New Video:

Turbo Snail going for a ride and some shots of the tank:

Enjoy

A Few Updates:

Went to the LFS this weekend and found some nice corals. Got a pair of Black clowns cheep, good score here. More corals coming in FedEx tomorrow and UPS from awesome aquatics Thursday or Monday. Will post then.

Green Star polyp, large piece:



Plate Coral, little closed up at the moment, crab was climbing on it:



Fish:



FTS:

Love the aquascaping! This tank is awesome. Whatcha get from AA?

Thanks Joe. From AA I have coming in: (cut and paste descriptions)

NEON GREEN STAR POLYPS Live Coral SUPER RARE SHOWPIECE!

SHOCKINGLY ORANGE MONTIPORA CAPRICORNUS Live Coral Reef

CONFETTI ACANTHASTREA LORDHOWENSIS Live Coral Reef LPS

Looks like i'll have more green star polyp, oh well picked it up cheep

New Corals in from Sea Life Inc today, thanks Ken for another great purchase and great freebies !!!!!

Purple Sea Plume Gorgonia:







Orange Spiny Sea Rod Gorgonia this one was free, larger in back of tank:



New Ricordea, 2 purchased, 1 free! :



Side view of Ricordea Island:



Full Tank Shot:

Bag with the live rock rubble out of there!!!! it became so clogged up with ditritus it was cutting down on flow and probably the cause of my high NO3.

If anyone else has doen this in their RSM, i would sudges the same, take it out!

Oh, more pics of course for my friends:

hey stevie, did you use your epoxy/glue method to attach your ricordeas as well?

the tank looks beautiful!

Yes, for most of them (95%).... Most came in from sea life inc and were attached to a small piece of rock. Those I glued right to the rock using my sandwich method. The ones that did not have any rock attached i rested them on my "ricordea island" in small holes with the pumps off and they attached right away. I guess I was lucky here becuase I hear others saying how hard they are to get attached.

are you having a problem? Glue will only work if they are attached to a rock, you can't glue these slimmy things

you just solved my question. i wasn't sure if i could use the glue and epoxy for my zoas bc some arent attached to rocks. and when i would place them on a rock, they'd flow somewhere else. however, i haven't tried it with my powerhead turned off.

thanks!

no problem!

I have used glue on zoa polyps with good success. As you said, you probably want to turn off the powerhead. I have stray zoa polyps at times that fall to the sand. I usually pick them up and glue them to a piece of rubble or on the live rock, never had an issue.

good luck

hey man- first let me say your tank looks INCREDIBLE!

on a practical note- if you havent done so move your plate coral onto the substrate, the LR cuts into their delicate skeleton. i have one and it is much happier and healthier on the sand.

Thanks!!!

Good advice, and yes I have moved it onto the sand, I read up after putting it in the tank and that is the best spot everyone says. You can see it by the frogspawn in a later FTS on page 3. Thanks.

How are the gorgs doing? Still getting good polyp extension? I only ask because I had a beautiful yellow polyped red stalked one that slowly died.

Gorgs are doing great! Still have the polyp extention, all is good in the hood

FAN INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS



Recent update:

New corals arrived from Awesome Aquatics, will have pictures after everything opens up real nice. We had a problem with an Acan, but like a champ AA refunded the cost and let me try it out anyways. I can't tell if it is going to survive, but the Monti Cap looks amazing and the GSP is yet to open.

Replacement fans arrived from Pinky over at RSM headquarters. Installed them today and what an improvement. My old ones junked out and started making a horrible constant noise. New fans are whisper quiet and run cooler.

New pics:

Purple fire fish picked up last night and monti cap from Awesome Aquatics.

11/14/07 update:

YAY!!! New Pics!!

Your tank looks REALLY GREAT!! What was you hand feeding that fish?

Btw, I took the bio balls out today...oh my...I have only had my tank for 3 weeks but I had already forgotten what a HUGE, GIGANTIC PAIN IN THE %*&#$ THAT WAS!!!! I put the powerheads back in and then things started humming and so I had to put a little left over piece of black sponge between them, then I closed the lid and then my fan started humming and I thought I was never going to get it as quiet as it was....I still think I hear humming, but I think it's just me I got the purigen put in and now I am set!

Thanks again for all your help and for the new pics...your just too good to me!

damn.your watchman goby looks so daring-out in the open.

Lookin good!

Looks like the monti cap has grown already or am I just seeing things?

I am glad you finally stopped humming, you wouldn't want the RSM to drive you to insanity!! I was feeding them flake food, which they rarely eat since i feed mostly frozen foods, but it was a good way to take a good top down picture.He if very social. I read that these usually hide and you will never see them. This guy does this all the time. His usual resting pearch is against the front glass. Is this not normal?!I think you are seeing things, I don't think it has grown anything that would be noticable on a picture. The edges are lighter in color, I am guessing this is new growth, lay off the crack ! haha

Yeah I put the pics side by side and you are correct sir. Not larger but definitely getting new growth around the edge, the white part.
I think you have mistaken the white powder around my nose as crack but really it is the reef crystals I was mixing for a water change last night. Darn powder flies everywhere!
That is my story and I'm sticking to it.

Great looking tank!

I would watch that GSP ... it has a bad tendency to take over every square inch of rock

Did you lose the long tentacle plate? Didn't see it in the last pictures.

hahaha, i think the cops would believe it.

There is a nice white edge around the piece, glad to here confirmation that it is new growth. I would like to get a few more of these in different colors, they look amazing.

This is what I hear about GSP, i will keep an eye on it, right now it isn't touching any live rock, but if it does jump the ship, i will frag it off.

Yes, I lost the plate coral. It wasn't looking too hot, some of the tentacles were gone, well i was moving it around and inspecting it when I broke it in half!!!!!!!!! AAAA i was sooo pissed and flet so bad for the coral. I figured i would frag some zoa or other coral someday and glue it to the skeleton, I have done this before with another skeleton.

Good eye!

The LT plates are awesome, but somewhat hard to keep. I have read, and experienced, the slow death syndrome. For not reason what-so-ever they will be fine one day, then the next they start deteriorating and just die. I had a great looking one and then it went down hill. My orange short tentacle plate though is a trooper.

Good information. I only had the thing for a short time. I don't think it was in the "best" shape when I purchased it. It was thrown in for free so I wasn't too mad when I "killed" it. Yet I do believe it would have done what you stated above anyways since it wasn't fully healthy when I broght it home.

Love the tank. Was also very interested in your Acclimation Bucket. I feel I'm lacking knowledge in this very important process. If you get some time, could you go over how your doing this?
Thank you.

New yuma growth?

Is that a peppermint shrimp?

Who would a thought! Petco actually had something turn out great! And they didn't even know! I like that firefish Steve. I'm thinking on adding a couple randells gobies, the gold stripped neons, gotta have em livin in steel town. Lookin awesome. Happy reefing, Joe

Yes it is a perpermint shrimp. He came over from my old tank, had him stince Mayish 2007No kidding, I can't believe how well they are doing, they even want to reproduce, gooooo petco!The firefish is really colorful, a great addition, he hides and sleeps behind the yuma rock. Your steelers had a tough one monday night! what a boring game... B)

That is an amazing tank! As a noob, I was wondering if you might be willing to go over what you are doing as far as dosing/feeding. Thanks!

how do you like the stock skimmer? Has it been pulling skimmate? Have you had any problems with microbubbles?

I am OK with the stock simmer. I never will be completely happy with it since it does not perform like my old Remora did. It does work, it pulls out a thick skimmate and I clean it out every other week. Not very much collects in the cup, but there is usually a nice thick paste on the inside of the overflow tube and the top of the skimmer. The microbubbles were a problem at first like any other skimmer, but they have passed long ago and I have very little. I think most poeple that complain about this skimmer and microbubbles have not run it very long or do not have a enough bio load for it to pull anything.Overall- pleased and I do not look to upgrade since it does work.thank you! I feed the fish every other day, mysis and brine shrimp, i direct feed with a syringe (actually just got done feeding!) I do not feed on the weekeds since no one is around. Corals get fed once a week, phyto (marine snow )mixed with zooplex (powdered ground up bits of ocean junk). I mix that with saltwater and target feed with a turkey baster.Dosing- Depends on the depleation of calcium and other elements. I dose usually 1-2 times a week with a two part solution such as b-ionic. Yet weekely waterchanges are my main source of dosing. My calclium will stay above 420 for only 2.5-3 days. I try and keep it level.

New Images:

Frags growing nicely:

thanks for the quick response... out of curiousity, do you know of any after-market skimmer that fit in the back and perform well?

yes, there has been much discussion about this on reefcentral. The tunze 9001 fits ok and works. i hear the collection cup sticks up a little high and you may not be able to close the cover. i also have read that there is a remora in sump skimmer that fits. I can find the link for you tomorrow if you would like to do some research.

Mowing the Grass:

Wow that was the coolest progression of pictures I have seen.

Thanks, i was on the phone and saw the great oportunity to finally get some pics. My crabs do this all the time.

Thanks for letting me know. Its hard to get good info on dosing and feeding, everyone does it differently. Given the way that your tank looks, Ill have to adopt a similar routine when I get my tank set up. Thanks again for the info!

You're Welcome

That GSP is looking good. I also got a GSP but my is only a frag. What I wanted to know is what color is your GSP's mat? Because my is white and the GSP stalks are small and short. They're not as long as yours or maybe its cause they are still small?

That particular GSP's mat is very dark purple. I have some other star polyp (not as green and shorter in length) and it's mat is more pinkish white. There are different kinds of GSP, all with different mat colors and height of polyps.

Top Down Views from Left to right, then Right to left

WOW!! amazing photography and nice tank. I recently bought a new RSM about 2 weeks ago and i will be setting it up in about 3 weeks. Is there any upgrades/mods that you have done? Thanks in advance!

Thank you! Well if you read through my thread you will see pretty much everything I have done to the tank.

Added Koralia #2
Added JBJ auto top off system
Flo rotating deflector
Cut black sponge in half
Not using white sponge, filter floss at times used
Cut holes in skimmer to improve skimmate
Removed Stock carbon, replaced with Chemi-Pure
Removed all BIO filtration, ie bio balls, live rock rubble
Added 1 bag of Purigen
Spend Spend Spend on corals, live rock and sand

Thats pretty much it, the reason I upgraded to the RSM is becuse it is an excellent All in One system. No heavy mods are needed.

Feel free to ask any questions when you get set up, take it slow!

Ok thanks, that sounds like it should be easy. Yeah i learned that to take it slow, my 55 crashed a few years ago but i have learned from my mistakes. But i don't know everything so i probably will be asking a few questions once i get it set up.

Thanks