14g Planted Biocube Turned Monster Planted Reef - 104g Rimless Cube

[diablomaster9045]

So story behind this tank, I had a 14g biocube that I had laying arround and got super into marine planted tank so I decided to set one up. Over time the plants grew way too quick so was looking for an upgrade tank. And low and behold on the local Colorado club forums this gem popped up for sale. a 104g rimless cube! (Not sure on the actual volume somewhere between 90 and 110 gallons). So bought it up in a heartbeat and started planning a large planted reef.

Note: The tank is 3 months old so I will be posting several different status updates today.

Here is the old biocube:





Here is the new tank:




Equipment List:

36"x 37" x 18" rimless tank
40g breeder sump

400w Halide lighting with an Icecap ballast and Used Ushio 14k bulb (6 months old)

Rio 3100+ return pump
Bubble Magus Nac 6 skimmer
Jebao wp-10 wavemaker
Apex controller

60 lbs of liverock in the main tank
100lbs of liverock in the sump
200lbs of sand and 2 buckets of fiji mud


Plumbing - Simple and surprisingly quiet the overflow is a glass-holes 700 gph overflow:


Sump:


So while I was filling up the tank I ran out of RO water and had to let it sit for a night 1/2 full. This is when I had a 20k radium bulb in the halide and was way too blue for me and this was when I swapped to the Ushio bulb.




Got the tank filled up and bulb swapped to a more natural light color. Also added some red dragon macroalgae to help catch any misc particulates in the water. This is a good trick for planted tank keepers is use the macro algae to catch debris and then you can siphon clean the macro algae to remove the waste.

Added 2 bottles of Bactiv8 to help kickstart the cycle into full gear.

As a side note: Found that gorgonian on one of the pieces of live rock that I bought. I didnt see it until it was in the tank.



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[diablomaster9045]

2 week mark! Time to plumb it into my plant grow out tank I had. Its a Glass-Cages 70g DD 24" x 48".

 

 

Added some macro algaes now that the tank is doing well and fully processing the wastes.

 

 

Plumbing going from the 70DD to the sump of the new tank.

 

 

FTS of the 70DD

 

1 month mark! Time to order some livestock for the tank besides macro algaes!

 

Traded in a bunch of red dragon macroalgae to my LFS for 40 nassarius snails.

 

So while I was waiting for my seahorses to get in I decided I needed to make a feeding trough for the seahorses to get food easily.

 

There were several mass produced seahorse feeders but were all in the $100-$150 ballpark so decided to make one. $21 total cost to build. I had my local acrylic shop do all the cutting and all I had to do is the gluing and bending and cutting food holes in the tube.

 

 

 

 

[diablomaster9045]

1.5 month mark!

 

Seahorses are in! Also picked up a large gorgonian from Petco for $10. Picked up a giant pink sea turd from my LFS. As you can see in the FTS that the feeder is in the tank as well.

 

And the day I ordered the seahorses, I found a good supplier for seagrasses and ordered up 40 stalks of shoal grass and 20 stalks of manatee grass.

 

The seahorses are some aquacultured H. Erectus from a breeder in Wyoming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[diablomaster9045]

2 month mark!

 

So I broke my caribbean theme and ordered in some pipefish. And added a crap ton of pods from Reef2go.

 

4000 pods

2 australian dragonface pipefish

2 australian banded pipefish

 

 

 

The dragonface are a little picture shy

 

2.5 month mark!

 

I found a red gorgonian at my LFS so I grabbed it up.

 

[latteslave]

Very cool tank!

[diablomaster9045]

Very cool tank!

Thanks. It should get pretty rad. I have some some more pipefish on order and 6 more H. erectus seahorses coming

[diablomaster9045]

Well I am now up to 10 H. Erectus, and 2x H. erectus X H. Redei hybrids

[Basile]

 

2 month mark!

So I broke my caribbean theme and ordered in some pipefish. And added a crap ton of pods from Reef2go.

4000 pods

2 australian dragonface pipefish

2 australian banded pipefish

The dragonface are a little picture shy

 

 

2.5 month mark!

I found a red gorgonian at my LFS so I grabbed it up.

It needs to be hidden from the light its an NPS( Non photosynthetic ) otherwise algaes will grow on it and kill it. They'll stop the polyps from comming out and it'll starve.

This is an over exposed photograh so you can see my NPS zone that 've built for my NPS corals and gorgonians.

Really like your concept i have a 75 g display refugium with 37 species myself . It'll interesting to campare notes. I have a few issues and will be very interested in your opinions about certains aspect of the biotope .

Will follow with interest.

[diablomaster9045]

Yah that gorgonian melted on me. It must have been sitting in the bag too long. I tried putting it in my reef tank under an overhang but it just continued to melt.