Aqua Japan AIO 30 Gal Cube Build / Journal

[El_Negrito]

Lets start with a little background.

Although I was born and past the first years of my life in the "States", English is not my primary language and spellcheckers be danged. Sooo... Things gonna get written wrong and sometimes, what I'm trying to express might get misunderstood as rude. Its not my intention, I apologize in advance!

I've bin into Saltwater Aquariums for more than 20 years. First one was a 10 gal. with an Aquaclear HOB filter and I had it for 8 to 10 years, don't really remember. Second one was a 90 gal. with refugium and wet/dry filter. This one lasted around 3 - 4 years.

Most of the livestock on both systems, I personally collected from several dive spots around where I live. Except Corals, these were frags given to me by fello refers.

Current System.

Aqua Japan AJ-Q60 (30gal.)
Stock lights:
AJ-LED-BW600B (21Wat)
Circulation:
Jeabo SLW-20
Resun SP-1200 Submersible pump
80 GPH Submersible water pump (for Refugium)
Refugium:
Imagitarium Pet Keeper for Aquarium Fish, Large (3 gal. Capacity)
Stand:
Costom DIY Build

Some Pic's

Stand


Stand and Aquarium


Refugium

 

[El_Negrito]

Update

Initially I had these “grand plans” of making my own “live rock" with cement and rock salt and all that jazz. But, after having a empty tank in my living room for about a year, and still not deciding on exactly how I was going to go about making the "pseudo live rock" formations or what “recipe” to use…
I decided to bite the bullet and fill'er up.

What I ended up doing was going to some of the beaches around where I live to see if I could find some interesting rocks to put in the aquarium. I knew as a fact that I would find interesting things there because for my previous builds these where my go to places. After collecting 2 buckets worth of "specimens", way more than I needed mind you, I decided I was tired and called it a day. After a couple of days, I rinsed them off a couple times and reevaluated them. Then I played around with how they could be staked and did some rockscapes until I ended up getting frustrated. So in the tank they went.

The tank was filed with the rockscape, around 25'ish lbs. of CaribSea Special Grade dry sand and water on April 15 2020. I used what remained in an 8 year old bucket of Instant Ocean and a bag of Reef Crystals to prepare the salt mix. Can’t say I’m too happy with how the rockscape turned out but I’m impatient and wanted to see the tank full and kicking. Rockscaping a cube turned out to be harder than I thought! I mean a standard rectangular tank is by no means a walk in the park but the space and geometry of a 30 gallon cube…
I have no idea how people come up with so many designs for beautiful cube aquariums.

Anyway, whats done is done and this is what I ended up with:

Rockscaping Ideas / Fails



Fill up



End Product

 

[El_Negrito]

More about the setup

The aquarium sits in a corner in my living room. (In the near future I will come to realize this was a big mistake and regret it!) And, like most AIO Aquariums, this one has three chambers in the back. The first one has a sponge for filtration, in the center compartment I threw in a Brightwell Xpot brick and halve of the ceramic rings that came with the tank. The last one is home to the return pump.



The first chamber has a grill/skimmer (Weer?) on the top and another one towards the bottom. To me this is “ludicrous”. What ends up happening is that most, if not all, of the water flows thru the bottom grill. Rendering the top grill, which I suppose should forme an overflow and skim the surface, useless! This causes an unsightly oil film that accumulates on top of the water and ¾ of the sponge, turn into a bacterial colony/filter?

My return pump is rated for 700L/H (about 184 GPH) which I find a little on the low side and I will eventually change it for a Sicce Syncra Silent 1.5. In this third chamber I also added a small fountain pump to feed the refugium.



For flow “ramdomness”, a “SpinStream Wavemaking Flow Nozzle” by Innovative Marine was added. I’m loving the swirling flow it creates but it, unfortunately, restricts the flow (water pressure) quite a bit. Anyway, more reasons for upgrading the return pump.



As for the refugium, it is installed behind the main display. It is placed slightly higher. Fed by the 80 GPH pump and returns to the display by gravity. Also, it’s stocked with about an inch of crushed coral, some DIY “pod hotels” (made of corrugated plastic board), 2 small-ish dead brain corals and some Brightwell Xpot Cubes.



Although my intention was to eventually replace the stock light strip, it turned out to be too white for my taste. So white, in fact, that I think the blue LED's are actually intended to be moonlights. And as much as I dislike those Windex blue looking tanks, I know some amount of blue is needed for corals… ViparSpectra Black Box lights are going to be ordered!



No protein skimmer is installed at the moment and I honestly would prefer not to use one down the line. I haven't used one in the past and don't think a protein skimmer is an indispensable piece of reefing equipment. But, I’ve never had a coral dominated setup before. Needless to say (I think) I’m planing this one to be coral dominated. So it’s possible I will change my mind. But, where would a protein skimmer fit...