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29 Gallon Biocube Mostly Stock...well not so much anymore...


Ralgo

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Ive been interested in SW for years now but until recently I have never made a serious attempt at a reef tank. I started with a 10 gallon standard with "in-tank" filtration which was working out kinda ok... until my rinky dink heater decided to spaz out on me and I lost all my coral and damsels in a matter of hours.

 

Old Tank near the end... don't even ask what that was in the back... a little failed DIY filter

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After removing the heater I tried to coax life back into it. Parameters regained standard amounts and I was please to see that one of my damsels (yellowtail) came out of hiding...he had made it through the cooking.

:lol:

Since my birthday was coming up I took the opportunity to lay hints to the wifey that it was time to upgrade. Short while later and an awesome deal on CL and I am now the proud owner of a 29 biocube with upgraded pump and flow nozzle to transfer the remaining life in my tank.

 

So here we go....

 

1. New tank after transfer of LR with 15LB new live sand and 10lb live sand from old tank

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After my cycle I added some base rock I found out back on the banks of a canal (I live in South Florida)

That saga along with all the awesome input I received from this community can be found at

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=260312

 

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A few days after I visited a LFS and picked up two pieces of LR covered in coraline algae and other life forms.

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and

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I soon found out just how much life was on the first rock when I came home the next day to find this

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That one piece was almost 1/2 clam

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So that's where I am now. Will continue to post as I go deeper down this rabbit hole.

 

Oh and this is where my tank sits

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I figured an AIO shouldn't mess up my "other" baby right?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok here goes. Tank has been coming together nicely. I have a LFS nearby that was going out of business (unfortunately... next nearest SW is a good ways away). Here are the latest set of pics

 

Latest FTS

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Blue Hana Goby.. shy guy

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Duncan Frag.. grew two extra heads since i got it

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LFS had a tank overrun with Zenia.. got a small frag... its grown too

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Blue St Thomas Mushroom

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GSP in the house!!!

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Random rock with orange and green Zoa... FS gave this way

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Blue and Red Mushroom... kept moving around till i finally superglued their @$$ to the front rock

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Neon green deepwater zoa. got one big piece i broke into 2

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and

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Here it is under actinics

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purple tip Condy... still not sure about him... seems to be doing well and i feed him a silverside every few days

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Here's Candy. for the life of me I cant remember what type of fish it is. got it written down somewhere

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And finally. I take this as a sign that my tank is doing well. This piece of coral was from my last tank that overheated.

It was this type of coral(forgot the name)

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It was almost completely white and practically dead. I put it in my new tank as LR and was surprised a few weeks later by what i saw...

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As always comments and critiques are appreciated.

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does your biocube have the old flourescent lighting or is it one of the newer HQI models?

 

It's just the stock fluorescent. Why do you ask?

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your condy anemone may not do well long term without more intense light. The tank looks great though. If you would be interested nanotuners sells mod kits to boost the lighting in the biocube hood. I just took the hood off of mine and put a metal halide t5 combo light on it. Most anemone species need intense light to be healthy but I can't say for sure about the condylactus. You may want to research it a bit.

 

whats the tall red thing in the back of the tank?

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your condy anemone may not do well long term without more intense light. The tank looks great though. If you would be interested nanotuners sells mod kits to boost the lighting in the biocube hood. I just took the hood off of mine and put a metal halide t5 combo light on it. Most anemone species need intense light to be healthy but I can't say for sure about the condylactus. You may want to research it a bit.

 

whats the tall red thing in the back of the tank?

 

Its a branch sponge. Got it for next to nothing at that LFS that was going out of business. The brown thing on the left is another branch sponge but this one has "flowers" like GPS or Xenia. I think they look cool

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Had my first "Oh Sh....t" moment yesterday. Went to Barrier Reef in Boca Raton to get a pair of clowns (mated pair... valentines day gift from the wifey) and took some of my water to have them test it.

 

The guy told me my Ammonia was a little high. i told him that my testing showed great parameters all around and he said it could be the start of a problem and wouldn't recommend adding livestock till the problem was resolved. I explained my maintenance and feeding schedule to him and when I told him how much I fed them his eyes went huge. Apparently Ive been waaaaaay overfeeding.

 

We figured out a better schedule and now I 'll have to wait a week before I can add Romeo and Juliet (wife named 'em not me). Im glad I caught this at what seems to be the very beginning of the issue. I'll put this experience in the could be much worse than it is column.

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Had my first "Oh Sh....t" moment yesterday. Went to Barrier Reef in Boca Raton to get a pair of clowns (mated pair... valentines day gift from the wifey) and took some of my water to have them test it.

 

The guy told me my Ammonia was a little high. i told him that my testing showed great parameters all around and he said it could be the start of a problem and wouldn't recommend adding livestock till the problem was resolved. I explained my maintenance and feeding schedule to him and when I told him how much I fed them his eyes went huge. Apparently Ive been waaaaaay overfeeding.

 

We figured out a better schedule and now I 'll have to wait a week before I can add Romeo and Juliet (wife named 'em not me). Im glad I caught this at what seems to be the very beginning of the issue. I'll put this experience in the could be much worse than it is column.

 

and what was that feeding schedule? lol

 

looking good

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hey, is that little clam on your live rock alive? did it come with the live rock?

 

Yeah he is. Picked up two pieces at a LFS to seed coralline algae. really awesome LR with all types of stuff growing on it. That piece was almost twice the size it is now when I first got it... one part looked covered in a red sponge type material. two days after I got it the whole right side fell off... it was all clam. That clam died soon after... i got it out before it fouled up my tank. It had some unknown type of coral on it so I cleaned out the clam insides and put the coral back in the tank on the half clam shell it was attached to.

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and what was that feeding schedule? lol

 

looking good

 

Now that I have had some critique, im kinda embarrassed that i even fed them that much. I just liked to see them feed so I got stuff for each type of livestock I got. I had silverfish for the anemone, mysis cubes for the blue hana goby, flake for the damsel and "Candy" and Cyclopeese for general feeding. Problem is I was doing one of these everyday, cycling the food-type. Turns out that's alot for three fish and one anemone. On top of that I was putting 1/2 capful of reefsnow in every other night. Wow that sounds even crazier now that I'm writing it down!!

 

 

Got a question for everyone.

 

With the livestock I intend to get in the tank what would be a good feeding schedule?

 

Current load

1 yellowtail damsel

1 unidentified fish (mostly yellow with a ridge of pink along his back from head to tail) eats like a damsel

1 Blue Hana goby (likes mysis)

1 Condy Anemone

 

Future purchases

 

1 pair of clowns

 

maaaaybee one more fish or a cleaner shrimp or 2

 

I also have a large CUC from reefcleaners.org... about 30 bucks worth of snails, crabs and stuff (they sent way more than I ordered too)

 

Running Purigen and Chemipure elite in chamber 2 and chaeto under some lace rock in the main display area

 

Whats a good timetable for feeding?

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for the fish once a day would be good just adjust the amount you feed them so that all the food is eaten in a few minutes. the anemone doesn't have to be fed very often but once or twice a week would be fine. with the anemone i would be more concerned about the lighting. i looked it up and the condys do require very intense lighting to thrive. long term success with pc lighting is highly unlikely.

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got enough snails? :D

 

LOL from what I've read on here, reefcleaners.org does that alot. They seem to be thriving though... they swarm any leftover food, keep my glass crystal clear and devour any algae that dare rears its ugly head.

 

Thanks for the info Jedidad. I think I'll do that

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  • 2 weeks later...

Guess its time for an update. Ther've been a couple big changes lately. I added 2 clowns and found myself in the middle of an all out turf war. The dottyback didnt appreciate the encrochment of the two strangers. I quarantined Cesar and Cleopatra for a couple days while I trolled NR for answers. Someone suggested redoing the aquascape to change up the territory(putting everyone on even ground) so that what I did.

 

It worked like a charm. All is well with my tank again and I love the new scape.

 

And now some pics

 

Old scape with the clowns in quarantine

 

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The thug "Candy" (Diadema Dottyback)

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Just after the rescaping... I decided to use the quarantine box (clear plastic tupperware container with holes drilled all around the bottom third) as a fuge of sorts with chaeto and some live rock rubble. I threw some of my CUC in there as well. I secured it along the back wall and built the rocks around it. Its still removable so we'll see what happens.

 

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Ive done some adjustments since that pic and the water is now crystal clear again but I haven't taken any pics of it yet.

I also got into a fit of DIY...ness this past weekend and built a skimmer and media cage that fit into chamber 2.

Also added more flow by taking the powerhead that came with the tank, placing it in chamber one and routing an outflow that came with the tank up and out along the right side of the top of the tank. I don't know what the name of the nozzle is but it looks like numerous segments connected together, each with a small spout. I got it with the tank and replaced it with a Hydor Flo on the standard outtake. A google search brings up the segments as eloc-line nozzles but i don't see pics of the whole thing assembled (will post pics of this as well)

 

Finally I was able to get a few pics of my Blue Hanna Goby during his last feeding frenzy (that bugger is fast!)

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And here's one with Candy looking into the hole where Hana just sped into

 

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Small update

 

I made a few more adjustment to the scape. I didn't like the size of the fug in the tank so I got a shorter version of the same container and drilled it the same way. I also moved a few of the rocks around to give the scape a good view from the front as well as the left side since that where I look at it mostly on my desk.

 

FTS

 

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Oh and here's where I found my Hana Goby the other day?

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Nice looking goby. inTank makes a nice fish saver if you want to try to prevent fish from getting into the rear chambers.

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Nice looking goby. inTank makes a nice fish saver if you want to try to prevent fish from getting into the rear chambers.

 

I had alot of eggcrate hanging around so I "made" a fishsaver right after I got him back in the tank. Its not pretty but my hood keeps it out of sight.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Time for another update, sorry for the delay.

 

So a few things have changed since the last shots

 

1. Adjusted the scape... a bunch of times.

2. Moved the chaeto to chamber 2 with a lil light on top

3. Purchased a Vortech MP10 (soooo awesome!!!)

4. Lost my Blue Hanna goby... he jumped again... right into my DIY open top dry skimmer cup... didnt see him as much as smell him after a few days (good nes is he didnt foul up my tank in the least)

5. Added a few more tankmates. 2 engineer gobies , a blood red shrimp and a few more pieces of coral

1 Torch frag

1 acan frag

1 Favia frag

1 huge mushroom (cant remember the name.. looks like a leather)

1 galaxia frag

and finally my favorite, a small colony of sun coral

 

Scape it coming together quite nicely and all my parameters are spot on. Oh and did I mention my MP10 is awesome?

 

And now some pics

 

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Tried to take pic of my frogspawn and guess who kept getting in the way

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Here is the sun coral closed... will try to get an open shot later when I feed it

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And finally my FTS

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As always comments critiques and questions are appreciated.

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brooksthepro

Really like the tank! Looks great! I like the diversity. How often do you do water changes? Do you skim?

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