Floh's RSM 250

[floh]

Hi All,

Some of you might remember me from back in the day (worked with Andrew from Eco Aquatics), been in the hobby for quite a bit. Recently moved to JHB, which meant a small break from Tanks, but now in full swing again...

I've had many tanks in all shapes and sizes and throughout my many years in this hobby, and I have come back to the Tank that I enjoyed the most, the RSM 250. At the end of the day most of us work full time and do this as a hobby in our spare time, therefore time is important and its all about getting the most reward from your tank with as little time spent as possible.

I found with the Red Sea Tanks it was the perfect balance between ease of use and being able to keep pretty much most corals/fish. Below are the first pics of the build, had the tank cycle at the end of December and as of the 1st of Jan moved all my livestock from the IM Nano 16 across to the RSM250.

One product I love is Prodibio and have had good success with their products in the past, so immediately when the tank was full and cycling I added 2 vials of Bio Digest and 1 Vial of Stop Ammo. Going forward I plan to continue using their reef kit along with the usual dosing of Calc, Alk and Mag. The ATU will also feed into a Kalk stirrer.

As those of you with RS tanks will know, the skimmer is quite a touchy topic, I decided to try give the stock skimmer a go and read up on how to properly set it up, so lets see what happens. I did modify the air tubing, to not go through the cup, but rather directly out the back.

I have also modified the flap to accommodate the tubing for the doser (see pics below) and the ATU, although I am not happy with where the ATU is sitting atm.

I have also ordered some replacement fans and will replace all fans that the hood has currently. The RS ones are just way too loud. At the same time I have already purchased 2x Zetlights (ZA1201) with a controller and will be putting these into the hood instead of the T5 lights. The new LED units might also help with heat in the hood. Will do a proper write up when I tackle that project!

Other future projects are to introduce a light into the one chamber for the Cheato, possible upgrade of Skimmer or at the very least change the pump and upgrade the stock pumps to the new Jebao DC pumps (heard very good things about them). Wanna try get the tank as quiet as possible.

That is pretty much it for now, will keep you guys updated as the fun continues.

Pics:
Setup

New RSM 250 Tank

Old RSM 250 Tank

 

[red deacon]

Wow wow wow that old RSM tank was stunning

 

[floh]

Thanks bud, the new one will be even better, wait and see.

 

[tekkengal]

Wow, your previous tank was gorgeous! I am sure you will be even more successful with this one! Nice job with the setting up of the dosing pumps and general neatness of the cabinet.
I echo your sentiments with the 250, I cannot get rid of mine as I love it to bits.
Happy reefing!

 

[floh]

Quick update,

So after spending some time looking at other Red Sea tanks on the web, I came across this guy that said he put the IM Spin Stream's onto his Red Sea. So I thought I would give it a try, luckily when I bought the spare 2nd RSM 250 Tank, it still came with the older straight connections for the pump instead of the newer ones that come with the longer nozzles. Eitherway though I am pleased to say that these Spin Stream's fit onto the RSM tanks nicely with the included rubber attachments.

Initially I was planning on buying an extra wavemaker and I might still do this depending on whether I go SPS or not, but for now I am very happy with the results. Initial fear was that the 3000lph pump would be too much for the spin stream (They can handle 50-600gph), but its not. For anyone wanting a cheap wave effect (on any tank really), these little suckers are a win and only cost around R150.

Here is a pic with them on:

I also hooked up the ATU to an old Reeftek Kalkstirrer I still had lying around

This weekend I will hook up the tank to a Battery backup system with an inverter, went with 2x 105ah deep cycle batteries hooked up to a 1200W inverter, should be able to run the tank for a good 8 hours at least.

Might also tackle the LED install this weekend with the fan upgrade. Got some cheapy (R25) PC fans that I am going try, if they still too loud, then I will spend the big bucks and get the proper silent fans, but for now I want to see what I can do with just some locally sourced 60mm fans.

I also got a carbonite member who makes his own LED strips to do me a custom mini size strip. He charges R160 for a 50cm LED strip, but he can cut it up into 3 LED's at a time and wire it up anyway you want. I want to put them up for the Cheato which is sitting in the back left chamber. Plan is to just stick them onto the hood with double sided tape but I will post some pics and reviews of the LED's when I get them.

That's about it for now, thanks for reading!

 

[floh]

A pic of my custom built tank before I decided to try the all in one tanks:

One day when I have a bigger place again, ill do another big tank project, but a I think a big shallow reef system (Love the look of a shallow reef system). Its weird how you always tend to go bigger, then smaller and bigger and smaller.

 

[2una]

Hi Floh - tanks looking good bud...before you crack open those led's you bought maybe just have a look at the blue to white ratio on them if your wanting to head sps direction....I get the feeling reading around that something closer to 2:1 blue/white ratio might be more towards whats needed.
With that aquabeauty 140W led unit i have in my hood i've actually pulled my white channel back to only peaking at 55%...95% on the blues.
That aquabeauty is about a 1.6 to 1 blue/white ratio.
I'm finally getting some sps colouring happening now but i've also been fighting getting N & P parameters down so giving the light unit the thumbsup or down wouldn't really be a fair call yet.
This here is a good thread to have a read thru - Open letter to the LED industry - Reef Central Online Community

 

[floh]

Hi Floh - tanks looking good bud...before you crack open those led's you bought maybe just have a look at the blue to white ratio on them if your wanting to head sps direction....I get the feeling reading around that something closer to 2:1 blue/white ratio might be more towards whats needed.
With that aquabeauty 140W led unit i have in my hood i've actually pulled my white channel back to only peaking at 55%...95% on the blues.
That aquabeauty is about a 1.6 to 1 blue/white ratio.
I'm finally getting some sps colouring happening now but i've also been fighting getting N & P parameters down so giving the light unit the thumbsup or down wouldn't really be a fair call yet.
This here is a good thread to have a read thru - Open letter to the LED industry - Reef Central Online Community

Hi Bud, thanks for the tip, just read the 1st page and I am exhausted. Will have to continue reading. The nice thing with the Zetlights is that i can also control each colour LED. Will check what the ratio is. From what I am reading here on the first page is that we tend to overuse the "white" LED and this should be limited to max 50-60% intensity and running it at that for around 4 hours max?

So if i have the whites come on at 20% for sunrise, then peak at 50% for 4 hours and sunset again for 2 hours at 25% I should be OK? What about the red, blue and purple LEDs can I do with that what I want?

 

[2una]

Using the specs from here: Zetlight Led : Zetlight ZA1201 marine
I don't think it will do anything for sps -
1) its 16W (2 units 32W)
2) the blue/white ratio is 0.3 to 1

Just trying to say before you start marking those lamps
I'm in the jury is out mode with 140W & 1.6 to 1 blue/white with that unit i'm running.

 

[TaahirS]

Yes. Don't think it's powerful enough. How deep is the RSM? It doesn't even use 3 watt LEDs. It's gonna struggle to sustain corals.

 

[TaahirS]

Online it says the tank is 65cm deep (if I'm looking at the right tank)

I'd rather stick to the T5 lights provided with the system.

 

[floh]

Yea 65 sounds about right... hmmm looks like that migh tbe the only option for now. Whats strange is that i cant find any info on Zetlights website about these units.

You think its even worth doing the conversion then for normal LPS? I think ill go buy a Seneye this weekend so I can measure the PAR levels of the current unit.

 

[2una]

Something that MIGHT work
That light unit is 120mm wide but that's measuring some glass
Inside the hood without removing the led moonlights you have a fraction more than 160mm of space.
You might get away with being able to run 1 or 2 t5's on the outer sockets & get light down either side of the led.
If that led had less white & some more blue & some more wattage i'd say that arrangement would work bloody well.
You could get 3 of them in there but still only going to get 48W

 

[floh]

I like your thinking, might require a bit of re-wiring but all doable (i got a spare hood to play with after all)... Pitty the unit has mostly white LED's though... What I want to do is measure the Par levels of the unit and see what readings I get in the tank and see what it pushes compared to the T5's. I have a feeling its stronger than I think.

 

[2una]

Flo i need to go by the shops soon, Do you want to borrow that Seneye of mine or you happy getting 1 to keep? I can drop it in an aramax pack by P&P this arfo if your interested.
Going soon so send me an answer

 

[floh]

That would be awesome! I'll pm you the address or how does it work with Aramax?

 

[2una]

Yeah PM me your adrress then

 

[floh]

Quick update:

So I followed this skimmer setup: Brand New RSM 250 Micro Bubbles Everywhere - Reef Central Online Community while at first my "skimmage" level was still way too low, this has now improved and I must say that the skimmer is looking much better. The level is sitting spot on. Keen to see what happens as I start added more stock to the tank...

 

[Tropicalboy]

@floh Your previous custom setup is amazing.How many litres was it?

 

[floh]

If I remember correctly it was 1.8m x 800 x 800. Brought me great joy!