Ocean_dreamer89’s BioCube 16

[Tired]

How do you check the pH of the bag water without opening it? Or do you open it and then quickly close it again somehow? 

[Wonderboy]

pH pen - I always consider ammonia to be present at some percentage no matter the duration because there is 0 bio filter in bags, so time is of the essence. If you are rehearsed with volumes and influences efficiently, reading QT parameters, transferring the specimen to an opaque lidded container, reading shipment/bag water parameters from there, and performing the necessary responses to match the parameters can be accomplished well under 30 seconds, ok well under a minute for sure lol - then there's temp verification.

 

Drip acclimation works very well, don't get me wrong - anyone can do the water scoop thing, too, of course - also usually works.

[Ocean_dreamer89]

Noticed this little guy the past two nights when I got home from work around midnight. From what I can find it looks like it might be a Elysia slug or maybe a baby snail. I have been seeing snails eggs frequently on my rock. Or it could’ve maybe been a hitch hiker on my new Scoly. When I dipped it, a TON of stuff came off of it.  I use both coralrx and Bayer when I dip and follow the process that was in a BRS video (minus the quarantine part).  Any ideas of what it might be? I tried to edit some of the blue out of the pictures to make it easier to see. It was difficult to get a good, clear picture. 
 

 

 

[Ocean_dreamer89]

Hello All!

 

So I've been absolutely terrible about adding updates to this journal.  You would think with the pandemic going on I would have more time for pastimes like this, butttt it seems like it's the other way around and I've been more busy.  However, lately things have started to even out and I been working on a big project lately.  My little Biocube has been up and running for about 18 months now.  I knew that if I enjoyed this hobby, I would always move on to a bigger tank.  Well the time is getting very close!  I had been looking at a Red Sea Reefer 425XL, but last August an opportunity presented itself and it was one I could not pass up.  A friend of a friend had recently decided that reefing was not for him and decided to sell his Red Sea Reefer 250.  It was only used for about 6 months, in near perfect condition, and at a GREAT price!  My husband gave me the green light and I jumped on it.  Since August, I've been slowly planning and acquiring equipment for this new tank, but I'll go into more details on that in a new journal. (Still debating if I'll put the new journal on here in the large tank section or Reef2Reef.  Appreciate any feedback!)

 

As far as my Biocube, I made some major changes to it since the last time I posted, and the tank is running great!  I still fight algae here and there, but I know that due to my schedule, I have not been as consistent with my water changes and more tedious maintenance. First, to give a starting point for the updates, I'll post a FTS that I took in July of last year.

 

 

So only one fish is seen here, but there are two clownfish and a royal gramma in there.  Unfortunately, shortly after this picture was taken, I noticed that my beloved Royal Gramma, James, looked ill.  He just sat at the bottom and looked to be unable to swim around.  I began the process of quickly resetting my quarantine tank (I keep some bio media in the return chamber of my bio cube).  When I look back, I believe that I got too focused on getting him out and into the QT that I really made things worse.  I got him in the QT after acclimating him and replaced the Ammonia Alert tabs.  James continued to just kinda float on the bottom and looked to be very skinny.  I left for a little and came back to check and saw that the ammonia level had gone up!!  I think a smarter move would have maybe just to get him back in my other tank, but instead I did about a 75% water change and added a bottle of bacteria and prime.  After about a day or two, I was eventually able to get the Ammonia gone, but of course none of this was good for an already sick fish.  He wasn't eating and still just floated along the bottom looking like he was unable to swim.  I researched his symptoms and thought maybe it was a swim bladder issue or a bacterial infection, but was unable to come up with a solid idea of what it might be.  I began to plan to treat him generally, but before I could even start, I found him passed away. 😔  I inspected his body afterwards and could not find any lesions or anything that might provide some clue as to what happened.  Still a mystery to me to this day.

 

 

While this made me very sad, I took this time to make some upgrades to my cabinet and tank.  My old cabinet was a suitable one that I had found on Amazon.  I noticed that this cabinet had some water damage around the edges of the tank and this began to concern me.  I decided to get a new cabinet and went for the stand my for the Biocube 32.  This stand gave me more room that I wanted and overall still fit the 16 pretty good.  This time, I water sealed the top and insides on the cabinet and got a thin foam pad for underneath the aquarium (lessons learned, right?).  I took this time to also upgrade the inside of the cabinet now that I had more room to work with.  I added in LED strip lights and some tracks for wire management.  I'm glad that I decided to do all this, because 1) I liked the result and 2) it become kind of a practice run for my new aquarium.  Take a look 😎

 

Before

 

After

 

Once I got the stand upgrading, I, of course, thought "what else could I do?" 😂  I decided to take the lid off and get a RedSea ReefLED 50 for it!  I contemplated going rimless, but in the end decided that I really just did feel comfortable with the work involved and was afraid of shattering the whole tank.  After I added the new light, I was amazed at the difference!!! I knew I had made the right choice and my corals seemed to appreciate it too.  In the pic below, you'll also see an obnoxiously large ATO reservoir.  It is wayyyyy oversized for this tank, but I knew in the future I'd get a bigger tank so I bought one that would be suitable for the new tank.  I only keep about a gallon or so in this reservoir, which is comparable to what I did before.

 

 

This pretty much completes the updates from this tank.  I'll post some cool pictures of the livestock for fun below.  I've outgrown this little tank and am very excited to move on to a new, bigger journey! Let me know if you guys would be interested a 54 gal build or if I should go on to Reef2Reef.

 

 

 

 

 

[billygoat]

7 hours ago, Ocean_dreamer89 said:

I've outgrown this little tank and am very excited to move on to a new, bigger journey! Let me know if you guys would be interested a 54 gal build or if I should go on to Reef2Reef.

I know the RSR250 is hardly a "nano" reef, but I think the Large Reefs section here on N-R is still a pretty cool community! I've never tried R2R so take this opinion with a grain of salt, but I'd be happy to see you stay here on Nano-Reef. ☺️

 

And of course, congrats on the upgrade! I will be sure to follow along and see where you go from here. 👍

[Ocean_dreamer89]

On 2/3/2021 at 8:21 PM, billygoat said:

I know the RSR250 is hardly a "nano" reef, but I think the Large Reefs section here on N-R is still a pretty cool community! I've never tried R2R so take this opinion with a grain of salt, but I'd be happy to see you stay here on Nano-Reef. ☺️

 

And of course, congrats on the upgrade! I will be sure to follow along and see where you go from here. 👍

Haha yeah it's definitely not a nano reef!  I like R2R, but I haven't posted on there much.  Mainly just use it another resource.  I love the nano-reef community, but I did get a lot of my ideas for my build from R2R, so I'm torn 😔

 

And thank you!! I'm very excited about it!

[debbeach13]

Nice update. Tank and corals look super. The reorganized and other changes to the cabinet also look good. I joined R2R but I like this community more. I hope you stay and I would like to follow your new build. No matter what you decide good luck with the new set up. Are you going to run 2 tanks or just the new set up?

[Ocean_dreamer89]

3 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Nice update. Tank and corals look super. The reorganized and other changes to the cabinet also look good. I joined R2R but I like this community more. I hope you stay and I would like to follow your new build. No matter what you decide good luck with the new set up. Are you going to run 2 tanks or just the new set up?

Thank you so much!

 

I agree this community is awesome and seems more close knit than R2R.  I'll break down my Biocube once I get the RSR 250 up and running.  I'm undecided whether I'll keep it for a coral QT or clean it up and sell it.  Running two tanks for me would be too much with my work schedule.  I work oddball hours.

[billygoat]

6 hours ago, Ocean_dreamer89 said:

I'll break down my Biocube once I get the RSR 250 up and running.  I'm undecided whether I'll keep it for a coral QT or clean it up and sell it.  Running two tanks for me would be too much with my work schedule.  I work oddball hours.

I feel that. I still have my pre-upgrade 18g tank sitting around and I've toyed with the idea of setting it up as a 2nd system, but I just can't imagine having enough time to take care of two tanks properly with my crazy work schedule. It's definitely much simpler to just consolidate everything into one big tank, I think.

[Ocean_dreamer89]

Well my new tank is probably about halfway through the cycle now.  I believe I'll keep the Biocube running for a little bit after I transfer the clowns over.  I want to make sure everything is good and stable before moving my corals and anemone.  The Cube is still rocking strong.  I've been dealing with I believe Dinos, but I'm not for sure.  I have been doing a lot to try to get rid of them and kinda just been letting them ride its course for the last few months.  They've actually started to improve the past couple weeks, and I believe it was a result of my increased, more regular feeding.  I've been catching up on some BRS videos, and they discussed the benefits of feeding fish regularly and well balanced food, which I guess is kinda of obvious.  But what really struck home with me, is that they discussed that feeding every other day or infrequently because of nutrient issues is BS.  Basically we're starving the fish because of unwanted algae.  Which, I get it, no one wants a bunch of algae issues in the tank, but the better solution is better nutrient export rather than starve the fish.  

 

Anyway, so I've been feeding more 😂 Buttttttt check out this feeding response on my Scoly!

 

[Ocean_dreamer89]

Got some pretty cool additions today!  

 

I was at my local reef club meeting yesterday and while I was there I picked up a Toxic Green Hammer and won this sweet little Rhodactis Mushroom.  I think it is an Ultra Orange but I'm not totally sure.  I was working yesterday so the LFS held it for me until I could pick it up today.  While I was out and about I swung by another LFS that I had a gift card that my sweet husband got me for Valentine's day.  Saw this Rainbow Trachy and nabbed it!  The new corals have been dipped and acclimated to the Biocube for now until the RSR 250 is ready for corals.

 

  

 

[Ocean_dreamer89]

Has anyone used those cheap-o brine shrimp hatcheries?  The thing is legit! Added some eggs last night to it and just checked on it tonight for the hell of it and saw a TON of them swimming around.  Everybody got a good snack tonight 😎

 

   

 

Here a couple aquarium shots.  Sorry about the lightning.  A bit lazy tonight.

 

   

 

[debbeach13]

I use that hatchery works great.

[Ocean_dreamer89]

14 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

I use that hatchery works great.

I'm loving it so far!! Giving the tanks some good snacks!

[Ocean_dreamer89]

Here's a better FTS with adjusted lighting 😎