schgr.cube's Ultum Nature Systems 45u - tons of new coral added

[schgr.cube]

Cycle complete!

 

I'm actually pretty shocked at how well the Dr Tims One and Only / Ammonium Chloride worked, with ammonia and nitrite both at 0 and Nitrate at roughly 5-10ppm right now. I also had diatoms start yesterday, and a small bit of green hair algae start today. I'm going to consider my cycle done, and probably will pick up a few small snails and blue leg hermits tomorrow.

 

 

Things are looking quite ugly right now, which I figured I should document because why not? I have also had an issue with both wavemakers I purchased, and am going to return them both in favor of the Aqamai KPS which should be here Wednesday.

 

The first pump I purchased, the Hygger Mini 1600, was just too damn powerful and blew my sand away from the corner as you can see in the above photo. I actually kind of like the sand at this point, and may keep it like this...I'm not 100% sure on that. The second pump, the Jebao SLW-5, was way too noisy and didn't feel like it was going to last long term. I guess I can't cheap out as much as I would like to!

 

Thoughts on the sand? I'm torn if I want to even it back out again or pretend this is more "natural" and keep it like this.

[chipz]

1 hour ago, schg said:

 

 

Thoughts on the sand? I'm torn if I want to even it back out again or pretend this is more "natural" and keep it like this.

I love your aquascape! If you are planning to add a pistol shrimp and goby you might as well leave it to them to re-scape the sand as they see fit. I've always loved my pistol/goby pairs, but they have their own aesthetic opinions 🤷 I just bought one of these little tanks today so I can set up a separate tank for a tiger pistol that is causing too much chaos in it's current tank.

 

BTW, even though I currently I have a yasha/candy cane pair in another tank (and love the yasha), I am a sucker for the hi-fin gobies, like you. The black/white striping and yellow face are just so cute!

 

 

[schgr.cube]

12 hours ago, chipz said:

I love your aquascape! If you are planning to add a pistol shrimp and goby you might as well leave it to them to re-scape the sand as they see fit. I've always loved my pistol/goby pairs, but they have their own aesthetic opinions 🤷 I just bought one of these little tanks today so I can set up a separate tank for a tiger pistol that is causing too much chaos in it's current tank.

 

BTW, even though I currently I have a yasha/candy cane pair in another tank (and love the yasha), I am a sucker for the hi-fin gobies, like you. The black/white striping and yellow face are just so cute!

 

 

 

Thank you! I have been moving some of the rock around a bit, but am feeling pretty good about that side of things at the moment. Good point about the sand with a goby / shrimp combo, perhaps I introduce them first and let them have their way with the sand to see what happens.

 

And it really is, I love the coloration on them. They were also one of my first fish, we purchased a hi fin and candy cane pistol about 15 years ago when we first started with reef tanks. I haven't had one since, so I would love to enjoy that again!

[Reefkid88]

I think that would be a great combo for this tank honestly. 

 

 On a side note,I found a 10" rimless Aqueon cube locally for $10 I might snag,I guess the dude had a betta in it that died lol. Poor fella. 

[schgr.cube]

58 minutes ago, Reefkid88 said:

I think that would be a great combo for this tank honestly. 

 

 On a side note,I found a 10" rimless Aqueon cube locally for $10 I might snag,I guess the dude had a betta in it that died lol. Poor fella. 

 

Oh noooo, that is sad lol. I still have the old tank that I haven't returned yet, since I had already thrown away the packaging. I'm not sure if I can still return it without that, so if not perhaps a betta is in my future lmao.

 

But I wouldn't blame you for grabbing that, its a great tank for even the price I paid, but at $10 its a steal.

[Reefkid88]

Well,I meeeean you could always just sump this tank with that tank. Just saying 🤷‍♂️ !!! 

[schgr.cube]

On 6/7/2022 at 5:33 PM, Reefkid88 said:

Well,I meeeean you could always just sump this tank with that tank. Just saying 🤷‍♂️ !!! 

lol nah I’m good, that would require me to rethink my whole filtration method and I don’t know if I’m prepared to do that right now. 
 

 

Ended up returning the other two pumps and got an Aqamai KPS, which seems like a fantastic solution for my tank. It certainly takes me even further above my budget, but that’s what reef tanks are for. 
 

I also started my clean up crew today, grabbing some Astrea snails, a Nassarius, some Blue Legged Hermit Crabs, and a Green Mithrax Crab. They are going to order me a Hi-Fin Goby as well, which should be here next week I imagine. 

[Reefkid88]

Very true,always keep it as a frag tank in the future,or a QT ? Or stash it away until you need it its certainly small enough to lol. 

 

 Heck yeah,this is moving along nicely. I might actually get my tank wet this weekend and get the cycle going. Got the AIO section glued in,just need to make 1 or maybe 2 baffles for it and she is golden. 

 

 Just manually top it off until I order the ATO. 

[schgr.cube]

13 hours ago, Reefkid88 said:

Very true,always keep it as a frag tank in the future,or a QT ? Or stash it away until you need it its certainly small enough to lol. 

 

 Heck yeah,this is moving along nicely. I might actually get my tank wet this weekend and get the cycle going. Got the AIO section glued in,just need to make 1 or maybe 2 baffles for it and she is golden. 

 

 Just manually top it off until I order the ATO. 

 

 

Perhaps! I did go to Petco last night and it was right on the return line, but they had issues with their system and said if I come back tonight I can return it still, so I probably will just do that.

 

That is also where I got my Mithrax Crab, who I was hoping MIGHT go after the algae that I had but didn't have much confidence in. As I was looking at the algae, I realized it was not green hair algae, but it was most likely a form of bryopsis since I saw branching fern like strands. Either way, the Mithrax CRUSHED it overnight, and it appears to be 100% gone. I love Mithrax crabs!

[schgr.cube]

Picked up a cute little sharknose goby today, after going into my fourth shop and not being able to find a hi-fin goby. Everyone says they can order one, but don’t really know if they’ll get it and when. But I did decide I’d rather have 2-3 small gobies than a clown, so I’m going that route instead. 
 

Also picking up some free coral tomorrow, a few local club members have generously offered after I posted on my local forum asking to buy frags. 

[Reefkid88]

Oh snap,I am super envious right now !!! 

[chipz]

Super jealous! Shark nose gobies are my absolute favorite but I just caved and bought a plain old captive bred neon goby because I couldn't find a shark nose locally. I love the multiple small gobies idea, too. That's what I am doing in my 40gallon. Are you going to keep looking for the hi-fin, or choose different small gobies?

[schgr.cube]

On 6/12/2022 at 1:49 AM, Reefkid88 said:

Oh snap,I am super envious right now !!! 

 

On 6/12/2022 at 9:44 AM, chipz said:

Super jealous! Shark nose gobies are my absolute favorite but I just caved and bought a plain old captive bred neon goby because I couldn't find a shark nose locally. I love the multiple small gobies idea, too. That's what I am doing in my 40gallon. Are you going to keep looking for the hi-fin, or choose different small gobies?

 

lol I didn't realize sharnkose gobies were something to be envied! Granted, I have always loved them, but I feel like I seem them for sale often enough that I thought they were more of a staple in the nano-reef world.

 

I do plan on continuing looking for the hi-fin, as I really wanted to center the tank around that pairing, and then will see if I feel confident enough to add a third goby (either green banded or red headed).

 

 

I picked up a bunch of free frags last weekend, mostly zoas and palys with a few SPS, a ricordia, and some pulsing Xenia mixed in 😱 I'm not sure if I want to actually house Xenia in this tank, but my wife does love it so maybe I'll let it stay for now... I will also be picking up a few more frags possibly this weekend and some more at the beginning of July from two other local club members (well, one is also a member on here with some really killer tanks! @YHSublime)

 

This tank might be filling out a lot quicker than I anticipated, but I won't be mad about that!

[schgr.cube]

Picked up a nice little Rock Flower Anemone today, as well as some Nano Conch Snails (strombus maculatus) which I had in my previous tank and always loved them. I’ve always had a hard time finding them, but a local reefer has kept up breeding them for about 20 years. 
 

I know I should take some pictures of the additions I keep talking about, I’ll try to do that soon…

[schgr.cube]

Alright, I grabbed two quick shots since I hadn't actually taken any with anything inside of the tank, but I feel like I need to try a different lens with this camera for reef stuff. I used to shoot with my Nikon, and feel like I had way better results than I'm getting on my Canon.

 

Full tank shot with some of the inhabitants visible:

 

And a shot of the Rock Flower Anemone, which looks better in person than this lighting shows:

 

Picking up some more coral tomorrow, and may make a trip this weekend to grab some micro brittle stars and coral from another local reefer.

[Reefkid88]

Oh boy she is looking full already. Its gonna be good though. I see that Goby out front and center though !!! 

 

 I also liked my Canon for shoot over my Nikon,for some reason the senor seemef better for leds. 

[schgr.cube]

On 6/22/2022 at 5:52 PM, Reefkid88 said:

Oh boy she is looking full already. Its gonna be good though. I see that Goby out front and center though !!! 

 

 I also liked my Canon for shoot over my Nikon,for some reason the senor seemef better for leds. 

 

lol you have no idea.... I have acquired even more since that picture, most of which was free. I ended up cutting a few polyps off most of the zoas and glued them down to the rock on the left, and now need to find a home for the remaining frag plugs to clear my sand bed. This tank is going to be FULL before I know it.

 

I also may be getting a Fiji-12 sump for an absolute steal, and likely will purchase a glass overflow so I can sump this bad boy instead... I didn't plan on going this route, but it would be nice to get the ATO sensor out of the display...

[schgr.cube]

I know I just posted about possibly going the sumped route, but I wanted to get some ideas out there for feedback. If I go this route, I'm going to do a glass overflow, such as the VIV brand one, which includes the return line as well. Easy enough.

 

In an effort to keep things even cleaner than I have now, I am thinking about ditching the Aqamai wavemaker but keeping the glass lily pipes to make a closed loop wavemaker setup. Does anyone have any experience with any of the cheaper DC wavemaker pumps, such as the Jebao DCQ-3500 or the AQQA 800? IF either of these work well, it would really get me damn close to my ideal clean setup while not losing out on any functionality...

[Draco]

I bought the same tank today from Petco since it was on sale, and I noticed you cleaned up the silicone and it it looks great. How did you go about that? Did you basically reseal it, or trimmed the inside corners?

[schgr.cube]

15 hours ago, Draco said:

I bought the same tank today from Petco since it was on sale, and I noticed you cleaned up the silicone and it it looks great. How did you go about that? Did you basically reseal it, or trimmed the inside corners?

So I did that on the 3 gallon before I swapped to the 6, and decided not to do it on the 6 since I was a bit more afraid of the water volume being problematic. I just used a sharp razor blade and cut along the glass, then peeled the silicone bead away. I honestly should have run a smaller and cleaner silicone bead inside after cleaning everything up to avoid leaks, but I water tested for 48 hours without any issues...

[Draco]

5 minutes ago, schg said:

So I did that on the 3 gallon before I swapped to the 6, and decided not to do it on the 6 since I was a bit more afraid of the water volume being problematic. I just used a sharp razor blade and cut along the glass, then peeled the silicone bead away. I honestly should have run a smaller and cleaner silicone bead inside after cleaning everything up to avoid leaks, but I water tested for 48 hours without any issues...

Thanks for the reply! I was concerned about the stability of the seams if I'd trim away. Not sure if its a risk worth taking

[Reefkid88]

Thankfully my 6g cube the silicone seams were basically perfect. Just at the top where whom ever whipped the silicone gun away from was little whip tails I judt had to clean up. I would have moved to resilcioned mine in black. 

[schgr.cube]

4 hours ago, Draco said:

Thanks for the reply! I was concerned about the stability of the seams if I'd trim away. Not sure if its a risk worth taking

 

Of course! Yeah, I agree, it probably isn't worth it overall. I was just coming from an ADA aquarium as my previous rimless cube, so I was spoiled with better glass and silicone 😛

 

3 hours ago, Reefkid88 said:

Thankfully my 6g cube the silicone seams were basically perfect. Just at the top where whom ever whipped the silicone gun away from was little whip tails I judt had to clean up. I would have moved to resilcioned mine in black. 

 

Yeah this one I got is actually a lot better than the first one anyway, so I didn't really worry about it. I did clean up the top of each seam as well though!

[schgr.cube]

Starting to stock up:

 

I mentioned earlier that I have acquired a ton of stuff already, but I haven't really photographed much of it. I honestly need to figure out my photography with this tank, as I really just can't get things how I want them to be. I didn't try very hard here, but I think I may pick up a new lens soon for the reef stuff. I promise I can take decent photos, but usually only of my car!

 

 

Anyway, here are some tank shots:

 

Full tank shot as of today.

 

Bloodsuckers, unknown yellow zoas with orange skirt, and some various SPS up above

 

Two different type of GSP, going to make the more neon one more of a focus in the front left corner of the tank

 

Mummy Eye chalice

 

Baby Jawbreaker mushrooms, one is about the size of a nickel and the other is about half a dime

 

Unsure what these are, half are more green and half more yellow, they were next to some Pandoras but have no pink in the body

 

Pandoras, Utter Peace (maybe?), and Oxides

 

 

I will try to grab some actually decent photos soon, and will be clearing up my sandbed today by giving all the stuff I didn't want to glue down to a local reefer. Picking a bit more up this weekend as well.

 

One side note; I updated the first page of my thread to clean things up a bit, showcasing what was paid and when I acquired literally everything in this build. I plan to keep updating this, including maintenance costs, just to be a bit more up front about how much a tank of this size can cost and how much I am getting for free. I am not factoring in gas driving to get this free coral, which I probably should since it is so damn expensive right now! 😐

[Reefkid88]

Whew those new STI's look so damn good.