Outatime's RSM 130

[Outatime]

Hi guys, David helped me with the above and its all working great now.

Couple more questions if you don't mind, first what length of time should I have my lights on?, right now its on about 5 hrs.

Now my tanks cycled how long do you think I should wait till I add another fish? I belive I can add inverts and my cleaning crew straight can't I?

Thank you, also attached is my latest photo of the tank

Thanks all

Stu

 

[Reefmack]

Stu - if your ammonia, nitrite are zero, and nitrates low, you could probably go with a second fish, but I wouldn't go with any more for a while, till you're sure the bacteria can keep ammonia & nitrites at zero. If you have some algae build up you could add some snails now. If you have little or no algae don't add a ton of snails now or they'll starve. I don't see much, if any, algae from the picture. One or two shrimp are OK as they'll eat the fish food that the fish miss.

 

[Outatime]

Thanks Terry

Yes right now everything appears to be at zero so I will take a look at my LFS later today for a couple of shrimp, maybe a cleaner and fire shrimp.

I am leaving Florida off to England (my homeland) for a short trip shortly so I will leave any other additions till after that...give the tank a chance to settle more and adapt to the new life.

As far as my next fish goes I am thinking a Long Nosed Hawkfish....I love them so much and lost my last one in the big crash I had, my tank isn't the same without Hawky

 

[Reefmack]

Have a good trip to England and back! I just replaced my Flame Hawk that came up missing w/o a trace. Hawks are fish with a lot of personality!

 

[tnwillia]

Stuart, your on the right track and getting great help. Go slow! I'd give your tank 2 months minimum to settle down as you do testing before you think of putting anything in there other than CUC. The slower you jump into this the better tank you'll have 8 months from now. Good luck & have fun with it!

 

[Outatime]

Hi All

Purchased a cleaner shrimp for the tank yesterday from my LFS, also purchased some copepods to start that going as I would love to keep a mandarin one day.

Whilst I was there I picked up a MJ1200 and today swapped it out for one of my stock pumps as per the http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/red-sea-max-owners-club/37715-mj1200-pump-mod.html , also purchased a Hydor Flo Deflector and attached that to it, its working great I am really pleased with it. I did need to drag the dremal out though as the mj1200 jet and the RSM pump nozzle that pokes out through the tank wall wouldn't connect so I got a 1/2" piece of upvc about 1.5" long and shaved it so both ends would fit into it to make a convertor of sorts, couldn't find anything on the forum to how others have done it but this seems to work!

With my stock pump on the left, the mj1200 with wave maker, the tunze and the Hydor 2 I must have some good flow in that tank I would think!

Still working on my chiller issues, hope to have that taken care of soon.

Thanks


Stuart

 

[Reefmack]

Good job Stuart. Sounds like excellent flow in the tank!

 

[Outatime]

ok back again, got the issues I had with mb's taken care of last night so now I can concentrate on the tank again.

I have a brown algea thats covering the rocks right now, the sandbed seems ok maybe because of the flow I have but I do have a green hair type algea also growing on the rocks.

I am thinking a emerald crab would help take care of this wouldn't it? If so how many would you guys recommend?

Right now still running my lights from about 6pm to midnight, do you think I could afford to light the tank up an hour or so earlier now?

I will check my water later and hopefully nothing has changed, I will also be doing a water change today as its been a couple of weeks now, how does 10% sound or do you think I need to do more?

Thanks for all the advice

Stuart

 

[Reefmack]

One or two emeralds might help with the green hair algae, unless it's Bryopsis (hopefully not). Any pics of the algaes? Hard to tell if it's the normal brown diatom or something else. 10% WC sounds good, unless you can do more than that - doing 10% once a week may help with the algae situation.

I think you could add the extra hour of light. It may increase the algae, but hopefully the emeralds and any snails you have will take care of that.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

+1 - adding one emeralds & seven hours light

time on your side... new tank syndrome

 

[Outatime]

Hi again

Sorry for the delay getting back to you on this, I have been looking for my camera but can't lay my hands on it right now, best I have is my iphone but its really not good enough for a close up photo.

Good news is the tank has been going well, fish good, parameters good but the bad news is I have Bryopsis! I bought an emerald crab as suggested last week and its not touched any of it.

Funny enough whenever I have a problem and search for it that Reefmack always appears to have had the same issues as me I am now considering buying a small Foxface for the tank as RM did, hows your FF doing RM?

The Bryopsis is growing so fast and I am just about to leave to go to England for two weeks from Monday so I don't know what its going to be like when I get back, I will order a FF from Saltwater Aquarium Fish for Marine Aquariums: One Spot Foxface they say a small one is 1" to 1.5" long so I imagine that would be perfect for my size tank?

I love this hobby, never know whats going to happen next

 

[Reefmack]

Till recently the emeralds I've had never touched any of the HA or Bryopsis that I've had. But last week some new emeralds I picked up not long ago took care of a large hunk of Bryopsis I had growing behind an acro on top. Go figure! When I had a lot of Bryopsis nothing I tried got rid of it, till I got the Foxface, and it was gone in a week. But, be aware that a few have gotten Foxface and they haven't taken care of the Bryopsis - every fish seems to be different. Beautiful fish though! Sadly I lost 2 Foxface - each one died within maybe 30 minutes after a major coralline scraping - I have to put that down as stress related.

 

[Outatime]

I used to have a FF in my big tank years ago and loved it, do you think its worth a shot?

Anyone know where I could buy a small FF online? Thanks

 

[Reefmack]

If you like Foxface, know they can outgrow the 130, (and don't get stung by one), the only place I know of that sells many fish by size is Blue Zoo:

Rabbitfish

Their fish sometimes arrive a bit larger than expected, but you can try asking them for the smallest they have to try to be sure to get a small one. Great polace to deal with, but the shipping is a little bit higher than many others.

 

[JimmyJ]

Reading through this thread, I got really curious on how your tank looked prior to your cleaning so I looked up your other thread with the original pic and WOW is right. Nice job on the clean up, something to be proud of there Great job, tank looks awesome, rock work is very nice.

 

[Outatime]

Thank you Jimmy, I was suprised with how well the rock and everything cleaned up, took me a good couple of days on and off but we got it done I will have a read through your thread when I have five minutes, love to see how others are getting on!

I will definitly go with the FF when I get back after my trip, need to do something with this hair algae. You remember the film Creep Show, there was a part of the film where some guy touched a metor and green hair started to grow all over him....thats my tank right now

 

[Outatime]

PS: Am I the only person who has used silicon all around the outside black trim on there RSM to stop salt creep? I have a couple of other spots but its really stopped it well, used to have creeps grow over a couple of days in different spots but I ran a really thin line of silicon and its stopped it all now!

 

[Reefmack]

PS: Am I the only person who has used silicon all around the outside black trim on there RSM to stop salt creep? I have a couple of other spots but its really stopped it well, used to have creeps grow over a couple of days in different spots but I ran a really thin line of silicon and its stopped it all now!

You may be, but it sounds like a nice idea.

 

[Outatime]

Maybe I am the only one who gets a lot of salt creep then?

Foxface ordered and will be delivered tomorrow..can't wait, I love this fish, might later be my first new addition to my RSM250

Was due to leave to England today but thanks to volcanic ash that's not going to happen!

 

[Dweezil]

Your not the only one who gets salt creep I can promise you that.
Congratulations on the Foxface, they are a really good looking fish.
More time to spend with your tank!