Brenguns Redseamax 250

[Brengun]

Diary started 27 Nov 2010
Picked up my first ever marine tank. Its an all in one red sea max 250.
Tank and stand $2,200 plus $50 for the lfs guy to assemble the cabinet which with all the filters and stuff took him a few hours and a Hailea chiller for $404. Costs seemed huge but it is all imported stuff.

I won't be putting anything in it for a couple of weeks as I am just going to let it sit in its spot and see if its not in the way.
I also have to make sure I could service the filters and stuff from there and if its going to be reasonably dry around the cabinet as I do tend to splash a bit of water about at times.

Also pretty broke after initial purchase and haven't even bought salt yet so this will be a long term setup.
Besides, how often do you get to set up a marine tank? Might as well sit back and take my time.

I also have some books to read before I get started like The Reef Aquarium Vol3 so I have some sort of idea of what I am doing when I set it up.

The Marine Tardis.

 

[Brengun]

Diary 27th Dec, 2010.

That tank position was no good as the post behind it curved toward the tank and the lid wouldn't extend properly so I moved the tank to the other side of the post (far better spot) and brought my two 200ltr water change drums to that spot.

I have set up a redseamax 250L and used 54kg of aragalive sand and a saltmix for the water.
I went into the lfs for 25kg of liverock as the directions said approx 1kg per 10L of water but the lfs was weighing it in a 54Ltr container I brought sitting on scales on carpet. He kept adding more and more liverock to the container and in the end the container was full and the scales read 27kg.
Lifting the container took 2 men so he thought he'd better weight it on a tiled surface and it weighed 50kg. The lfs seemed to be of the opinion the more the better but I have the option of bringing back what I dont use as long as I keep it under water with an airstone so it doesnt die. That container is coming in very handy. (It is now used as a temp tank with a long airwand and storage for any excess liverock)

Anyway, I started adding the live rock to the tank. OMG I didnt have a clue about how to stack it and it took me hours with a completely wet shirt when I had finished. I have gotten better than 40kg in I think but I dont know if I want that much in there or not but it will be a pure coral tank with next to zero fish (maybe some little anemone shrimp or something).

Pretty chuffed I have one bit of wildlife in there. Is it a good snail? It seems to be eating the funny mosaic of stuff on the glass. (the snail turned out to be a predatory one which ate my little fan worms so he met an unfortunate end under a brick.)

It took a lot of woman hours to get all that live rock in there. Just pray we never have an earthquake.

 

[Brengun]

Diary entry 31 Dec, 2010.
Ok, done a bit more aquascaping with the liverock, much to my skimmers disgust as it was just starting to settle down and work properly.
I took several pieces out as there just seemed to be too many flat bits in it.
Hope you like.

 

[Brengun]

7th Jan, 2011. Exercised the womens perogative of mind changing and rearranged the live rock ... again.

Although the power head on the left (looking from the front) is well powered, the one on the right (running through the chiller) is mild to say the least.
The stronger power head also has the annoying habit of hitting the front wall at what ever angle I set it and is digging holes in the sand at the front and kicking it all over the rocks behind it.
With a Vortech mp10 wave maker (which I have now ordered) in mind I thought I would give the rocks a bit of a wiggle to check stability and it was pretty poor.
Spent the next couple of hours rearranging and it feels "almost" earthquake proof now. :clap:

From this:

To this:

 

[Brengun]

8th January, 2011
I found Nielsens Marine Mates in Loganholme in Brisbane so I dropped in for a sticky. I live an hour away from Brisbane so I was keen to see all the corals and such since I was already in the city visiting. It was quite a lovely store and I was lucky enough to have dropped in at a time where there was no other customers so I got a little tour by the staff until the store started filling with customers. I have got to get me one of those pulsating xenia's one of these days, they look fantastic!

Anyway I got two little snails which i forgot the name of. They sorta look like a round turban? For the sand I got a strombus snail ..something to burrow around and disturb the sand a bit. I dont have any plans to get any fish, not even a blenny at this stage and my liverock and snails will keep me entertained for quite some time.

Ammonia still zero. Think my cycle might have been and gone and I missed it. Will still be checking for at least a while.

Turban sort of snails.

My strom.., just love the eyes.

He has fallen in love with my empty tiger cowrie shell, or at least the green stuff growing on it.

Trying to climb the shell after a good cleaning on one side did not end well. :lol:

 

[Brengun]

16th Jan, 2011.
Latest water stat 15th Jan, Ammo 0, nitrite 0, nitrates almost 0, grav 1.028, kh 8, temp 25, ph 8.2, calcium 24 (480), phosphates less than my lowest reading of .03
So all looking good so I went out and bought some corals.
I dipped them with seachem reefdip first, just to make sure they were fine to go in my tank. They didnt seem to mind it too much.
Also bought some Brightwell phytochrom to feed my featherworms and some sera coral liquid food for the coral that need it.

FTS

I bought some pretty round flower looking things that the docket says are Blastomussa. A couple have been severed when the rock was fragged so the coral dip should have helped that to heal as well. Initially I put them out the front under the lights but then I had a read up on it and they come from deeper water so I have moved them to a more shaded spot.

I also got a small Sarophyton which is a leather toadstool coral. It really hated me when I first put it in.

Cheered up a little bit after a while.

And came quite good later on. I think they can sulk for up to a week.

Also got a Lobophytum sp or devils hand. It really does look like a wrist and a multifingered hand.

And a little skinny sprig of coral with what are called coraliimorphs. I scored well as there are a couple of my beloved feather worms on it too.

 

[Brengun]

18th Jan, 2011
The blastomussa has really opened up nicely.

The toadstool still seems to be sulking.

The devils hand seems to be coming good.

The coraliimorphs seem to be growing well.

I am not sure what sort of featherworm this is but he has sprouted from my liverock and seems like he likes it in my tank.

 

[Tener ds]

WOW..WOW Very nice. Nearly killed my iPhone loading that lot.well worth it tho.

 

[Brengun]

Jan 21st, 2011. Just getting warmed up on the pics Tener ds.

I went to Petcity in Wishart, Brisbane, just for a sticky beak.
Fantastic store which I only get to visit a few times a year due to the distance.

Ahem, came home with an anemone crab.

Hubby picked out a little green acropora frag which came from the stores display one.

A pulsating xenia who is settling in quite nicely.

A Cerianthid tube anemone who I have called Alvin cause he's Purple.

And 3 rocks laden with Christmas tree worms. This one was absolutely chockers full of them.

Another rock had fewer worms but they were larger than in the other colonies.

I went a little crazy with the camera but here are a few shots. There seems no end to the color combinations.

OMG I almost forgot! One of the Christmas tree rocks had 3 teeny weeny anemones on it, freebies. I hope they arent the pest manjano ones but I will keep a close eye on them.

 

[Brengun]

25th Jan, 2011
Just happened to have the camera downstairs today so of course I gravitated over to the marine tank.
No wonder I am always behind with my fresh water wc. :wb:

Full tank shot. A vortech mp10 has been installed a few days ago. Neat little gadget it is.

My tube anemone Alvin as in Alvin Purple. For you younguns who don't know of him, google it.
Hey, see how he lays over along the sand real lazy like? I went to feed him a tiny shrimp on tweezers the other night.
He bolted straight upright to grab it. Scared the life outa me he did! He doesnt seem too fussy what he eats either. I fed him a sera vilformo pleco tab the other night and he ate it.

My Blastomussa is going great. I don't think its going to all fit on that little rock much longer.

The devils hand coral seems to lay over at night when sleeping and sits up straight during the day. Odd critter.

Hubbys pick of the green acropora seems to like it in the higher position near the lights.
You can see the food in the current going from right to left in the photo so all the right side polps are feeding.

The change in current with the new vortech belted the xenia in his previous position so I traded him over to the coral morphs spot.
He is coming better but still not quite happy. Not sure if he needs a specialist food or what?

My toadstool is finally looking happier. I think he had a bit of trouble with his foot when the base rock separated.

The coral morphs seem to just keep getting bigger and bigger. They remind me a bit of a petunia flower.

Christmas tree rock with two anemone hitch hikers. I did manage to get the third one to walk off the rock and settle on the liverock.

Third anemones new spot. He buried himself deep in a crack in the rock.
(A second anemone has also walked off the xmas tree rock and now lives near the first anemone on the liverock)

 

[Brengun]

29th Jan, 2011
I bought a marine fish yesterday so now my tank has one fish. It is a lawnmower blenny called Benny. I have been informed he is a she and she's a fatty. Since when is algae fattening? She must have been eating Maccas algae in the lfs. :lol:

 

[Jackson]

Very nice thread!

It's nice seeing the progress of the tank like that

The tank looks great

Thanks for sharing

 

[BluE SnipeR]

Nice Brengun, enjoy those Christmas worms while you can because they wont last longer than a year.:yes:

 

[C8lyn]

Very nice! I'm going back to tafe in march so I'll have to drop in and see you and your new tank :clap:

 

[Brengun]

You're always welcome C8, you know that.

 

[Brengun]

OMG a week on dialup speed and I nearly went nuts! Been saving all my marine piccies up for ya's tho.

When I bought the blenny the other day I also got a duncanopsammia coral or duncan for short. I just love it and I might even get another one some day so I have a pair.

It is settling in well and seems to love my tank. Here are photos taken today.

 

[BluE SnipeR]

The duncan's have opened up nicely.:clap:

 

[simonas]

cool tank
the blennys are ace you will love him. Mines called Dave, although not as colourful as other marines they are the best fish I have ever kept in 20 years, bags of character and comical looking faces

 

[bigbird]

:clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap: well done and hats off to you. wonderful report and excellent pictures and just great to read and look and the set up from the beginning. Looking forward to the next post....cheers jk :thumbup:
PS If you are now going into marine and giving up the Ls, I am in to buy some of your Ls........at a discount....:lol:

 

[Doodles]

:clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap: well done and hats off to you. wonderful report and excellent pictures and just great to read and look and the set up from the beginning. Looking forward to the next post....cheers jk :thumbup:

My sentiments also:clap::clap::clap: