Highball’s Biocube 29 V2.0

[Highball]

Last night I was online looking at corals and found some pipe organ frags that were on sale on the fragbox.ca’s website. Their store is about 45 minutes from our house and when I showed the pic to my spouse, he said we could take a drive and check them out today! (Gotta love him!)

I ended up getting a frag of the pipe organ, a toadstool, a trumpet and some gsp for $90. While we were there, the hubs saw that they had the tunze atos that I had been looking at too, so we added that to our purchases. When we were checking out, I saw that they had bottles of tigger pods on the counter and asked how much they were. The clerk said that since we spent over $100, we could have one for free! Score! She also gave us a small jar of reef frenzy to try too! Double score!

Since we were close to Vaughan, we also stopped in at their Big Al’s location. Came home with some chaeto for the pods and a tiger conch. 
After dipping the frags, I set up my frag rack and I’ll keep them there for a couple of days so they can settle in while I decide where their final homes will be in the tank. The pipe organ and gsp will be getting their own isolated rocks and I’m hoping that Pekka will choose the toadstool as his host

[Picogoby]

Looking great so far! 

[Highball]

Just now, Picogoby said:

Looking great so far! 

Thanks so much! 

[Highball]

I went to my lfs to get a couple of cerith snails (one of the two originals is mia) and came home with a very small ricordea florida and a small grape monti frag 🤭

 

I also ordered a led light strip to use as a chaeto grow light. Right now I have the chaeto in a container in the display area that I seeded with tigger pods a few nights ago. Can’t wait to get that container into the back chamber! 
 

Here’s today’s fts:

 

[Highball]

The biocube had its first eviction! 👎

 

My DaVinci clownfish and firefish did not get along! I was hoping they’d settle their ongoing turf war, but poor Wickenheiser’s tail is shredded and she was coming out less and less from her hidey holes. The final straw was when mr @sshat clownfish decided that he’d attack my hand every time I put it in the tank. So I went by my lfs this morning and they agreed to let me trade him in.

I came home with a tiny tail spot blenny (Pekka Blenny) and another florida ricordea.

 

I had also ordered a tunze silence return pump, but the place I ordered from was waiting on their supplier to get their shipment of them from Germany. A week turned into two weeks, and I finally just ended up getting a sicce synca 1.5. So far, I’m really happy with it! We literally only hear the biocube’s lid fan running now!

 

 

[Highball]

Unfortunately it looks like my tank has had its first fatality this week 😢

 

My red firefish hasn’t been seen since Wednesday night. Her tail was pretty ripped up after her altercations with the clownfish and she was flashing periodically for a couple of days before she went mia. 
I’ve been testing for ammonia and nitrates daily since Thursday and there hasn’t been any change though. I’m thinking that the pistol shrimp and snails have taken care of her disposal.....

 

I’m pretty bummed that I let this happen and I’m not sure if I’ll replace her with another firefish or just get another kind of fish instead. I’ve been looking for either a pink streaked, pygmy, mccoskers, or lubbocks wrasse, but haven’t been able to find one at any of the fish stores I’ve visited since restarting the tank. Online ordering isn’t something that I want to either because shipping costs in Canada are insane and we’re in the dead of winter with temps getting down to -20°C overnight locally this week

 

 

 

 

[Highball]

I added a few more things this week! On Tuesday I drove up to Mississauga and picked up a striped candy cane coral and a tiny green and purple plate from Aquatic Kingdom (they were having a 28% off all livestock sale). I asked if they had any pink streaked wrasses and the girl working said she’s never seen any come in since she’s worked there....👎

 

Big Al’s had a McCosker in stock, but his tail was a bit torn up and he looked a little out of sorts, so I left there empty handed.

 

On the way home, I decided to swing by Big Al’s in Hamilton to see what they had as well....it was there that I saw him! A beautiful tricolour Lubbocks fairy wrasse! Then I looked at the price and walked away. But then I ended up back at his tank and watched him for about 15 minutes and convinced myself that he was worth it 😆 
 

His name is Tuukka Wrasse and my tailspot blenny (Pekka Blenny) so wants to be his bff! He tries to follow him around, but just can’t keep up with the wrasse’s open water swimming capability!

 

I also added a cleaner shrimp and devils hand coral from my lfs yesterday. So far, the fish keep a safe distance from the shrimp, but hopefully they’ll eventually let him do his thing on them....

Here’s Tuukka cruising around the tank

 

[Highball]

And here’s my plate coral

[Highball]

Ugh....I have bubble algae! 
 

My first coral came on a piece of live rock. At the time, I was excited that it had a bunch of coraline algae on it, but apparently it was also harbouring bubble algae! 🤬

 

I pulled the rock out today and figured I could use a toothbrush to remove the algae bubbles, but when I started to scrub it, it became apparent that the whole piece was covered with tiny bubbles! So I removed the mushroom off the rock and glued it to a new piece of rubble instead. 
 

Hopefully I don’t have a bunch of bubble algae spores left in my tank now.....

 

[llebcire]

Good luck!

 

I've had bubble algae in the past and you can't be too aggressive removing it.

 

-Eric

[Seadragon]

I just pretend they're emerald pearls of the sea and allow my small Ruby Emerald Crab to have at it.  Compared to other pests (such as Aiptasia anemones), I actually don't mind my little jade pearls.  I even tried to pop and remove some before, but they loved me so much that they decided to come back so I hired Queen Ruby to rule over bubble forest.

[Highball]

1 hour ago, llebcire said:

Good luck!

 

I've had bubble algae in the past and you can't be too aggressive removing it.

 

-Eric

Thanks! I’m sure I’ll be obsessively  looking for more for the next month or so 🙄
 

54 minutes ago, Seadragon said:

I just pretend they're emerald pearls of the sea and allow my small Ruby Emerald Crab to have at it.  Compared to other pests (such as Aiptasia anemones), I actually don't mind my little jade pearls.  I even tried to pop and remove some before, but they loved me so much that they decided to come back so I hired Queen Ruby to rule over bubble forest.

I could never keep emerald crabs alive the first time around in this tank, so I’m 🙏 that I don’t need to add one this time....but I’m not too optimistic that I won’t end up with bubble algae everywhere!😝

[Highball]

My glue job on the green mushroom didn’t hold and I can’t find it anywhere in the tank. I’m assuming that Andersen (pistol shrimp) has it buried somewhere in their tunnel system. But the good news, so far, is that I haven’t found any more bubble algae in the tank!

 

The rock that my gsp is on was getting more hair algae than I was comfortable with, so I removed it and did a peroxide dip and scrub. It seems to have worked, and the gsp was unaffected, as I tried to keep it out of the dip 👍

 

I think my algae was overgrowing due to me over feeding the tank, so instead of feeding a quarter cube of frozen food, I’m cutting it down to an 1/8 of a cube per day. My nitrates are steadily running at 15 and my phosphate stays at .08 each time I test. The number that has me a bit concerned is my dkh. It has dropped from a steady 8 to 7.6 last week and is now at 7 this week. So I’m going to try fritz salt moving forward (I’ve been using Seachem since starting the tank back up)

 

I picked up a devils hand last week. For now, I have it at the front of the tank, but I’m thinking that I’ll need to move it towards the back once it starts growing. I also picked up another small frag of gsp yesterday and glued it to the back wall. Hopefully it grows out and eventually covers the back wall. I love the look of its fluorescent green under the blues!

 

Here’s my favourite shots from this week:

 

 

 

[llebcire]

Shots look great!

 

I never had luck gluing mushrooms or softies as they're too slimy - I would loosely rubber band to a rock until they took hold.

 

Are you making your own RO/DI and is it testing near zero?  When I had a larger tank full of coral I needed to dose to keep the alk up between 9 and 10.

 

-Eric

[Highball]

44 minutes ago, llebcire said:

Shots look great!

 

I never had luck gluing mushrooms or softies as they're too slimy - I would loosely rubber band to a rock until they took hold.

 

Are you making your own RO/DI and is it testing near zero?  When I had a larger tank full of coral I needed to dose to keep the alk up between 9 and 10.

 

-Eric

Thanks! Your tank is coming along nicely as well! 
 

I’m using bottled distilled water.  It tests at 0 using a tds meter and 0 for nitrates and phosphates. 
 

 

[Highball]

🤬🤬🤬 Tuukka Wrasse decided to jump into my back chambers today!🤬🤬🤬

 

After feeding the tank today, I noticed something on one of the rocks. My pistol shrimp had its first molt! So of course I had to snap some pictures of the shedded molt. I opened the feeding hatch on my biocube, but the lights were distorting my pics, so I opened up the whole lid. Something must have spooked Tuukka as he was just swimming around like normal, but then bolted out of the dt and into chamber 3! I guess it was better than him carpet surfing, but it still freaked me out!

 

He swam through the opening where the sponge normally goes between chamber 2 & 3 (I had removed it to try to help lower my nitrates). So I grabbed the sponge and put it back in and also two fish nets. I took everything out of chamber two and tried to snag him with fish nets that don’t fit sideways in the chambers. He managed to jump the rail and go back to chamber three! Again I was grateful that he didn’t hit the floor, but man, I was frustrated! So I unhooked the return pump, took out the sponge again and managed to get him back to chamber two. Put the sponge back in and after a few tries, finally got him into a net and back to the dt. Oy vey!
 

By the time I had my second Tito’s and soda water (with a dash of lime juice), Tuukka was back to swimming around, seemingly no worse for wear! 
 

Here’s a pic of what caused the chaos: