High Tide Aquatics

Neros503's Biocube 29

Neros503

Neros503

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Welcome to my tank journal! I started this tank in January and will share monthly updates below.

January: Started cycling the tank with ro/di and instant ocean salt, along with Doctor Tims One and only nitrifying bacteria. Once cycled, I added my clown pair from my biocube 14 that I was taking down. I also made an acrylic lid, and a media basket/fuge with egg crate.
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February: Bought some corals, and two anemones, which was a big mistake. I also purchased a watchman goby, a kessil a160we (to replace the a150) and joined BAR as a supporting member.
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March: Got an ORA red mandarin!
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April: didn't do much. Algae started getting out of control.

May: Got a bunch of equipment for my 14th birthday including:
hanna alkalinity checker
hanna phosphate checker
hanna calcium checker
salifert magnesium checker
red sea coral pro salt
aquaticlife 115 mini skimmer
fritz refractometer calibration fluid
inkbird temp controller

June: Started dosing magnesium, and we went on vacation for three weeks. When we came back, the tank was a hair algae monster, and many of the corals were dead. since then algae's been terrible.

July: bought a tailspot blenny, and planned out the corals in the tank on an old picture. I fragged some zoa's with H2OPlayar , and he gave us some more corals and live rock, so I decide to changed up the aquascape.
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Here's a link to the website I use to track parameters and equipment I get https://www.aquaticlog.com/aquariums/neros503/2/parameters
I started my tank journal on reef2reef so here's a link to that as well https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/neros503s-biocube-29.789587/

A big thank to everyone who shared their knowledge, equipment and corals. Having this community has made this hobby many times more enjoyable.

Last of all, a special thank you to @H2OPlayar for helping me out these past couple weeks. The many corals you gave are all doing great!

-Soren
 
Looking good! I’d like to hear more about your media racks. What media are you using? How often will you change it out? Were you targeting a problem or just for general water quality? Chaeto in the fuge chamber?
I also have a BC29 and recently added rack with floss, carbon, chemipure. In May something killed my clowns, then had hair algae, and now lots of Valonia remains. Plan to add fuge chamber once I have fish again. I thought the water looked clean…until I added the rack and saw filthy floss!
 
MolaMola said:
Looking good! I’d like to hear more about your media racks. What media are you using? How often will you change it out? Were you targeting a problem or just for general water quality? Chaeto in the fuge chamber?
I also have a BC29 and recently added rack with floss, carbon, chemipure. In May something killed my clowns, then had hair algae, and now lots of Valonia remains. Plan to add fuge chamber once I have fish again. I thought the water looked clean…until I added the rack and saw filthy floss!
Click to expand...
I bought the biocube used, and there wasn't anything in the middle chamber, so I made the media rack. I was running filter floss, activated carbon, and some bio balls. I replaced the activated carbon monthly, and the floss weekly. I extend the bottom half of the media rack to the side and put chaeto in it as a refugium. I recently upgraded to a real intank media basket that I got on marine depot's liquidation sale. I'm running the same filter floss, but replacing it every other day now because it will over flow in the new media basket if I don't. in the second compartment of the media basket I'm running seachem phosgaurd for our phosphate issue. In the third compartment, I'm using carbon. The fuge is now just a bunch of chaeto floating around the other half of the second chamber in the biocube, but someday I'll probably get the intank fuge basket as well. I've been using this light for my refugium since I started the tank, and it works very well.
 
Neros503 said:
I'm running the same filter floss, but replacing it every other day now because it will over flow in the new media basket if I don't.
Click to expand...
I run the same grow light on my small tank you saw. Consider abandoning the filter floss, or try a week without it and see if it is detrimental. I used to run socks and swore the water was super clear because of it, only to find that when I took the socks out, I would still have super clear water from a healthy tank, and all the detritus settles out somewhere with less flow.
 
Got a spectral controller x for my kessil! found one used for 50$ so we bought it. here's my current schedule:
8:00 10% 1%
10:00 20% 40%
12:00 25% 55%
2:00 30% 60%
3:00 30% 60%
4:00 25% 55%
9:00 10% 35%
9:30 0% 0%

If anyone has any suggestions on my lighting schedule that would be great. Also, I finally tried to remove my second nem that's been looking terrible for months, and it fell apart a bit. I was able to remove most of it, but I still replace the carbon, and I'm going to do a water change as soon as I can.
 
Even more pictures:
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^Space invader's doing great although it may need a little more light.
I think eventually I'm going to add a torch to the highest rock in the tank if the par's not too high there. Is that a bad idea?
The hair algae's still bad so I might try getting an urchin, as well as hydrogen peroxide dosing.
 

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Sept Tank Updates:

Unfortunately my goby jumped out of the tank and I was unable to save him.

Started using Vibrant to clear up algae.

Got some beautiful AOI Zoas from a kind member (plus acro and digi).

One of my hammers split and now has two heads.

Current parameters:

Alk 7.8
Calc 420
Mag 1250
PH: 7.8


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October update:

Sadly my ATO sensor failed while we were on vacation and dumped the water into the tank causing a big swing in my parameters. I’ve been nursing the tank back to health but several of my coral were impacted and are on the verge of no return. Thankfully the fish are all okay.

The bright side is I won my battle with GHA. I used vibrant for six week which knocked it way back and the parameter swing was the nail in the coffin. My snails took over and made quick work of the remaining bits.

So, I’m laying low for a bit while I get the tank reset and hopefully can join in the next round of swaps. That’s it for this month.
 
December update:

Sorry I’ve been mostly offline and not active in the forums. I’ve continued to try to get my tank leveled after my ATO failed and messed up my parameters. I’m sad to say almost all of my corals perished. The GHA is gone, but now is replaced by cyano as there’s nothing to compete with for nutrients.

I’m trying to get back on track, but may try to get my tank stabilized and focus on my fish. Thankfully they are all doing okay. I’m nervous about my mandarin because the copepod habitats of my cheato and most of my good nutrients died with the salinity change and subsequent parameter seasaw. My anemone is also hanging on but I’m not sure if it’ll make it.

So what made it (aka hardy SOBs):

Nephthea
Rastas
Utter chaos
GSP
Min-max anemone (doing well)
BTA (not doing well)
Two clowns
Blenny
Mandarin

Hopefully the new year will bring better luck with the tank. Thanks all for your help, support, and friendship this year!
 
Bummer. Curious how the ato failed and what I fix you’ll make to prevent it happening again. Hang in there! Only thing we can do after hiccups is correct course and learn.
 
I thought it was a sensor, but after testing multiple times I realized it was one of my filter chambers got clogged with cheato that died (vibrant worked too well). This prevented water from filling in my third chamber and caused my ATO to dump several gallons into my tank. I was on vacation for a week and by the time I got back most of my coral were in a bad place. I re-did my media basket and refuge set up to hopefully prevent this in the future.

I just got new cheato and am balancing my parameters. Slowly getting better now. My focus is stabilizing and hopefully save my anemone. My clowns finally found it and love it, but it’s now a fraction of its size.

Learned a lot and still learning more. I was discouraged for several weeks after battling bad GHA and after finally getting under control this happened. I’m not determined to get the tank back up into harmony!
 
January update part 2:

Tank is slowly stabilizing. Alk is getting better, which was the largest swing. Added cheato back in the refugium to help with nutrient control and pods.

Sadly yesterday our Mandarin was killed by a crab. Very disappointing. He was loving our new live brine that we got for the tank. Major bummmer.

Our RBTA likely won’t make it. He is fading due to the swing and had reduced in size by 75% before balling up. We’ve slowly been improving the parameters over two weeks to minimize impact. Our min max is still doing well.

The last three months have been rough. We are seeing things improve and some of our zoas that we thought were goners are showing some life, so that is kind of exciting.

Long way to go but we’re making baby steps.

Side note: looking to re-home our tail spot blenny as our clowns pick on him. Looking to add a Royal Gramma.
 
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