Biokabe's Post-Apocalyptic Biocube

[Biokabe]

I've been semi-lurking for a while now, but finally decided to be brave and post my own tank thread!

 

FTS 1/13/2014:

 

The tank has been up and running for almost five years now. I'll share some of its history - and the reason for its name - in my next post.

 

Current Tank:

 

My tank is a heavily-modded BC29. I originally bought one thinking that I was saving money, but in the end I've probably spent more modding it than if I had built a similar tank from scratch. C'est la vie!

 

Equipment:

 

Tank: Hoodless BC29 with a custom-cut polycarbonate cover, InTank Fish Saver mounted over the rear chambers

 

Chamber 1:

AquaticLife 115 Protein Skimmer

 

Chamber 2:

InTank Media Basket w/ floss, Purigen and ChemiPure Elite

InTank Refugium Basket w/ chaeto

Finnex FugeRay (12”) mounted to the back wall after scraping the paint

 

Chamber 3:

MJ1200 return pump

Eheim 75W heater

 

Heater: Eheim 75W

Circulation: MJ1200 return pump + MP10 for in-tank circulation

Filtration: InTank Media Basket + Holy Trinity (floss, Purigen, CPE)

Skimmer: AquaticLife 115

 

Display Circulation:

Vortech MP10

 

Lighting:

DIY LED array (see here for full build)

• 
  

  Bridgelux 3W, 10 neutral white, 12 royal blue, 2 blue, 4 UV, 2 deep red, 2 turquoise

• 
  

  3 Inventronics 40w drivers

• 
  

  Dim4 Sunrise/Sunset Controller

 

 

 

Refractometer:

Milwaukee Instruments MA887 Seawater Refractometer

 

Current Livestock:

 

Fish:

I never really believed in naming my fish; their nicknames were always some derivation from their “official” names, if I didn't just call them by the official name to begin with. After the tank crashed and the blenny somehow survived, though, I felt that he needed a name to suitably reflect his miraculous survival. My wife and I had recently gotten hooked on a certain very popular British sci-fi show, so with that in mind, my fish are:

 

The Doctor (Flametail blenny)

Rose (Elongate dottyback)

Donna (Royal Gramma)

and the latest addition, Someone the Pink Skunk Clownfish (still trying to settle on a name, might wait until he's been in the tank a little longer).

 

The Doctor-Donna

 

Rose is shy.

 

The new guy.

 

Corals:

 

Pink panther palythoas

Orange ricordia

Green and brown platygyra

 

Tricolor Acropora valida (green, purple, cream)

 

Panape birdsnest

 

Purple cespitularia

Pink/green trachyphilia

 

Green finger leather

Green/Yellow Zoas

 

Unnamed SPS, maybe a bird's nest of some kind? LFS didn't know

Red/Orange Zoas

 

Green candy canes

 

Frogspawn

Unnamed acropora (orange polyps)

 

Blue/Cream/Green Acan

Orange/Cream/Red Acan

 

Firefly chalice

 

Green/blue plating montipora (recovering)

Purple polyp seriatopora (recovering)

Pink poccilopora (recovering – all three of these suffered pretty bad during a red slime outbreak)

 

 

 

Other invertebrates:

Various astrea and cerith snails

1x Tongan nassarius snail

Various random hitchhiker (tiny) snails

A healthy population of small brittle star hitchhikers

4-5 Berghia nudibranches

Way too many aiptasia!

 

Former inhabitants, RIP:

 

Fish:

Firefish

Royal Gramma

Rainfordi Goby

Green Clown Goby

Pearly Jawfish

Randall's Shrimp Goby

Purple Firefish

Pygmy Cherub Angel

 

Corals (Current build only... too depressing to think about all the previous ones!):

Turquoise acropora

Orange encrusting pavona

Emerald eye alveopora

 

So, that's where the tank stands now – if you made it this far, thank you for reading! It's a five-year old tank that's been given a new lease on life, with a lot of room to grow. Stay tuned for future updates as I try to eradicate the aiptasia, cover every square inch of the tank with corals, and try to make a tank worthy of your time.

[Biokabe]

Growing up, my dad had a 55g cichlid tank that I was always begging him to turn into a saltwater tank. Finally, about five years ago, I finally had the chance to start a tank of my own. I'd originally wanted an octopus tank, but after doing a little more research I decided to go with a nanoreef. After calculating my budget and looking at the available options, I finally picked up a Biocube 29.

 

The contents of the tank changed over the years as my tastes and knowledge grew. I started off with a pair of fish, a royal gramma and a firefish. The fish population changed, and eventually included a suicidal jawfish who traumatized my wife, a clown goby who promptly got lost in the rockwork and was never seen again, and a purple firefish that was murdered by a merciless aiptasia.

 

Before LEDs

 

I've never been completely happy with the capabilities of the Biocube, and I've tinkered with it endlessly. About two years ago, I was finally able to do a lighting upgrade. I ditched the top and made an LED fixture to hang over the tank. The tank inhabitants rejoiced, and the corals responded with rampant growth and stunning colors that the old PCs could never bring out. My duncan, which had stubbornly remained a single-headed duncan since I first brought it in six months before, sprouted six new heads within two months. My seriatopora grew from a two-inch frag into a softball-sized colony, which I eventually fragged and sold to my LFS. I watched with pride as the frags left the coral tank one by one.

 

After LEDs, three months later

 

However, last June, disaster struck. My youngest sister was getting married, so my wife and I left town to attend. When we came back, everything looked fine. Unfortunately, there was a ticking time bomb in the tank... the thermostat on the heater broke the night that we came home.

 

By the time I got home from work the next day, the water was cloudy and the water temperature was about 102. I tried what I could to cool the tank. I set up a fan directly above the water. I filled a 5-gallon bucket with ice, and used that to cool the water (scoop the water out in a ½ gallon bucket, place the bucket in the ice for 10-15 minutes, pour the water back in).

 

Unfortunately, though, the damage had been done. Whether it was the searing heat itself, or the toxic stew that resulted from the heat, I lost nearly everything. Some of it didn't hurt – I was happy to finally get rid of my mat of GSP that was threatening to take over everything. The aiptasia population plummeted. That was the extent of the good news. With the exception of one fish, everything that I liked about the tank was dead. My duncan coral – one of the first corals that I'd picked up – became an empty skeleton. My green bird's nest coral became a bleached-white desk ornament. My two ricordeas melted away. I found my pygmy cherub angel resting beneath several rocks, very obviously a metaphysical angel now. It was a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

 

Had my flametail blenny not survived the hot breath of hell, I might have packed it in right then. Somehow, though, he managed to survive both the firestorm and the full cycle that came after that. There was a massive die-off, and all of the Bad Things spiked in ways they never even did during my initial cycle. At one point, ammonia was over 8 ppm and nitrates were over 100.

 

I scraped the dead corals off the rocks, removed the dead skeletons from the tank, and removed the corpses of the fallen. My Bucket of Death, previously the dumping ground for unwanted algae, held my once-proud corals.

 

If there was a silver lining, the tank crash gave me the chance to start over almost fresh. I took the chance to re-scape my tank, removing some of the excess rock and creating more swimming room for the fish while also offering more spots to place corals.

 

Since then, I've brought in some new companions for the Doctor, started rebuilding my coral collection, and proven entirely too skilled at cultivating aiptasia. So, that's where we are now, and that's how we got here. If you got this far, thanks for reading!

[Biokabe]

You need some of these guys to take care of your Zerg problem...

A couple of firebats would probably clear that aiptasia infection right up...

[Azedenkae]

Lol, I like how you told the story. Sorry to hear that your tank crashed of course, but glad that it is bouncing back!

[Biokabe]

Thanks! Still a long way to go before it gets that lush look back, but it's on the way, at least! I'm glad to have the crash behind me though, and so happy to not have the xenia or the GSP colonies anymore... got some money out of the xenia, but it wasn't really worth it. The cespitularia could probably do the same thing, but I've been better about controlling its growth than I was with my xenia colony.

[Biokabe]

I added the skunk clown to the tank last Sunday, and after a week he seems to be really settling in. There's a part of me that wishes I'd picked up another skunk clown to go with him, but it's probably best that I didn't. The gramma seems to be occassionally unhappy to be sharing space with the clown, but nothing too bad so far. The clown spent a lot of time in the top right corner the first couple of days, but he's started exploring more. Today I caught him surfing in the current from the MP10. My anti-clown prejudices are over... though I don't think I could ever keep a Nemo.

 

My wife was upset with the clown the first night he was home, though. The clown was her birthday present to me, but she went over to the tank after the lights were off, only to see him swimming on his side! A quick google confirmed my suspicion that it was just a weird clownfish behavior, but she was convinced that he was dead. I had to turn off the pumps and let her see him swimming around under his own power before she could be satisfied that he wasn't swimming with the fishes. Or was, in his case.