12"mr.aqua cube! Drilled!

[gulfsurfer101]

Tank: mr.aqua12" cube(5.7g)

equip: Koralia nano modded to reduce tank space, MJ1200 return pump

Lighting boost par 30 4blue 1white with 60* optics.

Stocking plans: unknown, I want a small mixed reef with tons of polyps and a few sps frags here and there. Maybe some inverts.

Leak test with wet water from my other tank.

 

I will run this tank with old wc water for the next few days to get a better feel of the tanks life and it will give me time to figure out a suitable mod for my ac30.

 

Edit: I took a tottally different turn with this tank on pg7 or 6 and decided to house a carribean dwarf octopus and ditched the reef inhabitants into my 30g finnex M-tank.

[Clavius85]

I had the same Mr. Aqua tank at one time. I thought it was a nice little tank for the money. How do you like that Boost PAR 30?

[gulfsurfer101]

Lights this tank up nicley. It almost had enough to handle my 30g and the pop you get out of it is stunning. Here is a pic over my 30g finnex, I think two more may have been enough to light this tank up nicley.

[Clavius85]

Nice. I've got the 12K ecoxotic PAR38 over my pico at the moment. It looks good but I wish it was a little more blue. I didn't know about BoostLED until after I had already ordered the ecoxotic.

[gulfsurfer101]

Yeah I got the 20k with 60* optics and am feeling confident about this being the main lighting over the tank. I will work a little more on it this weekend and try to get some kind of scape going on. I want to try for a bonsai rock scape keep things looking as proportionate as possible with out over crowding. At least I got the lighting figured out. I will also be looking into getting things more dialed in with the flow. I have k-nano that I can throw in here but wat to keep most of the equipmenet out of this one.

[Markushka]

Yeah I got the 20k with 60* optics and am feeling confident about this being the main lighting over the tank. I will work a little more on it this weekend and try to get some kind of scape going on. I want to try for a bonsai rock scape keep things looking as proportionate as possible with out over crowding. At least I got the lighting figured out. I will also be looking into getting things more dialed in with the flow. I have k-nano that I can throw in here but wat to keep most of the equipmenet out of this one.

 

 

New tank!

 

looking good!

[gulfsurfer101]

New tank!

 

looking good!

I know. I want to build a stand this weekend but I'm working so it might have to wait but I doubt it. I want to figure my overflow as I'm shure the AC30 is going back to petsmart. I might just get an overflow box and glue my rock down to the overflow wet side and have a floating reef. IDK yet but that sounds the best to me along with a 5.5 underneath to hide all equipment.

[gulfsurfer101]

Got some rockscaping put together two days ago and Left it sit overnight to stiffen up the bonds and help kick start s small cycle since I'm using fully cured rock out of an existing system. I tried to keep some gsp alive by keeping a wet paper towel over is as the glue and epoxy cured for 24 hrs. It's basically two rock formations I designed to grow out small sps frags on. Tell me what you think, this is my first attempt at bonding liverock.

It's so hard to capture the tru color of this tank and all my pics come out way washed out. It does look stunningly blue though not as blue as these pics. Here is a cloudy pic of things as they settle. An essential pic in every start up thread I think.

[gulfsurfer101]

The hardest part of scaping a tank this small is finding the right rocks that look good in such a tight space. I think I combed through about 20 pounds of rubble and smaller chunks to get this scape together. I already have drawn out my plans for the stand I want to build and should allow me to keep a small 5.5 sump uderneath and a small tote box for my ato underneath that. I will hold off till next weekend for that till I have some more time. I am currently not satisfied with the current AC30 as I'm getting a film buildup on the water surface.

[gulfsurfer101]

Virgin rockwork with wet water. Not expecting much of a cycle here so this thing so fill up pretty fast.

[gulfsurfer101]

Been hitting it pretty hard the last few days to get this where I want. I built a stand base, it's not a finished product but more of a concrete foundation. I will stain it black and seal it most likely this weekend after adding a door and a shelf to support a 5.5 sump underneath along with room for an ato jug. I decided to start this thing up and see how it goes since I tore down my kids tank and shoved all the rock into my 30g and needed the space. Here is my tank as of today. Instant reef with some started frags that I had extras of and a small psuedochromis that was in my kids tank.

I had trouble trying to phot MH but leds are so much trickier. I pretty much had to use flash and wash out everything. You just can't catch the true beauty of leds, especially with a pos camera. Alsopleas excuse the wires and clutter, all will be concealed by my final completion of this biuld. I plan to keep as much of the equi[ment out of this one as possible and not have tons of wires coming out the sides like you see in lots of tanks.

EDIT: The boost bulb makes my lamest zoas like like collectors editions. I think I may switch to all led lit tanks after being blown away by the pop I get out of these.

[CONSTANTNE]

I like the build and equipment your using. I have to say I liked the aquscape without that tonga piece on the left side.

[gulfsurfer101]

I like the build and equipment your using. I have to say I liked the aquscape without that tonga piece on the left side.

Thank you and thank you, as far as the tonga rock goes, I had no where to put it. As funny as it sounds I have no room for it in my 30 so I chucked it there. I have plans to grow many different sps frags down the side of it once I get the tank cleaned up and more permanently set. I originally bought it for my 30 to use as an arch to grow sps but threw it in my kids tank instead.

[Markushka]

I thin the scape looks good the way it is. Really slick stand. I wish I was able to do such a nice job on the one i built. mine looks like a pos lol.

[Markushka]

I thin the scape looks good the way it is. Really slick stand. I wish I was able to do such a nice job on the one i built. mine looks like a pos lol.

[gulfsurfer101]

I just bought some bookshelf board at lowes and chopped it up to fit the cube. I ran out so I will have to wait till next week to finish it up but I already have plans to finishing it up.

[CONSTANTNE]

Thank you and thank you, as far as the tonga rock goes, I had no where to put it. As funny as it sounds I have no room for it in my 30 so I chucked it there. I have plans to grow many different sps frags down the side of it once I get the tank cleaned up and more permanently set. I originally bought it for my 30 to use as an arch to grow sps but threw it in my kids tank instead.

 

Hahah I was just thinking to myself, that piece would look sick in a bigger tank lol. Good idea though once some coral grow on it then it will go well.

[gulfsurfer101]

Thanks, I hope so. I guess we shall see if leds grow some coral.

[Mojorizn]

Sup Gulf -

 

See ya got something going there....lookin good.

[gulfsurfer101]

Sup Gulf -

 

See ya got something going there....lookin good.

 

Thanks man, long time no see! Hows it been going.

[Mojorizn]

Same / same Dude -

 

Just layin low, not spending money on my tank...well not that much..lol

 

Growin out some stuff to take over to CG Reef for trade. Maybe a week or three...

 

That's bout it...

 

Diggin the BoostLED ...I'll be following.

Couple of those over the 20L ( siting in my garage doing nothing) would be sweet....

OMG...what am I thinking....no no no ....lol

[gulfsurfer101]

Same / same Dude -

 

Just layin low, not spending money on my tank...well not that much..lol

 

Growin out some stuff to take over to CG Reef for trade. Maybe a week or three...

 

That's bout it...

 

Diggin the BoostLED ...I'll be following.

Couple of those over the 20L ( siting in my garage doing nothing) would be sweet....

OMG...what am I thinking....no no no ....lol

I hear you, I have my 30 on cruise control right now and am filling this tank up with frags from it. Kinda like my back up.The last additions were a month ago for my birthday the night they had that little mixer. That was a fun night. The reef shop got my party started, how many people can say that. The boost bulbs have some kick to them and the color can not be captured by my cheapie little digi at all. I have a spare MH set up I want to hawk to get me a few more to light my main tank. My little garage is starting to look like an aquarium boneyard, I have a 20 tall and an oceanic 30g cube sitting out there with a spare skimmer and lots o junk I need to take to the masters for some credit towards a bucket of salt to keep my reefing through the holidays when money gets tight.

[gulfsurfer101]

Well I'm past the 1 week mark with sps in a newly establish tank. I would advise against this but the rock I used for this tank has been part of my system for over two years and there was no cylce involved with this tank. I ran carbon for the first three days it was set up and running void of livestock. This helped with whatever die off happend while my rock glue cured. So far what I have in here is a small tiny psuedochromis I think, some rde's, wwm's, car's(candy apple red's), mohawks, phe's, florida ric(splitting already), hollywood stunner frag, small lobo, small cup coral frag, small frags of idaho grape, unkown acro from my main tank, larger for this tank size frag of purple plasma that was accidentally fragged when a rock collapse happened in my 30 during a cleaning and wc. I will most likely be doing 100% wc every sunday. Today being the first one.

[amored]

one thing i've seen done with tonga rock before is laying on the bottom, diagonal to a corner.

like this |/_| (sorry for the querty illustration). then pile the rest of the rock on top and the lower branches almost look like wood. just my .02. but the way you've got it now makes for a ton of interesting places to see some awesome growth from. hmmm....

[gulfsurfer101]

one thing i've seen done with tonga rock before is laying on the bottom, diagonal to a corner.

like this |/_| (sorry for the querty illustration). then pile the rest of the rock on top and the lower branches almost look like wood. just my .02. but the way you've got it now makes for a ton of interesting places to see some awesome growth from. hmmm....

That sounds interesting but I already glued a few more peices of acropora off to side of that tonga branch. They all get lit up well with it leaning off the side. I also added lots more coral coverage to the bottom. I'll update with pics whenever I can find my usb cable to the camera. I also want to find a small led clip on moonlight, I've seen them before on ebay I think for pretty cheap.