AllYouCanReef RS250aio

[Don.Julio91]

I’ve been slacking on making a tank journal for the longest but here goes.

This is my RedSea 250 all in one.

I had I coworker gift it to me since he no longer wanted it after upgrading. It was a fixer upper project as it had not been used in a while. With it came a ton of once live- now dry rock.

It had custom led lighting which I ended up tearing out and putting my own Micmol LED light inside of It. It came with skimmer housing but no pumps. So I ended up buying some cheap but efficient Amazon Vivosun pumps. I also completely left out the skimmer and made a sponge basket out of some egg crate and spare filter parts.

Once I did a freshwater test run in my garage to see if my idea would work and the tank did not have any leaks. I moved it in the house. I added some microbacter 7 & API quick start bacteria. Then I transferred sand (shouldn’t have), bio media & fish/ corals from my already 2 years old (not so successful) 12g nano tank. & started my cycle process/ breaking it in with my blue tang, clown fish and GSP colony.

& The rest is history. I’ve been to 2 frag swaps and responded to some PIF threads. Can’t even begin to thank everyone’s generosity. So very thankful for finding BAR reefers. I came thinking I would use the Par meter and be done but found such an awesome community of people.

Here’s a recent picture of my tank:

This tank has been running since 2/22/23. I will have to update this journal when I can on full specifics of livestock, equipment, parameters.. ect. Learning/changes never stop with this hobby.

Thanks for reading this long intro, happy reefing!

 

[Don.Julio91]

Got this mini colony from @Hella_Salty650 last week. The splatter spots remind me of space. Thank you again!

 

[salty_taste]

Got this mini colony from @Hella_Salty650 last week. The splatter spots remind me of space. Thank you again! View attachment 50659

Happy that it went to a good home! Enjoy

 

[Kensington Reefer]

Nice bat mobile!

 

[Don.Julio91]

Nice bat mobile!

It’s my 3yr old daughters lambo lol thanks haha

 

[Kensington Reefer]

It’s my 3yr old daughters lambo lol thanks haha

Oh $hit, my bad
Didn’t mean to offend

 

[Don.Julio91]

So I lost my Firefish. I think it only liked frozen mysis shrimp. I ran out and it took me a couple weeks to get more. I was feeding “rods food”/ pellet& flakes. I thought rods food had enough mysis in it. I forgot to feed the tank completely for a day and the fire fish went missing.

A few corals became upset and I ended up losing a chalice and my 2 frogspawn corals.
I just had the time to do a water change last week but my bucket of salt was out and replace only 15gl from the usual 25gl. Doing another 15gl this week to be safe.

Frogspawn I lost is in the middle right.

Not sure if the fish death is what caused the coral loss because I haven’t tested/ need better test kit for my water.

 

[Don.Julio91]

On a Positive note I finished my DIY Chaeto reactor build. Followed some 5yr old YouTube videos but looks like this:

Added these easy disconnect valves since I’ll have to harvest the Chaeto.

Local reefer/coworker gave me some Chaeto 11/20/23

first harvest 11/27/23. It worked nicely. The ball in my hand I put back and tossed the rest. It was actually real compact so it doesn’t look like much but was a lot. Have to test my water to see what kind of nutrient export amount it’s doing.

 

[richiev]

On a Positive note I finished my DIY Chaeto reactor build. Followed some 5yr old YouTube videos but looks like this:
View attachment 50943
View attachment 50944
Added these easy disconnect valves since I’ll have to harvest the Chaeto.
View attachment 50946
Local reefer/coworker gave me some Chaeto 11/20/23
View attachment 50947
View attachment 50948 first harvest 11/27/23. It worked nicely. The ball in my hand I put back and tossed the rest. It was actually real compact so it doesn’t look like much but was a lot. Have to test my water to see what kind of nutrient export amount it’s doing.

Minor warning on the diy chaeto. That reactor might be fine, but I was planning to do that for a bit with a 2 little fishies reactor and read a lot about them. The issue with the 2 fishies ones is the heat from the LEDs can be enough to affect the thin plastic, cause it to crack, and has led people to have floods. Especially bad because it's likely fed from a pump vs gravity.

Again might not apply to you, but I'd keep an eye on it and ideally have it so if it leaks it's back into a sump.

 

[Don.Julio91]

Minor warning on the diy chaeto. That reactor might be fine, but I was planning to do that for a bit with a 2 little fishies reactor and read a lot about them. The issue with the 2 fishies ones is the heat from the LEDs can be enough to affect the thin plastic, cause it to crack, and has led people to have floods. Especially bad because it's likely fed from a pump vs gravity.

Again might not apply to you, but I'd keep an eye on it and ideally have it so if it leaks it's back into a sump.

Thanks for the heads up. I actually did a ton of obsessive research before attempting. I did see the model you are referring to but I also read about the heat cracking the plastic. I did any empty run on my garage before I plugged it into water to see how hot it got with the LEDs plugged in 48hrs. I found it only got really warm but not hot hot. Now with the water running and circulating heat back into the tank it barely gets warm.

Hope it lasts but yes I got to think of a fail safe for flooding somehow because I don’t have a sump (I’ll probably get leak/water sensor alarms). I did however get lucky with the used reactor I got. It’s super thick acrylic and feels like a quality Build.

 

[Don.Julio91]

Almost a year of being a member and I just figured out how to add myself to don’t break the chain!

 

[Don.Julio91]

Update on my tank:

Had a horrible salinity swing due to not having calibrated my refractometer. Reminder to calibrate that every once in a while…

I also recently upped the intensity on my lighting so I thought that attributed some of the corals closing up.

Lost all Xenia and clove polyps, they melted away. Other corals just closed up/ didn’t extend as much. May have lost a purple stylo frag as well.

 

[popper]

Dig the DIY chaeto reactor.

I can donate xenia and purple style.

Will be in discovery bay in a week or so...think that's closer to bay point..

 

[Don.Julio91]

@popper super generous, I’ll keep that in mind as everything gets to 100% again in my tank.

As for the chaeto reactor, it works nicely. I ended up (ithink) shocking the chaeto with garage tank water (ice cold) after a couple months and it died out. I got in on a group buy and now I’m growing Red Bush Gracilaria.

 

[Darkxerox]

Update on my tank:

Had a horrible salinity swing due to not having calibrated my refractometer. Reminder to calibrate that every once in a while…

I also recently upped the intensity on my lighting so I thought that attributed some of the corals closing up.

Lost all Xenia and clove polyps, they melted away. Other corals just closed up/ didn’t extend as much. May have lost a purple stylo frag as well.

Honestly some people would pay to only have that happen cause of how much of a nuisance they can be! Great lesson to learn though about calibration. Glad your other corals survived.

 

[Don.Julio91]

@richiev long overdue thank you. For these awesome corals!

 

[Don.Julio91]

I don’t test much but these are my numbers.
Working on testing phosphates and nitrates. Saving for Hannah checkers.

Here’s growth on a pink monti I picked up from last years CK swap, May 5 vs Now.

The Red Bush Gracilaria that’s in my reactor. Super cool under blue lights too.

 

[Don.Julio91]

Just a photo dump:

AC elegance from their sale.

My favorite “Flowy section” -picture is taken in white light.

Current full tank shot, heavy blue light is what I prefer.

 

[derek_SR]

Corals look very happy!

 

[Don.Julio91]

Noticed not the usual fluff” in my Dunkin’s/Stylos Realized I forgot to change my carbon for a month. Things are still good though. Random tank angles: