Rien his RSM C 250 adventure

[Rini]

Yesterday I expanded my clean up crew a bit. I noticed that the past year a few snails had gone to the snail heaven. Have added 4 tectus conus snail and 2 small seastar. Archaster Typicus.
Wanted to get 2 cleaning shrimps, since the last one died some weeks ago. Sadly not in stock.
Was thinking to get some hermid's, out of stock as well. So it was a bit dissapointing what was in stock, but ok. Next time better.

 

[Rini]

Forget the most new important citizen in the tank.. Regarding my daughter.

 

[Rini]

Day 357.
Almost time to celebrate my 1 year Max.
Today with the girls still in bed I went down,fresh coffee. And quality time to test the water.

dKH 9.9 : even with 75 ml foundation B it goes down. Time to adjust.

Nitrate : 1 Coming down from 2. Need to keep an eye on it that it does not drop to much. Going to adjust my daily Nopox.Back to 5 ml

Phosphate :0,16 this is the same as last week.

Calsium: 450.This is Climbing slowly up with the 10 ml foundation A per day. Will keep it this way.

Mg : 1360. Since a long time below the 1400. Seems the tank is consuming some now. Next week an water change.

Kalium : 425.This is pretty high, so stopping the dosing of Coral colors B. Seems it is not much consuming.

Salt 35

In all not bad. Things doing very fine and growing fast.
Tomorrow fatherday. Heard some rumors about visiting the Coral and fishstore after breakfast in bed.



good weekend all.

 

[Rini]

Well, after a week I am very happy with the Tunze 9004. Took a couple of days to get it dialed in but it is now working perfectly.

The neck of the skimmer is still getting the sludge I used to get in the RSM skimmer, which to me says it is doing a good job. Also I am getting Skimmate in the cup, a dark colour and smells like only skimmate can and more of it in the past week than from the RSM Skimmer in at least 2 weeks. The cup is of course smaller but easy to empty.

The peace and quite is bliss

@greebirdlady
I hope you can share your experience how the skimmer is going?
Still using the stock skimmer here.

 

[Rini]

New week, new chance.
Did some water testing this morning. And not an real surprise. The past few weeks my No3 and Po4 went a bit down. So did adjusting the daily nopox dosing. From 8 ml per day to 5 ml a day. And the difference is visible after an week. Both No3 and po4 are a bit higher as last week.
Will keep the 5 ml nopox for the coming week, since an water change is planned anyway.

dKH 10.5 Dosing 100 ml per day currently does raise it a bit over an week.

Nitrate back at 2. It was last week 1.

Phosphate 0,24 coming from 0,16.

Calsium 490. Did dose 10 ml per day, seems this is a bit high. Need to find the right amount for that.

Mg is 1560. Again an familiar number. The CA did raise, and so did the MG, without dosing.

Salt 35%

Almost boring to read I bet, everything goes very good as far we can Judge.
The new starfish and snails are doing fine. 2 snails have found the back of the tank, the black glass. So they have lot of food there. The 2 Little starfish stay in the front for now, thats nice. Most of the time they are not visible. Sometimes I see a tiny foot on the glass.

As soon the lights are on will put some pictures how things looking now. It is pretty dark at the moment.
Well thats it for now. Preparing for work. Monday...................................................................

 

[Rini]

As we say here in the Netherlands: Meten is weten. Google translate makes it : the numbers tell the tale.

dKH 12. trying to keep it there. Most likely it drops again after the water change.

Nitrate 5. Did climb from 2 to 5. Must say not completely sure about the color of the test. This week I did feed a bit more. Results are directly visible. Will adjust that again. Will dose 8 ml nopox from now on to.

Phosphate 0,24 seems stable

Calsium 430 did adjust dosing a bit below the 10. Seems the tank is consuming some. Will go back to 10 ml per day now.

MG 1560. Seems the tank is not using it. Since it stays pretty stable.

PH 8.1 Just to use the test I have before it expires. Normaly I do not test the ph.

Salt 35

Things go pretty good.
Some pictures and video impression. Quality is not that great iPhone pictures.

 

[Rini]

Mom and daughter swimming. Good time to do some water testing

Yesterday did an waterchange. Had some time left, had an day off. Solar company placed solarpanels on our roof. So that will reduce the electricity bill

Ok te testing this morning.

dKH 9.9. is a bit dropping. Will start dosing 100 ml Reef foundation B the coming week. And check after.
75 ml a day seems not do the trick to keep it above 10.

Nitrate 2. Went a bit down

Phosphate 0,24 seems pretty stable. The 8 ml Nopox seems to keep the values pretty good.

MG 1520 a bit less as last time. Still above the desired level. For now don't see any bad things.

CA 430 a bit low, seems I need to adjust it again. Have calculated with my previous findings and will dose the coming 4 days 15 ml. And check then. After the 4 days most likely going back to 10 ml.

Salt 35.

Further things going pretty well.
Trying to get 2 cleaner shrimps this weekend. I'm missing those guys. Funny things.
Have 2 beautiful bloodshrimps, but they are most time hiding. The cleaner shrimps are always in the front.

thats it. Now time to go in the swimming pool with the youngest, it is getting summer here. Above 30C.

 

[Rini]

been a long while since I posted here. Long story. Good thing is I didnt stop. Giving up is not in my dictionary.
Short story. Some time ago I lost lots of my corrals especially the sps. In a matter a few days they gave up. The acro's lost all tissue. It was very sad to see everything die in matter of days.
2 days before disaster strike I had tested my water. And for my tank it was pretty normal. Mostly I have this sort of numbers.
dKh 12
Nitrate 2
Phosphate 0,36
CA 460
MG 1380
K 425
Salt 34
Dosing daily the red sea stuff like corals color a/b/c/d en reef energy A&B.
Nopox dosage is around 15 ml a day.
Reef foundation A 15 ml
Reef foundation B 50 ml
Reef foundation C 10 ml

Nothing strange. Just as normal.
Then a day later I noticed that some acro's started to lose tissue. Alarm bells ringing.
Tested my water; Nitrate went over 50. Wondered if I did the test wrong. Again.. jep over 50.
Did an water change of 45 liter the same day. meanwhile I was checking if something was rotting in the tank. All fish alive, shrimps alive, crabs, snails. didnt see anything dead or creatures missing. After the water change the harm was alreaydy done I guess. Day later the nitrate was back to 20. Prepared water for another 45 change. Then decided to check my sump. And there was a lot of stuff. The water from the bottom of the sump was almost black. My suspicion is that there was some sort of rotting there that caused the nitrate spike.
Directly cleaned the sump and put in filter floss above the pumps. It seems terrible hard to get red sea filter sponges for the c250 since mine died some months ago.
Meanwhile the acros were almost completely white. My big plate coral was gone to...
My frog spwan coral was dying. All my pumping xenia gone.
Meanwhile the Nitrate was back at 10. Sump pretty much clean.
Did again an water test the day after.
dKH 11.9
Nitrate 5 <-- this was really dropping from 50 just a few days earlier. Perhaps to fast?
Phosphate stays around 0,36
CA went a bit down after the water changed to 420
MG went a bit up after the water changed to 1400
Salt 34
K 420

I was pretty sad to be honest. And I kept the tank for a while as it was when the reading where again as normal. At least for me as normal that is.
Now some weeks further with almost an empty tank coral wise. I started to kick my ass and bought some corals to get the tank filled again.
I still have the fliter floss in the sump above the pumps. I clean this every 2 days.
Readings from past sunday ;
dKH 12
Nitrate 0,50 It stays pretty stable between 0,50 - 1 the past weeks.
Phosphate 0,36
CA 460
MG 1390
K 420
Salt 34

Got myself a new frag frog spawn, that is doing great. It is doing better as the one that died when it was alive and kicking.

Since i'm not completely sure what has caused the nitrate raise that quick I suspect the sump as some sort of nitrate factory.

What got lost. All stone corals. pumping xenia (Yes I managed to get rid of it), Frogspawn. Some buttons / zoa's. My big montipora. I keep it in the tank to put corals on it later on.
Lost 1 bloodshrimp. Lost my Crab. Lost my ringed goby. Typical is that the animals died pretty much when the tank was stable again.

As I said at the beginning, giving up is not in my dictionary. So I see it as an 2nd start.
Really sad is that living creatures died because I messed up. That is really really sad. And gave me a verry bad time at that moment.

Since i really love Nems, I'm going to concentrate more on them. I find these creatures amazing.
And want to know more about them and want them in my tank.

Currently dosing;
Red sea foundation A (CA) 15 ml per day
Red sea foundation B (kh) 50 ml per day
Red sea foundation C (mg) 15 ml per day
Red seaR eef energy A & B 2 ml per day
Red sea coral colors a/b/d 1 ml per day. Except B, since I have enough K in the tank.
Red sea Nopox 10 ml per day
Each 2 weeks Special blend 20ml

Pictures of the almost empty tank will follow shortly. It is looking sad.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

Good to see you checking in Rini, have been missing your great post ! Cheers for hanging in there, I think we all learn from experience in our saltwater tanks.

 

[Rini]

Good to see you checking in Rini, have been missing your great post ! Cheers for hanging in there, I think we all learn from experience in our saltwater tanks.

Thanks Glenn.
Indeed lesson learned here.

As promised some pictures.

Here the tank with the lights a few minutes powered on.





As you can see the Montipora is almost gone. Since yesterday we see some green points on the edges. Perhaps not all is lost.



Small piece survived as you see below.



Nice frag.








This one below has not changed a bit. So guess that is an die hard coral



The clowns still happy in there surrogate nem




My latest Nem. With a bit luck the clowns will go to this one, since this is an real anemone.


As you see there is some work in progress. We do it slowly.

 

[Rini]

Meanwhile I have working on an sort of refugium in my sump of the c-250. Using the media rack for the cheato. First test is without light, and hoping the lights of the tank will reach some of the cheato to grow.
If this is not the case then I want to create cheap led light (6500k) to shine into that sump area.
I have put some frag stones in the media rack as well.

My idea was that area is not used, why not try something with it what can benefit the tank.

 

[Rini]

Currently a week further. Kings day at The Netherlands. National bank holiday. Lots of festivals today, markets etc etc. fun fun.
We take our both daughters to the playground so we have our own fun

As you can see on the picture above I got an bleached Sebae anemone. What has been sold as it was supposed to be that color. Long story, I went for an red BTA, they didnt have these. But they had another one. And it looked good. So we talked a bit and we bought it. At home I started to do some reading about the nem. Yep way to late. And I was shocked that I bought an bleached Anemone that had more change to die then to life.
Lesson learned once again, the store where I got it is to big and only numbers count. So that was my last thing from there.
But ok, it is me to blame to offcourse. Since I bought it.

Did lot of reading and I'm prepared that it will die. Giving up is not in my dictionary. Started to read a lot about how to care about an bleached anemone. Lots of feeding, starting with small parts. So after not touching it for a week *what is really hard since you want to take care about the sick one*, I started to feed small mussels. Did cut them in 2. Dropped the mussel on the tentacles. And the first days It took 2 hours before it was inside the anemone. 2 hours sitting in front of the tank garding the anemone from the shrimps who want an piece to. Now an week later things have improved that I give a bit larger mussel piece. The eating goes much faster to. Now it is just a matter of a few minutes. So that give me a lot of hope. The color is still white. So I really hope that with the daily feeding the zooaxentel( you get me) will build up and make it an healthy anemone again.
I have the feeling, probably wishful thinking on my part, that the color is changing a bit to very low yellow from the inside. Wishful thinking since it is just here for a few weeks in the tank. It give me a bit hope at least.

Yesterday morning when I got up the anemone scared me. She was inflated and very small. tentacles not moving and basically inside. Was on my way to remove her. Then decided to see if it reacts on light. If there was no reaction then it was game over for her. Turned on the light and saw with a big smile that she reacted to that light. Took some hours and then she was pretty back to normal.
Directly reading again. Seems quite normal that they do this. Fascination animals. Really.

further the tank is doing pretty fine at the moment. Stays stable.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

Best of luck with the nem... here a great read on their care
http://www.karensroseanemones.net/

 

[Rini]

Thanks Reading that site very regular. Some days ago I thought it was down. Got an error while connecting. Guess my problem here a day later or so it is working again.

Small update.

The new nem did wander a lot. As it look to me it could not find a steady place. I did read as much as possible about this one. And it seems they like a deep sandbed. My sandbed is not that deep. Just a few cm. Think max 4 cm. So I thought let me try to help as far I can. I made an hole for the Nem where the bottom of the tank was visible. Put it on the bottom glass, and in a minute or so it was attached. Kept it for a moment so. And slowly did cover the hole a bit. As far I can judge it seems more happy now. Still not sure if it is going to survive. I try to feed it on regular base. It seems to eat. I noticed feeding every day result in that the food comes out after 8 - 10 hours. So I'm now on an 2 day base feeding. The color is as far I can judge and the wife not that white as when we got it from the store.
So we have a bit hope it will be alright.
At least our clown fish are watching and guarding the nem. They did not really take it as new home, but semi home. They have already 2 homes. So the little ones are very busy to keep intruders out of there appartments

Just a few pics.

below the nem on his old / new space in the sand.
While wandering around it came mostly back to this spot. But never got really attached.
So I thought let me try to help.




Our sad sad montipora. However it is recovering a bit. It looked completely dead some weeks ago.
At least I see some green again coming.



Grumpy with his pistol shrimp friend. they are so funny.
I tease them a lot, I cover up there holes. shame on me



1 of the 3 houses of the clowns. The little ones are working there ass off.



Here she/he is irritating the coral. I really hope they move on to the Nem soon. The coral does not like the clowns


Thats it for today.
Water seems pretty stable.
Currently dosing :

RS Reef Foundation A (CA): 15 ml per day
RS Reef Foundation B (dkH): 75 ml per day
RS Reef Foundation C (mg) : 10 mg per day
RS Reef energy A & B : 3 ml each
RS Nopox : 20 ml per day
RS coral colors A/C/D 1ml each (Not dosing B since my K level is high enough)
Special Blend 20 ml each 14 days.

Water levels:
dKH 12
Nitrate : 0,25
Phosphate 0,36 (trying to lower this with the nopox dosage of 20 ml)
CA : 470
MG : 1390
K : 425
Salt 34


Have a good weekend all.

 

[Rini]

Small update. My test with the chaeto in the sump area resulted in nothing It dissapeared in just a matter of days. So it really want more light. Probably going to get some cheap led light to see if i can fit it in the sump area. I just don't want external stuff.

About the nem.
It has gone out of the sand (off course), and placed it self a few cm further. More close to the rockwork.
I let it happen. They decide anyway, just tried to help. Wasted time. Lesson learned.


Further it is time to replace my tl 5 bulbs. I have choosen to go for LED TL5 bulbs. Was not aware this is possible. From the 6 bulbs I replace 4 with led. The other 2 will be replaced (blue/white & Purple) with the regular red sea bulbs. If it is working as it should I probably going to replace the other 2 as well in about 10 months when it is time to replace them.
For now I choose for hybrid. 4 led en 2 regular bulbs.

 

[Rini]

Today I did some water management.

Not that bad.

dKh 10.5 a bit low, working on that to get to 12 again.
Nitrate below 1.
Phosphate 0,24. This is now going down a bit.
CA 470. Pretty stable.
MG 1400. Raised a bit. Not dosing today and tomorrow. And then start dosing again
Salt 34

With a bit luck today the new lights arrive for the tank. Guess it is an perfect time to switch since there are not much corals in the tank.

1 think we will miss, the tank is close to the dining table, the hot air comming from the lights was pretty nice during winter time

The nem has found another spot in the tank. As far I can judge it is doing not bad. It eat every few days an mussel. It is not that white anymore as when we got it. So that give me a bit hope it will survive. Still a long way to go.

 

[Rini]

New lights are a fact. 4 led bulbs and 2 tl.
Looking good. Seems my corals like the new lights. They are open. Looks like the Nem likes it even more. It is much more open now.
If things are ok, then I replace in about 10 months the last 2 tl 5 bulbs for the Led bulbs.

On top the 2 tl bulbs.




How it looks like. 4 led bulbs and 2 tl bulbs.


Since there are not much corals left I replaced all the lights at once.
Seems what is left is doing OK. Now slowly time to get some new coral frags.

 

[mr_tap_water]

How do you find the new LED tubes compare to the standard T5's on colour and light output.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Rini]

Light output is as far I can judge like newt T5 bulbs. The color is more white, but that is what i have chosen for. I had it more blue, but didnt like it that much over time. To give an idea, my gorgonian is reaching the surface. If the lights where that much stronger as T5 I probably had seen it on him.

The gorgonian with old light:


And the new lights:



Matterr of personal opinion which one is better I guess. For me personally I like tthem both. Overal I like the new color in the tank.

Old lights:



New lights

 

[Rini]

Small update. Tank is doing ok. Looks like the polyps coral on the bottom like the new led lighting. They really are doing great. The buttons a bit in the middle are doing very well as well. I can say that I never see them multiply this fast.
So still happy with the Led bulbs. As it look now in 10 months i'm going to replace the last 2 tl bulbs for 2 more led bulbs. Then i'm over to led.
I can't control the led lights, it is on or off, for me that is fine.

Our nem is still doing ok a far I can judge. I noticed that it does not really like the mussels. So Ibought nem pellets. I feed it now 2 small pellets a day. Seems to like it more.
We still think it is not as white as it was when we got it.

Further the water seems pretty stable. Still having a bit high phosphate it is around 0,24 -0,36.
If i look back in my sheet it was always a bit this high.
Want to check my RO water to see if there is coming phosphate trough that part.

Further I found myself the past time sitting in front of the tank during night time. Then you see how much creatures depend on you. Amazing what is happening during night.

Things going pretty well. Fish seems healthy and doing ok.
My goal is to get an BTA soon. I really like nems.

Now time to fill the swimming pool for the girls. It is getting hot today. First some shopping then with our legs in the water. Or how I say : met m'n luie ballen op de stoel en niks. With my lazy balls on the chair and nothing.

Have a good weekend all.