Glenn's Red Sea Max S 500

[ghermes]

I am new to the hobby and this is my first salt water tank. I purchased my Red Sea Max S 500 on September 25th, 2020. While waiting for its arrival, I started building my RODI water supply system.

I had several issues with delivery of the tank. First delivery, the stand and trim came in white, although I had ordered black. RS quickly sent the black stand and tank trim, but the stand doors came in damaged. Next order finally came in correct color and in good condition.

I am happy with my RODI water system. It is located in my garage. I have a BRS, 5 stage, 150 gal/day system with a booster pump that allows me to generate about 6 gals/hr of RODI water. The storage/mixing system consists of two 32 gal Roughneck garbage cans with site tubes calibrated in 5 gal increments. I have one Pan World 50PX pump and the valves are arranged to allow me to use the same pump to draw and discharge tank water, transfer from RODI tank to mixing tank and to pump either RODI or saltwater to my tank. The whole thing sits on a stand with rollers that I built. I do have to stretch a hose from the garage through the house to my tank to do the water transfers. I have to fill my tank top off twice per week and I do 15gal water changes every week.

I am running a mixed reef tank.

Current parameters as of 4/9/21
Salinity 34 PPT
DKH 8.6
Ca 484
Mg 1283
NO3 4
PO4 0.2
PH 7.8
Temp 78 deg
PAR, ~350 at top of rock, ~200 on substrate

I am currently not running a refugium to control nutrients. Instead, I am using Red Sea NoPoX. I’ve been using it since 10/18/20. Started slowly and at this point, 4/9/21, I am auto dosing 20ml per day. I think this is working OK. As an aside, I lost a cleaner shrimp a couple of weeks ago. Just disappeared. Then last week I witnessed several of my fish attack and destroy my other cleaner shrimp. Now did my fish suddenly develop a taste for shrimp after 15 months or was it on its way out and they just took advantage. Why did I lose 2 over a 2 week period? Could the NoPoX dose have weakened them?? I still have a red fire shrimp that seems to be doing OK, but he stays hidden most of the time.

Equipment Summary:
Red Sea Max S 500
100 Gal Display
7.5 Gal Top Off
16 Gal Sump
3x Red Sea ReefLED 90
Red Sea 600 Skimmer
2x Mesh Socks
1x BRS Carbon Mini Reactor (BRS Premium ROX 0.8 Aquarium Carbon)
2-MP 40’s
Neptune Apex EL
Trident
1x Neptune Energy Bar 832
Neptune WMX wireless controller for MP 40’s
Neptune LDK Leak Detector with two sensors
2x Neptune DOS for Alk, Ca, NoPoX, Currently dosing Mg by hand
1x Neptune DDR
1X Neptune Breakout Box (will be adding float switch to top of skimmer to prevent overflows)

10 gal fish QT Tank

First fish In display tank on Jan 11, 2020
First coral on Jan 26, 2020

I had a major coral die off on July 18, 2020. I think this was due to chlorine contamination from felt filter socks. I soaked felt filter socks in chlorine/water for about a week before I washed them. Washed on sanitation cycle with an extra rinse. I think there must have been residual chlorine in the socks. Don’t have any other explanation for die off. Did not lose any fish or inverts. After several water changes and running carbon for a month, started adding corals again in mid-August 2020. I am no longer using felt socks. I have changed to the mesh type. I don’t think they filter as well, but they are much easier to clean and don’t clog up as quickly. No chlorine used. Simply rinse and replace.

Fish as of 4/8/21
2x Clowns
Cole Yellow Eyed Tang
Yellow Tang
Blue Tang
3x Pajama Cardinals
Black Cap Jawfish
Yellow Watchman Goby
Randals Orange Stripe Prawn Goby
Royal Gramma Basslet
Orange-Back Fairy Wrasse
Pygmy (Cherub) Angelfish
Several snails and cleaner shrimp

First water, no coral or fish

Views of current tank as of 4/9/21

 

[newfly]

Nice! Did you use a camera filter? Or you your light is very white? I like the colors

 

[ghermes]

Nice! Did you use a camera filter? Or you your light is very white? I like the colors

Thanks, most of the photos were taken with my iPhone using the Orphek filter set and then post processed in Lightroom adjusting white balance etc.

 

[ghermes]

Lost my two cleaner shrimp last week. One just simply disappeared. Never saw a hint of what happened to him. A couple of days later, I saw several of my fish attack and shred the remaining cleaner shrimp. I'm wondering if they both may have been on their way out for some reason and the fish sensed that and took advantage of it. I had the cleaner shrimp with the same fish for the past 10 months or so. No issues. I don't know why the fish would suddenly decide to attack them. I still have a blood red fire shrimp that is doing fine but he stays hidden most of the time.

 

[ghermes]

I took water samples yesterday and sent them to two different ICP labs. Triton and ATI. It will be interesting to see and compare the results. ATI also got a sample of my RODI water.

 

[ghermes]

Added UV sterilizer to system yesterday. I installed a 25W Aqua Ultraviolet unit. Connected it to a 1600 gph pump. Used 3/4 inch plumbing since that was the standard I/O for the sterilizer. Also installed a 1inch flow sensor from Neptune. Flow is much less than I expected. Wide open it's running at 420 gph. Pretty sure the lower flow is due to 3/4 inch plumbing and various elbows, etc. This flow rate puts the UV exposure to water higher than I want. I was looking for more like 1200 gph to support simple water clarification. At 420 gph, I'm running at the exposure, BRS suggests, for reducing bacteria that could cause fish disease. I guess that is OK, but Aqua Ultraviolet advises that this level of exposure can also destroy planktonic food supply for reef. After 24hrs water is much clearer. I'm running a recirculation loop in the sump so the actual exposure to water column is not as high as it would be for a 100% return pump loop. Another effect is the addition of the 1600 gph plump and the 25W UV lamp add additional heat into the tank. I may end up only running the UV system only at night. So far, so good. I'll need to keep a close eye on things to see how they do over the next few weeks.

 

[ghermes]

I took water samples yesterday and sent them to two different ICP labs. Triton and ATI. It will be interesting to see and compare the results. ATI also got a sample of my RODI water.

I got these sample results several weeks ago but forgot to post an update. In general I would say these agreed pretty well with each other. No surprises and no significant differences between the two. I would say using either one of these services would provide you with reliable results. Let me know if you would like specific details of the test results.

 

[ghermes]

Finally caught my coral munching Pigmy Angle last Wednesday. Had him for over a year, but in the past few months he decided he liked to cruse by and nip at corals. My first attempts to catch him using a net were futile. I finally purchased a fish trap. Placed it in the tank for a few days and did not touch it. Several fish went into it to check it out but not the Angle. After several days, I started feeding in the trap. The Angle finally decided it was worth checking out. On the third day of feeding, I tried to catch him. Took two tries, but on the second try I caught it. Returned to LFS for discount on some new euphyllia. We'll see if he was the cause of the loss of several of my coral. If you ever need to catch a fish in a reef tank, I recommend using a fish trap.