Biocube-> 40 breeder upgrade!

[duberii]

I inherited this 40 gallon tank, protein skimmer, and sump from a retiring reefer, so I thought I'd upgrade my 32 gallon biocube to the 40 gallon + ~30 gallon sump! After a full day of work transferring rock and livestock, I finally arrived at the following results:

Here's the left side of the tank, which is lit by a blackbox LED (Which I plan to be the "higher light" side of my tank, though right now it's turned down extremely low)

-The right side of the tank, lit by an Orbit Marine IC Loop, which will probably be a "lower light" side of my tank if I can help it)

I couldn't really afford to get matching lights, so I worked with what I have. I'm probably going to have to mount both lights a bit higher off the tank since there is a bit of a dark spot in the middle of the tank, but I thought it's better than nothing.

Using the advice from @brandon429, I rinsed the caribsea ocean direct sand to help with cloudiness, which helped a ton, but I don't think I rinsed enough since I did have a bit of cloudiness when I first put the sand in, but that went away the next morning.

Also, I rinsed the rock out in old saltwater, which I can only offer visual results for at the moment. Nothing was knocked up when I placed the rock in the tank, which is always good to see. I'll be testing for ammonia every day for the next few days and I'll post the results here.

Brandon also mentioned that I could add livestock immediately, and since it was easier to transfer my rock and livestock all in one swoop, that's what I did. I used all new saltwater for the tank, but still took time to acclimate everything before putting it all in.

So far, everything looks good! All my corals (even my acros!) opened up again that night, and nothing looks like it's doing poorly as of this morning. I fed my dendro some masstick, which it took just as it normally would! Same with my acanthophyllia, which is sometimes pretty weird about the food it eats.

The only issue I can see is a minor dino patch on the right side of the tank, but all my levels are within an acceptable range so I'm sure it'll subside in the next few days.

Now onto the sump:

I have 2 ~200W heaters, a Jebao 4000 DCP return pump, some scattered marine pure balls, and the Current Fission skimmer I inherited (of course, it won't be of much use yet because the fish have literally JUST been added to the tank.

I also put some chaeto that I got as a hitchhiker that's been growing slowly and steadily for a few months, along with a rock full of xenia and cluster dusters in the refugium, which is lit by a PAR38 bulb courtesy of @SMSREEF . Because I only have 2 fish in the tank, I doubt I need any more chaeto, and I can just let it grow out for a while from that small chunk.

The aquascape is the next thing I'll be working on, since I have a little foundation rock I'd like to add in, and I'd like to add some layers and dimension to the aquascape (I know I'm supposed to do that first and all, but it wasn't possible because of how my transfer was working out.


That's all the news for this tank as of now, but I'll certainly update you guys as the tank progresses

 

[brandon429]

I will link this promptly to our microbiology of cycling thread under a new subsection one page one under tank moves and upgrades, well done, well done so clear such a controlled/ deliberate start thank you for posting
B

 

[SMSREEF]

The tank and sump are looking good!

 

[brandon429]

well done, you're linked here

The microbiology of reef tank cycling.

You can skip your cycle. Ive been reefing online for twenty years and have never waited one second for a tank to cycle, because I buy rocks that are already cycled and move them home. Here's two: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/octo-high-end-sps-skip-cycle-build.713256/...

www.reef2reef.com

breakdown of your system transfer/blend based on pic details:

you have no free ammonia or things wouldnt look so bright

you have no source for free ammonia; minor transient clouding as silt fraction of new sand isn't harmful its cosmetic + gone, nice pre rinse.

the open corals/too sensitive to open in free ammonia water. even if a tester claimed some free ammonia, we can see biologically thats not the case and the tester would be wrong.

your clownfish, in the lower oxygen areas of the tank. when in gill distress, they hover at the top. we can rule out aerotaxis from lack of o2 or ammonia burning by seeing your fish happy in the current.

what you did is how about 95% of reef convention reefs are started. the rest are bottle bac demos. that helps to see how reliable cloud free relocation can be, you sure documented it well!

all you did was remove the waste stores that constitute old tank syndrome

some worms might have been lost, thats the price of a cloudless transfer and more will replace them since your live rock housing the new ones didnt get ammonia burnt.


running a super clean reef isn't where the fun is

its feeding strong now that spaces are open, ready for waste cycling that can be cleaned one day since skip cycle cleaning is doable, infinitely until your reef is very old

since your reef is so clean, it can eat better than ever without algae as a conseq

your reef is entering a positive coral mass condition relative to steady-state due to cleanliness, time to feed it like a bodybuilder, you've made way for all the weight to pack in

what you caused here can be used to beat cyano issues; having a clean reef does address the cause. your N and P is balanced because its related now more to mix water levels than leaky waste reserves.

 

[duberii]

Just finished the day 1 test- 0 ppm Ammonia

 

[duberii]

The tank and sump are looking good!

Thank you! I'm sure once I get all the corals onto the rock it'll start to look more like a typical reef- for the sake of light acclamation I decided to set them all on the sandbed for a while. I took a picture from above, which made me laugh because even my corals are social distancing!

 

[duberii]

well done, you're linked here

The microbiology of reef tank cycling.

You can skip your cycle. Ive been reefing online for twenty years and have never waited one second for a tank to cycle, because I buy rocks that are already cycled and move them home. Here's two: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/octo-high-end-sps-skip-cycle-build.713256/...

www.reef2reef.com

breakdown of your system transfer/blend based on pic details:

you have no free ammonia or things wouldnt look so bright

you have no source for free ammonia; minor transient clouding as silt fraction of new sand isn't harmful its cosmetic + gone, nice pre rinse.

the open corals/too sensitive to open in free ammonia water. even if a tester claimed some free ammonia, we can see biologically thats not the case and the tester would be wrong.

your clownfish, in the lower oxygen areas of the tank. when in gill distress, they hover at the top. we can rule out aerotaxis from lack of o2 or ammonia burning by seeing your fish happy in the current.

what you did is how about 95% of reef convention reefs are started. the rest are bottle bac demos. that helps to see how reliable cloud free relocation can be, you sure documented it well!

all you did was remove the waste stores that constitute old tank syndrome

some worms might have been lost, thats the price of a cloudless transfer and more will replace them since your live rock housing the new ones didnt get ammonia burnt.


running a super clean reef isn't where the fun is

its feeding strong now that spaces are open, ready for waste cycling that can be cleaned one day since skip cycle cleaning is doable, infinitely until your reef is very old

since your reef is so clean, it can eat better than ever without algae as a conseq

your reef is entering a positive coral mass condition relative to steady-state due to cleanliness, time to feed it like a bodybuilder, you've made way for all the weight to pack in

what you caused here can be used to beat cyano issues; having a clean reef does address the cause. your N and P is balanced because its related now more to mix water levels than leaky waste reserves.

I did forget to mention that I used a full bottle of turbo start because I was a bit weary of starting such a clean tank. Either way, I do attribute most of the success to your method, since bottled bac doesn't claim to skip a cycle.

 

[SMSREEF]

Thank you! I'm sure once I get all the corals onto the rock it'll start to look more like a typical reef- for the sake of light acclamation I decided to set them all on the sandbed for a while. I took a picture from above, which made me laugh because even my corals are social distancing!

Lol, All they need are cute little masks

 

[duberii]

Minor update:

Filter sock overflowed for the first time today- I was shocked to see it seeing as the tank is so new, but I guess that means it's doing its job.

Also, here's my new rockscape, with a new rock (can you point out which one is the new one? I didn't rinse all the sediment off, unfortunately, which led to quite a bit of clouding in the water, which you can see below. Tell me what you guys think about the aquascape, and if you guys like it, I'll start putting frag plugs up on the rocks. I'm also anticipating a phosphate spike due to the new rock, so I'm gonna add a bit more phosguard today.

 

[duberii]

Not so much a tank update as much as it's a coral update but boy is it a good one:

Alright so I'll start with the first coral I ever got, which is a blasto. Here it was almost 2 years ago:

And here it is as of a few days ago:

It went from 1 head that was around the size of a quarter to 1 head about the size of a golf ball, which then slowly shrank down back to the size of a quarter in the first year. , which I thought was dying. However, over the course of this past year, it has sprouted about 20 new heads all around the perimeter of the first. It's starting to look like a mini colony!

Next up is the one I'm most proud of. I got this fungia frag at Fragtoberfest in 2018 (so it's also coming up on 2 years. Baby corals don't always have the best survival rates, but it was being sold for $5 so I thought I would throw the dice. Over the course of the past 2 years, it has increased from the size of a dime to a little larger than the size of a quarter!

This is my thrid fungia/cycloseris coral, but the first one I've nursed since a baby.

I also got this acan about 2 years ago, which has sprouted about 4 new heads around the base of the original polyp, which has surprisingly outcompeted some GSP on the frag plug that I thought would be an issue:

I also got this turbinaria coral, which is another personal favorite. It started with around 10 heads, and after 2 years, it has a total of around 30 all around the perimeter of the colony, and is well on its way to forming the usual cup shape.

I also have a duncan that has sprouted 6 nearly fully grown heads (which is expected for established duncans) but I don't have a picture of it on hand at the moment. I'll probably include it in my next post, which will be about the extreme color changes of certain corals I've had in my tank for a bit. It went from a tan color to a teal/green color. I also have a cycloseris coral that went from a sunflower-ish color to a rich orange.

That's it for this update! I hope I'll be able to include some pics of the color changes in my next post, though I bet it'll only be the two mentioned above

 

[roninmagik1]

How are the acros doing? i assume you've got them on the left side which has the higher power lighting, right?

 

[duberii]

How are the acros doing? i assume you've got them on the left side which has the higher power lighting, right?

Yep! They're on the higher lighting side, but I don't think they had enough light- the stag I got melted away pretty much overnight (could have been due to the predatory limpets I found in the tank which have since been sumped, but I really don't know). The slimers and gold medal acros are still kicking, but I want to bring them closer to the light because I haven't seen amazing coloration or growth.

 

[duberii]

Not so much a tank update as much as it's a coral update but boy is it a good one:

Alright so I'll start with the first coral I ever got, which is a blasto. Here it was almost 2 years ago:

And here it is as of a few days ago:

It went from 1 head that was around the size of a quarter to 1 head about the size of a golf ball, which then slowly shrank down back to the size of a quarter in the first year. , which I thought was dying. However, over the course of this past year, it has sprouted about 20 new heads all around the perimeter of the first. It's starting to look like a mini colony!

Next up is the one I'm most proud of. I got this fungia frag at Fragtoberfest in 2018 (so it's also coming up on 2 years. Baby corals don't always have the best survival rates, but it was being sold for $5 so I thought I would throw the dice. Over the course of the past 2 years, it has increased from the size of a dime to a little larger than the size of a quarter!

This is my thrid fungia/cycloseris coral, but the first one I've nursed since a baby.

I also got this acan about 2 years ago, which has sprouted about 4 new heads around the base of the original polyp, which has surprisingly outcompeted some GSP on the frag plug that I thought would be an issue:

I also got this turbinaria coral, which is another personal favorite. It started with around 10 heads, and after 2 years, it has a total of around 30 all around the perimeter of the colony, and is well on its way to forming the usual cup shape.

I also have a duncan that has sprouted 6 nearly fully grown heads (which is expected for established duncans) but I don't have a picture of it on hand at the moment. I'll probably include it in my next post, which will be about the extreme color changes of certain corals I've had in my tank for a bit. It went from a tan color to a teal/green color. I also have a cycloseris coral that went from a sunflower-ish color to a rich orange.

That's it for this update! I hope I'll be able to include some pics of the color changes in my next post, though I bet it'll only be the two mentioned above

Slight update- the dendro sprouted another head on the side of that bottom left polyp- it's pretty awkward to feed but it's definitely there! The acan now has about 7 baby heads. That blasto's main head started receding for some reason (It has since stopped), but I expect it to be replaced by several baby heads sometime soon

 

[duberii]

Here's another brief update while I'm at it- I picked up these from credabel coral labs (now Capital Coral and Aquatics)
Here are two photosynthetic gorgonians I picked up:

And my current favorite coral, a herpolitha tongue coral- I'm not sure, but I feel like this has grown since I got it! maybe I'm crazy but I swear it was more rectangular when I bought it and has since become more of a semi-circle.

I also picked up this isaurus coral, which has stayed curled up like this but has colored up pretty nice. I haven't seen the polyp open at night, but it certainly looks more open than it does in this pic:

I also got this fox coral, another one of my favorites at the moment, from @Pieces of the Ocean :

I should also report the growth of my northern star coral. The first pic is when I found it on my rock, which I then broke off and stuck onto a frag plug. The second pic is it now.

I also picked up two jebao wavemakers, which I think is partially responsible for my BTA forming slight bubbles (after hiding in the rocks):

 

[duberii]

Tank update (10/13/2020):
I played with the rockwork a bit to get this super cool cave area, which I hoped my fire shrimp would inhabit, but that hasn't been the case. Regardless, I think it's super cool!

Starting from the left, we have my bowerbanki, which hasn't done anything miraculous since I got it. It did develop some green rings in response to new lighting, but I actually kinda like it. My BTA is not looking too hot and is hiding near the bottom in response to the new lighting since I rearranged the tank. The Rock flower seems to like the new light though! My clove polyps have grown slowly but steadily, which is expected of them, but nothing huge has happened with them either.

Here we have my monti at the top, which is currently throwing a fit after a snail knocked it off the rock and into the sand- I should glue this one down sometime soon . You can also see my gorgonians on the left, which were just moved to the higher light side of the tank, but they are relatively new so I don't expect them to have any crazy updates. You can see I have an acro which is going through some RTN there as well, which I got on sunday and clearly the move was a bit too much for it... You can also see the slimer in the back that I think was in too low of lighting and started to reduce as well... I increased the lighting over time so hopefully, we can see a recovery! And below all that you can see the stylo (I think?) that I picked up at the same time as the acro that is going through RTN, and clearly it's doing well- the part that I held to place it is still a bit closed up, but the rest of it is opened up, and was opened almost an hour after I put it in the tank! Huge fan since it adds some new colors to the tank, and is also a pretty large piece.

My isaurus polyp is also there, which is always curled up during the day. However, the other night I woke up and had the instinct to check on my tank, and I saw it in its full glory! I wonder if I can train it to open during the day like I did my dendro... It would be a challenge but I'll keep spraying some phyto near it during feeding time to see if I can get a response! Then I can actually target feed it some reef roids or something.

Moving to the right we have the sand-dwellers. My acanthophyllia has colored up a ton since I moved it under the higher lighting, and my cynarina has pretty much stayed as it was. Nothing else to resport on these guys.

Here's where there are some real updates. That orange diaseris on the left has opened wonderfully and has been consistently eating. No compaints there. Those plate corals, though, have gone through it. I made the mistake of placing them a little to close to the den of the fire shrimp- after feeding one time, the fire shrimp tore open the mouth of the orange plate to get at some of the shrimp in its stomach. The green playe, which I just realized now, is probably being irritated by a spinoid worm right next to it, so I might have to scoot it over a bit- but I expect it to open up fully after I do that. The abby fungia has darkened in response to the lower light levels, but has been eating and hasn't experienced any tragedies.

To the right I have a lithophyllon, which was partially eaten by a coral-eating limpet that I have since banished to the sump. However, pretty much everything that was eaten has grown back. I also have my cyphastrea, which has recovered fully after receding a bit and has colored up nicely as well. Then I have my frograspawn, which is currently splitting into 2 heads, which inhabits my clownfish. And on the far right I have my northern cup coral, which looks funny because it closes up after it eats, which has developed a few new polyps.

My favoite update though is my herpolitha. Whenever I feed it, it swells up like crazy into the cutest little fat plate, like so:

Above all of those we have my chalice, which has developed a few new mouths but really hasn't grown outward all that much. I also have my goniastrea which is developing a new polyp, but really hasn't grown all that much. On the right I have my turbinaria, which now has full polyps around the perimeter of its skeleton. When it's fully open, the tentacles are about a cm long, which has a super nice effect in the flow of the tank.

On the far right, I have my fox coral, my duncan, my acans, my blasto, and my GSP (up at the top). My fox coral recently developed a new mouth, which I'm super happy about, but my rainbow acan has lost its rainbow in favor of a yellowish greenish orange. I'm thinking of moving it somewhere with less light in hopes that it will become more rainbow again. My purple/green acan has about 5 decent sized heads around it, which you can see about 5 of. There are also 2 baby heads that I see. The coloration could probably be improved by decreasing the lighting, but I can't really tell where I could move it to. My duncan now has 8 heads, about 6 of which are fully grown. It eats like a pig and is growing nicely (the middle polyp is deflated for some reason here, but normally it looks fine. My blasto now has a bunch of small heads, which you can kind of see in thsi picture.

Finally, for the bottom right, we have a few more NPS. I've had this dendro for a while, and you can see there are new heads all over the place. I also see a few stray tentacles that i usually see before a new head grows, so it seems like this dendro is growing and growing fast. I also have that favia there, which has pretty much stayed as is for as long as I've had it, which really isn't long. I just got these 2 tubastrea corals, one of which is a micrantha. Both I have gotten to eat since i got them on sunday, and I got some really wierd long polyp extention (with none of the tentacles out for some reason)? Last night that I wish I got a picture of. Now all I have to do is train them to be open during the day/during feeding time, which I shouldn't have issues doing now that I know I am able to feed them and keep them healthy in the meantime.

I also saw my decorator crab hanging out here the other day, which i tried to geta few pictures of, but what can I say? It does its job well.