Afrokobe's 25 Gallon Cube
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afrokobe
Valuable Member
Thanks! Dry rock, but I seeded with a piece of live rock from my lfs and added some stuff from IPSF. Seems to have giving me a good mix of biodiversity. No real "dry" rock issues
PandorasChalk
Active Member
With my coming 40 gallon I have thought about taking this same route. I have leftover LifeRock I never used from the 14 and I figured pairing with a nano live rock kit would work. did you have any curing time from the live rock before you used it?
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afrokobe
Valuable Member
no idea, it was sitting at the LFS's tank for a while. There were some coralline already growing, so I expect it was cured for a while
no experience at all! My first real camera with the a6000, prior to that was just the occasional vacation snap with the phone camera.
kevgib67
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It looks like you haven’t spent any money yet on corals! Great pics! Keep it up.
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afrokobe
Valuable Member
I have quite the update to write, but have been putting it off for while. Tank crashed a while back (in July) and lost a good chunk of corals. Was embarrassed to write such a disappointing update. Its been a while since the crash and I am still trucking along and have gotten the tank back on right path. Hopefully I can do a full update/recap of what happened.
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afrokobe
Valuable Member
A long time since my last update.... Not the greatest update and one that I have been delaying to write for a while due to my own embarrassment from mistakes made.
A month after my last update, I ended up with BJD spreading rapidly throughout my tank. I ordered some wild torches from ebay and one of them started developing an infection after a few days. I wish I just pulled the plug on the torch then, but I was hopeful I could save it. Over the next week, I saw torch after torch develop BJD. Timing of it was horrible as well as I was going through a very busy time at work and had no time to devote to the tank. By the end of the week, I had lost almost all my torches and some of my other LPS were developing additional infections.
Things moved pretty fast and I got pretty demotivated seeing the corals I had grown die off so rapidly. I lost my prize dragon soul that I grew from 1 head to three and countless other lps. Nearly every single acan perished.
After my BJD event, I was pretty bummed about the hobby and just let the tank go on cruise control. Nutrients started raising and got a bad case of gha.
A couple of months ago, I decided to finally get the tank back on track. I decided to finally get rid of my hob refugium and canister filter as I wasn't the best at the maintenance schedule. (I totally understand the canister debate now, but the HOB refugium was great, I just did not have access to behind it) I decided to install a sump to my build along with a HOB overflow. With eshopps nano sump and life reef hob overflow ordered I was good to go to start on my new filtration...
Well... I was an idiot when I built my stand and didn't leave enough clearance for a sump. I had 2 inches of space above the sump lol and no way possible to do maintenance or put in a skimmer. Because of that, I built a sump stand out of some spare wood to place next to my tank.
Next step for my rebuild, I decided to finally get a protein skimmer. I went with the ultra reef, which I love. I have absolutely nothing, but good things to say about this skimmer. I also ordered and returned a bubble magus prior to deciding on the ultra reef. The bubble magus is not even a comparison.
This was all back in early September. I also introduced to some additional cuc (urchins/seahare) to help with the gha. The display is now looking clean with only a couple of spots of gha. I have my nutrients down to a good level (although I did add some new dry rock, which spiked up my phosphates recently).
I am taking things much slower this time around, although I did go to Reefapalooza this past weekend and bought some of the first new corals in a while. My tank has also hit the 1 year mark in September, so I am hoping the stability will help. Knowing there are people like me out there, I will reiterate the commons saying of "taking things slow". Definitely been a huge learning lesson.
While most of this update has been a little bit of a downer. Here are some of the corals that survived my crash:
Glitter Goni is growing large and looking great
Speckled krak started with around ~5 heads, now a full sized colony
This bowerbanki started out this pale red color; now has yellow streaks through it
Cynaria is fat and happy
This has been a long update, but I will end it here. I will post some pictures of the corals I got at RAP later this week!
Side note: all the fish are happy and healthy. No issues there, but thinking about rehoming my sixline to get a different fish
A month after my last update, I ended up with BJD spreading rapidly throughout my tank. I ordered some wild torches from ebay and one of them started developing an infection after a few days. I wish I just pulled the plug on the torch then, but I was hopeful I could save it. Over the next week, I saw torch after torch develop BJD. Timing of it was horrible as well as I was going through a very busy time at work and had no time to devote to the tank. By the end of the week, I had lost almost all my torches and some of my other LPS were developing additional infections.
Things moved pretty fast and I got pretty demotivated seeing the corals I had grown die off so rapidly. I lost my prize dragon soul that I grew from 1 head to three and countless other lps. Nearly every single acan perished.
After my BJD event, I was pretty bummed about the hobby and just let the tank go on cruise control. Nutrients started raising and got a bad case of gha.
A couple of months ago, I decided to finally get the tank back on track. I decided to finally get rid of my hob refugium and canister filter as I wasn't the best at the maintenance schedule. (I totally understand the canister debate now, but the HOB refugium was great, I just did not have access to behind it) I decided to install a sump to my build along with a HOB overflow. With eshopps nano sump and life reef hob overflow ordered I was good to go to start on my new filtration...
Well... I was an idiot when I built my stand and didn't leave enough clearance for a sump. I had 2 inches of space above the sump lol and no way possible to do maintenance or put in a skimmer. Because of that, I built a sump stand out of some spare wood to place next to my tank.
Next step for my rebuild, I decided to finally get a protein skimmer. I went with the ultra reef, which I love. I have absolutely nothing, but good things to say about this skimmer. I also ordered and returned a bubble magus prior to deciding on the ultra reef. The bubble magus is not even a comparison.
This was all back in early September. I also introduced to some additional cuc (urchins/seahare) to help with the gha. The display is now looking clean with only a couple of spots of gha. I have my nutrients down to a good level (although I did add some new dry rock, which spiked up my phosphates recently).
I am taking things much slower this time around, although I did go to Reefapalooza this past weekend and bought some of the first new corals in a while. My tank has also hit the 1 year mark in September, so I am hoping the stability will help. Knowing there are people like me out there, I will reiterate the commons saying of "taking things slow". Definitely been a huge learning lesson.
While most of this update has been a little bit of a downer. Here are some of the corals that survived my crash:
Glitter Goni is growing large and looking great
Speckled krak started with around ~5 heads, now a full sized colony
This bowerbanki started out this pale red color; now has yellow streaks through it
Cynaria is fat and happy
This has been a long update, but I will end it here. I will post some pictures of the corals I got at RAP later this week!
Side note: all the fish are happy and healthy. No issues there, but thinking about rehoming my sixline to get a different fish
PandorasChalk
Active Member
That’s rough man! The coral that lived look amazing though! BJD has been a fear of mine and stories of how fast it moves is insane. Glad to see you are sticking it out, I am sure your new overflow and sump with the skimmer will help get your tank back to where you want it!
Steven Garland
Valuable Member
Oh myyyyy,wow this is an absolute beauty !!! Incredible job absolutely drool worthy. #bowtoyou !!!
Cthulukelele
2500 Club Member
I'd love to hear more about the tank! Tentative update was looking good!
OP
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afrokobe
Valuable Member
Tank is doing well! I've been busy with a lot of other stuff. Mainly being... I upgraded!
I bought a returned 60g custom planet tank. obligatory animal/child in tank picture
taking the build slow. Just got my custom overflow box last week and still havent ordered any plumbing. I will probably just roll this build thread into the new one once I have enough of an update!
some update pictures
OG is getting big! and getting more bubbles! (I took this one a few weeks back, so its gotten even larger since)
Zoas seem to really love my tank and grow really fast
I bought a returned 60g custom planet tank. obligatory animal/child in tank picture
taking the build slow. Just got my custom overflow box last week and still havent ordered any plumbing. I will probably just roll this build thread into the new one once I have enough of an update!
some update pictures
OG is getting big! and getting more bubbles! (I took this one a few weeks back, so its gotten even larger since)
Zoas seem to really love my tank and grow really fast
misturrtinnie
Community Member
Awesome photos, sucks to hear about the bjd. If you ever get back into torches I'm also in north dallas and been trying to grow some.
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