UCReefer's 7 gallon Pico Cube (first tank in over 5 years)

[ucreefer]

Hi everyone!

 

I was a member years ago, but was on a sad and long hiatus from personal reef keeping. Here is my first reef tank in over 5 years.

 

7 gallon Aqua Japan Glass cube tank

Aqua Japan LED (came with tank, bright but definitely not enough to keep coral. Will upgrade to Kessil A160WE)

Jebao RW-4 Wavemaker

25W Tetra heater

5-6 lbs live cured rock

10 lbs live sand

5 gallons water

 

I'm not very up to date on current reefkeeping methods but my philosophy has always been to keep things simple. For this tank I don't plan on using much beyond my current equipment except upgrading the light (probably the Kessil A160WE). No skimmer, ATO, reactor, etc. I'll add chaeto and decorative macroalgae and maybe use Chemipure and/or GFO to help with excess nutrients.

 

I'll be doing weekly 10% water changes mixing my own saltwater, and manual 2-part dosing every few days.

 

Stocking:

I'll never have more than one or two fish and will be getting ones that don't require a lot of feeding (maybe an algae eating blennie and/or other foraging type fish). For coral, I'm going to attempt keeping LPS and "easy" SPS together along with an assortment of zoas, palys and mushrooms.

 

 

Thanks for taking a look. I'm super excited to be getting my hands wet again - more updates to come!

[ucreefer]

So I'm super late with posting on my progress but here are some shots from a few weeks back.

 

I redid the aquascaping, added a wad of chaeto, and... got the Kessil a160we!

 

 

[ucreefer]

Here's a FTS with my tank's first coral inhabitants/friends/pets - Rainbow Trachyphyllia in the middle, a feather duster worm to the right, green star polyps top right, orange/gold discosoma mushrooms back left, and some plain red acan lords behind the trachy.

 

Everything is doing well under the Kessil. I have the controller and the photo period is from 8am - 8pm. Ramping up from zero to 90% color/ 50% intensity for 2 hours mid-day and then coming back down to zero.

 

I'm also getting a very manageable amount of diatoms. I was getting some on the sand the first few weeks but now it's only growing on the glass.

 

There are so many copepods and amphipods, you'd think this tank was a dedicated pod breeder.

[ABC]

Tank looks great, how do you like the Kessil I just ordered the same light.?