Pretty Much Sold on Biocube 29

[JeffreyLebowski]

What do you have hooked up to the auto top off...like where is the top-off water coming from? I have been thinking about getting a 5.5 gallon take or something because I don't have an R/O unit and I use bottled R/O water. Looks like I'm gonna have to get another koralio or something for the left side of the tank, having some cyano issues

 

[Fishhead Junkie]

Oh, I don't have any kind of ATO unit. I'm strictly a once a week water change dude. As long as I keep the back door closed in the hood, there isn't much evaporation and when it does look a little low, I just pour in a few ounces of RO water from my jug-o-RO/DI.

I started to get a patch of cyano on the left side front area, I just angled the K-1 a little more down and got me a diamond goby. It's a trade off, I haven't seen a single spec of cyano on the sand bed, stuff looks sparkling clean, the bad part is I have to watch my corals don't get too buried. It's worth it though.

Steve

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

ooh sorry I was thinking of someone else . The Tunze doesn't allow me to close the back door, so that is where the evaporation comes from

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

anyone have any suggestions for frag rack aside from my target or whatever soap dish? Though my algae blenny LOVES it as a home, the suction cups don't SUCK enough and it keeps falling. I saw mag-racks which look cool, but I don't feel like spending that much money on it right now. Eggcrate seems cool its just how do i prop it up?

 

[Jeremy0322]

I had a crappy mag cleaner, and i ended up going out, buying another crappy mag cleaner, and then using super glue to secure a piece of eggcrate to them. With me having one of the mag-cleaners already it cost me a total of 6 dollars and is the exact same thing, but not nearly as pretty

 

[Fishhead Junkie]

anyone have any suggestions for frag rack aside from my target or whatever soap dish? Though my algae blenny LOVES it as a home, the suction cups don't SUCK enough and it keeps falling. I saw mag-racks which look cool, but I don't feel like spending that much money on it right now. Eggcrate seems cool its just how do i prop it up?

Your suction cups aren't holding? I guess I don't have a ton of weight in mine--probably have 6 or more frags in it, but I haven't touched it in over 2 weeks since I stuck it in the tank. I've even bumped it a couple times with my arm and it just moved a bit but never let go.

My first choice would of been using the mag floats with some egg crate epoxied to it but the mag floats cost too much. By the time you buy a decent sized mag float, some epoxy and some egg crate, you are already in the $20-$30 range, and the soap dish only costed $3.

Steve

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

I think I need to just get a new soap dish...I had it in the tank initially with chaeto and then took it out for a while and then put it back in...I think the suction cups kinda went..bad lol... I only have like 3 frags in there!~

 

[Fishhead Junkie]

Just drive over to Michigan, I'll give you the extra $3 soapdish I bought..gas is only $1.60 right now...it will be ok!!

Steve

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

sounds like a plan Steve . Gas by me is down to like $2.10 which in this area of NY is like a miracle. At any rate, I just ordered a bunch of snails from reefcleaners and hoping they can help out big time. I am intrigued by the diamond goby...did it eat cyano? I saw a pair of baby sand-sifting gobies at a local PetCo just not sure which they were, and they ended up not being there another visit later.

 

[Fishhead Junkie]

I don't think it so much eats the cyano, but he just keeps churning up the sand bed so nothing has a chance to collect anywhere. That little dude is constantly sifting the sand, he's like an addict...never ever stops for more than a minute or so.

The downside though is he covers some of the ground corals, so things like plate corals or other things like that will definitely get covered up. At least with the diamond gobies they stick to the floor area most of the time, I had a banded goby that would grab a mouthful and raise up higher into the tank and then sift...stuff everywhere was getting covered.

I definitely recommend a small diamond goby...the yellow watchmen gobies with their pistol shrimp buddy sift a little bit but nothing compared to the diamonds. At least my yellow dudes don't do much, maybe they are just retarded.

Steve

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Got a full API kit finally on Black Friday (I had a few Salifert kits for other tests)....and finally got to test my Calcium/Carbonate/Phosphates which I had been curious of. Thankfully my phosphates is 0....the calcium seems far too low though...we are talking like 60PPM...carbonate isn't as bad its around 125PPM. Any suggestions on safe way to boost the calcium level?

 

[Fishhead Junkie]

Nope, you are decades ahead of me. You are the sensei nano cube master..I am just a grasshopper.

Steve

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Decided to take a couple (as in two) pics today. Have a sand-sifting goby in there now...not sure exactly which type he is...fully white body with the blue iridescent dots on the side of his face...you can see a little bit of him in his cave underneath the duncan
Front

Side

 

[Fishhead Junkie]

Your tank is looking great. That goby will keep your sand nice and clean, good addition to any tank, except for the occasional coral that gets a little covered.. What's your coral list look like?

My tank needs a tune up, not looking that great. I had to yank out alot of rock and corals to catch that blue hippo last weekend, made quite a nice profit selling him. I just haven't been in the mood to really rearrange the live rock again, I just tossed it back in and made sure the corals wouldn't get damaged. Now, my actinic bulb isn't working so the tank color looks like crap and the corals aren't getting their usual lighting so they look like crap too.

I got a free 8gallon bio cube, so I stole a bunch of corals from my tank and threw them in. I need to get the hair algae under control but other than that, it looks nice. I gotta take some pics of it soon.

Steve

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

The blue hippo...I see them in like every store and am so sad I can't have one in here . The free biocube sounds like a great little surprise! As far as lighting goes, I replaced my 10K bulb and put it on a timer like the rest of them, but noticed a flare-up of cyano so I decided to stick with the actinics and 50/50 as everything seemed to be growing OK under them...giving the 10K another shot this weekend as I think some of the hard corals would prefer it.
Here is my stock list...the corals I get from here and there so I rarely know what kind of zoa, etc they are hahaa.
Fishies
- 1 Baby Picasso Clown
- 1 Baby Misbar Percula Clown
- 1 Algae/Lawn Mower Blenny
- 1 White Sand-Sifting Goby
- 2 Bengaii Cardinal Fish
Inverts
- 1 Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
- 1 Peppermint Shrimp
Corals, etc
- Blue and Green Palys
- Green Clove Polyps
- Pink Pumping Xenia
- Neon Green Palau
- Aussie Duncan
- Green Star Polyps
- Gorilla Nipple Zoos
- Different types of eagle eye and casino chip zoas (green and orange and such colors)
- Pink zoas
- Leather Toadstool Coral
.... And then there are the things that I'm pretty much just testing in the frag soap dish... frags of purple acro, and some sort of orange hard coral and green hard coral...birdsnest? who knows whew..I'm addicted to frags.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

I figured since the coralline finally started growing in big time, I should post some pics...FTS coming eventually
Neon Green Palau Nepthea (under actinics)

My Aussie Duncan that I bought with one head :-D

Toadstool Leather Coral (sarcophyton)

My sand-sifting buddy the blue dot sleeper goby

Eagle Eyes Zoas (I think...under actinics)

Orange Zoos or something that look reddish under actinics

My fun and camouflaged lawn mower blenny

My new Aussie Acans

 

[yungreefer2410]

very nice i love your "cube"

 

[Fishhead Junkie]

Nice looking tank Jeff.

You are never gonna believe this but unfortunately due to these hard times and the unforeseeable future ahead, I'm getting ready to post my entire setup for sale either tomorrow or sometime next week while I am on a forced vacation. I finally get the tank really looking nice and this happens...damn the man!!! I even stopped doing water changes, which made stuff start to grow even more, sorta funny.

Enjoy that tank of yours, its really come a long way. I've enjoyed the last 2 years with my tank, maybe one day I can start another one. Wish me luck on making some big bucks selling it off.

Steve

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Ah Steve, that is terrible to hear. It is getting ridiculous out there, but hopefully things will slowly turn around. I have cut down on spending as far as the tank goes and have been helped by (unfortunately) already reaching my max capacity with bioload...also running out of surface area for frags...so just cutting down... in the end, i'm in the music biz so it hasn't been stable times for a while, so I will try and stick with what I have for now, but man I am addicted to frags

 

[Fishhead Junkie]

If you lived closer, I'd throw a few of my corals your way for free. I don't have alot of expensive ones but I've got some nice ones. I'll check up on your progress from time to time.