Chris's Cube

[winschuc]

Hello,

Ive been in and out of reef keeping for around three years now, kept freshwater for a few years before that. My first tank was an Innovative Marine 16. Needless to say, I didn't heed the warnings about going with a nano for my first tank. All I can say is that coral looks better as coral, not miniature hair algae bonsai trees, though they were fun to trim...

In late January of this year I was fortunate enough to find a great deal on a used cube tank. Dimensions are 28x28x30H. Over the course of a month or so, I resealed the entire tank, scraped and repainted two sides and repainted/resealed the stand. I finally got the tank wet on 4/1 (no seriously) and it's been great ever since!

Current equipment:

Tank (obviously)
20G Sump (DIY, two compartments)
Skimz SK181 internal skimmer
2x WP40
BRS 2-part with dosing pumps
BRS media reactor - carbon
Mag 7 return
Reef angel controller
Steve's LED's 24" retrofit w/ Extreme SPS, full spectrum w/ typhon controller.

Livestock:
Melanarus Wrasse (R.I.P)
One Spot Foxface
Kole Tang
YWG
1 Oscallaris, 1 Clarkii
Six line
Blue Tang
3 blue/green chromis
banded serpent star (about 7" across)
hairy brittle star (about 7/8" across)
RBTA 4-6"
various polyps, Acros, setosa, hollywood stunner, frogspawn, undata, monti cap.

 

[Gasturbineguy]

Nice details... but man... (2) WP40s in there? That's some flow lol... any sand storm issues?

And cool you have a Reef Angel. I keep eyeballing those. I like the idea of open source. Been trying to transition from industrial PLCs to Arduino but the programing is so very different.

 

[winschuc]

yeah, I keep them at different angles. One is usually on the medium setting while the other is on else. It keeps random flow through the scape while pushing detritus toward the overflow.

I honestly love my RA. It's super easy to use and the community over on the forums is extremely helpful. Affordability + expandability + a couple hundred people running customer support 24/7.... cant beat it. The other good thing is that you can use the wizard to generate your first set of code, then tweak it in the arduino file afterward.

 

[DianaKay]

Cheers for starting a tank thread Chris! Most use photobucket to host/post pictures (easy & free to use).
Looking forward to seeing your tank pictures

 

[winschuc]

Couple pics to start... I'll get updated ones up a little later this week.

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[winschuc]

 

[winschuc]

Sorry for the poor, misleading pics. Using the iPhone. The acro colony, monti, chalice and zoo colonies are actually the size of my fist, just haven't figured out how to capture that in a pic yet.

Otherwise, just a few days under the Steve's LEDs and I'm starting to see some new coloration. Had an acro frag that was pure green turning a nice purple, and my rbta is showing its green base tentacles again. Can't wait until the acclimation is done!

 

[Gasturbineguy]

Umm... no other way to say this.... I like your rack. Seriously... where ya get that frag rack?

 

[winschuc]

Ha!
Thrive Frag rack. 15-20$ on amazon. It doesn't hold very well though. Going to have to glue magnets to it in the near future.

 

[Gasturbineguy]

Ha!
Thrive Frag rack. 15-20$ on amazon. It doesn't hold very well though. Going to have to glue magnets to it in the near future.

Cool... thanks for the info Winschuc! I agree.. magnets would make that a very viable frag rack.

 

[winschuc]

Picked up a piece of cyphastrea today (couldn't resist). Purple base with bright orange polyps. Also traded a piece of Hollywood stunner for a 4" frag of blue tort.

The tort is a bit faded due to the previous owner changing their lighting, but I'm hoping it colors up quickly.

I also wired up the typhon to my LEDs. The sunrise/set function is freaking awesome!!!

 

[winschuc]

Cyphastrea.

 

[winschuc]

Received my order from Unique Corals today. Honestly, I'm will do my damnedest to only buy pieces there going forward. Beautiful (large) frags. Perfect coloration. Great packaging and communication.

 

[winschuc]

To show a little size in these pieces.

 

[Kremlin]

I have a huge hollywood stunner in my tank, too. its small plate sized.ive already fragged it several times

 

[goma]

Nice! Those are huge frags.

 

[winschuc]

Yeah, split my stunner in half once already. Traded half of it for a 4" blue tort and gave the other to my neighbors grandson. Figured he'd make use of it (and I can only imagine how hard it is for a 9 year old to get ahold of frags).

About the unique corals order, nothing but impressed. Best order I've ever received from an online vendor. And yes, the frags are huge. Way bigger than I thought they would be.

 

[winschuc]

Been a while since I updated this. Over the past month or two I've lost a few pieces of coral. Nothing that isn't easily fixed though. Should have know that going into busy season I wouldn't have a lot of time to focus on maintenance.


I did just pick up a new addition though, sebae nem! So far all is well. Looking forward to a great year and watching my tank continue to grow.

 

[winschuc]