First tank, First post 6g JBJ nano cube

[beren]

Alright! Got my power supply and I got pics!

Stock lighting

LED's only

both

The pics really don't do justice, you really gotta see it in person. The shimmer effect is really nice.

[Smurf]

Man that water looks so tasty. I love the look of fresh tanks. Lol

 

You'll get a better shimmer effect with MH.

[beren]

Man that water looks so tasty. I love the look of fresh tanks. Lol

nom nom nom

[MR.FEESH]

Lookin' good!

[beren]

Lookin' good!

Thanks, buddy!

Here's the array all lit up

[MR.FEESH]

alienz!

[Smurf]

Very very nice LED's also!!

[beren]

Very very nice LED's also!!

Thanks, it was pretty easy and I urge everyone interested to give it a try, it is well worth it!

[beren]

It has been a busy week for me, for sure!

My friend at work just brought me 5 zoa frags and one of a stony coral!

I don't remember the name of the stony one.

He also suggested that I turn off the pump so they don't get blown all over

the tank, and he was right! I wonder how long I have to wait before I can

turn it back on??? enough of that, on to the pics!

[MR.FEESH]

8/

It's waaaaaaaaaay too early for corals, and the stony one (SPS) take a highly mature tank and are considered expert corals. The other polyps are beginner but not for a 5 day tank. I'd return them to your fried before something goes wrong. Small steps my friend, small steps!

[MR.FEESH]

and the pump... are you saying the corals your friend gave you were just loose and you had to turn off the pump so they could secure themselves? Coral can take a very long time to get fully secured, and the power head is the heart of any reef system, when the water flow stops, so does the life. It's okay to turn it off for short periods of time while cleaning etc, but never for an extended period of time.

 

And I'm curious, what are your plans for a clean-up-crew and/or fish? **These are the things you should have going smoothly about 2-3 weeks before you add any coral, beginner or expert!!!**

[beren]

8/

It's waaaaaaaaaay too early for corals, and the stony one (SPS) take a highly mature tank and are considered expert corals. The other polyps are beginner but not for a 5 day tank. I'd return them to your fried before something goes wrong. Small steps my friend, small steps!

I thought it was early too, but my friend is very knowlegable and my levels have been zero for a few days already. I have seen on these forum other people that buy high quality cured LR such as I have, and one of the side benefits is the cycle is much faster. Mind you, my goal is not a quick cycle, and I was aprehensive about taking anything at this point, but I figured; "OK, this guy really knows what he's talking about, I think I'll listen to him.". There are obviously many factors to take into account, and I think I'm OK, but thanks for the warning.

 

 

and the pump... are you saying the corals your friend gave you were just loose and you had to turn off the pump so they could secure themselves? Coral can take a very long time to get fully secured, and the power head is the heart of any reef system, when the water flow stops, so does the life. It's okay to turn it off for short periods of time while cleaning etc, but never for an extended period of time.

 

And I'm curious, what are your plans for a clean-up-crew and/or fish? **These are the things you should have going smoothly about 2-3 weeks before you add any coral, beginner or expert!!!**

Sorry for not being more clear, I didn't mean overnight or anything. He did not say how long it would take for them to take hold, and I have no idea. I have since asked him about it he explained it a bit more to me. I now have the zoas in a container inside the tank so they don't get lost and I am going to break a smaller rock into rubble and let them sit on individual pieces to attach inside the container. The pump was only off for an hour or so total, I wasn't going to let the water stagnate.

 

CUC is coming this weekend. It depends on what I can find at the LFS. Probably a couple hermits and some snails. I am probably just going to play it by ear and get what is available and makes sense for me. And of course, only if there is still not a rise in any of my params before then, which I do not anticipate.

[MR.FEESH]

Your container idea is good. Just what you said- have some small rocks for them to take hold of and put them in a lil something, they should attach pretty quickly. Cuc is good too.

 

I don't want to tell you what to do, because you learn in this hobby by what did or didn't work, but the SPS coral takes a tank of probably 6 months of reef maturity (meaning fish, cuc, other coral etc) before introduced into the system-- if your friend had a frag, he probably knows that. I'd just hate for something bad to happen this early into your experience.

[beren]

I got my brown diatom bloom

and my params are still zeros

tomorrow I get my CUC. I'm thinking a couple hermits, and 10 or so snails. Trochus and Nassarius if they have them.

[ajlaman]

hey man you seem like you got this right the first time which is what i liek to see and seems to be a rare occurance these days. are you using RO water? might have been too early for the coral, but hey, you live and learn and you do have proof of great water condtitions so i wouldnt worry too much about it. With your dediciation I can see that you'll probably have one of the best nanos on the site within the next year. congrats!

[beren]

hey man you seem like you got this right the first time which is what i liek to see and seems to be a rare occurance these days. are you using RO water? might have been too early for the coral, but hey, you live and learn and you do have proof of great water condtitions so i wouldnt worry too much about it. With your dediciation I can see that you'll probably have one of the best nanos on the site within the next year. congrats!

Wow, thanks for that! I have read a lot, and I also have had a lot of help. I am currently using RO/DI water from my local Whole Foods. I haven't even needed to top off since setting it up 5 - 6 days ago, and my SG was halfway between 1.022 and 1.023. Tomorrow, I'll probably dump the 1 gallon of RO/DI I have now in the mix bucket and start a batch of SW so I can fill up the bottle again for top offs. I really think the cycle has been non-existant because of the LR I got. I paid about $100 for 9 lbs. and a small bag of live sand. I've read quite a few threads now where people don't even get a cycle either because they buy fully cured LR, or because they use LR from an already established tank, which is basically the same thing. I think my friend (who knows quite a bit more than me) already knew this and that's why he gave me the corals. He directed me to that store in the first place and they have two stages of curing: one huge tank in the back where it cycles for a couple of months and then they move it to another large open top in the middle of the store where you can pick what you want.

[ajlaman]

ya just be really careful with those topoffs in such a small tank, you really need to monitor it. I have to add about a 1/4 gallon per day to my 20 gallon. All I do is I bought a gallon of water and use that jug for my top of water and seal it after I put it in. Watch the water params closely right now too to see if you will get away with the cycle. good luck!

[MR.FEESH]

You shouldn't have to do top-offs as long as your lid still fits like it does stock. Occasionally it's a good idea, but not anything to worry about.

 

And maybe to ease your mind, I used fully cured LR the first time I restarted I didn't get one smidge of a cycle.

[beren]

Specific Gravity has risen from 1.022 to halfway to 1.023 in one week, so .001 every two weeks.

I have gotten my CUC; 3 Trochus snails, 3 blue leg hermits, and a Porcelain crab. Poor little guy

doesn't have either of his claws, and only one good filter arm. He's been eating constantly since

I put him in the tank, though.

The CUC is sure doing it's job. Rocks look much cleaner now.

I also got a few more zoa frags and I hope to have a nice zoa garden someday.

FTS

[MR.FEESH]

Lookin good!

[MR.FEESH]

How's it been goin?

[beren]

How's it been goin?

Swimmingly!

My friend gave me a stylophora frag that has since filled out nicely. I don't have a pic, but here's

a pic of the type:

http://www.liveaquaria.com/images/categori...-stylophora.jpg

One of the hermits molted as well as the porcelain crab, who has both his claws now.

I also bought a koralia nano off my friend for $20 to increase the flow around the top

where the led's are shining brightest. So far, SPS are doing great in my tank

I did hit one snag, though; the PC lighting was off one day when it should have been on.

After some troubleshooting, I found that the fuge light housing was shorting out the

PCB that controls the PC's ballast. I was going to take out the fuge light anyway since

I have decided to build a fuge out of a 10 gallon rubbermaid container for my new

skimmer, an aqua euro nano.

I am going to setup the fuge in reverse, above the tank rather than below on account

of I don't want to drill my nano cube. The rubbermaid will be much easier to drill and at

only $7 I won't be too upset if I make a mistake and need to use my backup.

I also researched for about a week on doing a diy chiller and decided to buy one

instead. For those of you thinking about diy chilling, these are just my opinions,

you should come to your own conclusions:

The mini-fridge approach is too big, too loud, and too inefficient.

The peltier while still very inefficient, is MUCH smaller, but the project can quickly become more

expensive than you originally anticipate. The problem is there are a lot of parts, and nobody

really seems to have everything needed to build one correctly so shipping costs become a concern.

When the cost of a DIY starts to creep into the range of 75% of a pre made product, it starts to lose it's appeal.

I did make a cool find, though; a guy on ebay selling 3 x 24in long Titanium tubing for $14. He has a few other

sales going too, like 6 x tubes for $30, I think. $40 for shipping from Latvia, though

Anyway, I have ordered everything I need now and I already have the skimmer and fuge container I am going

to use, so I am going to begin work on plumbing that today.

[MR.FEESH]

Wow- you are really doing well!

Molting is definitely a sign that you're doing everything right and that you are maintaining proper trace element levels.

 

Let us have a look see when next you have time to take a couple pics!

 

IMO skimmer = not necessary in 6 gallons unless your bio-load is through the roof. Like you're not doing any harm, but skimming on a small tank will remove some of the beneficial things your reef system will need. Just my $0.02.

 

Way to go man, sounds like you're really enjoying this!

[beren]

Update:

 

I've got coraline everywhere. Even some blood-red stuff

 

 

close up of zoas

 

 

FTS FTW

 

[beren]

I just wanted to post an update that unfortunately this tank crashed a long time ago and I lost everything. I can't remember exactly when, but I think it was about 8 months to a year after my last post. The reason was the DIY reverse refugium leaked while I was at work which looking back at it now I wish I had just stuck with the tank. I want to apologize to everyone for not sharing this when it happened, but I was ashamed of my failure, and it was especially hard since everything was going so well in the tank.

 

I am now starting a new system and I have saved quite a bit of money to make sure that I don't have to do anything DIY like this again. I'm over at reef2reef now and will be posting a build thread once everything is built and going for about a year. I also want to make sure that I post all my successes and failures this time around.  I'll pop back in here and post a link once my new build thread is up (as long as that is allowed).

 

Hope everyone is doing well and staying safe.