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I hope you're sensing a theme in this build thread so this shouldn't come as a shock but I ignored the tank again from around Jan 2016 to March 2017... Ended up cleaning up the tank...
afboundguy's 25'ish cube build from 2011
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Next major task will be sanding and re-painting the inside of the canopy... I guess 5+ years of salt creep and lack of paying attention to it did a number on it!!!
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Jan 2018 FTS
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Oct 2018 FTS
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Dec 2018 FTS
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Ended up getting new light that I tried out and have been running ever since...
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Jan 2019 hooked up 2 part dosing...
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It's been a while since I've ignored the tank right? I know that's what you're probably thinking at this point so not to disappoint I ignored the tank once again around Jan 2020 then ignored the tank and stopped 2 part dosing. I ended up switching salt mixes in March 2020 and have been consistently taking care of the tank.... I'll leave everybody hanging for now and I'll update the rest of the build tomorrow!!! Thanks for reading!!!
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So picking back up thanks to nothing else left to do outside of work life it allowed me to focus much more on the tank in March 2020. I ended up loosing most of my small SPS frags (gee I wonder why I would think SPS would thrive in a tank where everything is ignored!) so I ended up going more LPS and mixed reef...
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I ended up setting a goal of doing live food so I started up a phyto and copepod set up as well as a white worm set up. The phyto and copepod set ups started off in a 10 gallon tank half way full with a small powerhead and an adjustable heater with a small digital thermometer as my basement is about 55-60 degrees and too cold. Worked well enough and ended up switching out the rubbermaid container for a glass tank I had kicking around... I ended up purchasing a brand new 4 bottle wine cooler on FB marketplace for $20 that has worked out perfectly for the white worms!
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Ended up making the famous @Paul B spot feeder!!! I added a small funnel at the top to make it super easy to put in pods and BBS... I also superglued some frag plugs to the bottom of the spot feeder to make it much easier to stay in the sandbed. I first used some RO filter for the top but ended up swapping it out for black nylon stockings that work much better...
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Also started some brine shrimp. Ended up purchasing the hatchery dish from Brine Shrimp Direct and glad I did. It's super easy and I usually get 3 days out of one scoop of eggs and then I throw in a second scoop on day 3 and get another 3-4 days before the water starts to smell a little funky and I just clean it in the sink with soap and water and repeat the process. I attribute all this hard work with all the live food for my success keeping my mandarin in such a small tank. I did months and months worth of work to get the tank ready before I got the little mandarin...
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FTS April 2020 (sorry for the overly blue hadn't purchased a filter kit yet)
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Expanded my pod culture into a 5.5 gallon tank. I used some extra glass I had sitting around and siliconed it to divide it into 2 cultures...
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I never could understand Reef Octopus having a hang in tank skimmer and keeping their signature red/orange coloring on it. It was such an eyesore and drove me nuts so after I originally started off the build wanting to go skimmerless I finally did go skimmerless and threw on a HOB 3'ish gallon refugium which really cleaned up the inside of the tank and let me get some macroalgae!
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I originally was using one of the surface skimmer boxes for a HOB skimmer but didn't like the look of it so I ended up purchasing a small internal overflow box for a cleaner look as well and I placed the pump inside that so it gets pumped into the HOB refugium and then flows back into the tank.
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July 2020 FTS (again sorry for the overly blue)
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I ended up switching to NSW (natural sea water) for water changes since I live on the coast and my job afforded me the ability to go over a mile off shore to collect a few buckets at a time and due to my small tank size and the fact that I'm only doing water changes once every 1-2 months a five gallon bucket lasted me several months. The tank has never looked better!
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Sept 2020 FTS
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