BennyJ's 28G JBJ Nano Cube HQI

[BennyJ]

I just picked up some frags from a local, need to post pictures, but my wife has "misplaced" our camera. Speaking of wives, you engaged yet?

[Bigben7]

Yes sir, just got engaged on the 22nd! How is marital bliss?

[BennyJ]

Been away for a while, but the good news is that I found my camera last night... too bad I still can't take a good photo to save my life.

 

I'm still bumming around being unemployed, though hopefully that changes this week, I have an interview tomorrow. Now that I've got the boring personal stuff out of the way, onto the pictures of new stuff!

 

I got these from a local two frags from a local reefer, an Evil Mel's and another that looks like a Nuc green

 

At some point, I managed to hit-up Reef Depot and they have a fantastic setup and some really nice corals

My 4-color orange rainbow acan, I think I got it for 10 bucks a polyp (3 polyps on it, but tons of little baby ones)

 

No idea what these zoas are called, so I've named them in honor of my wife, I call it "Purple Carol Coral"

 

I finally purchased some coral from Old Town, they have beautiful tanks, but not so pretty prices on most of their stuff, not sure what these are, but I like 'em. Not pictured but on the same frag plug are some polyps that are blue with orange mouths and green rings, I'll have to rotate it and get some shots of it later

 

Finally this last weekend was the CMAS frag swap, there is nothing more painful than being unemployed when this is going on, but I still made out really well on limited funding (and lots of grief from my wife about spending it)

Green Duncan, which has proved so far to be a voracious eater of anything I put in its grasp

 

Grover Paly (Background), I was pretty disappointed with this one, it's very faded out and not blue or green like the picture looked when I bought it

 

Armor of God's (Foreground) they don't have much of a silver skirt, but the inside is a gorgeous iridescent red, can't wait to have a good sized colony of them

 

I'll post the rest shortly

[BennyJ]

As you can see in most of my pictures, my Pearly Jawfish believes he should be the center of attention at all times. He's incredibly goofy, he moved out of the PVC tube I built for him (and need to remove) and has proceed to redecorate my tank as he sees fit, which usually means burying my Acans.

 

Sadly, I lost 2 more of the acans I got from Zoanuts, I think I gave them an overly aggressive dip and it did both of them in, so more probably my fault than anything. I'm pretty bummed about it, lost the purple brown one and the giant green one.

 

 

Last two frags from the Swap

 

My obligatory Acan, had to get one to replace one of the ones I killed. I need to take a picture under actinics, he's far more impressive that way

 

I was going to get myself a frag of superman or pokerstar monti, but instead I found a guy who had tons of really great ricordia, so I spent the last of my money there. It's blue underneath orange tentacles, with a green mouths and rim. Again, have to get some pictures under actinics

 

Finally new FTS, need to get rid of the racks, but everything on the racks is doing really well, so I hate to change anything.

 

 

I did start dosing Vitamin C, I haven't been able to tell if it's making a difference or not, everything is looking pretty good so I'll stay with it for now.

[Nanobuds]

great tank so far. i want mine to be as good as yours so far. do you have a fuge yet?

[BennyJ]

great tank so far. i want mine to be as good as yours so far. do you have a fuge yet?

I'm running a Fuge in the center back chamber. I bought a broken CPR hang-on to use as a fuge for more room and to maybe run a skimmer, it was an easy fix. The only problem is that the tank is about an inch to close to the wall, doh! I'm probably going to be moving in a couple months so I'll reconfig after I move the tank.

 

Right now there is a little live rock, some sand, and cheato back there. It seems to be going pretty well so far.

[Nanobuds]

i might get the Aquafuge2, medium size. will that fit the back of the tank?

[BennyJ]

That's what I have, it's a little wider than the tank itself. It looks like to make it fit the return will go in the back-left chamber. My aquafuge came without a pump, so I turned the bulkhead from point down, to pointing to the left, and with some 1/2" hose I'll rig my replacement pump to. In theory it should work...in reality no clue, I'll let you know if/when I get it rigged up. It might be easier (and possibly cheaper/equal cost) to just rig up a proper sump

[Nanobuds]

cool. do you have problems with a whole bunch of crap being trapped in the back chambers?

[BennyJ]

If I did it again, I would only do the cheato in the back chambers, I can't tell if the live rock back there is doing anything or not.

[Nanobuds]

yah. for the cheap way, i might just do that. but if i want a pod population high enough for a mandaren, i will need the aquafuge. oh well

[BennyJ]

I've been messing around with my wife's massive Nikon D1H, I think I'd have to go back to school for another dozen years to understand all the settings on that camera, but with her help I took some new decent photos of my tank. I really want to get a macro lens and get some close in shots.

 

new FTS:

 

Some free GSP I scored from a local (yay umemployed reefing)

 

and a red monti cap

 

some tiny little red mushrooms and a nice shot of 4 color aussie acan (would be even better if the glass was cleaner)

[BennyJ]

and the last of the new stuff, a green slimer. Next to it is my Blue Milli, which is no longer blue or really fuzzy, trying to figure out what's going on with both of my Millis and hammer.

 

Good shot of these zoas I had previously, next to the Purple Carol Coral, posting because it came out really well

 

How far the tank has come in 8 months:

[BennyJ]

argh...I was just looking and it looks like I've got some brown flatworms, they are mostly small but there are quite a few of them.

 

On the plus side, my uncle just bought me a Flame Angel. I was a little worried about it nipping at corals, but so far it hasn't touch any of them. My firefish are still a little leery of having it around and are mostly hiding, but she hasn't been too aggressive towards them. I've seen her nipping at the glass, so I'm hoping she's eating the bigger flatworms.

 

My wife has named her Desdemona, I call her Des for short. She adds a lot of color and movement to the tank and as long as she doesn't start nipping, will be a great addition.

[Nanobuds]

sweet. how long did diatoms last in your tank? in my nano it keeps coming back once i kill cyano

[BennyJ]

I didn't get hit hard with diatoms, I think they showed up about the second or third week I had the tank running with rock in it, but I got the cleanup crew the following week and haven't seen it in any quantity since. I got the 25g ultimate cleanup crew from BlueZoo and I think it was way more than enough for 28g.

[Nanobuds]

k thx bc i am having lots of pest algae right now, like diatoms and cyano. just checking out all the nanocube hqi people to see if they had the same problem. i will check out the CUC you got

[pdowden]

Do you still have the 2.1 fuge light? Im in the area and have been looking for a fuge light for my nc 12. This is my tank thread here http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...=182977&hl=. All the corals you got at the cmas swap look good. I was out of town for the swap and was kind of salty I missed it.

[BennyJ]

I didn't see the particular light I bought at DrsF&S there anymore, it was called CD-11937 Small Aquarium Lights Galaxy Light and it has worked very well. If you wanted to go LED, then Azoo makes this fixture with more than 2 leds and is cheaper.

[Bigben7]

Ben, I heard a nasty rumor about you getting your hands on some interested Zoas. Where are the pics? I just got two cleaner shrimp, and my first coral (a paly kind of like "Monster Lips"). Keep on truckin'.

[BennyJ]

I'm due up for an update, still trying to figure out why my acans randomly die. Just did a high concentration interceptor dip on the orange rainbow, which is nearly dead and my hammer coral. Hopefully they recover.

 

I've hit up reef depot and sea schor, a couple lfs that are pretty good

[BennyJ]

Been having some random problems pop up. I found some flatworms on the glass and it disturbed me, they seemed to be the little brown ones, so I wasn't too worried, so i got some flatworm exit and nuked the little bastards. I still see a few so I might redose in a week or two. I had some tissue recession issues, I did an overnight dip for my hammer and a couple acans. Still waiting to see if they pull through. I love acans, but so far it doesn't seem like I can keep them long term in my tank. Zoas on the other hand grow like weeds, so I may stick with them.

 

Made some additions to the tank as well. I switched the bulb to a phoenix 14k and the pc's to true actinic instead of 50/50's. The light is much more blue, I think my old bulb had lost a lot of par and was badly yellowing. I also added a vortech mp20, which has been fantasic and I've already seen some changes in my coral since adding it. Hurray for tax refunds!

 

I went to Reef Depot a week ago and picked myself up some new coral. Mark, the owner, sounded like he may either go wholesale or true retail in a month or two, which would be really sad if the former as he always has great stuff for a good price.

 

A couple Zoa's I picked up, got them real cheap, as usual no names, but they look really nice

 

Then a new 2 polyp'd acan

 

and a bright green piece of sps, the fantastic green highlights did not come through in the photo, but it's quite stunning in person

 

A blue monti with pink polyps

 

I went and hit up a buy one get one half sale at Sea Schor and got these two for 25 bucks. They were sold as Deepwater zoas

 

Purple Hornets (or wanna-be's but they look really close to the real thing)

 

 

The bad, tissue recession on my favorite orange rainbow acan. He's stable so I hope he recovers

 

and a new full tank shot

[BennyJ]

I'm really bummed, my flame angel was dead at the top of the tank this morning, I have no idea what was wrong with her. Tank params all check out as normal and so far my other fish have been fine, I hope nothing else goes wrong while I'm away this weekend.

[BennyJ]

I found a scoly that was pretty bleached out at the fish store. It looked like it was going to recover for a week or two, then it tanked and it's pretty much down to skeleton now

[BennyJ]

Figured I'd post some pictures of growth I've had lately, adding the vortech and changing out my light bulbs has been fantastic for my tank.

 

My original acan colony, I've had much better luck with my acans now that I don't keep them on my sandbed. This ring goes all the way around the original frag. My jawfish also looks enormous in this picture

 

My Duncan, got it with 3 heads at the last CMAS frag swap, now it's growing about 5 more. The new heads are just getting colorful now. Also my 2 sexy shrimp, I need to restock after I didn't rinse off some corals from an interceptor dip and most died

 

Holy crap, my pink birdsnest is turning pink! All the little white colored tips are new and it's growing so quick now. I'm happy I kept up with this little frag now that it's finally starting to look nice

 

Going to move soon, so I'll probably re-aquascape and center the rocks and move things farther away from the glass so I can scrape and use the mag-float to keep it clean.

 

Also if I get a job I'll be in the market for a nice 180g tank soon... anyone have a spare lying around?