new 60x60x28 cube reef

[300fowlr]

update:


setup is pretty much complete, now on to slowly stocking the display.
finally finished doors, they came out pretty much to plan. Yay no hinges to replace ever!!



hard to see in pic but the doors and bottom trim around the tank (as well as light frame) is wrapped in carbon fiber vinyl. Mounts are turned stainless. The doors just hang on them, no moving parts. Doors are easily removed completely out of the way for access.



this is the side close to the dry sink. had these boxes put in so I wouldnt have cords accross the floor but didnt want to have them inside a "wet" enclosure of the stand.



another shot of the doors. forgive the little bit of touching up on the stand corners



heres my little antique dry sink. It doesnt go with the tank but it does with the 100yr old house. Old with the new kind of thing.



threw in a little stainless sink for draining water, the faucet is connected to the pump in the basement at fill station. The switch on the left turns the pump on. So water changes and top offs will be a breeze. It has this small offset drawer and area underneath for storage, sans drain line pvc of course.



opposite side from dry sink. Just a couple comfy chairs and end table. Simple and clean. Place to relax and watch the fish and read. Well thats the plan anyway.



overhead looking down from light cradle



good flow eh?

 

[300fowlr]

 

[christygirl]

This is a real beautiful tank. Curious question. What are garden eels? Will they eat your other smaller fish?

 

[SPotter]

Wow looks amazing!!!!!

 

[300fowlr]

This is a real beautiful tank. Curious question. What are garden eels? Will they eat your other smaller fish?

no they are long but pencil thick. not seen that often in the hobby but I think live aquaria has them right now. Thinking of a colony of maybe six.
see this video of some at the Georgia Aquarium. They have them in one of the smaller (still huge) tanks inside "Tropical Diver" area.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9kIxhXI67Y

thanks SPotter

 

[dave.m]

A tank with its own dedicated viewing room - now that's class!

Dave.M

 

[adamgoldberg]

no they are long but pencil thick. not seen that often in the hobby but I think live aquaria has them right now. Thinking of a colony of maybe six.
see this video of some at the Georgia Aquarium. They have them in one of the smaller (still huge) tanks inside "Tropical Diver" area.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9kIxhXI67Y

thanks SPotter

Garden Eels in the wild are very cool. They all stick up from the sand and kind of look like a field of grass until you get near them.

 

[Newbie Aquarist]

The dry sink is a cool idea. I like the siting area also.

 

[reeftanknewbie]

Garden Eels in the wild are very cool. They all stick up from the sand and kind of look like a field of grass until you get near them.

Garden eels are cool and I have never seen them in captivity. What a great lookining tank, I just love cubes and have a small one myself.

 

[300fowlr]

just wanted to post an update. had to add more rock and fill in some of the open areas a little as the system overall was too quick to react to additions contrary to the volume. Adding rock to the display as well as to the sump did the trick. Also upgraded one of my return pumps (one of four) so I have one @ 1350gph, one @ 3200gph, and two @ 2150pgh. Tried to place corals in the tank based on circulation needs. Also added a UV sterilizer to help clear the water. It was cloudy early on, tough to look through 5ft of water I guess. Did the trick.

Things are moving right along. Coraline algae is all over the rock and some on the overflow tower. Crabs snails and starfish are doing well. Even growing tiny feather dusters. Some corals growing well as my hammer has doubled its head count, as has some palys. My aussie torch frag has doubled too. Also I had one rock with an aptaisia that I pulled out and let dry. When I put the rock back in, where it had sat drying there was half a dozen amphipods! So Im growing those too. Tank has cycled well and there isnt any green algae or red algae anywhere. Anyway, here is a pic as it stands today. Hope everyone is doing well.

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[jt48]

Looks great

 

[Denadai]

Very nice setup...this naso is huge !!

 

[snowdude10]

nice setup

 

[andrewkw]

Great looking tank. Just wanted to chime in about garden eels since I have been keeping them a couple of years.

You want at least a 6" deep sand bed for them more like 8-10" is ideal. I originally had a 10" sandbed for them but it's slowly slopped down to more like 8" even still one garden eel from time to time does go to the shallower side of the sandbed which is more like 4-5"

You certainly can keep them with fish, but I'm not sure about big fish. I keep mine with firefish and recently added chromis. I did have a copperband in with them at one time. You have to feed them a LOT. I keep mine in a dedicated tank but they can be kept in a reef but just keep in mind you have to feed them a LOT. Mine are pretty good so I get by with 1 big feeding a day these days but for the first year or so I fed them 3x a day. Started with live brine, but now they eat PE mysis that are almost as big as their heads. It took a long long time to get them to this stage. The reason you have to feed them a lot is because they only eat food that passes by them. If it's just out of reach they're out of luck. Also they are such chickens they will often get scared by their food let it pass then decide they want to eat it but it's too late.

If you do try them I suggest going with at least 12 maybe more. I have mine in a 36x24 tank where 60% of the tank is a sandbed and one rock island on the other side. I started with 7, 6 made it and I recently lost one, so I still have. I don't see them for sale much but one day I would like to add at least another 5. You get the true "garden eel" effect when you have many and they look like seagrass swaying and when one is startled they all go down. If you have any questions about them don't hesitate to ask.

 

[SPotter]

Hey Rick, how about an update here?????

 

[300fowlr]

Sorry haven't updated in a while, so much activity on here and so many fantastic established setups mine got pushed down so fast didn't think there was much interest.

I will get some current pics up by Monday. I have learned a lot about my system over the last few months. Not just the tank but everything related to it. Had some bumps in the road as well. I had two fish jump out, one clown (why would a clown jump??) a while back and a pyramid butterfly just this week. I took that risk in having an open top tank. Water checks out so not sure why. Probably just a squabble with another butterfly. The odd thing is that these fish were bought as a "set" as they came out of another system and had been together for a while. One zoster and four pyramids. All are thick and healthy.

I had a phosphate issue that slowly crept up that forced me to make some upgrades to my RO unit. After adding DI, pressure gauge, chloramine filters, TDS monitors things are better. Turns out my cities water contains average of 78 out of the tap on the TDS so it expired my original membrane quicker than I was expecting and was slowly adding phosphates to the tank as I topped off or did water changes. My water station is good to go now. Unfortunately some of my corals paid the price for my lack of experience. My hammers withdrew but they are at a friends recovering. Also lost my white organ pipe. My red ones came through ok which is kind of strange. I also lost my Yuma Ricordea. They loved the dirty water but when I started to pull out nitrates over a few weeks they dwindled away. My rhodactis and Florida Ricordea had no changes. I have a couple other shrooms that are fine too.

As far as corals now I have pretty common stuff. Other than already mentioned, have a large fluorescent green carpet anemone, 3 rock anemones, some zoanthids, some common palythoa, plate corals, one in particular I call the "Eye of Sauron" as when I saw it I could hear Saruman say "a great eye, lidless wreathed in flame". I have a huge Hollywood stunner chalice, some acans, couple war coral frags, one gonipora and a large star polyp colony. I also have a couple small SPS to try out, a birds nest, one stag and another acropora.

Fish I have my big girl from my fowlr tank a 14" vlaminghi tang, 8" dussemer tang, 4" tennenti tang, aforementioned butterflies, labouts wrasse, yellow coris wrasse, royal pencil wrasse, blue striped dottyback, tiny scooter blenny, two green chromis, one bartletts anthias, one blue damsel.

Also have the usual clean up crew, snails and hermits, a few Halloween hermits, couple sand-sifting starfish, some burrowing snails, one cleaner shrimp, three peppermint shrimp, and two calico crabs (3").

I also just recently (this week) started 2 part dosing from BulkReefSupply. I had been dosing using 1 liter bottles of premixed and that got old($). BRS will save me a lot of money in the long run.

As far as sump only thing that has changed was I added an Avast Marine reactor for carbon and GFO.

 

[SPotter]

Now that's an update!!!!! Sounds like you've experienced the differences between keeping a reef tank and a fowlr tank. Definitely post some especially of the dussumeri tang!!!! That's my favorite tang. I had one in my last system that was about 7" and I called him the gentle giant. Can't wait to put one in my new tank.

 

[300fowlr]

"They loved the dirty water but when I started to pull out nitrates"

correction, phosphates not nitrates.

Yep, I'm learning. One reason why I have common corals. "Gentle Giant" description of your dussumeri, that made me laugh. Mine is a jerk, he chases fish a quarter of his size. He doesn't raise a fin to my vlaminghi, guess she put him in his place at some point.

 

[ballsam]

Hello over there. Long time no update. Is the tank still up n running? I'm about to order the glas for a similar tank (56x56x26") and are curious if there's anything you regret about your tank. Something you would have done in a different way? Would love to see some pictures of what it looks like now.. /Samuel (Sweden)