dottyback
1x Yellow watchman goby + pistol shrimp
1x Cleaner shrimp

Planned stocking over time:
1-2 of flasher/fairy wrasses
Ideally a blue star leopard wrasse
Likely a green clown goby. I like small fish and used to have one of these a while ago.

As for corals, I am going to try my luck with more SPS this time around. I have a grafted monti cap in the front of the tank that is in awful condition, my nano was running into rough times towards the end for various reasons.

Not going to go crazy -- would like to get some nice plating monti caps and some branching digitas. I have some sort of green stick SPS that has been doing fine for me -- got it as a $5 frag.
 

xCry0x

New Member
Now for the fun part -- upgrades & stuff.

The water cooling fan was burned out - replaced that.

Two of the t5 fans were burnt out, so I replaced all 4 with scythe fans. Those run near silent. That was a bit of an adventure since the fans come with female adapters and the RSM hood also has a female adapter. Had to splice the wires and switch in male adapters from the old fans =)

Return pump - the smaller return pump was dying, super noisy. I got a Sicce 3.0 for $50 used for a replacement.

Switched the return nozel on the right side with a spin stream. This was fun, I jammed 3/4" tubing into the existing bulkhead and then some 5/8" tubing inside of that to make a reducer and connector for the spin stream. I have a second one for the primary return but haven't gotten around to the swap yet. It restricts the flow significantly so I am still undecided on using it.

Media:
I added a Bag of purigen and a Bag of chemipure elite. After doing further research, it seems nobody has a straight answer on if chemipure is anything more than GFO/Carbon. Either way, that stuff comes ridiculously filthy. I turned a 5g bucket of water black rinsing it out.

Subsequently, I have a bunch of BRS ROX carbon and high capacity GFO, so I added a cup of that mixed together to a nylon legging baggy and threw that in the heater return side. I added about 50 lbs of dry rock plus 2 bags of reefflake sand so expecting a bit of PO4 leaking into water.

Seachem matrix, I was really inspired by danreef's tank and if I remember correctly it was his that has a crazy amount of matrix running. He also has something like 14 fish in his tank so he must be doing something right. It seemed like a logical use of water space in the rear chambers -- I don't need 50 lbs of rubble rock in the display but I can put a lot of matrix in the back!

I added 1 container so far in a pantyhose bag to the media chamber, I can definitely fit more and probably will over time as the tank matures more.

Lighting:

I bought one 36" truelumen pro actinic strip and the Ecoxotic Simple OneTouch controller (used, ebay) to control it.

I quickly realized that while I like t5 lighting, I really missed the dawn/dusk effect from my leds.. problem solved.
 

xCry0x

New Member
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The YWG mugging the world from under a rock. He's starting to get more comfortable and back to his normal ornery self. The green, I think leptastrea, on that rock is in bad shape. The rock has a blueberry field zoa and fairy dust zoa colony on it, had to do fw/iodine dips to kill of nudibranchs. It seemed to survive the first round but this second around is leaving it unhappy. Will see if it pulls through, figured trying to rip it off the rock would be equally destructive. That rock was also the former home of the YWG/Pistol pair, the hole in the front is a natural cave within the rock that every pistol I have had gravitates to. Seems they are content with their new rockwork for the time being.

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The green SPS thing I have -- I think its some kind of green acro? I am a SPS identifying noob. Orchid dottyback photobombing.

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Goniopora I have had forever with polyps out. Off in it's corner where it cannot sting and kill any more designer Zoa's like it enjoyed doing in my last tank. It is truly amazing how far it can send sweepers out, think one day I saw one extended a good 6 inches or more.
 

xCry0x

New Member
36" Truelumen actinic strip added

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Full tank shot --

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The strip is on an ecoxotic one touch controller. Have to say, the controller isn't as functional as I thought it was. My fault for not reading correctly. However, $50 used on ebay for the controller + 150w power supply + splitter cable. I could technically run 6 of these strips, still seems like a good deal so no regrets.

Thing that is bad about the controller is that the dimming functionality is awful. One of these, "What were they thinking when they designed this?" moments.

You get this controller with a mess of buttons -- a 4x4 of buttons for 6 am, 7am, 8am, 9am and then 10 hr 11 hr 12 hr 13 hr -- so you can start at any of those 4 times and run it for a pre set number of hours. Not inherently bad but a pretty clunky system for what it does.

You also have another 4x4 with the same options except those include a moonlight which runs your blue channel for an additional two hours -- I think dimmed? (Will find out tonight)

Then at the bottom you have 4 options that I thought were for controlling the dimmer on channel 1 or 2 -- silly me.

You can set channel one to randomly fade between 100% and 67% 24 hours a day.
You can set channel two to randomly fade between 100% and 67% 24 hours a day
You can set channel two to fade between 20% and 13% 24 hours a day
You can set channel two to fade between 100% and 20% 24 hours a day

So you cannot set your blues to run at say 60% and your whites run at 35% -- you can have each channel just randomly fade in and out throughout the day. Because, that made sense to someone at some point o_O

Anyway, they are supplemental lights. Only wanted them for actinic light show in the AM and PM after before and after t5s.
 

xCry0x

New Member
Coral explosion :woohoo:
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13 SPS frags from a local reefer. Always love buying coral from other hobbyist, especially fun to see their setups. Kes - my wife would kill me if I tried to create a frag setup like yours;).

Bunch of great frags including a rainbow stylo, blue stag, purple stylo and a huge starburst cap (not pictured).

Hoping everything takes to the tank well and I can get them to start growing out, should be an awesome color mix. Think my tank is already set with SPS from one trip :celebrate:

Oh -- and the actinic strip 100% worth it. My lights used to go off at 7pm.. now its 8:30 and tank has a great actinic blue making all the colors pop. Looks awesome.
 

xCry0x

New Member
Just want to re-iterate the actinic strip. I didn't realize how much I missed the pure actinic blue until now.

My nano used to have a generic LED fixture with 2 channel control where I ran all blue for a few hours in the AM and PM. I switched to a much nicer fixture in a nanobox duo and set the bluefish controller to mimic natural sun phases. That meant no more AM/PM pure actinic as the entire light cycle included white.

Having the few hours in the AM/PM of pure actinic now reminds me of how nice it is to stare at the fluorescent eye candy of a reef.

The single truelumen strip is perfect for that, lights the full tank just enough. Also gives a nice LED shimmer that the t5s don't, if that is important to you.
 

xCry0x

New Member
Short update.

Busy weekend, put new baseboards in throughout house. Anyhow, with all the SPS frags I added I decided to test my calcium/alk/mag so I could start monitoring levels.

Assumed everything would be fine, if not a bit high since the tank was fairly low stock.

Uhh --- my Alk measured in at 3.8, calcium at 330 and mag on point at 1300.

Trigger confusion.

I had an issue with my ATO (kalk ATO) that I had resolved prior to testing. Expected params to be high since my ATO just dumped half a gal of kalk into tank. This was the opposite of what I expected and really not sure the cause.

Anyhow, I tested my kit against the calibration fluid, checked out fine.

Tested the container of natural sea water I use for water changes -- was fine.

Tested kalk, 11 -- high as expected.

For some reason that I do not understand, the tank simply was depleted on alk?

Really odd since the green slimer I had in tank from when I started it up has been growing like a weed. All the new SPS was colored up fine. Great PE in tank.

Anyway, started dosing alk. Up to 4.5.

Did my water change also.

Figure as long as everything isn't mass dying I can adjust over time. With the amount of evap I get I figured the kalk ATO would have me good to go for a while.

My salinity was a bit high too -- did my water change with some RO mixed in to bring it down. High salinity would have made the alk higher though, at least I would have expected it to.
 

xCry0x

New Member
Thanks!

The alk in the tank has been giving me issues - honestly confused how it is getting sucked up so fast.

I guess its a good thing and means corals are growing, but I was under the impression that you shouldn't really need to dose until you have a more grown out tank.

I measured Alk at 7.7 at 8AM yesterday, it was 7.3 at 8pm yesterday and now this morning at 9am it is around 6.8.

I have kalk water for my ATO and that is measuring around 11 dKH and with the RSM evaporation rate id assume I am dosing in the ball park of 0.5-1.0 gallons of that daily.

Needing to dose 1 dHK a day ontop of that seems odd -- but its not something I am used to monitoring closely so maybe it makes sense?
 

xCry0x

New Member
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Tried to take a picture of starburst favia and touch up the colors to make it look a bit more accurate -- total color adjusting noob so might have overdone it. But fairly close to how it pops under actinic lights.

Have had the coral for a little while as you can tell by the encrusting. However, moved it front and center in new tank and can really appreciate it now. It looks awesome under actinic lighting, the yellow really pops.
 

xCry0x

New Member
Couple of updates.

Got a carpenter's wrasse last week - doing super well. Really seems to enjoy swimming in the current from my cross flow. Ah - don't think I updated for that either. Got a cp-40 Cross flow off ebay - works great.

Carpenter's wrasse was perfect addition, nice active fish that is out in the open. Definitely would recommend. Pretty funny fish to watch throughout the day while I work, randomly see it flash while swimming around the tank.

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Then today -- my LFS got 3 blue star leopard wrasses in. They were top of my list so I scooped up the best looking one they had. Glad they had multiple, one was definitely not looking great, the other (that I almost got) was active in the holding tank but the coloration was super dull - not sure why? I was going to get the dull looking one under the assumption that it would color up when I realized there was a 3rd one in the back of another small holding tank. 3rd one had better color and was pecking pods off the back wall - got that one.

Brought it up, let it go in the tank. It went to the bottom and started poking around at the rocks then my flame angel chased it off. Thought it hid in the sand like I understand they do for potentially days on end. Then came back later and it was out - eating pods off my glass. Also news, apparently I have a decent pod population going that I did not realize I had. Now it is obvious. So good news there, the wrasse is out and eating which from my experience with fish tends to be the biggest gotcha aside from disease.

Didn't realize I had a pod population going so I also bought a bag of poseidon's feast tisbe pods off Amazon -- can never have too many.

Hoping I can get the leopard eating mysis like the rest of the tank. Been feeding 1/2 a cube spread out between about 12 noon - 5pm. Benefit of working from home and having the tank in my office, can easily feed multiple times/day.

Best picture I could get - still a bit skittish so moved away from the glass when I tried to get a close up shot. And it moves all over.. and its dark in the tank.. so yea. Blurry.

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The crossflow - highly recommend. $109 shipped, if it holds up then super happy. Thing is silent and moves serious water, running ~40%. Whether you get a name brand Gyre or a ebay crossflow, I cannot recommend it enough for lateral water movement through the tank. Swimming fish seem to really like the current too.

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Rastas - think any zoa keeper needs these. Fairly common and really can't be beat.

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Current stocking list on tank is now:

1x Orchid dottyback
1x Banghai cardinal
1x YWG + Pistol shrimp (they count as one)
1x African flameback dwarf angel
1x Carpenter's wrasse
1x Blue Star Leopard wrasse
1x Cleaner shrimp

Going to hold tight at that for a while, tank has a good feeling to it now as far as fish. Rushed a bit because the stuff I wanted kept popping up, time to let tank sit.
 
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xCry0x

New Member
Hm - will see about the stocking.

I finally got a new nitrate test kit and was able to test for it -- salifert test and the result was essentially clear.

I hate color changing tests because they are so hard to read -- I think I am somewhere between 0.1-0.02 -- eg undetectable.

Phosphates also down to 12 ppb=0.03 ppm.

Haven't changed water in a week so it should be at its dirtiest. May need to up feeding/feed coral food/etc.

Oh, and I spooked the leopard wrasse last night when I was in the room late. Turned on room lights and it dove into sand. Has been there since -- hopefully it pops back out.
 

xCry0x

New Member
Leopard wrasse out and pecking away at pods :celebrate: -
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All my other fish are starting to finally adjust to their normal feeding routine. Took almost a month for my orchid dottyback to come around.

Now whenever I get near the tank they all start getting excited. Was making it hard to get a picture of the leopard wrasse because every time I got near the tank the flame angel swooped in and started chasing it away. Normally angel is too busy nipping algae all over.

Also, YWG was posing.

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The YWG pistol pair is a fairly generic fish -- but I think the whole goby + pistol is one of the more interesting things in a tank. Watching the shrimp move sand around and continuously renovate it's tunnel system while the goby stands guard is fun to watch.
 
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xCry0x

New Member
Leopard wrasse adjusting well. Started eating frozen mysis out of the blue which is great, should help fatten it up.

Trying to move all my fish onto a diet consisting mostly of dry food in order to ensure they are getting a better nutrient balance compared to eating mysis all day every day.

They seem to mostly eat NLS pellets - except the cardinal, cardinals are the fussiest eaters alive.

Also got some omega one flakes, first time I have actually bought flakes for a SW tank. I got the super color flakes - apparently they also have flakes specifically for marine fish, oops. Seems like the same thing though. All the fish really like these, even the cardinal was spotted eating a flake.

My only issue with flakes is that they float on the surface, the YWG isn't really a surface feeder and neither is the leopard wrasse or cardinal. I end up having to stick my fingers in the water to get them to float in the water column.

Bought the Omega One brand after reading reviews that Formula 1 changed their recipe to be more filler based -- who knows, fish like this stuff though.

On another note - when they say carpenter's wrasses need a 55g tank they aren't kidding. In my 3' tank it spends it's entire day swimming back and forth across the length of the tank. The angel swims a lot but it is more like the leopard wrasse in that it is actively out and pecking at rocks. The carpenter's basically swims laps. Fun to watch though as it likes to flash as it swims across the tank w/ the cross flow's water movement.
 

xCry0x

New Member
Ah forgot this update.

So my Alk has been interesting. Apparently even a tank without massive SPS growing all over can put a drain on alk that almost 1 gal/day of saturated kalk cannot overcome.

Been testing alk daily for past few weeks after testing and finding my alk all the way down at 3.8!

  • Realized I didn't add enough kalk to my ATO so it was not fully saturated.
  • Calcium was down around 350
  • Alk was dropping over 1 dKH daily
Saturated my kalk ATO, dosed calcium up to 430 w/ randy's 2 part, dosed alk up with 2 part.

I still don't have my daily loss dialed in yet -- for a few days it was 0.3, yesterday I dropped almost a full 1 dKH in 24 hours.

Watching it and manually dosing it back up, trying to keep it in the 7.5 - 8 dKH range.

Going to need to get a doser though, manually dosing is not an option for the long term nor does it provide true stability since I am not going to sit here and do 5 ml doses 5x a day. Kind of annoyed as I was expecting to be able to go a while with just kalk, truly amazed at alk usage. I think it is largely due to coralline algae growing like crazy.
 
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