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The Cubeeee


CD_Scapes

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Current FTS

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The Cubeeee

My dreams are finally coming true, I'm getting one of my favorite tanks and the size is perfect for my current living conditions in my college dorm at Bemidji State University. I have always like the look of cube tanks no matter if it was freshwater or saltwater. I've had a few tanks over the past couple of years from my first 1.5 gallon Tetra plastic cube to my Fluval spec and my 15 gallon reef, then we have my current 5 gallon reef. While talking with an ex-LFS worker who upgraded to a 120 the conversation turned to me possibly upgrading my tank. She mentioned that her 29 BioCube was empty and it was going to be donated, I asked she then asked if I wanted it instead. A bit taken back and excited were understatement, it will come with the stand, pump, WaveMaker, and skimmer. The tank is a bit dirty, but for$10 I think I can clean out the tank and call it a good day 😂. Some of my biggest inspirations for my tanks come from @billygoat's gorgonian garden, @yoshii's macro tanks and @SaltyBuddha's macro display. If I am talking about project inspiration I have to include one of the greatest biotopes of all time @yardboy's 2008 TOTM Florida biotope, that is and could go down as one of the greatest biotopes of all time. All of these people have one thing in common, they have natural or nature style tanks with corals and macro living/growing in the same tank without the fancy *obnoxious* blue rave lights on their tanks (that I know of). A lot of the live stock is chosen for it's natural looks or how well it will fit into the tank, placement of corals or fish choices are thought out o how they will interact with not just the scape but also the other livestock. I would like to say they have almost been my reef senseis, or at least that is how I view them. Without their knowledge, kindness, and ambitious ideas I believe my reef hobby would be different or even non-existent. So, I thank you for helping build my reef hobby (even if you did not realize that you helped) With all this said, let's get into all the information you guys actually came here for.....The tank!

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Scaping:

The ideal goal for the tank is to create an island scape or an arch scape, I had a few loop holes to make this rock scape a bit more interesting that past ones. The first thing I ran into was using a true piece of base rock and making a scape on the base rock, the second thing is I needed more rock to make a sort of bridge/overhang area. The last thing was I needed to create a lot of caves/overhangs and ledges for the fish I plan on stocking. The other part is the tank will be moved 4 times a year (3 times this year); to college, home for winter break, to college after break, and lastly home for the summer. The plan is to use base rock for most of the scape and then use some dry rock to create more ledges/caves! I'm thinking of creating a lagoon/shallow water tank with a "sea" of caulerpa prolifera and toadstool algae with the island rock scape and maybe even a bridge/big overhang.

Arch broke and cause a total collapse on the right side, epoxy was not fully mixed and didn't set right.

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Livestock:

A big part of the tank would be macroalgae, after reading I've seen that many hide around or near some macro to help blend in a bit more. The macro will also help a bit with some nutrient control in the tank. Fish wise I want the tank to be very unique and a key part to my room design. That being said a unique fish will surely make this the talk of the dorm (I hope), I thought of many options of fish with great personality. Clowns came to mind but everyone has clowns, then maybe a jawfish but @billygoat's stresses alot when the tank is messed with and they hide a lot too. Then the idea hit, a smaller predator would be cool, while not always outgoing it would certainly be unique and I think I found the one. So, a Dwarf fuzzy will be the fish in the cube. The plan is to get a 10 gallon to house some caulerpa, a thin sand layer and my aquaclaer 50 with heater. This will act as the feeder shrimp/damsel tank until I can wean the fuzzy off of live food, and maybe keep some shrimp as treats. Shrimp/damsels will be treated and gut loaded before feeding.  Lots of motile inverts are out of the question, no ornamental shrimp or crabs as they would be expensive dinners.  The Fuzzy dwarf idea won't work...at least not right now. Looking more into it the tank is bare minimum and in some cases too small and feeding could be more challenging than expected. With my current living and budget situation it would not be fair for the fish to have to live on my budget. Therefore I will wait until I have a larger tank and the time to care for a fish of that experience. Still have no clue what I'll do for fish, but I did get some of my coral ideas out of the way. Coral-wise I was thinking possibly 7 or so species of gorgonian, a few zoa colonies, some candy cane or duncan corals and a red plating montipora. As far as a clean up crew I think, ceriths, trochus, nassarius, and planaxis will be the main snails with some blue leg and scarlet hermits as more variety. The addition of some RFAs and Feather dusters is a possibiliy...as well as maybe a few shrimp.

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Gadgets and Hardscape:

(Will update to keep list current)

Tank- BioCube 29

Light- 2 x Aquaknight LED

Heater

Circulation- 

Skimmer- 

Filtration- Undecided

Mechanical- 

Biological- 

Chemical-

ATO- Smart micro 

Refugium- Undecided

Hardscape

Rock- Base rock 

Sand- 20 lbs Ocean direct sand

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Livestock:

(Will update to keep list current to whats swimming/crawling/or chillin in the tank)

Future Fish:

 

Invertebrates:

CUC: 

 

Coral & Friends:


 

Gorgonians:

 

Macroalgae:

 

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December 18th, 2019:

I was supposed to get the biocube tonight from the lady, but I got back home from college too late and could not pick up the tank today. I will go and pick it up around 10 or 11 tomorrow morning for sure. Not much else to update, I'm just thinking about clean-up crew and scaping right now, happy to be on break from college though

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December 22nd, 2019:

Fish plans are a pair of clowns, a starry blenny and a clown goby. Corals will be simple, maybe 4-5 species and that's all as it needs to be easy to move

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December 24th, 2019:

I got my rockwork all set in places minus a few smaller pieces of rock that will need some epoxy putty. The tank has been cleaned and I will be getting sand by the end of this week, other good news is that I can bring my car to college next semester so I can move my tank back and forth in my car and everything else in a separate car.  I will also need to look into getting a small holding container for ghost shrimp to put in the the stand.

 

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  • CD_Scapes changed the title to The Cubeeee *Poll Time!!!*

December 25th, 2019:

MERRY CHRISTMAS and happy holidays! Not much to update, besides that I got an Olympus TG-6 for christmas so now I can take some cool videos/macro shots of the tank! On another notethis tank is going to take a lot longer to setup, I might just wait to set it up until the summer or even just cycle the tank and then fully set it up in the summer after college is done. I still need to get my second aquaknight, ATO, more rock and the holding tank for feeder shrimp/feeder damsels. Yes, if you have read the posts a predator will be the main inhabitat of the tank. I don't want to give anything away too much but the relative is invasive to the US.

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  • CD_Scapes changed the title to The Cubeeee

January 1st, 2019:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Thought I would give an update on the tank and the next steps. The arch collapsed from not mixing the epoxy putty right so that was not fun, took out some of the rock on the right side when it fell down too. The glass didn't crack and its good it happened with nothing in the tank and not with corals and other things. This gave me the chance to re-scape and re-think the plan for this tank. The re-scape is more flat and will allow me to get more gorgonians and some space for the caulerpa "meadow". 

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January 2nd, 2019:

I thought about some stocking ideas for the tank and for as basic as the fish are I do believe that a pair of clownfish could be the right way to go. That being said I really do not want a basic pair of clownfish, or possibly not even a pair of ocellaris. The ideal plan would be a trio of chalk bass and possibly a pair of neon gobies

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January 3rd, 2019:

I forgot to mention that a buddy of mine rented a PAR meter so we filled my tank up with plain tap water to get some readings. These readings were done dead center of the light so edges/corners are off from the readings. I'm kind of surprised by the readings, maybe the reader was off or maybe this Aquaknight is really that good. I will still be getting a second light to get a better spread. The other fun part of the Biocube was having to grind down the lip so the Aquaknight could be mounted on the back, there was still a gap so I wedged a piece of egg crate to add stability and although janky/ugly looking it works perfectly. The tank will be moving to the dorm in 9 days so I have 8 days to buy the sand for the dang tank or I'm SOL, also I wrangled up 5 clean buckets so I will have 25 gallons to move water after the tank is full. I believe there will be around 20 or so in the tank after rock and sand, this will make life a bit easier and I could possibly keep the 5 gallon running as well. The ability of me having a car could also mean I could take a few trips to go to some Reef stores down in the Minneapolis area (~3 hours from my college). 

Light mounted after removing the "lip"

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Eggcrate support for the light

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PAR diagram

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It's going to be a heck of a time trying to move a 30 gal tank in and out but it's looking good!

 

I have the aquaknight and putting it on a rimmed tank was super frustrating, I ended up building a stand for the light itself because I was afraid I'd break the glass trying to pry the rim off. Otherwise it seems to be a good cheap light, although my aquarium is smaller compared to a 30g.

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1 hour ago, Saltslinger said:

It's going to be a heck of a time trying to move a 30 gal tank in and out but it's looking good!

 

I have the aquaknight and putting it on a rimmed tank was super frustrating, I ended up building a stand for the light itself because I was afraid I'd break the glass trying to pry the rim off. Otherwise it seems to be a good cheap light, although my aquarium is smaller compared to a 30g.

It will be a chore moving it but I got the tank for super cheap so it’s worth it. Regarding the light, I was really wanting a second just for a bit more piece of mind and to get more light coverage 

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January 9th, 2019:

2 days until the biocube will be moved to college and *finally* start to be setup in the dorm. I think I have all of them modifications that I needed done (I hope) as I won't have access to many tools to make/alter things. Overall I'm very happy with how the tank has turned out in the short time I've had to "flip" it. The things I've done are sanded away the back "lip" to allow for the Aquaknight mount, got new tubing for the pump, made a DIY eggcrate and mesh lid, made a DIY media basket, and of course I have cleaned the tank glass/overflows.

*side note- nail polish remover works wonders to get super glue off your fingers!*

Before

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Now

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Screen Top

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Up and coming I would like to get a second Aquaknight and a timer for my powerhead to give it cycles. I will also be wanting a few pounds of gulf live sand to give the tank a boost in biodiversity. Speaking of the gulf, I was thinking after hearing about some of the easier gorgoanians the Yellow sea whip (Pterogorgia citrina) stuck out the most for its lower flow (by gorgonian standards) and it grows more bush-like rather than tall and tree-like. This would be idea to create a nice center piece and the yellow color is not one seen very often in reefs. I might also accent the tank with some Spiny gorgonian (Muricea laxa) and the Purple brush gorgonian (Muriceopsis flavida) as a nice purple accent to all the rusty colors. To accent the gorgs on the rocks some ricordea and cinnamon palythoa will round out coral selections. The possibly of some pavona or policipora would be considered to get the more natural patch reef look as well.

 

The sand bed will be the best part of the tank (I believe), the goal is to make the sand looks super natural with bits of shell, rocks and maybe a tiny bit of mud to give some boost for the sand/rooted macros. The idea is to make a "seagrass" meadow with a patch reef, but seagrasses will be too hard or time consuming so I'm going to stick with caulerpa species. Caulerpa prolifera will be the main species with some caulerpa taxifolia and toadstool algae mixed in for a bit of variety. On the rocks will be some gracilaria species as well as dictyota and padina species.

 

Fish wise is still up in the air, I do have a lid now so more options are available to be housed. I thought about a trio of chalk bass and maybe I will stick to that idea, I feel it would be a unique stocking plan and represent the "biome" that is being replicated. Going along with fish would be some inverts, now most of the livestock will be snails, hermits and crabs. Possibly some feather dusters and maybe a shrimp or two, but that would be about it due to the mini grouper like chalk bass.

 

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January 15th, 2019:

Tank is slowly getting there, rocks got messed up on the way to college so I had to make a 3rd scape (ugh) that had me staying up until 2 am. Got the sand added to the tank as well as ~9 gallons of water (I'm making more water) and it almost looks like a tide pool.  I think I have a way to keep the mangroves in the tank while I move the tank, possibly. Fish wise maybe gobies and clingfish with alot of inverts

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January 19th, 2019:

Well, I got 3 more gallons of water added (love broke college budget) and I've calculated that I will only need 7-8 more gallons to fully fill the tank, yaaaay. I'm in the process of loooking for more red macro algae for the tank, as of now I have Gracilaria tikvahiae, Gracilaria hayi, Bryothamnion triquetrum. If you have any red macros other than the ones I have shoot me a message if you ship frags of them. Fish wise I still have no clue, maybe a lightning maroon and neon gobies? 

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January 21st, 2019:

I'm FINALLY getting more livestock for the tank, this week is in the upper 30s with nights around mid teens-20s so for northern MN it's nice outside. I got an order from @johnmaloney at reef cleaners for some snails, hermits and I decided to add a blue porcelain crab for fun. Not much else with the order except the Virgin nerites, Delphi turbans, Trochus snails and Fire fern well all out of stock...oh well guess I'll have to make another order 😉

 

I ended up ordering mainly sand stiriers as the sand is getting a bit brown from diatoms, I got 3 species of cerith (dwarf, fly speckled, florida), nassarius vibex, zig zag periwinkles to maybe eat some epiphyic algae and 3 blue leg hermits (love these guys). In the future I think an order with the tonga nassarius, trochus snails and some macro or other inverts will be in order. 

 

Besides all of that, the tank is fuller now after some additional water was added and I'm liking the look even more so maybe I will fill it up all of the way....possibly. I recived some social feather dusters from my LFS, he doubted they would survive much less grow. I started to feed phyto and not much happened, then I spilled some zooplankton on accident and they loved it! So, now everyday (sometimes twice a day) ive been feeding them zooplankton from seachem. Today I noticed some growth! There are little offshoots with the tinyest crowns of the worms poking out on the right of the picture...take that LFS owner 😝

 

Current Tank view

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Dusters

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Diatoms...yay

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