suggestions for my biocube?

[justhaag]

On july 11th I made the leap of faith and decided to dive into the saltwater tank hobby (no pun intended), i bought a used biocube 29 off of craigslsits and lucky for me it was already cycled and loaded with 35 lbs on live rock.

I brought it home and set up my live rock scape and then filled it the rest of the way

waited for it to clear up

and after a week or so once i got the hang of keeping my levels perfect i bought my first 2 corals- a 2 headed trumpet coral frag and a 2 headed euphyllia that i still dont know the exact name of (if you know the name please tell me)

Then i waited another week and bought a pulsing xenia which grows like no other weed i've seen before, (also lost one of the heads on my euphyllia as you can see by the post surgery scars)

left for a 2 week vacation and came back and bought me 2 clowns, then waited a week and bought a little frag of watermelon zoas, a frag of orange ring zoas and one super red mushroom

and finally i went and bought a royal gramma and then this last weekend i bought 1 green lobo frag, 1 orange chalice frag, and 1 red and blue favia,

my next plans are to replace the stock biocube pc lighting with the rapidled retrofit led kit and then replace the middle chamber on the back with a fuge and media rack. any other suggestions on what i should do with my tank? anything from moving coral, next corals to get or mods on the tank? or fish to get or common mistakes that people make with biocubes?

 

[ange062]

To each their own IMO, everybody has a different idea about what a reef tank should look like and I've seen AMAZING examples in every instance. Choose what you like and run with it, whether it's SPS dominant, LPS, softies, NPS, mixed reef, etc. I would say, that making things automated in a nano is the biggest favor you can do for yourself. If you are looking to upgrade then check out a good skimmer, dosing pump, reactors, ATO, chiller, and anything else you can do to keep things stable. Just my 2c.

 

[justhaag]

thank you! i have the aquaticlife 115 skimmer im just waiting till i order the media rack and fuge kit to replace it all because the filter wont fit in if the skimmer is in so i need to wait till that is finished, but what else would you recomend to automate it?

 

[ryeguyy84]

I love my apex, one day my house AC stopped working and the inside temp reached in the low 80's. My Apex managed to keep my tank temps right where they should be by cutting the lights (Metal Halides) and turning on fans. Oh and it texted me to let me know I was mid tank meltdown.

That 200 or 300 dollar device saved me thousands in coral and fish.

 

[ryeguyy84]

oh and an Auto top off. . . I don't know how or why people run a reef tank without one.

that works with the Apex as well.

 

[iced98lx]

oh and an Auto top off. . . I don't know how or why people run a reef tank without one.

that works with the Apex as well.

Not to be contrary, I agree in most situations on the ATO but with a cover on the BioCube (he says he's retrofitting LED's, so should still have the cover on) I loose very very little water. I see salinity swing 0.001 in 2 weeks. I can easily stay on top of that manually.

Now, with MH and no top... ATO FTW as small tanks can loose a lot fast and that is SCARY!

 

[ryeguyy84]

Not to be contrary, I agree in most situations on the ATO but with a cover on the BioCube (he says he's retrofitting LED's, so should still have the cover on) I loose very very little water. I see salinity swing 0.001 in 2 weeks. I can easily stay on top of that manually.

Now, with MH and no top... ATO FTW as small tanks can loose a lot fast and that is SCARY!

I'm a big fan of set it and forget it (Mmmm rotisserie) I lose 1.5 gallons every 3 days and i could see with LED's it might be easy to just dump some top off in but i tend to forget.

 

[justhaag]

so updates since the last time,

first off i decided i need more room for some future coral so better now than later when its more stocked to re-aquascape, i went and picked up 8 more lbs of rock

and then I decided rather than the rapidled kit i just went and picked up 2 ecoxotic panorama pro led modules (1-12k/blue and 1-all blue) and within 45 minutes it was plugged in and looking beautiful, now its the painful game of waiting and acclimating

again any suggestions on livestock?
fish:
Im looking at getting a sleeper goby, i would love to get a pygmy angel but ive heard they are iffy with reefs
coral:
ricordea, mores zoas and palys and then move up in the world to sps once i get the 3rd led module

my next investment will be to get the intank brand fuge, media basket and fish saver for the back followed by another led panel, most likely the ecoxotic panorama pro RGB