60 Gallon Chalice Cube-Nathan Peel

Nathan Peel · Jul 8, 2022

So, I wanted to start a build thread for my 60-gallon cube.
I have had several aquariums in the past. I just upgrades to this cube from a 20 gallon Nuvo fusion. Before that, I had a 100 gallon. I also had a 80 gallon, and two 50 gallon aquariums. The 100 gallons aquariums failed due to life getting busy. It was built and cycled, but never really got many corals in it. I was excited for that one because it had a sump, while all my other aquariums didn't.
I have had my nuvo fusion for about 5 years. I am finally getting another sump back. I think this is the perfect aquarium for me.
The problem with the 100 gallon was that it was a lot of water to manage, and our sump was way too small.
With this 60 gallon, the sump is plenty large. I have room for a large refugium and a good skimmer.

Anyway, that's my background. On to the specific of my tank.

I bought this tank sort of on a whim from my LFS. I had been wanting to getting a new tank, but I need to save some money. Then, I came across this tank for $1,000. It is a 24"x24"x24" glass cube. It is made by a company called visio and is pretty old from what I can tell. It has thick black bracing around the top and normal glass. It also came with a solid wood stand. While I really like the rimless look of my nuvo fusion and the low iron glass, this 60 gallon tank is perfect for me. I don't mind the brace that much and I never notice that the glass has a blue tint or anything.

The first thing I did when I got this tank was coat the stand in some sort of sealent. I forget exactly what the sealent was. It was my dad's idea. It is something used on boats. So, despite being wood, the stand is pretty much completely sealed and water resistent.

I decided to go with a bare-bottom tank this time around. I had always used sand because I liked the look of it, but I found a way to get that pearly white-sand look and have a bare bottom at the same time. I used some King Starboard, which is a marine-grade plastic, to cover the bottom of the aquarium.

The aquariums also came with an awesome crystal trigger sump.

Here's the equipment I'm running on the tank:
2 Nero 3 powerheads
1 AI Prime 16HD for display lighting
Another AI Prime 16HD as a refugium light
EcoTech Marine Vectra S2 for the return pump
Aquamaxx HOB 1.5 protein skimmer
Duetto Dual sensor ATO
ViaAqua 200 Watt heater

As of now, the tank has two fish and all the coral frags from my Nuvo fusion.

The reason I am using only one AI Prime is that most of the corals I want to keep prefer low light. The tank will be an LPS and Softie dominated tank with some montipora at the top and a colony of birdsnest (which is a small frag right now). Originally, I was going to run two AI Primes, but I decided that one is plenty.

As for fish, here is my plan:
A gladiator clownfish and a royal gramma (which are currently in the tank).
Fire fish
Bangaii Cardinal
Sapphire damsel
Tomini Tang
Mandarin dragonet.

At first, I was planning on doing just four fish, but I decided that a few small fish such as the fire fish, cardinal, and damsel wouldn't hurt much. From a space perspective, there is plenty of swim room. As for nutrients, I would say that is more than I would prefer, but I think it will be better in the long run. As I add more corals and the corals grow, the nutrients will get sucked up more.

Everything is running great except for my protein skimmer. It produces a lot of microbubbles, but I'm going to try to solve that issue. If not, I'll probably get a new skimmer.

Anyway, thank you for reading. I will be posting pictures soon.

kevgib67 · Jul 8, 2022

Great start! Im looking forward to seeing the pictures soon. As you probably know it’s sometimes tough to get a skimmer dialed in in a new system with few organics in the water column. Id give it some time. Good luck.

Nathan Peel · Jul 9, 2022

kevgib67 said:
Great start! Im looking forward to seeing the pictures soon. As you probably know it’s sometimes tough to get a skimmer dialed in in a new system with few organics in the water column. Id give it some time. Good luck.

Thank you!

Yeah...about that skimmer.
So I realized that I had the return pvc on it wrong. It supposed to go into a T and them into a 90. I had it just on an 90.
So, I took the skimmer out of the sumps and tried to pull the 90 off. It would come off. It was glued or anything. I have taken it off many times before.
I pulled harder. It ended up breaking off the body of the skimmer...
I could try to glue it back together, but it was kind of my sign to just get a new skimmer.
I'm gonna go with the reef octopus classic 110sss 5"
I'll put it together right and then let it do its thing. If it makes microbubbles. I won't worry about it.

Nathan Peel · Jul 9, 2022

Here's some pictures of the tank

Nathan Peel · Jul 10, 2022

So, as I've mentioned before, the tank already has a clownfish and a royal gramma that I kept in nano. I've had the clownfish for about 2 years and the royal gramma for a couple months.

The clownfish never showed any signs of disease. The royal gramma however had flukes.
I treated it with prazi and it's all better now.

There was no reason to quarantine them because I had seen them both free of disease for a month.

The reason I'm talk about this is because I got three new fish.

I got a red fire fish, a bangaii cardinal, and a sapphire damselfish. I've heard a lot of people say sapphire damsels are one of the least aggressive damselfish. I wanted some blue in my tank, so that's why I went with that fish. If he ends up being a little aggressive, I'm hoping the tang I get will sort of keep him in check.

Those three fish are currently in quarantine. I'm treating them with copper.

Nathan Peel · Nov 6, 2022

So, unfortunately, I had to unexpectedly move due to some domestic issues.
I essentially had to completely tear down the tank and start it back up. This was not something I was able to plan for.
Anyway, I started the tank back up and cycled it and everything. I kept the fish and corals in my uncle's spare tank until my cube was ready. I lost all of my soft corals and several of the corals browned out or lost their color.
This was back in July. It is now November and the tank is doing great. All of the fish are happy.
A few of the corals bleached a bit from a bad salinity swing. Essentially, I was running a filter pad that got clogged up and caused the return section water level to lower a lot.
Only a couple of corals were affected. I was going to try to make this an LPS-dominant aquarium with a few montiopora, but I feel that isn't working. The montipora are very discolored due to low lighting. I had two choices, either increase the lighting or get rid of the montiopora. I have a couple of micromussa that are doing great and are starting to spread. I don't want to risk them bleaching from too much light, so I decided I would make this a nearly full LPS tank. I still have a few cyphastrea, a leptoseris, and a birdsnest, which are technicallly "SPS", but they fit in well with this low-light tank I'm doing.
I have also decided to make this a primarily chalice-focused tank. I will be removing some rock at the top to make room for more chalice corals. I currently have 6 chalice coral frags, but I plan on getting 3-5 more. I will update with pictures soon. I just I'd give this little update for now.