The great Canadian 9 gallon cube - Farewell - upgrade coming.

[Koleswrath]

It’s been a few weeks since my last post and we’ve got some “interesting” updates…I just got back from a weekend ski trip and a week long stint for work so the the tank only received top up water and food for 2+ weeks. 
It did not like that! When I came home I couldn’t see through the algae on the glass. It was almost spectacularly bad. I didn’t know if the corals were ok since I couldn’t see them very well from the top. There was some good growth of algae on the rocks and some dusting of brown in the sand.
It was obvious my meticulous maintenance couldn’t be maintained while I was gone (and I’m gone enough) so I decided I needed a less rigorous daily upkeep and an option for more drastic all at once cleaning.
I’m not going to say it but you know what’s coming….

This past weekend I had everything prepped for a good “rock scrub and sand rinse” (that’s what I’m calling this) and had a lovely morning dedicated to cleaning my reef. I gotta say it went great. I used a stainless steel brush to rid the rocks of algae (highly recommend) and rinsed a couple handfuls of sand at a time first a few times in a Tupperware container then once in a mesh strainer. I was very thorough! Sand went back in the tank; rocks went back in the tank; new saltwater was roughly dumped in the tank to see how my cleaning job held up and all I saw was crystal clear water without the slightest cloudiness. I was quite impressed with myself.

The tank looks brand new and everything seems to be doing great. Polyps were flapping in the current within an hour or two. 
I feel relieved that whatever happens in the future I have this deep clean in my toolkit.

I’ll get a current full tank shot after work today but here’s some shots from Saturday evening as the lights were going out.

 

 

I'm pretty proud of the water clarity - this pic was at 6:46pm on Saturday. I refilled the water after lunch at about 2:30pm. This is basically what it looked like when I refilled. "Laser cleaned".....lol.

 

 

[debbeach13]

Spotless!

[BioReefed]

23 hours ago, Koleswrath said:

It’s been a few weeks since my last post and we’ve got some “interesting” updates…I just got back from a weekend ski trip and a week long stint for work so the the tank only received top up water and food for 2+ weeks. 
It did not like that! When I came home I couldn’t see through the algae on the glass. It was almost spectacularly bad. I didn’t know if the corals were ok since I couldn’t see them very well from the top. There was some good growth of algae on the rocks and some dusting of brown in the sand.
It was obvious my meticulous maintenance couldn’t be maintained while I was gone (and I’m gone enough) so I decided I needed a less rigorous daily upkeep and an option for more drastic all at once cleaning.
I’m not going to say it but you know what’s coming….

This past weekend I had everything prepped for a good “rock scrub and sand rinse” (that’s what I’m calling this) and had a lovely morning dedicated to cleaning my reef. I gotta say it went great. I used a stainless steel brush to rid the rocks of algae (highly recommend) and rinsed a couple handfuls of sand at a time first a few times in a Tupperware container then once in a mesh strainer. I was very thorough! Sand went back in the tank; rocks went back in the tank; new saltwater was roughly dumped in the tank to see how my cleaning job held up and all I saw was crystal clear water without the slightest cloudiness. I was quite impressed with myself.

The tank looks brand new and everything seems to be doing great. Polyps were flapping in the current within an hour or two. 
I feel relieved that whatever happens in the future I have this deep clean in my toolkit.

I’ll get a current full tank shot after work today but here’s some shots from Saturday evening as the lights were going out.

 

 

I'm pretty proud of the water clarity - this pic was at 6:46pm on Saturday. I refilled the water after lunch at about 2:30pm. This is basically what it looked like when I refilled. "Laser cleaned".....lol.

 

 

what other corals are you planning to add next?

[Koleswrath]

28 minutes ago, BioReefed said:

what other corals are you planning to add next?

I was thinking some type of blue Tortuosa like an Oregon Tort or Cali Tort, some kind of vivid orange Zoanthids to contrast with the Blue Hornets and then maybe start looking for a showcase coral and that might be it. I really wanted an Orange plating Montipora but I think it might grow too fast for the size of the tank and block my glass scraping ability. Then again, New Dawn Aquaculture is opening up a store front very soon 3 minutes from my house so I might be trying to squeeze a few more in here and there.

Recommendations are always appreciated!

 

[Lebowski_]

Looks very healthy, nice

[BioReefed]

22 hours ago, Koleswrath said:

I was thinking some type of blue Tortuosa like an Oregon Tort or Cali Tort, some kind of vivid orange Zoanthids to contrast with the Blue Hornets and then maybe start looking for a showcase coral and that might be it. I really wanted an Orange plating Montipora but I think it might grow too fast for the size of the tank and block my glass scraping ability. Then again, New Dawn Aquaculture is opening up a store front very soon 3 minutes from my house so I might be trying to squeeze a few more in here and there.

Recommendations are always appreciated!

 

I'm on the same boat right now, I want something blue, but I don't think the stock lights of my 16G Biocube are enough for a blue tortuosa. I did got an orange plating montipora though , I think you should get it too, you can make it smaller if it happens to get too big. It will give your tank a nice look. You have more options since you have better lights.

Tank is looking great.

[Koleswrath]

Thanks! Very much appreciated. I’ll keep an eye out for the orange Monti. 😊

[brandon429]

That's shocking clean it looks brand new, well done 🙂

[Koleswrath]

44 minutes ago, brandon429 said:

That's shocking clean it looks brand new, well done 🙂

That’s high praise! Appreciate your contribution to the community. This wasn’t something I could do for my last tank in 2013 otherwise I might still have that one. 

[Koleswrath]

Update pics after rip clean one week ago: 

Everything is doing better than ever!

[Fish out of Water]

Do you use Microbactor Clean? I think it was you. What is your regiment for it? I have been dealing with similar issues. 

[Koleswrath]

I did until a few weeks ago ya. I was dosing about 1ml each day (tank is 7 gallons of water) . It lowered PO4 and NO3 which I had to dose to keep above zero which I guess is the point of the bacteria. It requires constant dosing which I’m not going to be able to keep up with when I’m away from home for a week or two at a time. So I have a big bottle sitting here doing nothing.

[Koleswrath]

1 month update after rip clean. Tank has been running almost 5 months.

Back to dosing Aminos twice a week and haven’t seen any sign of the dreaded Dino’s.

Coralline is exploding!

It sucked down my Alk a bit and the Green Slimer didn’t like it. I also dropped it on the floor which may have contributed to its displeasure. I think it’s starting to come back though. Fingers crossed.

I’m really enjoying the colours from the coralline. Time to start buying more corals!
Also need to start increasing the light intensity from the “LPS levels” I started with. Might start 5% a week. Wonder if that’s too much.

FTS April 29, 2023

 

 

[Koleswrath]

Water change day! Tank is sparkling. Very happy with the feeding and maintenance routine and corresponding steady PO4 levels. Coral colors are slowly improving as I ramp up the lights to more SPS appropriate levels. Zoanthids are showing better colors as well.  Not sure if that’s from light or the steady input of food.

Going to add some new Zoa’s in the next week or so. 
Got a FTS snap from my phone here. Really have to make the time to pull the Canon 7D out and take some RAW shots.

 

 

Happy Saturday, GO OILERS!!!!

 

[Koleswrath]

Pineapple sponge!! 

 

Zoa’s showing their colors 

[Koleswrath]

5 month tank Bday!  🥳🎁🎂

Full tank shot to celebrate.

We’re back on Aminos and you can actually see a bit of improvement since the last FTS. I guess that could be the slow ramp up in light as well. Up to about 85% of my target intensity on the Prime.

Tank is doing really well. So well in fact I had to start dosing 2 part to help the Kalkwasser out. 2ml of Calcium chloride and 2ml of Sodium carbonate twice a day. Lol… don’t think I need any dosing pumps yet.

And just because it’s May long weekend I threw in some pond shots!

 

[ml86743]

Looking awesome!

[Koleswrath]

Haven't updated this one in a while.🥺

I've been working on upgrading this little cube to a slightly larger 23 x 12 x 14 Waterbox I picked up that will allow me to install a ghost overflow and run to a sump behind the wall. I've come to realize that keeping alkalinity or even nutrients stable and under control while I'm away for work or holidays is impossible since I manually dose and only have 7 gallons of water. 

 

A benefit of such a small water volume is seeing the effects from changes so quickly and being able to put cause and effect together to gain a deeper understanding of the system. As an example, I had a consistent daily schedule from the end of March to the end of June where I was able to dose Alk everyday like clockwork and test everything regularly. I was also growing and dosing phyto and everything was thriving. Maintaining this stability spurred a bit of coral growth but what really took off was the coralline. Eventually I had to slowly increase my daily dose just to keep up with consumption from the coralline. Then we took a week of holidays......the tank got nothing but food for about 6 days. You know, nothing devastating but a good bunch of the coralline turned paler pink, the corals were retracted, etc. The next 3 weeks were spent getting things back in the groove, changing water, trying to get alk back up from the 6.5 or wherever it fell to, etc. Then we had another camping trip booked........needless to say the tank suffered with this up and down schedule of maintenance and dosing.

The biggest change by far was stopping phytoplankon dosing abruptly. I had a large population of pineapple sponges that were obviously a big consumer of the phyto I was feeding everyday. Once they didn't have the influx of daily food they started to wither and die and slowly rot. This fueled an algae bloom which I was late getting on top of and it got a little out of control. 

 

So summer ended and we're back into a steady schedule where I can give the tank a little attention every day. I've been picking algae (pretty sure its a species of Bryopsis) out every day for a few weeks now and it's looking much better, the corals are starting to grow again, a beautiful blue purple coralline is growing where the pink receded. I siphoned half of the sand bed out for a good rinse and that gave me the biggest positive results so far. All those dead sponges falling off the rock had to land somewhere if the filter missed them. I'll rinse the other half this weekend.

 

I can't emphasize enough the satisfaction I get from rinsing sand over and over until there's not the slightest haze in the rinse water when stirring it up and letting it fall like a snow globe. Now, I'm a big fan of siphoning sand during water changes where you can see the cloud of waste being removed, BUT... even with religious gravel vac'ing every week I'm still amazed at the sheer amount of crap continuously coming free of the sand while performing a rinse. You think you're on the last rinse but you scrub the sand together with your hands until the water clouds up again and decide you're not yet done. I like to picture in my head the microscopic image of the bound phosphate and organics on the sand particles literally being sandblasted against each other and then rinsed away down the drain. And adding the sand back to the tank after.....pure snow globe bliss!   

 

Anyways, I'll transition my journal to the upgraded tank and sump being made here>>> 

 

.....and end this one with some of my favorite pictures from the summer:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Koleswrath]

Last tank shots before transferring to the new build. Here’s hoping the thought and planning that went into the new system pays off with less maintenance and more stability!

Cheers,

Greg