High Tide Aquatics

xCry0x's Red Sea Max 250 Reboot

xCry0x

Supporting Member
Hi all,

I just rejoined BAR and wanted to get a new tank journal up and running around my Red Sea Max 250.

A little background/history before getting into the tank reboot.

I got started with a ~20g nano tank back in 2012. Looking back, its kind of funny because I probably had the MOST success in the hobby with that tank despite doing an all around awful job actually taking care of the tank. I never tested the water, I never dosed anything, I regularly forgot to do water changes.

Here is a picture I dug up from ~2014.

Old Tank.png


When my wife and I bought our first house, I got the go ahead to upgrade. That is when I bought my current tank - a second hand Red Sea Max 250, which is about ~66 gallons total volume.

I migrated everything over and things were good for a while.

RSM 250.jpg


But then, I started to get issues that for the life of me I could not figure out. I did a mail in water test, etc -- nothing jumped out yet everything went south.

Some of the chalice corals I had been keeping just fine for years started to have tissue recede. And my tank became completely overrun with nasty red turf algae.

RSM 250 Old 2.png


I posted a bunch of times on reef central, etc but could never figure out a solution for the turf algae. During that time, basically every coral in the tank more or less died.

So I opted to go nuclear, I removed all the sand, I removed 100% of the rock work and gave it all an acid bath. I effectively hit the restart button on the tank.

At that point, I was also building a new office in my back yard and knew I would be moving the tank into there once construction was done. So I basically let the tank sit and "mature" for the past year with just fish, rock, and my 2 surviving corals -- a small colony of sunny D zoas and a rock with some clinging to life blueberry blasto merletti's (from Legendary Corals!).

Which is where thing are now! (To be continued in the next post)
 
Current tank


RSM Current.jpg


Like I said -- fresh start!

Equipment

  • Lighting: DIY Nanobox quad retrofit + 2 36" t5 with clip on reflectors.
  • Skimmer: Reef Octopus BH-2000
  • Flow: Jebao SOW-15 & OW-25
  • Return: Jebao DCP-4000 & DCP-2500
  • Additional filtration/nutrient handling:
    • TLF reactor with biopellets
    • 2x 10oz containers of 15mm Siporax media
    • 1x 8x8x1 MarinePure ceramic block
    • 1 Liter of Seachem Matrix bio media
  • DIY temp controller
  • ATO
  • 1/10 hp chiller (hoping I don't need that anymore though! These RSM tanks run hot, but I removed the front lid on this one which allows more evaporative cooling, and my office has its own AC to keep the room at a better temp than my office in the house ever was.)

Current livestock (Fish)
  • Pair of random no-name very mis-barred clown fish - its always crazy how you can pay a fortune for a name brand variety, or pay pennies for a very cool looking "mistake" !
  • Flameback Angel
  • Midas Blenny

Screenshot_597.png


Screenshot_598.png

I'm planning to add another fish or two. I've always had a wrasse in the tank -- most recently I had a blue star leopard wrasse for years but I had to get rid of it when I removed my sand bed.

I may try to get a biota mandarin goby going instead of a wrasse, but that is dependent on if I can get a pod population going strong so it is a ways off.

Current livestock (Coral)

  • Small Sunny-D zoa colony
  • Small Blueberry blastomussa merletti colony

Coral plans

I've always been partial to LPS and have never had long term SPS success.

  • I really want a nice long polyp toadstool leather - if I can find a decently priced Japanese deepwater toadstool that would be the ideal. Otherwise, I'll likely settle for some other long polyp variety. I had a giant regular run of the mill toadstool in my nano that I ended up having to get rid of because the thing was just way too big -- the clown fish pair I had at the time loved it and started spawning next to it. So looking to try to recreate that.
  • I had a Starburst Favia that wasreally awesome looking -- so would love another cool favia or even a lepto like a JF Jack-o-lantern.
  • Likely will get some sort of acan going again -- these were one of my original corals I got from Neptunes years ago when they were still in Milpitas.
  • And chalices.. I had 2 huge plated chalices and I'd love to get another set of cool ones going.
  • Since I always end up trying SPS, I'll likely grab some montipora -- probably a cap, some digita, and an encrusting one.

Plan is to start venturing out in the world in the next few weeks to hunt some frags down. Will likely be heading to Aquatic Collection in Hayward and/or seeing what frags people have for sale here or on craigslist (east bay)!
 
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Some additional rambling.

Skimmer

I just upgraded the skimmer to the BH-2000.

I have had a Aquamaxx Hob-1 for years. HIGHLY recommended skimmer -- the only issue I ever had with that is that the intake tubes are not sealed at all so they desperately need to be taped/siliconed to have a solid seal.

That said, I wanted to oversize it this time around. And so I opted for the BH-2000.

The skimmer is a beast for a HOB. Definitely a noticeable increase with the rate it pulls out skimmate.

It was also NOISY. Fortunately, I was able to drill a hole through my wall and run the air intake outside (whew, immediately better).

I also put one of the filter sponges over the water drain pipe -- it constantly made a gurgling sucking sound. And then I cut a square of styrofoam to put over that side of the skimmer to further dampen the noise.

The tank sits behind me all day while I work and the constant gurgling sound drove me crazy after about 30 minutes!

Things like this always confuse me from a design perspective; its as if nobody in charge of the design of the thing has ever actually used it! Putting a T connector in the return would likely let the air vent better -- and it doesn't make a ton of sense to me why the return side doesn't have a lid.

I'll also add, as a disclaimer, their support is awful.

If you haven't owned a reef octopus product before; all their PVC fittings are metric. And its not exactly easy to find metric PVC in the US.

The skimmer is built to have a surface skimming intake that sits at max about 4" down, and a return that also sits about 4" down. My tank's water line in the rear chamber is 6" and their response was basically, "too bad, you should buy something else." (They also asked if I had a sump.. which I thought was humorous because I told them it was a RSM 250.. and why would I buy a HOB if I had a sump?)

They sell metric PVC -- but they charge about $25 for shipping.. for about $10 in pvc.

Fortunately, I can generally figure things out myself. So with some 1" and 3/4" pvc, electrical tape, plumbing tape, and willpower, I was able to retrofit the existing plumbing to get it where I needed to -- and a major bonus here, I put in a T fitting and plumbed my bio-pellet reactor directly into the skimmer intake!

So with all that hassle done, the skimmer works great. It started pulling skimmate within 48 hours. I highly recommend it if you have a larger AIO tank.

Skimmer.jpg



Lighting

I'm addicted to tinkering with things --

Lights.jpg


The RSM stock lighting is a 6x 36" t5 setup.

No individual reflectors; just all sitting in this bumpy metal-ish box.

I had an old nano-box duo from my nano tank. So I contacted Dave (the owner of Nanobox) and was able to acquire 2 additional arrays. I gutted the RSM hood, removed the inner 4 t5s and re-wired the outside 2. Replaced it with a 4x nanobox array fixture controlled with a bluefish mini.

The only problem is that when I moved the tank, I realized the wiring for one of the channels had gotten exposed to water -- the barrel jack connectors I set up so I could unplug the lights were completely rusted off. That is how much I have been paying attention to the tank for the past year!

So easy fix, I put new connectors on. Nope. Still dead channel.

Then I realize the channel is actually lit up and controlled -- its just not bright.

So its the driver.. slightly less easy fix, but doable. I buy a new meanwell 700 driver and de-solder the old one, re-solder the new one. Magic, it works. I turn it off, put everything back together, turn it on. POP, channel is dead again.

Rinse repeat. Same thing. It works! Then POP, dead again.

I have another driver -- but right now I'm not sure whats causing the driver to immediately short. This was for one of my blue channels, so I simply swapped it with the outside white channel -- so I have 2x working blue channels and 1x working dead 1x working white channel.

I'll work on figuring it out later, there is another slot on the driver board I may use -- I'm wondering if the socket on the board itself is messed up. But I can't deal with this right now because my past 2 failures to fix it drove be absolutely c-r-a-z-y and if it doesn't work again I may end up throwing the entire hood in the street and trying to find a good deal on an Aquatic Life 36" t5 hybrid! o_O

Pumps

Small note - I cannot say enough good things about the Jebao pumps.

I love their DC return pumps. I'v bought many Sicce "Silent" pumps over the years -- the Jebao pumps are cheaper and actually silent. Plus I love that you can ramp them up/down based on your needs.

I have a DCP-2500 for my bio pellet reactor. I used to have Sicce 0.5 or Sicce 1 (can't remember) on that -- I had to use a valve to limit the flow which in turn added head pressure and made the pump very audible. Threw a DCP-2500 on there instead and just throttled it back -- silent. Its also a major bonus that they draw less power and produce less heat in the tank -- I mentioned the goal of no longer needing a chiller so having the cooler running pumps and having my skimmer pump outside the tank definitely helps to that end.

Same for my return pumps, I had a pair of decently sized Sicce pumps and they always had a very audible hum. Replaced with the Jebao pumps and its all silent now.

Their Gyre Cross-flow was a piece of junk - I had one of those and also an Icecap Gyre which I think is just a rebranded Jebao. Both lasted less than a year before having an axle break.

The regular power heads are great though -- the controller could use some improvements but in general, great bang for the buck.
 
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Welcome back....check out neptunes in SJ if you can.
Thanks!

I live in Martinez now -- its a bit of a haul to get all the way down there.

I used to work in Sunnyvale so the Milpitas store was more or less on my way home from work.

Aquatic Collection is generally my go-to now. And if I venture further south I usually go to California Reef Co.

I loved the selection at Neptunes though! Especially all the cheapo frags which were great for a beginner. My big watermellon chalice was a cheapo $10 or something frag from them once upon a time.
 
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I’m sure I’ve got some things for you in sf.
For sure!

Next time I head out that direction I'll look you up to see if you have any frags!

With COVID, we generally haven't ventured out across the bridge often in the past.. what feels like forever.
 
My brother is in Martinez. I make it out there sometimes and to Walnut Creek every other
For sure!

Next time I head out that direction I'll look you up to see if you have any frags!

With COVID, we generally haven't ventured out across the bridge often in the past.. what feels like forever.
week
 
My brother is in Martinez. I make it out there sometimes and to Walnut Creek every other week
Hey, if you are in Walnut Creek every other week I'd definitely be happy to figure out time to meet.

Driving to the city is just a haul - hard to ask my wife if I can abandon her with the 3 year old for half the day on a weekend :p
 
Picked up the PAR meter today - pleasantly surprised by my lights. Had not ever tested them before and I was a bit worried that I may have killed my corals before due to inadequate lighting.

Turns out, it was likely the opposite!

I'll take some time tomorrow to go through and capture everything. But the lowest par I hit with my current lighting is ~100 par in the corners on the glass. Center on the glass is still ~150 par.

Top center on the rocks was ~425 and most of the rockwork was in the 250-300 range.

This is with 1 of my 4 LED channels (my outside whites) not on.

Turning off the 2 t5 bulbs also made a very surprising difference -- dropping my par in the center from 425 down to around 300 . The bottom went from 150 -> 100, edges went from 100 -> 70.

This is with 2x t5 36" t5 bulbs on the stock Red Sea ballast. A Blue+ and I believe coral+ bulb.

So funny enough, I was worried about fixing my light but I may end up leaving it broken since I need areas of lower light anyway.

Goal was to ideally get some easy SPS frags going, in the top of the rockwork. Was concerned about lack of par but should be totally fine for some monti caps and digitas.
 
Those numbers are good for almost any sps. Could you run higher for some? Sure, but most will do well with that range of par IMO

Yup - I just want to get easier things going before I dive into buying acros and promptly killing them --- not like I have **any** experience doing that. :rolleyes:
 
Yup - those would be in the realm of what I'd be targeting =)

I've picked up misc acros in the past and never had much success with them. A green slimer is about the only one I've ever had encrust and grow in a meaningful way.

I've had a variety of montipora do fine as well as a decently sized birdsnest at one point.

I'm hoping to get things going better this time -- with a barebottom tank and a significantly larger skimmer.
 
Yup - those would be in the realm of what I'd be targeting =)

I've picked up misc acros in the past and never had much success with them. A green slimer is about the only one I've ever had encrust and grow in a meaningful way.

I've had a variety of montipora do fine as well as a decently sized birdsnest at one point.

I'm hoping to get things going better this time -- with a barebottom tank and a significantly larger skimmer.
Coral reefer has a gold tort that has made it through ups and downs in my tank. Could be a good acro to try. In my experience with trying acros this past year the ones I’ve gotten from local hobbyists or aquaculture vendors like BC have seemed to be the most resilient. I’ve lost most the mariculture stuff I’ve gotten
 
Will see.

This larger tank has been a bit of an adventure - my nano felt like cruise control. I neglected it horribly and everything seemed to work out.

I've put considerably more effort into this tank and historically had significantly less success.

Right down to the complete takeover of the tank by red turf algae which is what led me to go barebottom and nuke my rocks with acid to start over and try to have better control over nutrients.

The rockwork long since re-cycled -- went through a nasty new tank algae bloom and has been sitting more or less "clean" for a while now.

The one thing that I still struggle with is cyano. I believe it may be associated with the biopellets I've been running. Seems cyano isn't uncommon with them - especially if you have more nitrates than phosphates. I'll give it some time since I'v only recently ramped up the significantly larger skimmer.

Its a bit funny because my nano all I did was run GFO in a reactor. In this tank I'v done all the vodka/carbon dosing -> Biopellets, remove sand, etc.

Still always been a bit of a mess.

So thats primarily why I'm shooting for the easier corals to start and see if I can get growing.

I'll note, for whatever reason, my tank has not been having coralline algae grow. So it concerns me a bit that something is still wrong -- there is a tiny little bit growing on the glass bottom. But the tank used to be covered in it once upon a time.

The good news - I seem to have fixed my light. (Knock on wood).

Par readings looking generally like this:

Par.jpg



Effectively zones like this:


Par 2.jpg




So I'm going to try to find some more rock to expand out the 300 par zone a bit more. Need a nice shelf-ish piece to extend it back.

This is with the fixture running blues at 80% whites at 30%, 2x 39w ATI bulbs -- one Blue + one Coral +.

Seems to be solid numbers for what I want.
 
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So -- after some mild consideration. I decided that as I ramp this tank back up, barebottom really isn't for me.

My goal isn't to go crazy with super needy expensive SPS frags.

And one of my favorite tank inhabitants has always been a shrimp/goby combo.

So I dumped 40 pounds of caribsea special grade in, as well as added a couple new pieces of live rock to get some more surface area for corals.

70-20 lighting PAR.png


Going barebottom was something I'd been on the fence about since I did it. It was super nice being able to easily clean out the tank -- but at the same time, my most successful tank had sand. I'd also be lying if I thought tanks without sand look better -- you really need a lot of coral on the glass to compensate imo.

My goal, however, was to still have plenty of open space in the tank. I wanted the sand **ACCESSIBLE** so I can still vacuum it and have a conch plow through it once the sand bed matures a bit.

I re-did PAR readings again, and opted to drop my lighting down to 70/20 blue/whites. I think this gave a generally better number range across the top of the tank -- with the lights at 80/30 like I had them before, the top was all ~50 par higher. Easy enough to change in the future but I think the spread from 200 -> 400 is perfect for most any SPS.

The lower PAR numbers should also be generally ok for LPS/Softies with ~150 at the sand in the center and ~100 on the edges.
 
Dropped off the PAR meter then got down to Aquatic Collection -- great to see they are still busy!

Picked two more fish:

- A generic firefish
- A yasha goby

Will be looking for a candy cane pistol to pair with the yasha; they only had tiger pistols in stock unfortunately!

Fire fish is doing well, dropped into tank and is swimming around happy, nothing bothering it.

Yasha goby -- this will be interesting. The last time I got one, I added it to the tank and never saw it again. This one has decided to hide in the top corner of the tank. It almost got sucked into a power head. And it DID get sucked up against the overflow of the tank within about 5 minutes of being put in. Fortunately I was standing there frantically stuck my hand behind the overflow to slow the flow while reaching into the cabinet to start yanking out plugs for the return pumps. No clue why it can't just hide in the rocks!

Also grabbed a few budget frags -- one of the reason why I've always liked Aquatic Collection is they have an awesome fish selection and also a really healthy array of frags all over the pricing tiers.

Grabbed:

- What looks like a montipora spongodes? Its mounted on a frag plug like a branching SPS but its got that lumpy green tissue with brown polyp look of a spongodes.
- I think what ended up being a generic birdsnest coral frag
- A pavona frag
- Some no-name chalice-- I think it may be a mummy eye although the green is fairly light toned.
- A duncan polyp.

Will add pictures later once my phone syncs.
 
Yasha goby worked its way down to the sand bed last night. Now its just sitting there for whatever reason -- not trying to get in any rock holes etc. But it is actively trying to grab food that floats by. So good signs.

Yasha.png


Fire fish had disappeared for a bit - realized it found a bolt hole in a rock I put in that was intended to be a spot for the goby/shrimp.


firefish.png


Also managed to snag a red striped/candy cane pistol from my LFS. Will see how long it takes the goby and the shrimp to find each other. After acclimating the shrimp it promptly dove under a rock and filled the entrance in behind it. I'v had 2 goby/shrimp pairs before and they always found each other fairly quickly.


Pistol shrimp.jpg



Then here is the frag that I am fairly certain is a spongodes. Should be solid -- I had one before that grew super easily.

Spongodes.png


Funny story there. In my original nano I had a six line wrasse as one of my first fish. I never had issues with the wrasse, but eventually I decided I wanted to replace it for something else.

Well, it turns out I had picked up a huge variety of coral pests and the six line must have been the only thing keeping my reef together. Shortly after I got rid of the six line, all my plating montis started getting destroyed by monti eating nudibranches. My zoas ALSO started getting destroyed by zoa eating nudibranches.

That poor misunderstood wrasse was valiantly keeping all the pests in check and they went absolutely bonkers after I got rid of it.

Anyway; looking to finalize a few last fish additions.

I pinged my LFS about seeing if they can order a pink streaked wrasse. Looking for maybe 1-2 more nano sized fish; may order a Links Goby or something similar. Originally I had in my mind to try getting a Biota dagonette. But while they seem cool, they also seem like altogether too much work to maintain. So I'll snag a wrasse instead. (Was avoiding a wrasse to not have a fish that would be actively eating all the dragonette's pods. Irony is I'm fairly certain Aquatic Collection had pink streaked wrasses; just didn't have them on my mind when I was there yesterday.

Also picked up a pair of tiger conches to get the sand bed working. My last sand bed in this tank turned into concrete so I'm looking to actively keep this thing stirred up while it matures to avoid that. It was a complete nightmare; I had to pull the rocks out and chisel the sand of -- literally with a hammer and a chisel.
 
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