Morgan's Fiji Cube 57 Mixed Reef

[Some Rando]

Hello everyone! Here's my Fiji Cube 57 Shallow tank. This is my first attempt at a mixed reef tank and keeping corals, besides super beginner corals. This tank has been up for almost 1.5 years. During that time I've had many ups and downs and trials and tribulations. I still have lots to learn, but overall things have been going the best they ever have lately. I'm putting this post up to show everyone what I have, and also as a reference because I want to start asking more questions here to help my tank flourish. I don't really plan on adding anything else for awhile because I have lots of stuff in the tank. In hindsight my aquascape probably isn't the best either and I will probably need to redo it as well move the tank to a different spot in my living room. I'm not really looking forward to that, but it is what it is.

As far as the gear goes, I already said what the tank is. I have a Bubble Magus Curve 5 skimmer, Reef Breeders Photon 24 Pro, Reef Breeders power head, Hygger return pump, 2 Cobalt heaters and a Jebao Doser handling 2 part. I bought all of this stuff during Black Friday sales in 2020. I tried to make this a value oriented build and get decent stuff at the best price possible. I don't have any kind of controller on the tank. Instead I have everything hooked up to a smart power strip that I can control through Google Home.

Here's some pics and thanks for looking!

 

[Srt4eric]

Looks good

 

[Qwiv]

Nice tank. Are those acros are going to grow out of your tanks up so high. Looks like the frags are almost there, unless it is a weird camera angle. Let's see under the hood.

 

[Some Rando]

Nice tank. Are those acros are going to grow out of your tanks up so high. Looks like the frags are almost there, unless it is a weird camera angle. Let's see under the hood.

You are right, they are way too high. This is why I need to do redo my scape. A couple of the frags are barely below the water. I need to figure out a plan of action because some of the frags have encrusted the rock and are starting to finally grow and I don’t want to lose out on the progress.

 

[Qwiv]

All good, I think everyone does that with their first aqua scapes. I know I did. Looks like you stacked vs. glued your rocks, so easy enough to take care of it now or during your move. Not sure if there are any hard set rules, but I like 8" minimum for a regular acro and 12" for a Staghorn. More obviously being better, but you have a pretty shallow tank. They are also pretty close horizontally too, so maybe address that as well before everything get all encrusted.

Rest of the tank looks great and a nice budget build. Would start investing in some back-ups in case of a power failure or GFCI trip as you have some $ in the tank now. I think the best bang for the Buck would be a 12v DC power head like the Hygger Mini. Connect it to a AGM or LiPo battery instead of the 12v power wall wart it comes with and get a battery charger that can run the pump plus recharge the battery. Size battery for at least a weekend get away.

 

[Some Rando]

All good, I think everyone does that with their first aqua scapes. I know I did. Looks like you stacked vs. glued your rocks, so easy enough to take care of it now or during your move. Not sure if there are any hard set rules, but I like 8" minimum for a regular acro and 12" for a Staghorn. More obviously being better, but you have a pretty shallow tank. They are also pretty close horizontally too, so maybe address that as well before everything get all encrusted.

Rest of the tank looks great and a nice budget build. Would start investing in some back-ups in case of a power failure or GFCI trip as you have some $ in the tank now. I think the best bang for the Buck would be a 12v DC power head like the Hygger Mini. Connect it to a AGM or LiPo battery instead of the 12v power wall wart it comes with and get a battery charger that can run the pump plus recharge the battery. Size battery for at least a weekend get away.

Thanks for the advice. I’ve got an Ice Cap battery backup arriving tomorrow. PG&E is doing some major work in my neighborhood so I decided I needed to be ready.

Some of my rock is stacked, and a lot of it is put together with hydraulic cement. Growth has really started to accelerate, so I need to act.

 

[Qwiv]

Good problem to have.

Never looked inside the IceCap battery back-up. If you think you can open the case and show what is inside, I would be very interested.

 

[Some Rando]

Hello everyone. I just thought I’d post a little update. Over the weekend I moved my tank to gain a little more space in my small living room. It took me about 7 hours to move. I also did a major cleaning of everything during the move.

I broke down the whole system and put everything into some 27 gallon totes. I put heaters and air stones in the totes to help keep everything alive and everything survived. I did manage to do some unplanned fragging by accidentally breaking some little pieces of coral when moving stuff, but nothing catastrophic.

I also went ahead and removed my sand and am now running a bare bottom system. I wasn’t initially planning on doing this but the sand looked kinda gross and I didn’t want to risk starting a cycle. I also removed a rock flower anemone, 2 dart fish, a big brittle star and a aggressive Davinci clown. The only new piece of gear I added is an additional Reef Breeders RP-M power head that I had sitting around.

I’m happy with the move and have a nice view of the tank from my new reclining sofa. I still have more work to do with scaping, but the hard work is done. I think I’m going to have to remove some rocks to free up some space and make sure my corals are getting enough light.

One thing that happened that during the move is I got stung by my blue tang. I didn’t know they could do that. The fish hopped jumped out of the net when I was moving it over to the bin and I freaked out when it fell on the floor and tried to pick it up. I have never experienced a sensation like that before. My hand went numb and also was very painful at the same time. I could feel the sensation moving up my arm. I soaked my hand in vinegar and then put it under hot water. The vinegar and hot water helped immensely and made the symptoms mostly go away. I can still feel on my hand where it got me, but there isn’t any marks left that are visible. My blue tang is tiny, so I’m not sure how bad the sting can be from a bigger one of these fish.

Okay! That’s all for now.

First pic is before moving it

 

[Coral reefer]

Fun day!
Never heard that about a blue tang before. Interesting.

 

[bluetang_2000]

I still remember the first tank I bought came with a huge bluetang, and I was trying to get it out from the sand and felt a sharp sting on the finger.

turns out that Blue tang fins contain spines sharp enough to be comparable to a surgeon's scalpel

quite painful for a week or so

 

[PjFish]

surgeonfish family they got 2 sharp scalpel like spikes that act like switchblade that pop out on each side near the base of the tale. Got nailed a few year ago while putting one in a tank by hand... lesson learned...Apparently they contain a toxin called ciguatera which can and was painful but soaking my hand in hot water relieved most of the pain. No other symptoms thankfully

 

[PjFish]

Your tank looks great !! Last weekend I tossed a 29 gallon into a 40 breeder and also ditched the sand so clean now! but do miss the look of sand..

 

[Some Rando]

Here’s a couple of top downs of my tank. Had some ups and downs with the tank since my last update, but overall it’s going good.

 

[Darkxerox]

Getting more growth with the ReeFi light?

 

[Some Rando]

Getting more growth with the ReeFi light?

Yes, and the colors have never been better too. Still tons of room to turn them up more too.

 

[Kensington Reefer]

Hello everyone. I just thought I’d post a little update. Over the weekend I moved my tank to gain a little more space in my small living room. It took me about 7 hours to move. I also did a major cleaning of everything during the move.

I broke down the whole system and put everything into some 27 gallon totes. I put heaters and air stones in the totes to help keep everything alive and everything survived. I did manage to do some unplanned fragging by accidentally breaking some little pieces of coral when moving stuff, but nothing catastrophic.

I also went ahead and removed my sand and am now running a bare bottom system. I wasn’t initially planning on doing this but the sand looked kinda gross and I didn’t want to risk starting a cycle. I also removed a rock flower anemone, 2 dart fish, a big brittle star and a aggressive Davinci clown. The only new piece of gear I added is an additional Reef Breeders RP-M power head that I had sitting around.

I’m happy with the move and have a nice view of the tank from my new reclining sofa. I still have more work to do with scaping, but the hard work is done. I think I’m going to have to remove some rocks to free up some space and make sure my corals are getting enough light.

One thing that happened that during the move is I got stung by my blue tang. I didn’t know they could do that. The fish hopped jumped out of the net when I was moving it over to the bin and I freaked out when it fell on the floor and tried to pick it up. I have never experienced a sensation like that before. My hand went numb and also was very painful at the same time. I could feel the sensation moving up my arm. I soaked my hand in vinegar and then put it under hot water. The vinegar and hot water helped immensely and made the symptoms mostly go away. I can still feel on my hand where it got me, but there isn’t any marks left that are visible. My blue tang is tiny, so I’m not sure how bad the sting can be from a bigger one of these fish.

Okay! That’s all for now.

First pic is before moving it
View attachment 41278

Is that a pocket door at the back of the tank?

 

[Some Rando]

Is that a pocket door at the back of the tank?

Yes it is. My old house has several. This one doesn’t get used and the tank fits in front of it perfectly. I can also go behind it and open the door and get access to the back of the tank. Whoever built my house really liked doors. The blocked pocket door goes into my very small entrance way, which has another pocket door.

 

[Some Rando]

After cruising along and thinking I was doing good, I lost basically all my SPS coral. I think my problem was I wasn’t keeping an eye on my magnesium levels, and that messed everything up.

I had a little GHA in my tank, but nothing I was concerned about. Went on a vacation and came back to a major GHA outbreak covering basically everything. I tried manually removing it and scrubbing, but it just grew so fast I couldn’t keep up.

Fast forward to a couple of days ago and I removed all my rock and dead coral skeletons and scrubbed the crap out of my rocks. I added some new snails and an urchin to try and help keep it at bay.

The GHA is still trying to come back and it looks like I’ve got diatoms too. Hopefully I can keep it under control. Also I notice my tank is using crazy amounts of magnesium, maybe it’s the clam I have.

Here’s a top down of what’s left.

 

[Coral reefer]

How low did mg get and how are you testing it?

 

[Some Rando]

How low did mg get and how are you testing it?

I think it got down to 1050 according to a Salifert kit and probably stayed there for a couple of weeks. I’ve been only dosing 2 part. Looks like I need mag back in the mix.

Do you think my derasa clam is sucking out all my mag? I used to never have a problem. This clam has grown a lot since I got it.