15g Anemone Cube

[Lebowski_]

Thread Highlights:

May 2023 - The beginning of the Cyano War (#60)
June 2023 - The Bubble-tip emerges after 3 days hidden. (#110)


Fish and CuC

• Various Trochus, Astrea and Nassarius snails. Dwarf blue legged hermits.
• 2 x Tank Bred Clownfish

Coral

• A few various Palys.
• Bubbletip anemones (Rainbow).

Equipment

• Tank is the IM Fusion 15
• Light is the AI Prime 16HD
• Heater is the IM Helio + an Aqueon 50w preset
• Skimmer is Bubble Magus MiniQ
• Substrate is 7lbs or so of regular Caribsea Aragonite
• Rock is mainly Caribsea Life Rock Nano Kit + 5lbs from established reef

4/23/2023 - Cycled, commence blowing budget

5/16/2023 - The Cyano&Dino War

06/01/2023 - The calm before the move.

 

[Lebowski_]

First issue I had was the stand I was hoping to use was no a flat plane. Decided to give it to my wife along with a 20g tank so she could start a little greenhouse/Terrarium.

Found another solid wood cabinet, and decided to put the tank in a grimy little unused closet. Painted it blue.

Picked up some LR from a local shop to seed my Caribsea Liferock. Also grabbed a filter block from one of their nice displays, and busted it in half. It’s in the sump.

I am starting to think I have too much rock. Do people still go by 1lb/gallon?

I may take a hammer to my ugliest piece and make some rubble for the sand bed and sump.

 

[Lebowski_]

Disappointed that IM markets their 30w Helios heater as “5-15g”. I broke my own rule of always going overboard and buying a size up for the heater. Poor thing couldn’t stay stable above 76F even with 15lbs of rock in the tank.

IM says it’s cold in my area and that’s why the heater is struggling so it doesn’t meet warranty standards or something. House is 74F, seems like a reasonable temp.

Anyways, this is the 2nd let down from IM. Not going to dwell on it, but also a little turned off from the brand. At the end of the day, it’s never worthwhile to toe the line in this hobby.

Fellow AIO folks, what are you using? I might see if a trusty Eheim might fit with an inkbird.

 

[Propane]

I have the same set up but went with the 100w. My room gets pretty cold at night sometimes as low as 60F. So far temp has remained stable.

 

[Lebowski_]

I have the same set up but went with the 100w. My room gets pretty cold at night sometimes as low as 60F. So far temp has remained stable.

I might swallow my pride and do the same. The small form factor is hard to beat.

 

[Lebowski_]

 

[Lebowski_]

Had some dinos/diatoms showing up. After reading way too many threads on here, I decided to:

1. Pull out my Caulerpa. It was spreading incredibly fast, and I think it was sucking the water column dry of nitrates and phosphates...just doing it's job really. No more macro in the tank.

2. Changed the light schedule - I had a very white heavy schedule with lots of green and red.

3. Added a Nero 3.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Best of luck with dealing with them!!

 

[Lebowski_]

Best of luck with dealing with them!!

They are almost completely gone today! Pretty excited about that.

Not much going on with the tank. Added some filter blocks from a local reef, and a bit of their LR. Tank just stabilizing at the moment.

Short vid of tank


I originally was going to stick with a TB Orchid Dottyback, but I am reading that they have a habit of eviscerating hermits and snails so that’s a no go.

Now I am thinking some tank bred Clowns and a Flametail Blenny.

Any thoughts? Trying to go all aquacultured livestock.

My main worry is that this tank has a fair amount of flow, and I know Clowns can get blown around. There is a lot of rockwork so I am not too worried about the Blenny.

 

[Lebowski_]

I think the dinos/diatoms are on their way out. None have really come back since the water change a couple days ago.

 

[E.intheC]

Your tank is looking good!

I also have an IM 15 cube - how do you like the Nero 3?

 

[Lebowski_]

Your tank is looking good!

I also have an IM 15 cube - how do you like the Nero 3?

At first I thought it was going to be insane overkill, but flow in a cube is a bit weird, and I have a ton of LR. Turns out it works nicely in this set up. I did not upgrade the return pump so it definitely needed some help.

my favourite thing about it is probably the sleek profile. As you know, space is at a premium and you can even mount the “dry side” magnet underwater in the sump.

 

[iamacat]

I like your vibe and style. That Nero has gotta be at like 1% tho right!? Mine in a 75 moves a lot of water at 70%

 

[Lebowski_]

I like your vibe and style. That Nero has gotta be at like 1% tho right!? Mine in a 75 moves a lot of water at 70%

I have mine at 1% for the middle of then night, the random 1-15% in the morning, then during the peak day it kicks up to 5-50%! HURRICANE! Then it ramps back down.

No method to the madness, just adjusted it based on how the corals were reacting. Any higher than 50% and it turns into a washing machine lol the sand starts to dance.

It’s aimed directly at the back of the LR stack so I think that diffuses the worst of it, gives the torch a good back and forth wobble.

 

[iamacat]

I have mine at 1% for the middle of the night, the random 1-15% in the morning, the. During the peak day it kicks up to 5-50%! HURRICANE! Then it ramps back down.

No method to the madness, just adjusted it based on how the corals were reacting. Any higher than 50% and it turns into a washing machine lol the sand starts to dance.

It’s aimed directly at the back of the LR stack so I think that diffuses the worst of it, gives the torch a good back and forth wobble.

I have been playing around with both my 3 and 5 trying to find the same balance. My 3 runs the back wall and hits the angle of my overflow to disperse the flow across my SPS. It has rearranged my sand.

fun stuff. Keep the updates coming

 

[Lebowski_]

So a while back I went to my local shop and a young kid was helping me. There was a little container full of leather frags, each about 2-3”.

“How much?” I asked.
“Ugh the owner said $20 for anything that container”
Kind of steep, I thought, but what the heck, I like supporting my local shop. I ask him to grab my one, pointing at the biggest one in there.

I get home and I’m floating some snails and I look in the coral bag and there is a leather frag, I **** you not, the size of half of my pinky nail. At first I laughed thinking he threw in an extra lil guy, but that laugh turned to despair when I realized that was the $20 frag he picked for me! After a moment of panic, I had to smile again, and seeing as it wasn’t attached to anything, I just kind of shoved it in a crevice. The next day, it was gone. I figured my Nero had launched it deep into my LR, and I had to laugh again but moved on with my day.

Well, yesterday I realized it had gotten wedge near my torch, and not only had it attached to the rock, but it had QUADRUPLED in size in about 8 days lol. So now I guess it just lives there.

Hard to see during the blue cycle but just beside the torch there is a fuzzy finger leather with its polyps all extended.

 

[iamacat]

not sure if the Prime has these same options but I have used this to take pictures if really needing to show something in detail for diagnosis. You can play with each spectrum to get whatever you like. Return to the dashboard once done and hit enable schedule, back to normal.

I also purchased the AquariumCam app which I found to work really well vs my polyplab lens clip. I don’t remember paying $10 for it tho which appears to be what it costs now.

Nice lil leather

 

[woodyarmadillo]

Hey buddy, just catching up here. I have the 100 watt Helios heater in my 14 gallon and that thing doesn’t even leave the 78.0 setpoint. It is very stable. The only time I’ve seen it at 77.8 or 78.2 is after a water change. I’ve had an instance where I did an emergency large water change and didn’t heat the water and it went from 75 to 78 in about 20 minutes. They are nice heaters. Thinking that smaller one just may not be as nice.

on the Nero, I have a Nero 3 and I have it bumped down to 5-10% I was running it at 30-50% but I think I may have blasting some stuff too hard. I don’t know giving it a try for a bit. I really like the IM spin stream RFG once it breaks in and quiets down on the return pump.

 

[Lebowski_]

on the Nero, I have a Nero 3 and I have it bumped down to 5-10% I was running it at 30-50% but I think I may have blasting some stuff too hard. I don’t know giving it a try for a bit. I really like the IM spin stream RFG once it breaks in and quiets down on the return pump.

I think I am going to have to bump my down, and that makes me a bit sad.

This weekend we were checking out a very small time fish store, and they had a clutch of captive bred Clowns....my wife fell in love with them. The good news is that she now supports getting the 40B for the living room as our 2nd tank, a nice anemone and softie tank I had planned. The bad news is, she talked me into getting a pair of Clowns for this tank, my office tank. I wanted this take to be higher flow, but since adding the Clowns, I had to really dial back the flow and I am not sure my Frogspawn is happy with it.

The Clowns are cute but when I got home, I noticed they had a bit of white on their tail fin...might be overreacting, but might also be tail rot. I didn't put them in the hospital tank as they are the only fish that will be in this tank, but I still regret not hitting them with a dip.

They spend most of their time just at the top, playing in the flow, ignoring all the wonderful cave networks I built in the main rock . Really should have waited and gone with a captive bred Royal Gramma or Flametail Blenny, but keeping my wife interested is really important to me.

Anyways, here's a cute vid of the Clown clutch. I'll get some pics once I dial the lights back up.

 

[woodyarmadillo]

I think I am going to have to bump my down, and that makes me a bit sad.

This weekend we were checking out a very small time fish store, and they had a clutch of captive bred Clowns....my wife fell in love with them. The good news is that she now supports getting the 40B for the living room as our 2nd tank, a nice anemone and softie tank I had planned. The bad news is, she talked me into getting a pair of Clowns for this tank, my office tank. I wanted this take to be higher flow, but since adding the Clowns, I had to really dial back the flow and I am not sure my Frogspawn is happy with it.

The Clowns are cute but when I got home, I noticed they had a bit of white on their tail fin...might be overreacting, but might also be tail rot. I didn't put them in the hospital tank as they are the only fish that will be in this tank, but I still regret not hitting them with a dip.

They spend most of their time just at the top, playing in the flow, ignoring all the wonderful cave networks I built in the main rock . Really should have waited and gone with a captive bred Royal Gramma or Flametail Blenny, but keeping my wife interested is really important to me.

Anyways, here's a cute vid of the Clown clutch. I'll get some pics once I dial the lights back up.

i can’t see the video but from my experience, my clown pair do not have any problems with flow. When I first got them I thought they were getting their butts kicked by the flow but I think they were just settling in. Now it doesn’t seem like they care where the flow is. After seeing them get startled a few times and watching how ridiculously fast they can swim if they want to, I’m not worried about flow with them. They are goobers and they do weird stuff and sleep swimming up and down the back wall corner but they seem comfortable in any flow. Mine took a month or 2 to really get comfortable and start exploring the rock. Just give it some time and I think it will all work out.