A year of progress

[Bett]

I've had my biocube for a few weeks short of a year now, and I just thought I'd post some pics of how much it has changed within the time I've had it.

Here's how my tank looked when I first brought it home. It was a jungle of caulerpa and happy aiptasia along with some green mushrooms, BTAs and a tomato clownfish. They all came home with me on a 10 hour drive back from Michigan in the back seat of the car. I didn't expect to bring a tank home on this trip, so I hadn't made any plans for it. I was going on vacation the next week so I had to leave my tank in the care of someone else until I got back.


About 6 weeks later I get back and the anemones were bleached and the tank was completely filled with caulerpa. I did some serious pruning and got my DIY LEDs put together after a couple of months and set up my 5 gallon jar refugium. The anemones never recovered though and I ended up losing them in a dino bloom about 6 months ago.


I finally got myself a skimmer around January which took care of the dino issue. I felt my tank was clean enough by then and ready for some corals, so I got a few frags at the FFM. My only loss was a freebie green slimer branch that RTNed after I moved it around too much since I couldn't get it to stay in place.


Added a new poci frag from PC some weeks after the FFM. It took the place of the green slimer that was at the top left outcropping.


Finally, here is my tank as it sits today. I've added various corals here and there, my rhodactis recently split into two, and everything has been growing nicely. It's the time of year where I'm going to have to leave the tank for another 6 weeks again, so hopefully when I get back the caulerpa won't look like it did a year ago.

 

[saltychick]

Very nice turnaround! I would never be able to leave my tank in someone else's care for 6 weeks. Best of luck to you!

 

[Stepho725]

Interesting story. Your tank is much different looking than anything ive ever seen. I like it. Looks very natural.

Livestock list?

Also, what skimmer are you using? Would you say youve noticed a huge difference since the addition of the skimmer? Lastly, what type of WC schedule have you got & how many gals?

Thanks for sharing!

 

[Bett]

Thanks for the comments!
Livestock is the tomato clownfish that came with the tank, yellowtail damsel, and a sunrise dottyback. Got some hermit crabs and various snails, astrea stars, mini brittle stars, and a berghia nudibranch. Corals and whatnot include birdsnest, poci, monti, ricordea, rhodactis and discoma shrooms, duncan, various zoas, a single paly, acan, favia, hammer/fragspawn, anthelia, xenia, toadstool, GSP, sponges, aiptasia, majanos, as well as various macroalgaes.

My skimmer's a BH-1000. It's a bit big for my tank, but I got it for a great price at a time when I needed it badly. It definitely made a huge difference. When I had the dino bloom going on there were gobs of brown slime floating on my water surface and nothing was making a dent in it until I added the skimmer. My whole tank system, fuge and skimmer included, is about 20 gallons.
Water changes? Uhh.. well I did a 1 gallon change a couple weeks ago when I removed some water for other reasons.. and.. I think I changed a couple gallons back in January when I was hand skimming the dino scum from the water. I had to add 5 gallons of new water back in October when I added my fuge too. I'm planning to do a 5 gallon change the week before I leave just in case something tries to curse me for not doing water changes. This isn't counting the amount of water my skimmer pulls out. I usually just top off with well water when I need to and mix up small batches of salt water to replace what the skimmer takes out.

 

[Bett]

Just for fun, here's my whole system.



And the skimmer that takes up almost the whole back of my tank

 

[PL-Reef]

Great job Bett! That tank has come along way.