andy rsm 250 agen!

Andy

Active Member
Hi everyone, I'm re starting out my old tank. I'm wanting to start a tank thread ( if someone can do this for me wud be great as I have no clue!).
My rsm 250 has now been cycled for about a month. Current stock is;
5 red leg hermit crabs
2 turbo snails
2 black foot snails
2 fighting conch
1 emerald crab
2 blood shrimp
1 peppermint
2 baby ocellaris clowns
1 flasher wrasse
And a frogspawn coral

My plan is to leave it now just to monitor water chemistry and see how I get on for a month then start adding a few bits slowly. I really like the tank. Stock skimmer works very well and the lighting is excellent. I have gone with ati bulbs. And the combo I like is 3 x aqua blue plus 1 x aqua blue special 1 x purple Fiji 1 x coral plus. I had this in my old setup and the corals reeli popped.
The only upgrades are ato, a aqua ray led bar to help transition between dawn n dust and a jebao rw4 which I love. Last tym round you guys reeli helped me out so I'm hoping for the same agen. Iv noticed some voltage in the water in the back compartment I can also feel it in the wall behind the tank but not in the main tank. The fish and coral are all fine but I'm wanting to know how u hus feel about this.
Anyways happy to be back. If anyone knows how to put pictures on ill post asap.
 

nanoreefing4fun

Well-Known Member
RS STAFF
Welcome back Andy - good to hear you are getting the tank going again !

to start a new tank thread... just pick a RS sub-forum and start a post - just like you did here

many pick one of these forums

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forum/index.php?forums/red-sea-max-owners-club.180/

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forum/index.php?forums/reef-chronicles.62/

just go there & click Post New Thread button top right of the forum page

to add pics... they have to be "hosted" somewhere, like photobucket or here on RS to upload them to Photobucket here one way
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forum/...-pics-from-photobucket-nanoreefing4fun.66056/

to have them hosted on RS, click on your screen name, click on media tab, click add new media (or something like that...)

then once you get a pic loaded/hosted,right click on the pic, select copy image address, then in a post, click on the little Picture Frame Icon, add it there & it will show up - hope this helps !
 

Andy

Active Member
Let's see if I can get these pictures on then.........
So above should show how I set the rock scape up. I'm on a bit of a budget so I couldn't go mad with live rock but I think there is around 20-24 kg of real reef rock in there. I did my best with the aqua scape to create some overhangs and tunnels. The rock is actually really good quality. It has lots of holes for hiding places and I'm quite happy - ish with the look.
A couple of the inhabitants....
Love these cinches. I have two and after the cycle they cleared the diatoms in a day or two. I think there fun to watch too.
This I believe is a male flasher wrasse. Really bad picture but it's got great colours and is a reeli active fish
Love frogspawn coral. Seems to like the flow where it is. I tried uploading a video of its flow but no suck luck!
And finally my compromise for a fish tank my partners new pets.....
 

Andy

Active Member
Thanks. I get stresses about rockscape. I can't hack it to near the back to limit flow I want lots of sanded to see and use up and I don't let it touch the glass so I can clean it. It's not as high as I'd like but it's high enough for now!
 

Andy

Active Member
So quick update. I'm 2 months in and it's all going well. Only slight issue I had was that my refractometer clearly needed re calibrating and as such I discovered my salt was much to low at 1.020. The way I fixed this was just to use salt water with my a to. It's brought it back up to 1.024 so happy days. Suprisingly the corals and fish wer completely fine. Iv also added a baby blue tang. It's not a permanent addition. It will be moving into a 150 gallon in 6 months time. Current livestock;
Powder blue tang
Flasher wrasse
Ocellaris clown pair
2 fire shrimp
2 cleaner shrimp
1 dancer shrimp
And a selection of clean up crew
The powder blue having a swim next to a green tipped torch
Seems to have befriended the flasher wrasse
Frogspawn and metallic green torch frag not liking the lights being out during fish acclimiatation! If someone can move this thread to a tank thread forum I wud appreciate it. What's you all think so far? Iv found the torches like a fair amount of flow and seem to be looking good.
 

Oxylebius

Well-Known Member
How are the two fighting conchs doing? Males can be aggressive to each other in small tanks. I have only one.
 

Andy

Active Member
How are the two fighting conchs doing? Males can be aggressive to each other in small tanks. I have only one.
Mine are fine never bother each other from what I have seen. Iv always kept two even in smaller tanks like the rsm 250. Iv seen display tanks at my lfs that has loads in and they spend time surrounded by each other and there has been any issues. I think as long as they are finding food they are happy.
 

Andy

Active Member
Some quick pictures
Frogspawn seems to be doing well always is extended and doesn't seem to mind the flow the 'else ' mode provides on the jebao rw 4..
Metal oc green torch frag looking good
Golden torch frag. Love the colours of these photo is rubbish but reeli pops bright gold under blue lights. And my biggest torch....
This green tipped torch is in a lot of random flow and seems to be absolutely loving it. Iv gt some reef rods and plan on target feeding once a week and that will be all. On other news the powder blue has already unleashed ich into my tank. The flasher wrasse has contracted the disease too but in my experience it's quite a hardy fish. As for the powder blue he's fine and eating well and I plan to just keep him well fed and hope he gets past the dredged ich. Any comments please share
 

Oxylebius

Well-Known Member
If you want to really get rid of ich, I'd recommend setting up a QT and treat the fish in there and allow your main tank to go fallow for there months. Ich really sucks. There isn't a treatment available yet that lets you treat ich with corals in the tank.

There are many threads on this forum on how treat ich, you can do a search for them.

There are also many ways to treat fish which have ich, some good advice listed here:
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/fish-diseases-treatments/23132-marine-ich-myths-facts.html
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/fish-diseases-treatments/52236-curing-fish-marine-ich.html
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/pic/article.cfm?aid=1818
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/11/mini
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2004/2/mini

A simple QT tank will suffice. If you have many fish or large fish then you are going to be looking at getting a larger tank.

All fish can go in the same tank b/c all the fish will be treated the same way. All you really need is a bare bones setup with the following equipment. This is what I usually have on hand for QT:
  • Some type of filtration (a hang on the back of the tank power filter will work, just use filter floss without the carbon since carbon will remove medication from the water, being counter productive).
  • Heater and a thermometer for obvious reasons.
  • Aquarium test kits for pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. QT swings of these can be fast and severe b/c you won't have the rockwork or bacteria in there to breakdown ammonia into less toxic compounds.
  • An ammonia alert badge, this will give you constant readings on your ammonia levels which need to be monitored frequently, the QT is not an established bio system and you will see ammonia levels creep up on you. This item is super simple and easy to use, it will indicate if you have ammonia and will need to do a water change. Once you see this indicate you have ammonia, then use the test kit to confirm level of ammonia. This will save you having to test daily.
  • Fish Net - don't use the same net for your main tank (you don't want to transfer disease between the main tank and QT, best to have dedicated nets for each). Get a dedicated net for the QT tank.
  • A bottle of Seachem "Prime", in the case you have high ammonia and can't do a water change right away, this will lock up ammonia and keep it from becoming deadly until you can make up some new salt water for a water change to reduce the ammonia levels. NOTE: if you are going to use medication, please know that there are issues using PRIME and some medications, read here and here.
  • Items for fish to hide in. Go to a local hardware store and buy a couple of large diameter PVC pipes or corner elbow bends for the fish to hide in. Having hiding places keeps fish stress levelsdown. Do not use rocks in the QT, rocks can also absorb any treatment chemicals if their use is required.
  • Extra RODI water on hand or extra salt water mixed up for frequent water changes.
I wouldn't fill the quarantine tank with water from the main tank because you want to minimize the amount of ich going into the QT. But, your choice here.

You can use a small tupperware container to put sand in for the wrasse to sleep in. This will also help when you vacuum the tank to keep it clean.

Good Luck!
 

Andy

Active Member
Thanks oxy. Iv run qt before for a lengthy period of time to let the ich life cycle go through its stages but iv always had the bad luck to like fish that are prone to the illness. As soon as they get stressed or there is some alpha male fight in the tank it's a reoccurrence. I reeli hate ich it's the hardest thing to eradicate ever. I cannot at the moment get a qt tank set up. Iv gt some garlic additives and have opted for an enriched diet and keeping stress level to a minimum I. E human interference at a minimum just feedings and weekly maintenance. No new additions will be added for a month or so now. The pbt is a juvinile meant for a bigger tank in the future. I know from keeping these before these fish are subject to bouts of ich until they achieve adulthood and have established themselves in their setup. I didn't reeli want the fish in the rsm but my dad who's tank it is had his heart set on it. I will keep you posted and hopefully the fish will build some immunity. There will be no other big or medium sized fish added after this so stress shud be kept to a minimum in future
 

Andy

Active Member
First death in the tank! One blood red fire shrimp down. No idea why all the chemistry checks out. I raised the salinity from 1.020 to 1.025 but this was over a period of 5 days so I wudnt have thought it wud have an effect but I was wrong! Getting some algae blossom again too. Diatoms on the sanded and the green sheen on the glass. I don't believe feeding is causing the issue as I'm careful to use the gone in 30 seconds rule. Think its a combination of extended lighting time and high nutrients. Hope to see it start reducing as the tank matures sooner rather than later!
 

Andy

Active Member
Just a quick picture to track progress. Few new additions. The condy anenome is a little too close to the golden torch coral but neither seem to be bothered by one another as of yet. Any feedback would be nice. 5 months into the new reef.....
 
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