Red Sea Max Owners Club

[Reefmack]

Reefer82 - the Red Sea is much safer, if you want Xenia. Don't put it too close to your main rocks as it may lean over and attach & start climbing upward from there. Or, put it on top and watch it closely - it'll strive to climb upwards toward the light and if it can't climb any higher it'll probably be OK. Just keep it on a separate rock that you can pull out if/when it starts to spread.

[Hodge]

Was wondering if I can get suggestions for frags supplied on those ugly lil plugs.
Should I just stick them on the rocks I want the zoa's to grow onto and wait??
Could I carefully scrape the frag off and attach it to a piece of rock??

I've got a pile of zoa frags coming in on the bus tonight. Probably just sit them in the tank for now until I decide where I want to place them all.

[Reefer82]

Good advice Reefmack, I'll keep it in mind. Sorry about that loss you had last week. I've been lucky that even with the storms lately the power was only out and hour or so. Strange weather...frost one night, 67 degrees a couple days later...who knew?

[Fishy Something]

Stuart 60611

IMO you should avoid any fish that sifts through your sand bed as the microfauna there forms part of your natural filtration & hence by having something in there reducing your filtration capacity you are creating a problem for yourself (and the fish).

Much larger tanks can sometimes sustain a sand sifter, but even then, not always. As for taking prepared/frozen foods, they will always default to their natural diet, so again IMO will only look to alternatives when they cannot find their "first option".

Cheers
James

[DmitriyY]

I gat my new 14.000K HQI lamp today, much better than 10.000K, color is about the same as original RSM lights.

10.000K


14.000K


My new tank mate ( Fat Albert ) In QT most of the time he was inside PVC, but now he is always up front posing for the camera.

[Reefmack]

Hodge - hopefully someone can help you with your question on the frag plugs. I'm sure they would eventually grow to cover the plugs, but mine have all been on pieces of LR. Maybe someone else can tell you about getting them off and onto a piece of rock. I've seen sites where they have shown cutting off a mat of zoas, and then supergluing the bottom of the mat to a piece of rock, but I've never done it.

Reefer82 - same weather here - heat & jacket needed in the morning, and short sleeves & AC in the afternoon.

DmitriyY - good news on the 14,000k HQI lamp. I've missed the blueness of the stock RSM lights when the HQI lamp comes on and the light gets yellow like bright sunlight. I should be getting my 20,000k this week and I'm anxious to see the difference from the standard 10,000k. Nice tank & pictures! Did you do any white balance adjustment on the 14,000k picture? Ive always noticed that without it things look even bluer than they actually are. Do you run your actinics when the HQI is on? I always have since getting the Orbit.

[DmitriyY]

Reefmack - I didn't do any white balance adjustments on my picture, yes I'm running actinics when HQI on. Can we run HQI without actinics? I thought the actinics should be always on. Well, I'm just learning how to be successful! Thanks for your help.

[Reefmack]

DmitriY - I think the actinics should be on with the HQI as well, but I they have a separate switch, and I think a separate power cord as well? I honestly can't remember - duh! Too late to check it - my moonlights are already switched on. I'm still learning to be successful too - that's a neverending process for me!

[mbdave]

Hey reefmack and Titans I have the mods for you complete will get them in the mail Friday. I will enclose an instruction sheet, look at it carefully and install it in accordance with the sheet for optimal performance.
Got sand and water in the 40 now and wow for the first time in 20 years of reef keeping I think I went overboard on circ. Might have to get a smaller return pump whew! Lots of flow hermits are rolling on the sand
Chow

[donna53w]

Originally posted by DmitriyY
I gat my new 14.000K HQI lamp today, much better than 10.000K, color is about the same as original RSM lights.
Fatalbertbleny.jpg[/IMG]
My new tank mate ( Fat Albert ) In QT most of the time he was inside PVC, but now he is always up front posing for the camera.

Your tank looks really, really good, DmitriyY! Are your new lights running any hotter?

Fat Albert (lawnmower blenny) is one of my favorite fish. Do you have lots of algae for him to eat? Does he eat any prepared/frozen food? I had one in a bigger tank (now he lives in my son's 72g) and he never took to other food. He stuck with algae ... and like yours, he had a nice fat tummy on him. They are such clowns, aren't they? Good pic of him, too.
Donna

[Titans]

Thanks mbdave. Let me know payment info.

[donna53w]

Originally posted by mbdave

Got sand and water in the 40 now and wow for the first time in 20 years of reef keeping I think I went overboard on circ. Might have to get a smaller return pump whew! Lots of flow hermits are rolling on the sand
Chow

Oh, those hermits are probably getting dizzy! Good to hear that the tank is up and running, tho.
Donna

[Stuart60611]

Fishy Something:

Thanks for the reply. Your point is well taken about destroying the micro fauna in the sand bed with a sand sifting fish. I was aware of this when I purchased the fish and is indeed why I particularly chose the sleeper banded goby species. This fish is not nearly as aggressive a sifter as the yelllow head or orange spotted goby. He does not disturb anying below a 1/4 inch of the sand bed and does no digging other than initially creating his burrow. As such, the denitrification process is not as sigificantly affected as with other sandsifters.

As far as feeding goes, perhaps this a good sign that I may have enough micro fauna to sustain him in that he is still not accepting prepared foods.

I took steps today to improve my pod situation. I ordered a bottle of ocean pods. I plan on adding 1/2 of the bottle directly to the tank with the lights out so as to give a pods a chance to settle in b/4 predidation. I then plan on using the other 1/2 bottle to start culturing them myself. I have read up on the process, and it appears incredibly easy. All you have to do is take a 1 gallon jug or any other plastic container, put in some live rock and saltwater, add the ocean pods and a tiny pinch of finely ground pellet food every other day. Wait a week or so until you see the population thriving. Then once per week you pour about up to 1/4 of the water out of the jug through a non bleached coffee filter and then put the filter into your tank to transfer the pods. You then add new saltwater to the jug to make up for what you poured out and that is it. I plan on running two such cultures in case one ever crashes. The only thing you have to watch is that you resist over feeding which will foul the water and cause the culture to crash. It only take a very small amount of food to create a thriving culture. Moroever, the pods are very tolerant of bad water and variations in salinity so you do not have to worry about air pumps, filtering, nor having your salinity right on. We will see how well this works, but reports from others appear to be very positive.

Now all I need to do is figure out is how to add a refugium to the max without a big hastle. I was looking at the aqua fudges that hang on the back. The only way I see them working with the max is to remove the skimmer cover from the hood and maybe hang it on the back portion of the back tank lip now exposed from the removed cover. Not sure if there would be a big enough lip to work? I would not mind terribly doing this b/c I do not think it would alter much the hood's overall looks without the skimmer cover. Still looking into whether this is viable. Also considering trashing the stock skimmer, putting in an overflow box in its place, and plumbing a below the tank fudge with skimmer and refugium. Obviously, a much more expensive and involved option. In this regard, does anyone know of a company that sells a complete package including the overflow box, pump, plumbing and tank which is reasonably priced and of decent quality. I also want to make sure that I take the best precautions I can to avoid a flood b/c I have heard that some overflow boxes can get clogged or are poorly designed.

[Fishy Something]

We just cannot get things like pod cultures here - even as a breeder I found it impossible to get much other than rotifers...

A below tank fuge & a change of skimmer are on my to do list as well & I am trying to work out how best to achieve this without damaging the hood significantly.

If not using the standard skimmer I think I will be able to drill a hole at the back of the hood, that I can run pipes out so they remain all but invisible, but setting up the overflow etc I have not quite got my head around.

I think I will have to replace the skimmer first & see what space is left & then work on the fuge. I would like to keep the skimmer flap on if at all possible as one of the attractions of the tank is the aesthetics.

[bookpile]

Guys I love my pulsing xenia, in fact the way I have it positioned in the RSM, it's not spreading at all, I think I'm going to have to put a rock next to it so it can hop onto it. I know, I know I'll probably be asking for advice on how to get rid of it within a year.

Stuart, I'm anxious to hear how pod breeding goes. My bi color blenny is looking awfully skinny. I'm not sure why as he's always eating algae and flake food.

You should look a few pages back, someone put a cpr aquafuge on, but they had to use a sawzall to cut notches out of the hood. I think it would be possible though without doing that by extending the inflow and outflow and customizing a mount.

I have one for sale with the light from my 65 gallon if you're interested. Maybe this weekend I'll play around with seeing how it would mount. I was going to try it, but the chaeto is growing so well in the soap dish I can't believe it.

[Reefmack]

Dmitriyy - the Orbit actinics are on a separate cord - otherwise I wouldn't be able to have them on before & after the HQI. I guess I was too tired to think of that last night. I found that I no longer need my dual cooling fans on when the HQI comes on, and the tank temp. hasn't gotten any higher than 79.8. My ATO reservoir lasts a lot longer now. I'm now wondering if I even needed those cooling fans going in the summer.

My 6 month old lawnmower blenny was getting pretty skinny after the algae crop on the glass receeded (never would eat hair algae), but a couple weeks ago he started eating flake food & will be in there swimming around trying to grab it with the other fish. He'll even grab it off the surface. Pretty comical to watch - as you know they're not the greatest swimmers, but he'll be up there in the water trying to out-compete the other fish for the flakes. He's again fat, and is the most comical fish in the tank. He also loves to sit up in front and pose also. In fact he spends most of his time now right up in front - staring at me. These are the original "clown fish" in my opinion. My wife named ours "Ugly Fish" a long time ago, but I think he's uniquely beautiful in his own way.

mbdave - thanks for the update on the pump mod. Sounds good! the flow in the 40 certainly sounds more than adequate!

Stuart - keep us posted on how the pod farm does. If you get any pictures of it after you get it set up I'd like to see them.

(edit) I went back searching and found this - a link to the thread page with pictures of nappi82's HOB fuge installation:

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...&pagenumber=37

bookpile - have you got the tall branch elongata Xenia or the Red Sea Pom Pom type? Keep any eye on it so it doesn't get a chance to take over the tank. It's a nice and interesting coral, but it sure can grow fast & all over the place if you're not careful.

[Reefersteve]

Hey all, just keeping up on the new posts, thanks for sharing all your information.

I have been tossing around all kinds of ideas on how to better improve the skimmer and overall tank. I am condsidering installing a CPR overflow on the back of the tank so I can use a sump and larger skimmer. It would involve cutting away a section of the plastic part of the raised hood at the back. From what I have seen the CPR overflows are the best, with installation of a lift pump on the air nipple to stop any bubble build-up and siphon breaks they are fool proof.

I was at a local reef shop yesterday and he was running an air stone in an old venturi type skimmer. WOW was I ever impressed.
So I picked up a $5 wood air stone and installed it into the bottom of the skimmer and wholly cow what a difference. I had to adjust the air intake down on the stock skimmer as it was skimming to wet. But from what I saw this moring the addition of the air stone should triple the amount of skimmate created.

I will keep you posted on the success of this simple mod.

Cheers

Steve

[Dietger]

Hey everyone

It has been a few months since I visited this thread and boy, did I have some catching up to do
I took me the better part of the day to check out everything, and that was only looking at pictures
There are some really interesting discussions going on and mods being implemented here, I think I will be dropping by every day from now on!

Question: I would like to add a sump in the cabinet. Does anyone know whether the bottom glass plate of the RSM is drillable?
Will post some pictures of my RSM soon!

Grts
Dietger

[Reefersteve]

Originally posted by Dietger
Hey everyone

It has been a few months since I visited this thread and boy, did I have some catching up to do
I took me the better part of the day to check out everything, and that was only looking at pictures
There are some really interesting discussions going on and mods being implemented here, I think I will be dropping by every day from now on!

Question: I would like to add a sump in the cabinet. Does anyone know whether the bottom glass plate of the RSM is drillable?
Will post some pictures of my RSM soon!

Grts
Dietger

Ya, it is hard to keep up with all the posts.

I think a few people have asked about drilling the RSM and I am pretty sure that you can not. I am sure others will confirm this.

Steve

[Stuart60611]

It seems to me that you would have to do no physical modifications to the tank to add a sump if you simply removed the stock skimmer, put the overflow box in the skimmer compartment and ran the piping on the back of the max through the hole in the back of the cabinet. You then could add a sump skimmer. Anyone have any thoughts.

[Reefersteve]

Originally posted by Stuart60611
It seems to me that you would have to do no physical modifications to the tank to add a sump if you simply removed the stock skimmer, put the overflow box in the skimmer compartment and ran the piping on the back of the max through the hole in the back of the cabinet. You then could add a sump skimmer. Anyone have any thoughts.

The portion of the overflow box that sits in the water of the tank does not drop down far enough on the CPR overflows, thus I think you would have to cut away some of the plastic to ensure the overflow box is low enough in the water to ensure sufficient water volume.

[Stuart60611]

Reefersteve:


Could you not mount the overflow box lower in the skimmer compartment so as to allow it go deep enough to obtain sufficient water flow. I would think you could probably find something to hook onto in the compartment or alternatively you could could epoxy it in to one of the sides of the chamber.

[Dietger]

I am not really sure how this overflow system works. Is it just hanging on the back of the tank then?
In that case I do not think that sollution would work out for me, because I do not want the mods to be clearly visible on the exterior of the tank.

[Stuart60611]

Reefmack:

Thanks for the link to the posting of one installed on the max. This user has installed it on the side of the max, which I do not want to do because I like viewing the max from both sides on occassion. What I was thinking of doing was to install it on the back of the max. I know that there is not enough of the back tank lip exposed to do so, and as such, I was simply thinking of removing the skimmer cover from the hood and exposing a portion of the back tank lip. I am just not sure if there is enough lip exposed to mount it.

[Reefmack]

bookpile - I sent you a PM (or maybe it was an email?) on some items you're selling.