Palegic's New RSR250 Display Build/Upgrade

[Palegic]

Just moved into our new home, we were bouncing around renting for awhile and my 29G has been sitting pretty neglected over the past year or so. The cube was setup back in 2010 which was a transfer/downsize from a 55g that I started in 2006, so almost everything in it aside from livestock had been established over 13 years. Now that my home is almost done being renovated, I finally pulled the trigger on a new RSR250 as it will have the perfect display spot in our Family Room. Should be a week or two before it arrives and in the mean time I will gather the equipment and plan the transfer/setup accordingly.

Tank:
Red Sea Reefer 250 w/ Factory White Stand
Custom Matching 18" Side Cabinet (Possibly for Controller/Electronics or Larger ATO)

Equipment:
Sump: RSR250 Factory Sump
RODI: BRS 5 Stage
Skimmer: Bubble Magus Curve 5 Elite
Return: Hydor Seltz 750
Flow: Maxspect 350 (Still pending another head for supplemental flow, Maybe Nero5) Sold to a friend went with a cheaper Jebao Crossflow 120 until I figure out what I want permanently
Lighting: 2X ReefLED 90
Reactor: BRS Deluxe Carbon/GFO Reactor
Heater: Jager 200W
Chiller: JBJ 1/10 Chiller (Probably not needed with the open top)

Substrate & Aquascape:
Sand: 40lbs CaribSea Fiji Live Sand (1" SB)
Rock: Using the ~60lbs of established LR from my Cube.

Existing Livestock:
Blue Damsel
Black Ice Clown

Intended Livestock:

Fish:

• (2-3) Bangai Cardinals
• 6 Line Wrasse
• Pygmy Angel
• Some type of Anthias

CUC:

• (10) Blue Leg Hermits
• (2-3) Halloween Hermits
• (2-3) Large Nassarius Snails
• (10) Nerite Snails
• (1-2) Cleaner Shrimp

Corals:
Probably all mixed reef here but I like to stay away from the Large branching flowy corals like leather and tree corals. Heavy Mix of Mushrooms/Ric, Zoas, LPS and a few SPS.

• Heavy Mix of Various Zoa Colonies
• Florida Rics
• Mushrooms
• GSP
• Xenia (Maybe)
• Candy Cane
• Eligance
• Duncan
• Asst Plates
• Asst Acan
• SPS will likely be limited to a Birdsnest and Monti which took off like crazy in my previous tank.

 

[_reefdad]

Any pics?

 

[Palegic]

No pics yet!

Any pics?

No pictures yet! Still waiting on the tank. Shipper called yesterday afternoon and we setup delivery for Monday morning 8/17. I will post pics as I unpack and setup for sure

 

[Palegic]

Tank came this morning. Wife sent me a photo. Interestingly packed, as I was half expecting some type of wood framed crate. Hoping theres no damage but will unpack later today and report.

 

[Palegic]

I did not take any new pictures yet although I started putting everything together. Needed a friend of mine to help bring the setup in the house as the pallet weighed roughly 350lbs.

After unboxing my initial feeling was a little bit of a disappointment with the stand. The laminated MDF felt a bit "cheap". The doors are coated which is much nicer. But, the overall feeling was that I was putting something together from IKEA albeit at a much higher price point. A couple of the cam locks broke while assembling, as well as a few of the plastic receivers for the cam lock posts were not properly anchored and just spun. The stand itself does not have the ability to level via the feet. The feet are just plastic push in style.

Onto the tank, it seems to be of very good quality. Glass is thick and clear. If I had to be overly critical which some might be, there was some stray silicone on parts of the glass, and the joints were not as neat as I would imagine they could be.

Plumbing fitment was fantastic, and everything came RTR out of the box, pre assembled which was nice. Fits together via silicone o-rings and threaded unions. One of the threaded unions however was warped from the factory and would not take much tightening before slipping and cocking. I will have to some how address this with red sea.

So far the tank seems to be coming together well. The ReefLED 90's are a little cumbersome to control via the reef beat app. Their arm style mounting system is super nice and well built untill you get to the tank clamp. Seems like they spent a ton on engineering the arm and then last minute threw together the clamp. (Just a couple of butterfly finger screws, and a U shaped bracket which gets clamped via tightening the arm, bracket, glass together via the screws.)

 

[Palegic]

Uploaded some new pictures after trying to tidy up the sump area and adding salt last night.

Sold my Maxspect to a fellow reefer / friend also a few days ago and picked up a Jebao Crossflow 120 until I figure out what I want to do. Which also helped free up some cash in the budget.

In the sump area I installed two Kasa Wifi Power strips that gives me remote power monitoring, as well as the ability to control via Google Home and setup actions and routines. Eg. "Feed Time" shuts off individual outlets on the power strip to things like heads, and skimmer...Works nicely.

A lot of the wiring was hidden in Legrand Chordmate III Wiremold where I could. Elsewhere wires were tucked and hung across the top of sump area with D-wings.

Everything was setup temp. Tonight, I will likely add the live sand as well as install the GFI/cover plate. I just left the power cables hanging for the lighting until I decide how I will route them.

Sorry for the reflections. Never been great at hiding them.

 

[revhtree]

Looking great and congrats!

 

[Palegic]

Looking great and congrats!

Thanks!

 

[Palegic]

Things are looking nice. Finished moving all the LR from my other tank. I had some corals (Zoas, Shrooms) left over that were hidden and didn't even know I still had. Hopefully they survive and open back up.

Did the best I could with the scape. Not what I originally had envisioned but I am happy enough with the result to not keep messing with it.

The Damsel and Clown handled the move well and seem to be happy and doing great.

I need to figure out the flow situation still. The Jebao 120 pushes A LOT of water even on the lowest setting. Its a workout for the fish and tough to keep the FIji Pink in place.

 

[Palegic]

UPDATE: Day #75

Tank is coming along nicely. Some ups and downs in the past couple of months with cyano but that seems to be all cleared up for the past few weeks now.

I have added a quite a few corals since the last update, all seem to be doing pretty well. (Digita, Birdnest, Clove polyps, ultra green sinularia, few different zoas, pearl bubble, frogspawn, torch, hammer, kenya tree, GSP and a Duncan). Digita is growing but polyps dont extend very far, hammer bleached a few days after introducing it, and kenya tree is always shrunken. I assume my flow is just very high.

Only doing 10% weekly water changes. Though I will admit I skipped a few times.

I noticed my DKH dropping and calc rising. I guess 10% isn't enough with the current tank demand. So as of this week I am starting to dose 2-part and mag B-ionic.

Top off water is becoming a paint to replenish. Every other day I have to lug a few gallons from the garage where my mixing station is to the other side of the house where my tank is. Come spring I need to figure out a way to hard pipe top off supply.

 

[Palegic]

DAY #96: A little update. Tank is coming alone nicely. Needed to increase nutrients as I found that my corals were starting to loose color. Additionally, I saved myself from what I believe could have been a long term disaster. My calibration solution was no good and I thought my reef was at 1.027 however it was actually 1.022. I have been raising it slowly over the past week and I am up to 1.024.

Interestingly enough, other than some slow bleaching of euphillia and some lack of extension on Kenya & Sinularia all of the other corals were thriving and growing. Triple checking the salinity daily but it seems my leathers are now opening up more.

Updated livestock list:

Corals:

Branching Hammer (lost color, but starting to come back due to added nutrients)
Frogspawn
Sinularia
Green Birdsnest
Pink Birdnest
Multiple Zoas (Razz, Scrambled Egg, Blue Hornet, Bloodsucker, Bob Marley)
Clove Polyps
Kenya Tree
Pearl Bubble
Duncan
Godzilla Mushroom & (7) Babies
Green Mushrooms
Montipora Digitara
Acan colony

Fish:

Clown
Damsel
(2) Bangai Cardinals
Yellow Tang

Inverts:

Blue Leg Hermits
Nassarius Snails
Peppermint Shrimp
Cleaner Shrimp