Iostream's RSM thread

[Iostream]

This starts the log of my RSM reef going into my office. I have been away from salt water tanks for about 4 years now after a series of events led me to decommission my 140G reef in 2003. Basically the center brace disconnected on the tank, and migrating to a new tank just didn't make sense at the time for various reasons (who are a bit older now .
The tank has arrived. I spent most of the evening putting together the stand. It took much more time to remove the plastic coating on each piece than it took to actually assemble the pieces.
I also hooked up the RO/DI unit and started making water. Hopefully I will get the tank set up and filled over the weekend. As for mods, I bought Hydor Flows for each of the system pumps, and added a Tunze 6025 for additional flow. It does seem that new tanks are coming with the fan kit standard, though I might mod that with quieter fans.
More info (and pictures) once the tank is in place.

[LaurentSeattle]

Congratulations! Keep us posted... I will regularly visit.

First Question: What is your "master plan"? Species Tank? Clown+BTA? ...?

[Iostream]

The tank is assembled, and water is making its way in... my RO/DI is only 50GPD, so the tank is about 60% full, then I will add the salt and mix before I add the sand bed. I left out the bio media, carbon, and all of the mechanical. Basically it is just a skimmer in there right now (and not powered on). I will make my decision on the mechanical once I actually have things running. Wiring was not much of an issue, and I am impressed with the little things they thought of with the RSM.
As for "master plan", my current thoughts are mainly LPS, with maybe 1 or two softies. I don't know for sure yet. I will do the IPSF kits for cleanup crew, and probably add a pair of cleaner shrimp. For fish, I am thinking a percula or pair, maybe a gramma or firefish (would both be too much?), and a mandarin (hopefully). The mandarin is going to depend on how well I can plumb in a refugium, or how difficult it will be to move a constant supply of pods from a 5g breeder to the RSM. I could probably rig something using a small pump to send water to the 5 gal and a gravity return to send it back, but I haven't thought too much about it yet.
Any ideas for good LR sources? I don't recall who I used last time I set up a tank, it has been several years since I bought new rock.

[Iostream]

Salinity and PH have stabilized, all pumps and lighting is working great. Temp is stable at around 82.1 and I need to work on bringing it down a bit. Worst case I add a chiller. I did add the black and white sponges today to try to get past my current sandstorm, but I still plan to remove them when things have settled down. I also need to figure out where I am going to order my liverock, and get it ordered. Just for grins, a picture of the sandstorm:

[LaurentSeattle]

You probably should send a PM to ReefMack. Find him in the RSM monster thread. He was very happy with his LR. He gave me the name of his supplier a while ago but I cant find the info now...

[Iostream]

The tank is finally starting to clear up. I am a bit concerned about all of the current with a sand bed. With the small size of the tank, a 600GPH pump puts enough pressure to stir the sand at the far wall, though not too bad.
It should be noted that even running the skimmer and both pumps with the new tank, I haven't seen the micro-bubble issue yet. Maybe the hydor flo restricts the output enough to limit the problem.
Live rock has been ordered, and a JBJ Mini Arctica chiller is on its way. I had originally thought I would run the chiller with a Maxijet 1200, but I have a couple of older Fluval 404s that are not being used. I can fill them with LR rubble and add to tank volume at the same time. I will experiment once everything shows up. It would rock if pods could survive the pump and breed in the fluval, but I wont count on it.

[3fins]

Hey iostream, order your CUC from

reefscavengers.com

There realy good, I order from them all the time.
3fins

[Reefmack]

well hi Iostream! I just saw your RSM thread listed, and I'll get to watch another RSM in progress. As you know, the rock should help keep the pumps from displacing your sand. Good luck with the tank!

[Iostream]

Some days you just get lucky... I was scooting through the attic to find the fluval 404s, and ran across a box of stuff from my old reef, including a neptune Aquacontroller II with PH and orp probes and assorted other good tools. I calibrated the PH probe and it was shot, but the probe from my Reef Fanatic works fine with the neptune. The ORP probe still seems good.
The sand storm is nice and clear now, though I still need to "dust" the walls and glass. I will do so once the rock and such are in the tank. Live Rock arrives tomorrow, chiller on friday. I am going to let the LR cure for a bit, then probably order CUC from both Inland and IPSF to get some good diversity, and seed a pod breeder as well.

[Iostream]

Live Rock is in place, chiller is working (really quietly), and now it is pretty much time to wait. I am using the maxijet right now for the chiller while I do some fluval modifications. I still need to clean up the outside glass and clean up the wire mess from assorted probes and monitors, but I do have one pic just to see what the rock looks like on day 1.

[LaurentSeattle]

Looks great!

Is this Halimeda Algae on top of the right rock? Did you buy it or was it there?

[Iostream]

Thanks, I have been going back and forth on keeping it as is, or trying to open up the middle a bit more. The macro came with the rock, not sure which it is yet. It will be interesting to see what comes out of this rock. While it was precured, I expect it will have a bit more die off, and a bit of a bloom. Of course with over 50lbs of live sand and pre cured rock, I may not see a cycle at all. Next addition to the tank will be the Inland detrivore kit. That sand looks rather naked.

[Reefmack]

Great job Iostream - it's looking really good, and nice aquascaping!

[Iostream]

Tank seems to be moving along in the right direction. In fact working on the cycle fairly quickly. I am guessing it is the LR + LS. I will probably add another 10 lb of live sand this week though just to even out the sand bed.
I am starting to get some small bits of algae bloom. Parameters:

Temp 77.8
PH 8.16
SG 1.024
Ammonia 0.25
Nitrite 0.05
Nitrate between 20 and 50, closer to 50ppm
Alk 3.6 or more (need a higher test kit)
ORP 313

Judging from the fairly low Ammonia and high Nitrates, I am guessing the cycle is well on its way Eventually the Sand Bed should kick in as well. Skimmer has collected about 1/2 the cup over the weekend of decent skimmate. No more pictures yet.

For giggles I set up a small website. It only has the pictures listed so far, but the tank Temp, PH, and ORP are uploaded every 15 mins or so, as well as a 24 hour graph (ORP wasnt correcting for PH before which explains the jump this morning). It is more set up so that I can check tank stats when out of town or the like. You can see it at Iostream's RSM Page

[Reefmack]

Looking good Iostream. The website upload of data and the graphing capability is really nice! The previous 70 gallon was a treat to see also!

[Rue]

Nice start! I like your rock!

[Iostream]

Day 12 update:
Still buffering PH, but it has been much better. Algae is starting to bloom, and more importantly the sandbed is starting to bubble, so it is doing its job. I will test parameters again this evening. I am getting microbubbles, but I have the white and black sponges in to catch bits as I go through the cycle, so hopefully they will go away when I can remove the sponges. A few pictures have been updated on my site. I am not rally cleaning the glass right now since I am in and out of the tank a fair bit, so the pics are not the greatest.

Thanks for all of the kind comments.

Reefmack: That 70 was a horrible tank, but turned out really well. I upgraded it to a 140 with 2 400W MH, ETSS 600 skimmer and sump, calc reactor, drop in chiller, ATO, the works and ran it for a considerable amount of time, but then the center brace disconnected on one side, the glass was bowing quite a bit, and we recently had our first child, so instead of finding a replacement tank and working out a migration there, it was taken down. Oddly enough, I cannot find the folder with the livestock in that tank, which is sad because we took a lot of pics over the time it was up. We built the stand ourselves and have a few pics of that. Some day I will find the others and add a page for that tank as well.

[Reefmack]

OK on the tank brace going and the tank bowing out. With a new kid, the last thing you needed was the mess of 140 gallons of water on the floor!

[Iostream]

It has been a while since the last update. This thread gets lost in the noise here quickly. For a more frequently updated account of the tank and what is going on you can check out my RSM blog
So far the cycle has really done it's thing... Nitrates are all that are left, and they are going down slowly buy surely. The sand bed is a bubblin SG has been raised to 1.026 and PH is stable between 8.17 and 8.25 over the past few days.. Going up in the day, down at night... Today I added the Inland detrivore kit, and ordered the IPSF mix and match kit to seed the sandbed and cleanup crew. While updates are probably not incredibly exciting to read at this point, the establishment of the pod and sandbed populations really did a lot for my last setup, and I find them rather interesting. Plus I want to eventually keep a mandarin so the seeding of the copepod populations will be very important to long term success with that one. I will probably pick up some copepods from additional sources later to add to the population and diversity there.

[Rue]

...sounds like it's rolling along! Dunno about the mandarin...I want one, but decided it's in the fish's best interests if I don't...

However, if one that's eating frozen EVER comes up for adoption...I might rethink my thinking...

[Iostream]

Yeah, I kind of have my heart set on the mandarin, but I am well aware of their requirements, and will likely be setting up a 5G pod breeder if I dont come up with another refugium solution. I also have some good rockpiles behind my LR with good pod breeding locations. While a mandarin which eats frozen would be a nice bonus, I am looking to keep one fat and happy with live.

[LaurentSeattle]

Mandarins are so beautiful... I hope you will succeed.

I feed my tank with a small pinch of Cyclop-Eeze three times a week. I always see more pods the day after feeding. Maybe that will help...

[Iostream]

Yikes, I let this thread get out of date... Soo... massive catchup:

The tank went through a horrible, evil algae outbreak which is just now getting under control. I did finally find a workable refugium solution, the details are available on my RSM Fuge Installation Page. I generally credit the refugium with getting my algae under control.

Over the course of a couple of months, I have given up on the mandarin idea... Just too much work to keep up a pod population for them in a tank this small. while I love the fish, I am not willing to put forth that kind of effort at this point, and I am not willing to take a bet on eating prepared.

The fish for the tank have been mainly stocked, there might be 1 more addition at some point to get something that stays along the rockwork/bottom of the tank, but I am in no hurry. Corals are being stocked as I find what I want. The current stock list is:

1 pair Cleaner Shrimp
1 pair False Percula Clowns
1 Yellow Coris Wrasse
1 Firefish
1 Potter's Angel

1 colony Green Star Polyps
1 well populated Zoa rock
1 Frogspawn
1 Colony of xenia.

As for tank modifications, I am running the stock skimmer with the air hose going into the collection cup as the only mod. I am running the JBJ Mini-Arctica 1/15HP chiller fed by a Quiet One 1200. All of the stock pads, sponges and media has been removed. I am running the CPR Aquafuge 2 small for a refugium with small bits of rock and lots of cheato. I am still running the Tunze Nano Stream 6025 for added circulation, and am running a hydor-flo on one of the filter ouputs.

I will update this thread a bit more often now so people can follow my progress, offer advice, or tell me when I have done something stupid for now I leave you with an FTS from before my water change/algae mowing today:

[Reefmack]

Wow - it's been so long I forgot you had started this thread! Everything looking & siunding good. How's your fuge doing? Mine is getting a lot of coralline in that last compartment that has the overflow pipe - yours too?

[LaurentSeattle]

Hi IOStream!

Everything looks nice!

You removed eveything??? No mechanical filtration, no carbon, no phosphate remover, no nothing???

Laurent