Bap's RSM 250 Tank thread

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bap819

Member
Hi everyone,

Our Red Sea Max 250 is a family project. We started it back in January 2014 so it is 6 months old. In these past couple of months we have had some issues that I will get to in the next post. For now, let me tell you a little about what we have in it and what we have done to it.

About 60 lbs of rock (mostly live but also added a little base rock)
What started as almost two inches of sand is now down to about one inch
Removed carbon and bio balls, replaced with chemi pure elite and purigen

CUC:
5 Trochus Snails
3? Blue legged hermit crabs (Started with 6)
1 Nassarius snail
4? Stomatella snails
1 Emerald crab
1 peppermint shrimp

Fish:
2 False Percula Clownfish
1 Ornate leopard Wrasse
1 Flame Angel
1 Orchid Dottyback
1 Red spotted sand perch
1 Tuxedo Damsel (MIA for 5 days now)

Coral:
Hairy green mushroom
Pink Goniopora
Zoas
Dragon Soul Favia
Favite
Acan (not sure if he is still alive)
Yellow Trumpet
Hammer coral
Duncan
Green Cabbage
Scoly

Season’s greetings montipora
Encrusting montipora
Acropora frag
 
B

bap819

Member
Our first major problem is the red spotted sand perch. He’s become a huge jerk. It wasn’t until about two months ago that he became very aggressive towards the other fish in the tank. The poor dottyback has taken majority of the attacks, along with our leopard wrasse that is twice his size! We are also blaming the disappearance of our tuxedo damsel on him. We have tried many desperate attempts to catch him, but he is super fast and we don’t want to take apart the whole tank to catch one fish. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how we can catch him?

The second problem we have is the micro bubbles. We had taken out the left black mechanical filter and it caused the tank to go into a horrid state. We had been working on an algae issue and were getting a pretty good hold on it when the bubbles happened. They stuck to everything and made the algae problem we were battling ten times harder. We put the filter back in and that seemed to help. The algae however has become a royal pain. It’s mostly red slime algae and some brown algae. We go in about twice a week with a tooth brush and brush it off, turned the lights back to 6 hours, and now we feel really defeated. The tank was really coming along nicely till this happened :(
 
nanoreefing4fun

nanoreefing4fun

Well-Known Member
RS STAFF
on the microbubbles... are you using ro/di water? start with verifying your gate height & water level, how often do you top off & how much? post some pics of your tank, this will help

the red slime is almost always related to overfeeding & we have all had it & overfed at one time... lots tips to whip it... I would start with, adding a much bigger cuc, like 65 snails, how much do you feed, what do you feed, how often do you feed. Then... the chemical filtration cpe & purigen how often are you changing it and how long have you been running it. Are you using ro/di?, how often do you do wc & what %?

this will be a start... we can help for sure :dance:
 
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bap819

Member
Yes to the ro/di. The bubbles seem to come and go every now and then, more so after reconnecting the skimmer cup after cleaning. We adjusted the gate height slightly and that helped as well.

We do 20% every two weeks. We top off every night between 2 and 2.5 gallons. Fish get fed half a cube of frozen brine shrimp every 3 days, and the corals are fed reef roids and reef chili once a week.

The charcoal got switched out for purigen and cpe in May so its been running for two months without being touched. What is general rule of thumb for replacing it?

I'll get some pictures up asap
 
Mark9

Mark9

Has been struck by the ban stick
bap819 said:
We top off every night between 2 and 2.5 gallons.

The charcoal got switched out for purigen and cpe in May so its been running for two months without being touched. What is general rule of thumb for replacing it?
Click to expand...

2 1/2 gallon swing per day? Wow, that's alot!
Sounds like you really need an ATO, swings like that will mess up the skimmer.

Replace CPE every 3 months, you should run 2 bags, alternate the change out.
Replace purigen when it gets dark, don't bother recharging, too much risk and it is cheap.

There are alot of threads on how to get the skimmer running well.
Once set correctly, it works very good.
 
B

bap819

Member
Mark9 said:
2 1/2 gallon swing per day? Wow, that's alot!
Sounds like you really need an ATO, swings like that will mess up the skimmer.

Replace CPE every 3 months, you should run 2 bags, alternate the change out.
Replace purigen when it gets dark, don't bother recharging, too much risk and it is cheap.
Click to expand...

Thanks Mark,
The water evaporation used to be much more in 1 1/2 to 2 range, but as soon as the weather warmed up it has begun to lose much more. We also have noticed an big jump in temp. We keep it at 78F, but noticed it start to creep up to 82. Normally we have an external a/c unit in that room, but have held off because we are worried we may overload the circuit. We are going to be leaving the hood flap open to hopefully release some heat.
 
D

Danreef

Well-Known Member
bap819 said:
The second problem we have is the micro bubbles. We had taken out the left black mechanical filter and it caused the tank to go into a horrid state. We had been working on an algae issue and were getting a pretty good hold on it when the bubbles happened. They stuck to everything and made the algae problem we were battling ten times harder. We put the filter back in and that seemed to help. The algae however has become a royal pain. It’s mostly red slime algae and some brown algae. We go in about twice a week with a tooth brush and brush it off, turned the lights back to 6 hours, and now we feel really defeated. The tank was really coming along nicely till this happened :(
Click to expand...

In my tanks I only have refugium. No chemical filtration. In my full SPS 12G tank (now replaced with a RSM 250) I had some months ago red cyano. As soon as I saw it and I was sure it was growing, I treated the tank with CHEMICLEAN ( http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00025YRJS/?tag=reefsanc-20 ).

I followed the instructions and problem solved. SPS very happy and growing. Of course, as it was posted, I also reduced the amount of food I was providing to the corals.

Daniel
 
B

bap819

Member
It's been a pretty busy month here, but I here with an update and finally some photos of the tank.

We ended up taking apart the whole tank to catch the sand perch. The rock work was changed up a little bit also. After we caught the little bugger, we were able to go buy about 20 blue legged hermits, four turbos, and a skunk cleaner shrimp. The red slime is still there and not getting much better. I'm thinking we will go ahead and do what Daniel suggested with the CHEMICLEAN.

We also went ahead and hooked up the a/c in the room where the tank is after seeing it jump to 85. So far so good staying at 81/82.

Here are some photos of the progression of our tank.


This is before a bunch of our corals died.



After we changed the lighting from stock to the ATI's, and after we changed some rock work. Ignore the big white rock at the bottom.



Finally, this is what the tank looks like today. As you can see we have some red slime issues. These were taken with an iPhone so I apologize for picture quality, still looking for the battery charger to the actual camera.
 
Mark9

Mark9

Has been struck by the ban stick
Are you running Chemi-Pure Elite (or blue) and Purigen?
Have you done the suggested red Sea tips for proper skimmer operation, gate height, water level, etc?
My problem was that I had the black sponge too high.
How much are you feeding your fish?
Regular water changes? RO/DI?
Like to help, but need a bit more info.
 
B

bap819

Member
Mark9 said:
Are you running Chemi-Pure Elite (or blue) and Purigen?
Have you done the suggested red Sea tips for proper skimmer operation, gate height, water level, etc?
My problem was that I had the black sponge too high.
How much are you feeding your fish?
Regular water changes? RO/DI?
Like to help, but need a bit more info.
Click to expand...

Hi Mark,
We are running Chemi Pure "Elite" and Purigen.
Yes we have done the skimmer adjustments and its skimming really well.
We feed them New Life Spectrum pellets every other day, and then once a week they will get a treat of the frozen San Francisco Bay brine shrimp.
Water changes every 2 weeks at 20%. RO/DI mixed with Red Sea Coral Pro Salt.
 
B

bap819

Member
Red slime free for a week now!

We turned the lights off for 3 days, at the end of day 3 we replaced the CPE and Purigen. Was waiting to get the Hanna Checker in the mail for the phosphate.
So here are the current tank levels:
Salinity: 1.024
Ammonia: 0
Nitrates: 0
PH: 8
Phosphates: 0
Ca: 420
KH:7

Working on getting the KH up.

After we got rid of the red slime we took a trip to the LFS to replenish our fish stock. We decided on a Springeri Dottyback, and a Watchman Gobie. Then mommy bap saw a bubble anemone that she just had to have. It's a little bigger then a softball and hasn't decided on a home yet. On the second day he got stuck, wedged between two rocks and the back wall, deflated and turned inward. In the process of freeing him, the left side of the tank rock work collapsed. Thankfully everyone survived. As of today he is not visible unless you look in from the side since he has positioned himself under the left bridge. Seems healthy, ate when we fed him the other day, bubbles inflate when the lights come on, and we have watched him "poop".

I got out my actual camera and snapped a few tank shots. Ignore the haphazardly placed corals. We are waiting for the anemone to find his home before setting everything up since he is like a wrecking ball when he is on the move.
First picture is a little bluer and more like what the tank looks like in person. The second is with manually adjusting the white balance.

DSCN4722_zps0b917eda.jpg

DSCN4757_zps9e15d96d.jpg
 
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bap819

Member
Tank update:

The bubble tip anemone hates us. It's been a month and at least once a week he decides to move. Always comes back to the same general area. He also isn't inflating during the day. It's only when the lights go off that he opens up. Never fully though. I don't get it, aren't they supposed love light?
 
Pat24601

Pat24601

Well-Known Member
I just read thus thread for the first time. Your tank is looking good! It sounds like it's been a bit if a journey, but good to see things going well.
 
B

bap819

Member
Thanks Pat, sure is a journey alright.

We have come to the decision that we will be removing the bubble tip anemone from the tank. He clearly isn't happy, and turning into a wrecking ball every couple days is no fun for our corals. When this will happen we are not sure. Trying to find out if we can return him to LFS.

Our alkalinity has been very low and can't seem to bump it up. Low as in 7, really want to try getting it at or slightly above 10 since we want to expand our sps population. The calcium is also on the lower end at 380. I need to check the Magnesium, its just such a pain to use the red sea test kit we have.

Also, does anyone know more about skunk shrimp? He eats (steals) all the food, and jumps at my hand when its in the tank. Poor scoly gets all his pellets eaten right off of his mouth. Thinking of possibly putting a cup over the scoly when he is being fed. He's been having a rough month. The anemone always tumbles over him, and he seems to be turning translucent. So we moved him way into the shade since it seems to have started the week we changed our lights to the ati's.
 
B

bap819

Member
Tank update:
Scoly is getting better now that it has been in the shaded area. Gaining color back, and puffing up more.

Unfortunately the anemone died on us last night. He had seemed to find a nice spot and then yesterday turned into a shredded looking mess. :(
Tank looks ok. Ammonia was a little high, so we are definitely going to do a water change once we finish mixing up the salt water.

Probably going to be getting some new coral soon. Pics to come...
 
D

Danreef

Well-Known Member
I am sad for the lost. If you want another anemone wait. The experts always say that you need a well matured tank to have healthy anemones.

I am sorry again,

Daniel
 
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