30g Cube Build

papagimp

papagimp

COMAS Rocks!
So a buddy of mine from work innocently asked about the possibility of getting a fish tank for his little girls 1st birthday. Well, ya'll know it goes from their. Spreading our addiction to as many as we can. He picked out the size tank he wanted to work with and I tossed in some semi-cured rock and we're off! Plans so far is a simple clownfish tank. Only the pair, maybe a shrimp, some simple/easier beginner yet nice corals. Heres the current picture, just after his first water change. Still mid-cycle but that'll be gone soon enough.

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We'll be adding a couple Koralia #1's in the next few days hopefully. The aquaclear powerhead will go to the saltmix bucket and the HOB will probably stick around for a smidge until we figure out the sump situation. Tempered tank, so no drilling. Probably will go with the ol' external HOB overflow box. I've explained the risks and I probably still have an Eshoppes single overflow laying around somewhere if we do go that route.

Should have seen the excitement on his, his wife's, and the 11 month olds face when the water and rock was in, and lights flipped on for first time. I remember those good ol' days with the first fish tank when I knew absolutely nothing except the fish went in the water. Good Times!
 
I really like the lighting on this tank. What did he decide on? I love the look of cubes, but I wouldn't have anywhere to put one.
 
My biocube 8 started as my daughters 5th birthday present. She wanted Nemo for her birthday, so I got her Nemo... and a mate... and a cleaner shrimp... and YWG... and a clam... and a cool CUC... and a lot of different coral. :) now what should have been a Nemo turned into (what I think is) a nice little set up. LOL now planning another bigger tank! Very addicting!

Sent from my HTC Liberty using Tapatalk
 
KDC said:
I really like the lighting on this tank. What did he decide on? I love the look of cubes, but I wouldn't have anywhere to put one.
Click to expand...

We're still discussing lighting since he's got time while the tank cycles and before we get to the corals. He's got the marineland 6 LED fixture that came with the tank 'kit'. It makes the tank look great while cycling but I doubt it's anywhere close to what he'll need in the end. I'm trying to read up and learn everything I can on the LED's since I kinda wanna try the DIY thing on my 58. If i can get the basics down, we'll probably try something similar for this one as well.
 
LEDs are really nice, lots of PAR, inexpensive to operate, flexible arrangement/color options. Initial cost can be high, but more than paid for in savings on your light bill vs. halides before too long.
 
^^^Not to mention bulb replacement costs. Unless I get a great deal on an M80 ballast for my Radiums, I'll likely be switching to LEDs when I can swing the extra funding to do it right.
 
So we tossed a couple Koralia #1's in the tank this last weekend, flow looks a lot nicer now, still showing 1ppm ammonia, cycle going strong, and a few diatoms starting out on the sandbed. Mike decided he'd like another piece of rock or two for the look :) He managed to walk into WetPet's over the weekend and get talked into a few snails and a damsel to cycle his tank with. Both highly un-needed at this point but ya'll remember your first tanks right ;) I ran him over some Ammo-lock to try and keep alive what we could. I think the damsel probably stands a good chance but the single astrea and cerith, maybe not so much.

The misses catches me at the door coming home from the fish store myself, telling me all about "he got talked into snails" so naturally I have to sneak myself around the couch holding a bag of snails behind my back so I don't take any flak as well :P
 
He bought a damsel! O the horror... lol. He told me while he was here. I foresee him breaking down rock to try and remove the damsel in the near future. He is not gonna want to watch it pester the tar out of his clowns for long
 
lauremf2002 said:
He bought a damsel! O the horror... lol. He told me while he was here. I foresee him breaking down rock to try and remove the damsel in the near future. He is not gonna want to watch it pester the tar out of his clowns for long
Click to expand...

He bought it with the the agreement that he can bring it back after his cycle and get 10% of his next fish purchase. So not a total bust for him and it's a cheap fish for sure. I had fun telling him about my domino damsel fiasco, he looked horrified lol.
 
dont we all have some sort of damsel fiasco story? I bet everyone could relate to this. I really like the way the domino and the 3 stripe damsels look but boy are they mean. I want to get some blue/green reef chromis. They kinda look like damsels but have a much sweeter disposition. I tried plain old chromis fish but they pestered til there was one left and he eventually kicked the bucket too. Not very hardy. I hear the reef chromis are a better bet, but boy do they get big! I guess I can live with that now that I have a 120.
 
New updates to this work in progress. The Reef Octopus BH-1000, Odyssea T5's, and the BRS GFO reactor came in so we did a little more shopping and had a fishy day getting the new equipment and a few new specimens in the tank. Which has finally finished cycling this last week, about time too, was getting ridiculous waiting on those nitrites :P.

Heres the new 'full shot' with the T5's, Skimmer and GFO running (under the stand)
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Ya'll know this one :)
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Heres the dirtiest look the fish could muster up as we messed with 'his' tank.
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Heres a side shot of the skimmer, within an hour it had some nice gunk building up on that riser tube and I wouldn't be surprised if he starting seeing some serious skimmate in the next few days.
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I am impressed with this unit, wasn't hard to set up at all and despite the complaints about the 'instruction' included with this brand, it was rather self explanitory (provided youre a newb and have someone like me setting it up for you lol ).

We also tossed in a serpant starfish, very cool, and a kenya frag, GSP, and a single shroomie, along with a smidge of the macro I recieved courtesy of RDHDDragon (thanks again!). The only 'incident' was a slight mishap setting up the gfo reactor. "someone" who we'll not name at this time, did not input the 1/2 hoses to the GFO properly and when it first fired up... well... let's just say for a tall dude, mike sure can snatch up a towel with the quickness. Figured out the mistake and got it running shortly after. :thumbsup: Tanks really coming along and even curing up some more rock to do a little extra scaping.

I'd also like to proudly add that it's been about 1 month and already, my buddy made a slight mention of "another tank" or "possible upgrade" lol.
baited...hooked...we got us a keeper, lol
 
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Mikes actually doing a little reaquascaping this morning. He's got a buddy that lives about 3 houses down that has an extremely nice 3 tank frag system and a awesome 220g mixed reef. He offered some more rock, fully cured :) Shame we can't do this for every newb in the hobby lol, we'd have a lot more tanks out there for sure. I don't remember the guys screen name but he reads RC, when I mentioned i was papagimp he actually recognized the name. I feel almost famous lol.
 
Well, the hard part is over, you just gotta get them to sign into RC, come to a COMAS meeting and CRASE.

You've done really well on that tank. It looks nice and will be very clean with the equipment he's got lined up there. Add a few frags from the frag program and he won't know what hit him!
 
well, he finally made an RC account (hamptonokc) and was at the last meeting, and I'm tellin' him he's got to come to crase lol. Also added a few baby frags lol, so i'd say we're on the right track there :) He called to let me know the GSP and Kenya tree are already "poofy" lol, took almost two weeks in my tank to perk up.
 
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