Joe's New RSM S400

[nanoreefing4fun]

love my blue tux urchin

 

[joecas]

generally speaking my tank seems to be doing ok, but it seem like the main pump is pushing snow into the tank. I tried putting a filter sock on the output of the protein skimmer but its still doing the same thing. I think it might just pushing around uneaten food? Any ideas or suggestions?

 

[joecas]

I did around a 15% water change a few days ago and just added a couple more coral. So far, so good. Check out the latest pic:

I'm still messing with the placement of the corals, and constantly chasing the sea urchin to grab them off his back, but in general, I'm pretty happy with it. I started dosing with B-Ionic once a day and add VitaChem once a week. I also direct feed the coral reef-roids. Any comments on the additives are welcome!

 

[Oxylebius]

...and constantly chasing the sea urchin to grab them off his back...

Urchins do like to carry things around a lot.

 

[joecas]

Couple silly questions:

1. Do you typically place frags into your tank on the plug it comes on, or do you put it/glue it directly on rock?

1a. If yes to know #1, will they grow over the plugs so they are no longer visible and you just leave them there, or should they eventually be placed on the rock (or in some cases in sand)?

2. The temp in my tank varies between 70-81 and is typically 80+. Should I consider a chiller?

2a. If yes, to #2, can someone with an s400 recommend a chiller?

3. Do you vacuum your sand or is that the job of the cleanup crew?

Thanks!
Joe

 

[Pat24601]

Couple silly questions:

1. Do you typically place frags into your tank on the plug it comes on, or do you put it/glue it directly on rock?

1a. If yes to know #1, will they grow over the plugs so they are no longer visible and you just leave them there, or should they eventually be placed on the rock (or in some cases in sand)?

2. The temp in my tank varies between 70-81 and is typically 80+. Should I consider a chiller?

2a. If yes, to #2, can someone with an s400 recommend a chiller?

3. Do you vacuum your sand or is that the job of the cleanup crew?

Thanks!
Joe

1) I typically place the frag plug in and they grow over them, but that depends on the coral, I suppose. That said, in another thread we were discussing how the frag plug is one more thing that could carry an unwanted item into your tank (such as nuisance algae), so some people take it off for that reason. I think people do both.

2) Another gray area. Some people consider 81 high and would want a chiller. Others are OK with it. I think Glenn has a list that points out the average reef temp is somewhere right around there. Some people point out that it could depend on your livestock. Personally, mine seems to run 81 right now without fans running and I'm OK with that so long as my tank doesn't tell me otherwise by behaving badly. If it becomes a problem, I'll turn my fans on.

What does bother me about your temp is your range. Varying from 70 - 81 is a huge range and I think most people would say you don't want that much variance. Personally, I'd set my heater to about 79 to keep the range down (and watch my temps like a hawk to intervene if anything odd happens) and see if I could get by without a chiller, but opinions vary and I hate chillers.

3) Some vacuum sand and some don't. It can also depend on your sand bed. I siphon my sand at least partially basically every water change and I think most others do to?, but I don't know that.

Not silly questions at all.

 

[newo11]

There are no silky questions!

Pat is giving you some great advise. To help answer question #1 - I've taken to changing out the frag plug if it is a new frag. A good frag will have growth onto the plug already (a really good frag will have the plug completely covered!) so that is not always an option. What is an option- always, always, always dip your coral. Did I mention always dip your coral? That is more important than whether or not you replace the plug. Other than that - it's really personal preference. I personally find plugs easy to work with so I use them all of the time now. There was a time when all I used was rock rubble. To each there own!

Stable temps and parameters are more important that the actual number. You generally do not want large swings in anything in your tank. I know that natural reefs have large swings - but there is no way our tiny boxes of water can compare to the oceans. So to keep you coral and fish as healthy as possible I recommend trying to maintain very small change in your tank temperature.

I have never vacuumed my sand. But my sand bed is generally less than 1/4 to 1/2 an inch.

 

[joecas]

hey, thanks for the replies. I just noticed a typo: my temp varies between 79 - 81, not 70 - 81. oops!

Thanks!
Joe

 

[Pat24601]

hey, thanks for the replies. I just noticed a typo: my temp varies between 79 - 81, not 70 - 81. oops!

Thanks!
Joe

Ahh, OK. I wondered. 70 is kind of scary cold.

I'm pretty sure my temps varied between about 79 and 81 when I had my T5s and I was fine with it. Other more experienced hands say try to keep it within 1 degree and I wouldn't say they were wrong. I wasn't losing sleep over a 2 degree swing, though.

With my LEDs and water cooling fans shut off, I'm very steadily at 81 day or night...so far.

 

[joecas]

There are no silky questions!

Pat is giving you some great advise. To help answer question #1 - I've taken to changing out the frag plug if it is a new frag. A good frag will have growth onto the plug already (a really good frag will have the plug completely covered!) so that is not always an option. What is an option- always, always, always dip your coral. Did I mention always dip your coral? That is more important than whether or not you replace the plug. Other than that - it's really personal preference. I personally find plugs easy to work with so I use them all of the time now. There was a time when all I used was rock rubble. To each there own!

Stable temps and parameters are more important that the actual number. You generally do not want large swings in anything in your tank. I know that natural reefs have large swings - but there is no way our tiny boxes of water can compare to the oceans. So to keep you coral and fish as healthy as possible I recommend trying to maintain very small change in your tank temperature.

I have never vacuumed my sand. But my sand bed is generally less than 1/4 to 1/2 an inch.

OK. What does "dip your coral" actually mean?

 

[Oxylebius]

1. Do you typically place frags into your tank on the plug it comes on, or do you put it/glue it directly on rock?

Some people do and some people don't take corals off plugs. There are a variety of reasons why.

I take my corals off their plugs. Pop them off using a butter knife, leveraging at the base of the growth. Then glue the coral to the rock. If sps, then pop them off the old plug and glue them onto my own plug and place in sand bed (to slowly acclimate them to light levels). After several weeks and I have found their placement, I pop off the plug again and glue to rock. Coral will grow over the glue.

1a. If yes to know #1, will they grow over the plugs so they are no longer visible and you just leave them there, or should they eventually be placed on the rock (or in some cases in sand)?

Corals will grow over plugs, glue, etc. Sometime you can see an outline of the plug that has been grown over. I don't like this look, so I take my corals off their plugs.

2. The temp in my tank varies between 70-81 and is typically 80+. Should I consider a chiller?

I keep my tank between 78-79. If my tank hits 80 degrees the chiller kicks in and brings the temp back down to 79 degrees. You don't want large temp swings in a 24 hr period, particularly if you have sensitive corals like acros.

2a. If yes, to #2, can someone with an s400 recommend a chiller?

If you live in a hot climate and don't keep the house at a consistent cool temp, then a chiller is something you should really consider.

3. Do you vacuum your sand or is that the job of the cleanup crew?

You will get varied opinions on this one.
I vacuum my sand weekly during the water change.

OK. What does "dip your coral" actually mean?

Dipping new corals before they go into your main display tank helps to prevent unwanted hitchhikers and diseases. Here are some threads on it:
Coral Dip
Coral Dip - best brand to use?

 

[Pat24601]

Oxy's answer makes me realize I should really answer this chiller question differently...or at least put more context around it.

I don't really hate chillers. I personally want to get by without running one if I can because they are expensive, noisy (by my wife's standards), take up a lot of room in cabinet my toddler kids have shown they have full capacity to break into now and then, and generally are just one more thing to take care of.

My response to the chiller question has been formed by the numerous people we get on this forum wanting to buy a chiller because their LFS recommended before their tank is set up and before they even have any idea if they actually need one. I just want people to wait to see if they need one before they spend several hundred dollars.

But, I keep my room temperature a constant and fairly low degrees. Many (most?) people don't do that.

That said, clearly chillers add value if you have temperatures that are varying, are just high, have livestock that are sensitive to such, etc.

Also, Diana has a chiller and a generator in case her power goes out. Something that could leave me screwed someday.

So, in long, I realize you aren't a brand new tank owner buying a chiller before you've even thought about it. Personally, I'd say you are borderline on if you need one. If my max temp was 81 in a tight range, I personally wouldn't get one unless you have some livestock that indicate otherwise, but I'm not you. . It's not an unreasonable decision to get one at all.

I know. TLDR.

 

[joecas]

Oxy's answer makes me realize I should really answer this chiller question differently...or at least put more context around it.

I don't really hate chillers. I personally want to get by without running one if I can because they are expensive, noisy (by my wife's standards), take up a lot of room in cabinet my toddler kids have shown they have full capacity to break into now and then, and generally are just one more thing to take care of.

My response to the chiller question has been formed by the numerous people we get on this forum wanting to buy a chiller because their LFS recommended before their tank is set up and before they even have any idea if they actually need one. I just want people to wait to see if they need one before they spend several hundred dollars.

But, I keep my room temperature a constant and fairly low degrees. Many (most?) people don't do that.

That said, clearly chillers add value if you have temperatures that are varying, are just high, have livestock that are sensitive to such, etc.

Also, Diana has a chiller and a generator in case her power goes out. Something that could leave me screwed someday.

So, in long, I realize you aren't a brand new tank owner buying a chiller before you've even thought about it. Personally, I'd say you are borderline on if you need one. If my max temp was 81 in a tight range, I personally wouldn't get one unless you have some livestock that indicate otherwise, but I'm not you. . It's not an unreasonable decision to get one at all.

I know. TLDR.

Thanks Pat! Great info! To show my appreciation, I'll share a pic of my latest addition (unfortunately, I put it in before I learned about dipping, I though you only had to dip live rock):



Thanks,
Joe

 

[Pat24601]

I love it! Great color!

alveopora?

 

[joecas]

I love it! Great color!

alveopora?

red goniopora

 

[joecas]

HELP!!!! My tank took a nosedive and I can't figure how o fix it.

My tank was doing great, and then I went away for a few days and left my adult daughter to feed the tank. When I came home, the entire tank was covered in green slime. The glass was covered, you couldn't even see in.

Last night, I cleaned everything up, did a 30% water change and added Phosphate RX. And the green is coming back! Here is a pic of how it looks right now:




Any suggestions?

Thanks!
Joe

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

my best tips would be... get back to the basics

keep up wc 15% weekly, run some fresh chemical filtration like (cpe & purigen), make sure your cuc is hardy (snails - Asterea, Trochus, Cerith, Nerites,Margarita, Nassarius and Mexican Turbos) add around one per gallon (for your tank around 100) - make sure you don't overfeed, feed frozen, try every other day, maybe one cube and you should have the algae knocked back in a few weeks and see significant improvement even sooner.

Right before water changes, scrape the glass - try a scraper like this... hope this helps

http://www.marinedepot.com/Continuu...s-Continuum_Aquatics-4C31009-FIMTASHH-vi.html

 

[Oxylebius]

Most likely due to overfeeding by your daughter while you were gone created high nutrient levels which creates more algae. Agree w/Glenn in that you should continue 15% water changes, check your snail population, and don't overfeed. At first you can do water changes every 2-3 days and then once a week. After that you can go back to whatever maintenance you were doing. The more water changes you do, the faster you pull the nutrients out of the system. But, you also don't want to do to many to often b/c you don't want to harm your corals/fish/inverts.

 

[joecas]

Thanks Oxy/Glenn,

Yeah, my biggest concern is the water will become unhealthy for the fish & coral. The fish seem to be doing fine at the moment but the coral is looking very unhappy. Thanks for the advice! I will follow it to the letter and hope for the best.

I had 75+ CUC but my sea urchin picks them up, carries them on his back and they die.... so I have to restock. I was thinking of picking up an Sailfin Blenny while I'm at the LFS. Thoughts on that?

Thanks!
Joe

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

Nice fish & your tanks certainly big enough for several fish, but in less your in love with him, I won't add him just for algae control

I love my starry blenny - midas blenny also very colorful