the rebirth of my 50G cube reef

[eledile]

hello fellow reefers! after about 6 years, it is finally time to bring life back to my tank! the tank is an SCA 50G rimless cube with dims of 24"x24"x20". all stock equipment is in solid working order still, except for the stand. it was made of that pressed particle board and after the first year of the tank being up it was thrashed, so I built my own stand for it, and got it looking brand new again. the only real new equipment that I have added to this build is lighting and flow. for lighting I chose the Radion XR15 Blue G6 and for flow I wanted to try out the AI Orbit 4. I will be going for a mixed reef, that will likely be more focused on LPS than anything with accents of softies and SPS. (or at least that is the plan for now..)

currently I am waiting for my RODI system to come in, which will be later this week, and the plan is to have the cycle started by this weekend! thanks for taking the time to check out my build! pics are kind of light at the moment, but I can assure you that I will absolutely be posting more as they come. for now, this is what the tank looks like currently. if anyone has pics they would like to see let me know and i can get them. (I will be cleaning things up before it gets it fully going, just figured it would get dirty in the process and just didn't see the point in cleaning multiple times)

 

[griss]

Looks like a great start.

 

[Reefing102]

Looks great! Is the skin removable from all sides? Just looks a little tight for room in the stand otherwise.

 

[eledile]

Looks great! Is the skin removable from all sides? Just looks a little tight for room in the stand otherwise.

yes all three sides are removable. the original stand only had front access and was a total pain to do anything in so i knew i wanted to have more access when i built this one. they stick on with magnets

 

[Reefing102]

Awesome!

 

[Dustin07]

man that size seems perfect.... can't wait to see this thing loaded up

 

[eledile]

man that size seems perfect.... can't wait to see this thing loaded up

thank you! it seems perfect until you get it set up. im already realizing it will be too small for my ambitions, but i am happy to set it up and get back into the swing of things! when this thing grows out its gonna be one of those super packed reefs where you see like 3% of the rock and the rest is just coral

little update: RODI came in today, holding tank is filling as we speak! i plan to have water in by saturday night at the latest!

 

[eledile]

officially water in the tank! gonna wait for it to clear up for some better pics, but wanted to share while i was thinking about it. currently dealing with microbubbles from my skimmer, but if my memory serves me well, pretty sure its normal for there to be microbubbles while the skimmer "breaks in" if i still see them in the next few days i'll be more concerned but for now its not a worry on the list.

 

[Reefing102]

Looks great!

 

[griss]

Yes, it looks great. I love the rock work.

 

[eledile]

thank you! im very excited about it! been trying to design coral placement for days just looking at the rocks.

Yes, it looks great. I love the rock work.

i think that the "flag" as i like to call it on the far right of the picture is my favorite part. i'd love to put a different encrusting monti on each side of it. would get two different views of the same rock depending on which side of the tank you are on. im just hoping it wont be too much light for them.

 

[griss]

thank you! im very excited about it! been trying to design coral placement for days just looking at the rocks.

i think that the "flag" as i like to call it on the far right of the picture is my favorite part. i'd love to put a different encrusting monti on each side of it. would get two different views of the same rock depending on which side of the tank you are on. im just hoping it wont be too much light for them.

That would be really cool.

 

[Dustin07]

great setup on the rock, that's something I'm horrible at!

 

[griss]

great setup on the rock, that's something I'm horrible at!

Same here. No matter how creative I try to get (I don't have a creative bone in my body) I always end up with the old 80s/90s style rock wall

 

[eledile]

great setup on the rock, that's something I'm horrible at!

funnily enough, it went thru about 3 different iterations of what it is now. i think i like the original design better. but i built it out of the tank and never glued it together and thought i could just rebuild it the exact same way if i took enough pictures whether it's aquascaping or terraforming i have always loved that kind of thing. i have had this rock for over 10 years now, and it has never had the same design made out of it twice! i think this will do well, and i am having ideas of doing like sps on one side, and lps on the other, but not left and right, more front side and back side. have some softies kind of strewn about and a zoa garden on an island in the back. not sure how well it will work but we will see what happens!

water has fully cleared up! cycle was started last night and according to this brightwell dry rock bacteria startup kit i could be fully cycled within 7-9 days. gonna see what happens! my plan is to start with a pair of clowns and a nem so that they have no option but to host that and not a random coral but we will see what is available at the time!

 

[eledile]

Same here. No matter how creative I try to get (I don't have a creative bone in my body) I always end up with the old 80s/90s style rock wall

i am also not super creative! i do have good ideas in my head but somehow when they go from my head to my hands it's like whatever translator my brain used didn't speak the same language as what my hands do...things that have helped me with 'scaping in general is just trying to imagine i am building a tree canopy because they have a fairly simple structure to replicate in your mind and also are random enough that it just works. also, Lego's work well for practicing too. just start making weird structures and then that becomes the pattern the brain recognizes with the rocks. my very first scapes literally looked like someone dropped rocks into a tank and said, "looks good from my house"

 

[Dustin07]

I'm the same way but I'm finding that my tank is sorta like a painting class I had to take in college for LA credits. After spending hours and hours on it, my teacher always said, add more.... add more... add more.... I never knew what on earth I was adding so I just would add shadows, contrast, whatever. But she was right, the more I added long after I thought I was done, the better it got. My wife was saying last night she feels like the tank is turning a corner and starting to become more visually appealing.

this of course is like 20lbs of rock and $500 in corals after we already thought it was done. I think I could almost double whats in there now still, lol.

 

[eledile]

been a minute! but we have updates! cycle complete, and just in time for the WWC coral MAYnia sale! scored some pieces and they arrived yesterday. acclimating to the tank and getting adjusted. figured i would add the photos of the frags i got to the build thread so progress can be tracked. looking into getting some lenses to put over my phone camera so i can take some decent photos of them. enjoy the eye candy!

 

[griss]

Stunning pics.

 

[eledile]

Stunning pics.

they are theirs, but yeah, they are really great