Banasophia’s Biocube 16 & IM Nuvo 10 ☀️

[Daniel91]

Is that a neon torch or frogspawn? Hard to see on phone. 

Eitherway it’s really nice! How does it look under white lights?

[Krish87]

On 10/9/2018 at 10:08 PM, banasophia said:

Here are some updated pics of the Biocube from today. I’ve made several changes in the past couple months after losing my green torch, which was really my centerpiece and favorite coral. I decided not to replace it with another torch since the sweepers seriously limited the addition of other corals. 

 

As you can see, I no longer have any SPS in the tank. I feed heavily in this tank due to my mandarin, suns, and an NPS gorgonian, so it’s really not a good setup for SPS. And I’m now really going for it and adding some of the more invasive corals that I enjoy including Xenia, blue cloves, Kenya tree, and GSP since I’m already pretty well stocked and things don’t seem to grow too quickly in my system. I was really considering upgrading my lights since things are growing pretty slowly under the stock lights (especially compared to how they do when I move them over to my Nuvo 10 with the AI Prime), but instead I decided to embrace the situation and see what happens while keeping it stock. 

 

So I just got the GSP on Saturday and glued it to the back wall; it opened up today. I had originally intended to do an encrusting monti or cyphastrea there, but I think those are probably a no go in my system. Trying to decide if I should keep the green GSP, or possibly trade it for a purple variety to create more of a neutral backdrop... leaning toward the purple and would love input on this.

 

 

 

The BioCube front shot under white light is the best pic. Its awesomeness!!! What a color. If you see that under the AI Prime, in no time, you will pop that hood off 🙂 

[banasophia]

Well I had a feeling when I took/posted that last set of pics they could be my tanks at their peaks 😳... they seemed like they were doing too well. 

 

In the past week there have been some coral wars and spawning in the Biocube, and my BTA moved for the first time in my Nuvo.

 

First of all, in the Biocube, I had the two maroon mushrooms near the top, and the one on the right has been shriveled up for a while now because at first I had placed a zoa frag too close to the mushroom and the zoa tried to kill off the mushroom. (That had happened a while ago, still hoping the mushroom might pull through.) Then in the past week or so since I switched salt brands to Reef Crystals and started dosing Kent Tech I iodide, the mushroom on the left really started to open up more and more, touching the nearby candy cane head yesterday and killed it! It happened fast! 😩

 

In addition, the orange sun corals spawned and now I have tiny sun coral specks ALL OVER the tank. (They are circled in green in the pic below.) I like suns, but I don’t want them all over the place. They are very invasive in nature though, so I guess I shouldn’t be totally surprised. The other invasive corals in my tank are photosynthetic, so I think they will be kept in check because the Biocube stock lights aren’t too powerful, but because the suns are NPS I’m think they could go nuts in my setup. 

 

So, here are some pics:

 

 

[banasophia]

On 10/11/2018 at 10:27 AM, Daniel91 said:

Is that a neon torch or frogspawn? Hard to see on phone. 

Eitherway it’s really nice! How does it look under white lights?

Hi @Daniel91, thanks! If you mean this coral below, it’s a torch. And @Wyatt45 has a sibling frag in his tank too. I passed one along to him because two were just too many stingy tententacles in such a small tank. They can develop really long sweepers. 

 

Mine has lots of shorter tentacles right now because it’s splitting into two heads.

 

 

[NanoRox]

Any way you would be open to getting rid of some of those baby sun corals?  I would take a few.  🙂 

[banasophia]

8 minutes ago, Duane Clark said:

Any way you would be open to getting rid of some of those baby sun corals?  I would take a few.  🙂 

Haha if I could send some to you I would, believe me. 🙂  Unfortunately I think almost all of them are on my main rockwork. 

 

Well actually, there are some on this recordea rock and on my snails too... omg they are really everywhere!!! I think my tank is going to transform into a sun coral habitat!!! 😬😯😂

 

 

 

 

[NanoRox]

1 hour ago, banasophia said:

Haha if I could send some to you I would, believe me. 🙂  Unfortunately I think almost all of them are on my main rockwork. 

 

Well actually, there are some on this recordea rock and on my snails too... omg they are really everywhere!!! I think my tank is going to transform into a sun coral habitat!!! 😬😯😂

 

 

 

 

If you end up growing them out a bit to where you can frag them...please reach out to me  🙂 

[banasophia]

Feeding some fresh hatched BBS, pic and video.

 

 

[banasophia]

15 minutes ago, Duane Clark said:

If you end up growing them out a bit to where you can frag them...please reach out to me  🙂 

Will do. I’ll save the shipping materials from any shipments I get, just in case. 🙂

[Jackal227]

Wow, I didn't know that Sun corals did that.  

 

That firefish is beautiful as well.

[banasophia]

1 hour ago, Jackal227 said:

Wow, I didn't know that Sun corals did that.  

 

That firefish is beautiful as well.

Thanks! My firefish (Trinket) has been out and about a lot more recently since switching from the MP10 to the Jebao powerhead, and the clowns are swimming around more near the center front with the new flow too... Hoping it’s going to be enough flow without any issues.🤞The Nuvo 10 doesn’t have a powerhead at all and things seem pretty happy in there for the time being, so I decided I’d try to cut back a bit in the Biocube and monitor closely. 

 

When I got my yellow suns, there were some tiny orange and yellow specks on the rock it came on and the guy that sold them to me said it was from them spawning so I knew it was a possibility, but I wasn’t sure whether it would ever happen in my system. 

[banasophia]

On 10/11/2018 at 11:27 AM, Krish87 said:

The BioCube front shot under white light is the best pic. Its awesomeness!!! What a color. If you see that under the AI Prime, in no time, you will pop that hood off 🙂 

Oh that’s weird, sorry Krish, I thought I had replied to this post but I think it came in when I was busy working. 

 

Thanks! Yes, I have debated about upgrading my lights, but now with all the invasive corals I’ve stocked I’m afraid they might grow too fast with better lighting and I might end up with World War C (totally a reference to one of my favorite movies, World War Z 😉). I’m really excited to watch the progress on your tank with the AI Prime. 

[banasophia]

On 10/11/2018 at 10:02 AM, Christopher Marks said:

I like the direction you're going with the Nuvo 10, more LPS forward! It's awesome under the actinic light! What do you like to feed the corals and anemones?

Thank you! Looks like I missed replying to you and Krish on Thursday, sorry about that - busy week!

 

I feed a variety of foods to both tanks, just less to the Nuvo. I typically use Reef Frenzy Nano frozen for chunky pieces to feed the emeralds (every night so they don’t eat my corals), anemones, and some of the corals. I also use Reef Roids, Coral Frenzy, and recently got Reef Bugs and Benepets to try out. For frozen I have baby brine shrimp, coral gumbo, marine cuisine, rotifers, mysis, and easy pods. For liquids I have phytoplankton, zooplankton, oyster feast, and marine snow. And I hatch baby brine shrimp and culture tigger pods and apex pods. It’s a smorgasbord haha. I tried to cut back on feeding, but the suns in the cave started staying closed up so I recently went back to feeding them more. (Leading to spawning apparently haha.)

 

I’m planning on switching over to feeding more pods and less other foods now that my two cultures are producing more, to provide food that will also serve as cleanup crew rather than contributing to high nutrients. 

[banasophia]

@Krish87, @Daniel91, @Jackal227, I picked up a frag of what I was referring to as Purple GSP yesterday. Here’s a picture of it under the white lights. It hasn’t fully opened yet. I’ll try to get better pics under whites and blues once it has opened up all the way.  Also, a couple of people have suggested doing zoas on the back wall instead... that sounds pretty cool, but I’m not so sure they will spread fast enough in my tank for that to work. Hmmm.

 

[Jackal227]

9 hours ago, banasophia said:

and recently got Reef Bugs 

I'm curious to find out how these work for you.  It's an interesting product. It says that they hatch, So I imagine it would be live food instead of just freeze dried. 

 

8 hours ago, banasophia said:

@Krish87, @Daniel91, @Jackal227, I picked up a frag of what I was referring to as Purple GSP yesterday. Here’s a picture of it under the white lights. It hasn’t fully opened yet. I’ll try to get better pics under whites and blues once it has opened up all the way.  Also, a couple of people have suggested doing zoas on the back wall instead... that sounds pretty cool, but I’m not so sure they will spread fast enough in my tank for that to work. Hmmm.

 

Sometimes it's tough for me to see colors accurately in Pictures but to me it looks green with a purple mat underneath.  I thought all GSP was this way. 

 

Here's an interesting observation of my GSP frag.   When I first got it, it was a bright green and glowed like crazy under the blue lights like this: 

 

Now after I changed the flow and it closed up for a couple of weeks it came back looking darker green and didn't glow anymore like this:

 

To me the color on this picture looks similar to yours.  The tips on mine have started to turn bright green again and I assume over time it'll change back: 

[banasophia]

@Jackal227, yeah in that picture I thought the GSP looked a little green too... in the store it didn’t look green at all, but I only saw it under blues. We’ll see what happens with it in my tank... I agree it’s looking kinda like yours so maybe it is really green. Thanks for posting your pics! 

 

I’m a little nervous about the Reef Bugs because I used them for the first time a few days before the starfish and the torch died. 😬 I don’t think the deaths were related to the Reef Bugs, but I’m still feeling a little scared to try again. 

[Krish87]

20 hours ago, banasophia said:

Oh that’s weird, sorry Krish, I thought I had replied to this post but I think it came in when I was busy working. 

 

Thanks! Yes, I have debated about upgrading my lights, but now with all the invasive corals I’ve stocked I’m afraid they might grow too fast with better lighting and I might end up with World War C (totally a reference to one of my favorite movies, World War Z 😉). I’m really excited to watch the progress on your tank with the AI Prime. 

Yes, I am seeing a lot of difference with the two AI techs on my tank 😉 

[banasophia]

On 10/10/2018 at 5:48 AM, Jackal227 said:

I can't seem to find too many pictures of the purple GSP.  The ones that pull up on Google look like they are taken under blues.  I wonder how they look under the white lights, whether they stay purple or are more pale...

Yes, so the “purple GSP” is more opened up this morning and does seem to have a greenish tinge to the tips, but definitely subtle compared to the GSP on the back wall... will be interesting to see if the colors change. 

 

 

[Jackal227]

It does look more purple under the blue lights.  

[banasophia]

20 minutes ago, Jackal227 said:

It does look more purple under the blue lights.  

Now the question is, where am I going to put it haha. Plus the new leather I picked up?! I just couldn’t resist that beautiful ruffly shape. And it looks so pretty now that it has opened up in my tank. 😬  I think I need another tank! It’s an addiction!!! 

 

 

[Krish87]

7 minutes ago, banasophia said:

Now the question is, where am I going to put it haha. Plus the new leather I picked up?! I just couldn’t resist that beautiful ruffly shape. And it looks so pretty now that it has opened up in my tank. 😬  I think I need another tank! It’s an addiction!!! 

 

 

You really . . . really need another tank 😛 

[banasophia]

2 minutes ago, Krish87 said:

You really . . . really need another tank 😛 

Haha totally!!! 🤣🤣🤣

 

Hey when are you gonna post some updates on your tank, Krish?! You’re keeping us all in suspense for way too long!!! 🤔🤔🤔

 

Oh by the way, can you tell I mixed my drink a little too strong when I was doing my daughters water change on her tank tonight?! It’s so boring... I just watch her do it all haha!!! I should probably avoid posting stuff right now, but that wouldn’t be any fun. 😳😬🤣

[banasophia]

Oh yeah, almost forgot to post the picture of my Nuvo and the elusive Patrick, my dalmation star... he likes to hide in the rocks but he was out and about tonight. And as you can see, I had to move things around in the tank since my BTA decided to relocate. On the bright side, now I have room for more acans, which seem to do well in this tank. 🙂 

 

 

 

[banasophia]

And also... my pet bristleworm, just above the yellow RFA! 😂 Working on embracing the notion that he’s the earthworm of my tank. I don’t even try to remove him anymore. 

 

[Lula_Mae]

Do you target feed the sun corals?  I wonder if you could just not target the babies, or if you can scrape them off during water changes or something?  True purple star polyps are extremely hard to find, LiveAquaria has them on Diver's Den now and again.  I tried to get a frag over a year ago but never succeeded.  Tanks look very nice!

 

Oh, if you still have the EcoSphere--you can actually open it and put the shrimp in a small tank/container of their own.  I have a small (1/2 gallon maybe) bowl with some glued-together rock rubble and a plastic plant for biosurface and the dozen or so shrimp I put in there seem to be multiplying!  My understanding is that toxins sort of build up in the EcoSpheres and they gradually starve to death or die from waste buildup.