32 gallon Fiji cube build

[9Trees29gal]

5 years after life caused me to step away from keeping an aquarium, I am super excited to be starting a new build!
My goal is a mixed reef, predominantly sps with an lps and polyp understory. The tank is a 32 gallon Fiji Cube with external overflow and the paired tank stand.
To date, I have assembled the cabinet, including adding a shelf that was not part of the cabinet, but very needed. I am planning on installing the overflow box and plumbing connections before I place the tank on its stand.
I have also assembled a DIY 10 gal sump with a premade baffle kit, and made sure the skimmer (Bubble Magus C3) fits and that I have clearance to remove the cup for cleaning with the shelves in place.
I am currently working on the dry rockscape. I am going for open and airy arches with lots of space for coral. I broke larger rocks into smaller pieces, drilled them to fit over fiberglass rod, and I am using the rod and epoxy putty to ensure stability. (The rod is holding the weight, the putty is preventing shifting.)
I am also working on the plumbing. I opted for silicone tubing this time, we'll see if I stick with it once I see how it comes together!
Last but not least, I have a couple pounds of live rock rubble curing in a bucket with heater, light, and circulation. I will place a couple of the larger chunks in the main display, and the rest will seed the sump refugium.

 

[DenverSaltyFarm]

Looks awesome! following along

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Following along!

 

[9Trees29gal]

Got the tank on the stand and started filling tank for a leak test, also moved the live rock into the refugium. I have a temporary heater and pump in the sump while I make more water to fill the tank. Meanwhile I am rinsing the sand (Caribsea special blend), letting the epoxy set on my rock towers, and finalizing plumbing connections.
The power cord spaghetti is already driving me crazy, I will clean that up as soon as I get everything situated

 

[9Trees29gal]

Small bulkhead leak fixed, rock and sand rinsed and in place. It looks like a tank! Still waiting on one more light, and I haven't installed the ATO yet, but otherwise it's fully operational. I seeded the live rock with a little fish food and added bottled bacteria to help the cycle along. Now waiting and testing!
Front view;

Side view;

 

[9Trees29gal]

Well, curing the live rock ahead of time paid off, as ammonia has been zero for almost a week, nitrates are stable at 1 ppm. A mild cyano bloom has come and gone, and hair algae is starting to show on the sand, rocks, and glass. I added my first life! A couple green chromis, a frog spawn, a Duncan Coral, a small zoa frag, and a turbinaria. All have been in place for a couple days and are thriving, with good polyp extension and normal fishy behavior. I also inoculated the refugium with some Tigger pods, and more mixed pods are coming, as I am not seeing a lot of pod activity from the live rock rubble. A cleaning crew is on the way as well. I love the life that inverts bring to a tank.

 

[gkprevite]

Looks like a great start! I’m running almost the same setup the dimensions are great

 

[Foxy-88]

Dig the rockscape! Looks like a great setup. I myself am also doing an sps lps in my nano as well. Trying to figure out my rockscape for my 90 restart. Had an NSA scape in it similar to this trying something different but keeping leaning back to rockscapes like this. Keep up the progress and look forward to updates!

 

[9Trees29gal]

A gnarly FTS, as I am currently in the hair algae phase of new tank development, but I am very pleased with progress to date. I have started using 50% kalk in my ATO, params have been stable, and adding new livestock hasn't caused any worrisome spikes. I added a snail and hermit CUC, yellow head jaw fish (probably my favorite fish of all time, I have never had a tank without one!), a Hector's goby, some Pederson's anemone shrimp, sea whips, and SPS.
The sps have already started to grow, and I am seeing good polyp extension on the whips. The Duncans and zoas don't seem to be at full extension, not sure why, but giving it time.
I also started growing some red graciliara macro algae in the sump to provide nutrient export and some edible algae for the DT if I desire. The sump is crawling with pods and micro feather worms, so it is settling in nicely to it's job.
At this point I am planning on adding a tailspot blenny and a few more snails, then sitting back and letting things grow and settle. For now I will hand remove the hair at intervals but I am trying to let things reach an established balance and optimize nutritional competition to reduce the algae before I do anything else.

 

[9Trees29gal]

A new FTS. Algae is slowly receding, LPS corals are starting to grow and color a little better, SPS corals aren't doing much (and I don't expect them to until things stabilize and mature a bit more), and the fish are thriving. Still working on keeping the alk stable but I am happy with the rest of my params. Done with stocking and now the fun of watching it all grow. One of these days I will post a list of equipment and everything in there, lol.
Amphipods are exploding in the sump refugium, which will make the fish happy. I am tickled that the chromis are growing beautiful streamers :-)

 

[alonsooro]

Big change, it looks better. Check where are the excess nutrients coming from, maybe some rock in sump, dirty socks, dead zones. Manual removal if possible, and if possible, be patient :)

 

[9Trees29gal]

Big change, it looks better. Check where are the excess nutrients coming from, maybe some rock in sump, dirty socks, dead zones. Manual removal if possible, and if possible, be patient :)

Thank you for the advice! Dead zones have certainly caused issues in previous tanks. In this case, it's a new tank, just that phase of the cycle process. After the initial hair algae bloom, it's been a slow but steady decline, so I am pretty happy!

 

[9Trees29gal]

New FTS... Hair algae has resolved; although my testing wasn't showing a problem, I just felt that it was time to fire up the skimmer, and it only took about 4 days for every last speck of algae to disappear. The large maricultured sps that was on top has moved to the sump for now, it's struggling and probably won't make it (a friend was moving and it was already showing some rtn when I got it, but she was just going to trash it, so I thought it wouldn't hurt to try although I knew the tank was probably too young at the time!) The tank is showing signs of stability that I like to see, including the hair algae recession, coraline algae FINALLY making an appearance (starting with dry rock definitely slowed that down!) snails laying eggs, LPS adding new polyps, fish showing normal, comfortable behaviors, and pods reproducing at a self-sustaining rate. Experience has taught me that these signs are probably even more important than measured parameters, but I always take the 2 together. Parameters have been stable; salinity 1.025, temp 78.8, Ca 440, alk 12.0, pH 8.4, Mg 1440, Phos 0.19, ammonia 0, nitrate 1 ppm.
I am going to add a small phosphate reactor with GFO, as phosphates are creeping up (probably from the food). I suspect the light dusting of cyano on the sand will dissipate as soon as I can get the phosphate back down. I also suspect that I need to dose a little nitrate, as I struggle to get any detectable levels, and coral coloration suggests some may be needed.

The rest I am mostly writing for myself, so that I can remember where I was at right now in a year or 5 in the future, but read on if you want the nitty gritty, lol.

Other than that, I think my setup has finalized:
From top down, I have 2 nicrew hyperreef 100 gen 2 lights with controller, a hygger 300w heater, 2 hygger cross-flow wave pumps, a magtool ATO, Kamoer F1 dosing pump for alkalinity (and another on standby if I need it for calcium as more SPS comes on board), an aquaready bullet 2 HOB skimmer (which is working beautifully, and replaced the bubble magus one I started with that was NOT a good fit for my small sump!).
My current routine is: daily... Fill ATO reservoir (contains kalkwasser), and dose BRS part 1 alkalinity overnight in 3 doses of 5ml each every 2 hours (will reduce if alkalinity goes any higher), feed fish 2x/day dry food (they also have a lot of pods to eat that wash in from the cryptic zone in the sump), and frozen every few days. Weekly... Test params, Clean glass and skimmer as needed. Bi-weekly... 10% water change.
Livestock; cleanup crew with unknown numbers of Mexican turbo, nerite, astrea, cerith, and nassarius snails, one small conch, unknown numbers of hermit crabs, a porcelain crab, a pom pom crab (both of which I only see after lights out, lol), 2 Pederson's anemone shrimp and 1 spotted anemone shrimp, 1 Caribbean feather duster.
Fish; 3 green chromis, 3 masked gobies, yellow head jaw fish, Hector's goby, pygmy possum wrasse, tailspot blenny, Royal Gramma (yes, I know overstocked, but they all occupy different niches, all are fat and disease-free, and I have not had any issues with ammonia)
Corals: 2 sea whips, both of the photosynthetic variety, small zoa garden; froot loop, wwc, sunbeam shuriken, and unknown blue variety; small acan garden (5 varieties), 3 ricordea florida, a Duncan (that has already doubled in polyp number!), rainbow monti, JF outer space psammacora, red monti cap, hot pink rim monti cap, dragon soul goniastrea, wwc honeycomb leptastrea, wwc flicka flame cyphastrea, green monti digitalis, green hammer, green rock flower anemone, mind trick monti undata, green turbinaria, Darth maul porites (one of my new favorites!), captain crunch barnardaporia, and 1 brave unknown acropora.