My AIO Cube

[sillysidewinder]

So it's been about a year since I had my last reef tank which was an 18" x 18" x 18" cube. I finally got my new tank up and running in the past couple of weeks and it's really starting to come together. I got a 16" x 16" x 9" AIO cube tank made by CustomKing. I am really pleased with it so far, he did a great job building this tank for me in a short period of time.

Since this tank is so much smaller than my previous tank I will have less, but more desirable livestock. I am a big fan of LPS corals, so that's what it will be for the foreseeable future. For the next couple of months, I will probably start to collect various corals such as hammers, acans, zooanthids, mushrooms, just relatively simple stuff to get back in the hang of things. No need to jump into the harder stuff right away.

I have had the water and rock circulating in a bin for about 3 months prior to this tank being set up. My parameters are as follows:

Alk: 6.1 dKh
Cal: 250 ppm (Both Alk. and Calcium are pretty low right now, So I've dosed both parts 15 mL)
pH: 8.4
Mag: 1250 ppm
Amm: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 0 ppm

As for fish/inverts, I have a nice clown being held for me by Prattreef that I will pick up this week. I might eventually get another small fish to house with it, but not right away. I will also eventually get a small cleaner shrimp, and possibly another small invertebrate. I picked up a small CUC the other day from Coral Theory in Brooklyn. I got 3 small hermits and 3 medium sized Nassarius snails. I have about 25 lbs of live rock in there as well.

For equipment I am going to keep it really simple for this. I find there is no need to over-complicate things in this hobby, especially with equipment. I have one Evil Par38 light that I used on my last tank. I was really surprised how well it spread over the tank. I forget which optics this light has in it, but it looks great over this tank. As of right now, in the back chamber I only have a small skimmer running. I am going to put a bag of carbon either today or tomorrow, we'll see how much I get done today.

Here are some photos thus far:

Acclimating the CUC

The skimmer section

Evil Par38 20K. Also, a mini fan I picked up from Target to combat over-heating. It's actually worked really well!

The first coral!

And it's opened!

 

[sillysidewinder]

It's been about 6 weeks since my first post. Hopefully I get some comments on here so I'm not talking to myself! Just got done testing my water, levels are as follows:

pH: 8.0
kH: 7.4
Ca: 300
Mag: 1350
Amm: 0
Nitrite: 0
Phosphate: 0

Here are some updated pictures. This tank is going to be completely LPS corals. As of now I have in there:

various acans
hammer coral
frogspawn
various zoos
mushrooms
lobophylia

clownfish
cleaner shrimp
nassarius snails
small hermits

Sorry about the crappy photos, I will hopefully have my camera charger this week so that I can get some real pictures.

 

[nanoreefer22]

Looking good so far bro!

 

[al0ha]

very nice, i like the hammer and frogspawn, wat kind is the hammer?

 

[Oholic]

O wow I actually have a similar tank made by jeff mines measures 20x20x16.... gotta post pix soon! Keep up the progress!

 

[prattreef]

It looks very nice Josh. My only comment is that both Alk. and Ca are a bit low. How are you supplementing? 2 -Part? If so, you need to up your additions. The good news is they seem to be in balance.

 

[sillysidewinder]

very nice, i like the hammer and frogspawn, wat kind is the hammer?

Not sure what kind of hammer it is, I got it from Coral Theory a few weeks ago. I'm not a huge fan of the frogspawn coral. It's the first one I've ever had, to me it just looks like a deformed hammer. hahhaha

O wow I actually have a similar tank made by jeff mines measures 20x20x16.... gotta post pix soon! Keep up the progress!

I love this tank, he did a really great job. And in such a short amount of time. I was scared of getting an acrylic tank for fear of scratches, but it has been great so far. I've just been super careful about not scratching it.

It looks very nice Josh. My only comment is that both Alk. and Ca are a bit low. How are you supplementing? 2 -Part? If so, you need to up your additions. The good news is they seem to be in balance.

Thanks Randy. I haven't been dosing on a daily basis, but rather on a weekly basis when I test all my parameters. It usually amounts to around 15 mg of both alk and cal. Any suggestions on how to find the right amount to dose on a daily basis. I know my tank could really benefit from dosing more regularly.

 

[prattreef]

The only way to find out is to dose and test several days in a row. If your system is now receiving 15ml weekly, I'd up the dose to 20 ml. and see where that gets you. Then I would test every other day and see how much the levels have dropped. Then you can figure out how much you need to add every other day to maintain levels where you want them. Dosing once a week is really not the best idea.

 

[HanKami]

nice setup

 

[sillysidewinder]

Thanks Nyeyce.

So I tested yesterday with the above results. I then dosed 15 mL of both Alk. and Cal. From now on for the rest of the week I will be testing Alk. and Cal. every 2 days and will report back with my results. Thanks for all the help.

 

[sillysidewinder]

So I just did a follow-up test of Alkalinity and Calcium. To recap my levels 3 days ago were:

10/2/12
Alk: 7.4 dKh
Cal: 300

Dosed 15 mL of both

10/5/12
Alk: 9.3
Cal: 325

Dosed 15 mL of calcium.

 

[Oholic]

any updates?

 

[sillysidewinder]

Here's a photo I just took with my iPhone. Doesn't quite do it justice, but you know how it is. Everything has been good with the tank. Haven't quite figured out how much to dose alk/mag/cal. i keep forgetting to test every other day. haha. I'm loving the 1 gallon water changes, so much easier. Although I just saw an old photo of my previous tank, and realize now that I've got some work to do.

Anyways, here's a photo from today.

Here's a photo of my old tank. I miss it

 

[tosiek]

Tank looks great! And it'll get there. don't worry.

 

[sillysidewinder]

Finally got a chance to take a few photos.

 

[xxxAngeloxxx]

Any updates?

 

[Oholic]

+1