SKP's 34G Redsea MAX

[skp]

First of all I'd like to thank everyone on nano-reef for all the great info and advice. I'm fairly new to saltwater as i just started a little over 3 months ago back in Jan 2008. But with all your help, ive successfully cycled a biocube 14, cycled and still maintaining a 2.5 gallon and established a good start (fingers crossed) on my new 34 gallon RSM. Not to mention, fought and won diatom blooms, hair algae and bubble algae blooms and even cyano.

 

I started my RSM 2 and a half weeks ago on Apr 11 2008. Here are the specs.

Everything STOCK. Didn't use the ceramic bio media. Put the bag of activated carbon as well as a bag of chemipure elite in the pump chamber. Added Hydor Flow Redirector. Removed sliding panel on intake grate. Put the fan on the back of the hood on a timer to go on 5 minutes after the lights go on and off 10 minutes after the lights go off.

20 pounds of live sand

35 pounds of Tonga live rock

122 liters of water to fill the rest of the tank.

Maintaining SP at 1.023

Maintaining pH at 8.3

Temp at 79F

 

Livestock as of today Apr 28 2008 Ordered by Who Eats First:

1.5 inch flame hawkfish

1.5 inch Skunk Cleaner Shrimp

1.2 inch Yasha Ray Goby with 1 inch Candy Cane Pistol Shrimp

1 inch Neon Cleaner Goby

Strawberry Waratah Anemone

CUC

2x Trocheus Snails

1x small Female Emerald Crab

4x Blue Legged Hermits

4x Left Handed Hermits

3x Electric Orange Hermits

1x 1 inch Fighting Conch

958x copepods and amphipods... just kidding

CORALS

1x Favia Speciosa (pineapple coral)

4x FLorida Ricordeas

4 different colored colonies of Tonga Zoanthids

1x small frag of Green Star Polyps

2x small branches of gorgonia

 

Ok.. a tank started 2 and a half weeks ago shouldnt have all this in it... but i cheated.

10 pounds of live sand and 10 pounds of live rock came from my biocube 14 which I matured over the time of 3 months. That was my first saltwater tank and I cycled the rock and sand in that tank. I battled diatoms, green hair, bubble, red cyano.. in that order. So i moved over the 10 pounds live sand and 10 pounds of live rock 2 and a half weeks ago and i also added 10 more pounds of live sand at that time. The favia, ricordeas, gorgonias,one colony of zoos, waratah,flamehawk,neon goby and CUC also transferred in from the biocube.

I also transferred in all 40 liters of water from the biocube into the RSM which had 89 liters of new water that was matched in SP, pH and Temp. I then added 7 more pounds of liverock which i had curing for about 5 days (the rock was mostly cured when i acquired it so it didnt take long). a few days later (Apr 13) i got a small diatom bloom which lasted 2 days but my water params were reading all 0's. 13 days later (Apr 24) i added a 18 pound piece of live rock which i had cured for 16 days. The rock was fresh off the boat and nasty and of course i cured it in a separate 5 gallon salt bucket. The first week i did 100% water changes with newly mixed saltwater 3 times scrubbing decaying matter off each time. The second week i did 100% water changes 2 times with old water change water from the RSM which the rock was getting ready to go into. I had a powerhead, airstone and small oceanic skimmer in the curing bucket. 13 days later, Two days ago (Apr 27) i added 2 more colonies of Tonga Zoos (opportunity buy).Today was 5 days since i got all my rock in and the water params have been all at 0 so i figured it was ok to add my Yasha/pistol pair. More details on this later but let's see a FTS!

 

 

front left and right

 

Heres my favia speciosa... i feed it once a week with mysis or plankton.. it seems to be doing well.

check out those sweepers~ they come out over 2.5 inches!

 

also my florida rics... hmmm i dont think i quite know how to post pics properly

 

also below is a closeup pic of my neon cleaner goby.. his face is so cute. he cleans my flamehawk whenever my flamehawk perches near him. when i have the patience and luck ill catch a shot of it in action.

 

tonga zoos

 

more tonga zoos

 

and more tonga zoos

[skp]

So today (Apr 28) i added my yasha and candy cane.

i've had my yasha goby and candy cane pistol in a 2.5 gallon for about a month. the tank is small so they met each other and became friends quite easily. it took about 20 days for the yasha to start coming out of the rock. today i put the yasha and pistol in a clear plastic marina breeder container and lowered it into the RSM (after i acclimated them for 30 min). I was worried about three things... i wanted them to stay paired, i wanted them to live where i wanted them to live and not in some crack in the rockwork or at the back of the tank, and i wanted my flamehawk to leave them alone. i picked a part of the rock that seemed to have a cave to it near the front left corner which also had some open space in front of it. i didnt have many options but with a little luck i think it turned out pretty well. i dug out the sand a little to try and make a cave opening and i let out the shrimp and goby in front of the cave together and they both went in. i thought it would take forever for them to appear again but about 30 minutes later they were out hanging around the cave which i made. of course the candy cane was excavating the sand. so fingers crossed...they both seem to be liking their new home and positioning of their cave entrance. the last worry was the flame hawk. he seems to ignore them, even the shrimp. when the shrimp is outside.. the yasha goby comes out further and makes sure he's in between the shrimp and flamehawk. its quite impressive how he acts like a goalie defending the shrimp.

 

 

yasha and pistol

[inferno2113]

Thats just awesome. I'm thinking of getting a pistol goby pair. Keep us informed!

[bluesky]

congrats on your new RSM and welcome to the RSM club ...