Bringing the reef into the classroom... 16g BioCube (now a Nuvo 40)

[reefiniteasy]

Looks great @Alex Sadowsky! Nice acro pack!

Thanks. Currently fighting some green cyano on the sand bed. But I won’t let it get me down.

Her are some new pics.

 

[fishguy242]

wow...looks fantastic!!! ,the growth on the sps,lepto;Drool

 

[Vinman]

Time to frag the frog soon

 

[reefiniteasy]

So I gave in and decided to use ChemiClean. The green cyano has been killing me. I’ve tried so many natural bacteria products (mb7 and Dr. Tim’s Waste Away) and nothing was working. I was simply tired of managing the cyano and never really finding a solution. I won’t go into detail here, but here is the link to the separate thread I made detailing my experience. As of now my reef is green cyano free.

Dreaded green cyano and my experience with ChemiClean

My BioCube has come a long way. It’s gone through one move and a change in rockscape. I never had an “ugly stage” at the beginning. Not sure why. Well it took over a year and a half for that ugly stage to hit. In a period of 3 weeks I changed my light, rockscape and a couple of other things and...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[reefiniteasy]

The tank is FIRE lately. Sps growth is insane. The Kelly Green has pretty much fully encrusted the tile. The purple stylo is loving life. The birds nest is filling out. The AquaSD Hot Tamale has fully encrusted the tile and is now growing off the tile. The Yellow Fuzzy is mushrooming out. I had to put the monti on its own frag cradle on the glass so it won’t shadow anything. I could go on and on. Things are good.

I also received a frag of Gobstopper Zoas from my neighbor. I was nervous that they wouldn’t survive as they were sliced off the rock and just glued to the plug. They are doing great. I think it’s funny that they are doing so well yet the ones I bought in April from WWC melted.

Thanksgiving break is next week. I have the whole week off. Can’t wait to get my Hydros Control 4 hooked up along with the CO2 scrubber I’ve had sitting in the box for two months. I’m going to use the pH probe to monitor the scrubbers effect.

 

[fishguy242]

even the glare, on top of the water is even beautiful!!! nice,great growth ,two thumbs up

 

[reefiniteasy]

Finally was able to spend time in the garage the last couple of days. Building a simple stand mount for my Adaptive Reef Control Board. So far I cut, routed the edges, sanded, drilled holes for wiring and primed it. I will be painting it flat black and then add a clear coat. The control board will hang on the French cleat. The ups will sit on the backside and the Control 4 power bar will be mounted to the back.

 

[Dark_Knightt]

Wow dude you keep a 16g better than I can keep a 20g! The corals growth is incredible! Especially with the SPS, super impressive in a smaller tank to keep such pristine conditions. Im currently in gr10, and I'm the smart kid who only cares about getting 90s and reef tanks. I wish teachers would use their classrooms to teach kids about what their teaching using what could be surrounding them (like in science class, animals!). My current science teacher acc used to have a fish tank but he didnt want to care for it (I said id do it for him but im only in school for like 2-3 days a week due to covid). Ive thought about it, if I didnt want to be a surgeon, I would either want to become a marine biologist or a science teacher! I have always planned that if I became a teacher, I would keep a relatively large reef tank, maybe 70g? I would love to be able to use my knowledge to teach kids about things like reefs and what they do for us. Plus having some corals, a pair of clowns and a tang would make every classroom look better . I find it super awesome that those companies were generous enough to send you some of their products, and that some reefers gave you some frags! Wish you all the best with your journey in reefing, teaching, and everything else! (I truly wish I had a teacher like you. Im the smart teachers pet whos also very chill and fun, so thats a combo teachers dont get often )

 

[Vinman]

Finally was able to spend time in the garage the last couple of days. Building a simple stand mount for my Adaptive Reef Control Board. So far I cut, routed the edges, sanded, drilled holes for wiring and primed it. I will be painting it flat black and then add a clear coat. The control board will hang on the French cleat. The ups will sit on the backside and the Control 4 power bar will be mounted to the back.

I love wood

 

[reefiniteasy]

Just a quick update. 2 coats of flat black complete. Next is a General Finishes Flat Top Coat. Probably 2-3 coats and then I can mount the French cleat. Getting closer to setting up my Control 4 and just cleaning up my birds nest of wires.

 

[reefiniteasy]

Stand/mount complete. Control 4 has been mounted. The UPS fits on the back perfectly. Now I have to mount the Control 4 power bar on the back and redo all my wiring. I’m almost there. It’s hard to find the time to do all this with 2 little kids, family commitments and teaching. I’ll get there very soon.

 

[reefiniteasy]

A lot has happened. The control is awesome! Still haven’t hooked up the pH probe but the rest is amazing. Makes everything easier and provides piece of mind.

I got rid of the crate and surge protectors and everything is now mounted to my control board. The only thing I couldn’t mount was my Kessil controller. The 3.5mm Jack doesn’t reach to the board so I have to get a longer one or an extension.

I also removed one of the three Aqamai KPS pumps. I figured having one blow on the sps corals and one in the bottom back of the tank is plenty of flow. I noticed that the other one was serving no purpose other than adding unnecessary flow and blowing the bubble “open” so it’s mouths were always exposed. I’ve noticed the flow determines the shape of the bubble coral and it looks nicer when the bubbles aren’t being blown to one side. It will also reduce a pump in the display and the heat it generates.

I have pretty much decided that I am going to remove the protein skimmer. I don’t think it is doing much of anything. It is always a watery slightly yellow skimmate. Lately my skimmer has been kicking serious micro bubbles. It’s unsightly and I can’t stand it any longer. I’ll leave the skimmer in for a little bit as the tank adjusts to having one less pump.

I still have to hook up the pH probe, rope leak sensor and I have a second temperature sensor I want to put in the display.

The Bubble coral really put a beating on the Jack-O-Lantern. I had to pop it off the rock and get it up on a frag rack. It should recover. I just hate having the frag rack right there in your face. Everything is growing and filling out.

Oh, lastly, my Tunze Nano Care algae magnet swelled, cracked, and rusted. I only found it by chance when I pulled and it fell off the glass. I already contacted Tunze and Roger sent me a new wet side. Hopefully it’ll be here sometime during the first half of 2021 with the way USPS is running lately. I did go out to Top Shelf Aquatics and pick up the new Flipper Float Nano to hold me over. It is so much better than the original and it sure does float. It’s nice, so now when you miss the flip it floats to the top instead of sinking and having to to go arm deep to get it back.

 

[bob salzlein]

A lot has happened. The control is awesome! Still haven’t hooked up the pH probe but the rest is amazing. Makes everything easier and provides piece of mind.

I got rid of the crate and surge protectors and everything is now mounted to my control board. The only thing I couldn’t mount was my Kessil controller. The 3.5mm Jack doesn’t reach to the board so I have to get a longer one or an extension.

I also removed one of the three Aqamai KPS pumps. I figured having one blow on the sps corals and one in the bottom back of the tank is plenty of flow. I noticed that the other one was serving no purpose other than adding unnecessary flow and blowing the bubble “open” so it’s mouths were always exposed. I’ve noticed the flow determines the shape of the bubble coral and it looks nicer when the bubbles aren’t being blown to one side. It will also reduce a pump in the display and the heat it generates.

I have pretty much decided that I am going to remove the protein skimmer. I don’t think it is doing much of anything. It is always a watery slightly yellow skimmate. Lately my skimmer has been kicking serious micro bubbles. It’s unsightly and I can’t stand it any longer. I’ll leave the skimmer in for a little bit as the tank adjusts to having one less pump.

I still have to hook up the pH probe, rope leak sensor and I have a second temperature sensor I want to put in the display.

The Bubble coral really put a beating on the Jack-O-Lantern. I had to pop it off the rock and get it up on a frag rack. It should recover. I just hate having the frag rack right there in your face. Everything is growing and filling out.

Oh, lastly, my Tunze Nano Care algae magnet swelled, cracked, and rusted. I only found it by chance when I pulled and it fell off the glass. I already contacted Tunze and Roger sent me a new wet side. Hopefully it’ll be here sometime during the first half of 2021 with the way USPS is running lately. I did go out to Top Shelf Aquatics and pick up the new Flipper Float Nano to hold me over. It is so much better than the original and it sure does float. It’s nice, so now when you miss the flip it floats to the top instead of sinking and having to to go arm deep to get it back.

I would agree on taking the third Aqamai out, that tank is too small for three wave makers. As far as heat, that is not an issue with the Aqamai wave maker, run very cool.

 

[reefiniteasy]

I would agree on taking the third Aqamai out, that tank is too small for three wave makers. As far as heat, that is not an issue with the Aqamai wave maker, run very cool.

The extra flow really helped with fighting the cyano but once ChemiClean did it’s thing the pump was not necessary. Good to know about the heat, thank you! It’s neat, when plugged into the Control WiFi plug I can see that it uses 3.2watts of power. Very underrated pump that people should look at more.

You guys should work with CoralVue to make a programmable Hydor/Aqamai pump that integrates with the Hydros system.

 

[bob salzlein]

The extra flow really helped with fighting the cyano but once ChemiClean did it’s thing the pump was not necessary. Good to know about the heat, thank you! It’s neat, when plugged into the Control WiFi plug I can see that it uses 3.2watts of power. Very underrated pump that people should look at more.

You guys should work with CoralVue to make a programmable Hydor/Aqamai pump that integrates with the Hydros system.

The whole reason the Aqamai line came out was to provide equipment with controllable features, at a affordable price. We wanted to get away from buying all the extra equipment, maybe one day all of our products will link together.

 

[reefiniteasy]

Had a great two weeks off. Today was the first day back to work. I had 6 more students come back from digital learning and now my face-2-face class has 21 students.

Believe it or not, I didn't spend my break focusing on the tank. Being able to monitor through the Hydros Control was nice. It provided great peace of mind. I also decided to skip a water change to see how the aquarium would handle it. I normally do a 5 gallon water change every Sunday, this is roughly 40% of the total water volume. I did a water change on Sunday, December 20th, skipped the 27th and then did a water change on January 3rd.
Here are my parameters over the course of the 2 weeks. Anytime I dose, I dose ESV 2-part in equal amounts. I only measure alkalinity and dose both parts based on that measurement. The process is flawless and I credit that to the ESV system. I use the following website to calculate my dosage amounts: http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html. If I wanted to, I believe I can push my water changes to every other week based on my parameter data. I don't think I will, but it's nice to know I can and my parameters will not get out of control.

12/20
Alk - 7.8dKH
Mg - 1410ppm
Ca - 480ppm
PO4 - .02ppm
NO3 - 2.5ppm

12/22
Alk - 6.1dKH dose 10.4ml 8.1dKH
Mg - 1410ppm
Ca - 480ppm

12/24
Alk - 6.2dKH dose 9.8ml 7.9dKH

12/26
Alk - 5.7dKH dose 12.7ml 8.1dKH
Mg - 1410ppm
Ca - 475ppm

12/28
Alk - 6.2dKH dose 9.8ml 8.0dKH

12/30
Alk - 6.2dKH dose 9.8ml 8.0
PO4 - .02
Mg - 1410ppm
Ca - 465ppm
NO3 - 2.5ppm

1/1
Alk - 6.5dKH dose 8.1ml 7.8dKH

1/3
Alk - 7.8dKH
Mg - 1425ppm
Ca - 470ppm
PO4 - .01ppm
NO3 - .25ppm


There is some major warfare going on in the aquarium. The Bubble Coral did some damage to my Jack-O-Lantern Lepto, it's now on a rack recovering. The Frogspawn killed 4 heads on my Candy Cane Coral. The Frogspawn and Bubble are constantly stinging one another. The frog will either cause a bubble to deflate and shrink or the bubble will take a polyp off the frog. Nasty little buggers.

Anyway, that's all for now.

 

[reefiniteasy]

Well I made the decision to frag the Frogspawn. It was a hard decision to make as that frog is my baby. It has killed 6 Candy Cane heads and constantly fights with the bubble. I pulled it from the tank last night and snapped it where the two trunks attached. I then took the Dremel to the trunk with 4 heads and made two 2-headed frags. The remaining trunk with some buds was a mess so I just disposed of it. It was a nerve wracking process and I had some trouble controlling the Dremel. I should have used a thin cut wheel like was suggested to me but I didn’t wait and just went ahead with the wheel I had. The first frag I made was perfect the second not so much. I nicked the side of one of the heads with the wheel. I guess I thought it was worse than it was because this morning both frags were open and happy.

I could have traded them in at Top Shelf but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I got my frog from a friend and mentor here on R2R. I decided I wanted to pay it forward and give the frags away to two others who are at the beginning of their journey. In my neighborhood there are 5 people with tanks and two of those tanks have a piece of my frogspawn. Pretty cool to think about.

I now have to get a pair of bone cutters to remove the dead candy cane heads and find a new place for my Jack-O-Lantern now that it is healing.

My next issue to tackle is my heater. My heater itself is set to 82 and the Hydros Control kicks in the heater when the tank temp hits 79.3 and shuts it off when tank temp is at 79.8. We keep the house at 75 with AC and when the heat is on its set to 70. I feel like the heater is cycling on too much. I’m hesitant to change anything because the tank is thriving.

 

[reefiniteasy]

I finally installed the Hydros Rope Leak sensor. It is amazing. I installed it against the baseboard going down the side and along the back of the tank. My wife did not want it in front where it would be visible. I will still have to get a normal Hydros Leak Sensor to place strategically to make up for where I didn’t put the the rope. Here are some photos and a video of the rope leak sensor functionality.

I spilled water on the rope. The sensor triggered and shut down my return pump. When I cleaned up the water and the sensor was no longer wet it return to a normal state and the return pump restarted.

 

[reefiniteasy]

Had a skimmer issue. It popped off the magnetic mount and sank in the display. Spilled the cup and took 2 corals with it. Smashed one side of an sps coral and broke my Hollywood stunner. So I’ve gone skimmerless. I was able to glue the broken pieces to tiles to give to friends. I’ve been testing daily and so far no issues. Hopefully it continues.

 

[Vinman]

Had a skimmer issue. It popped off the magnetic mount and sank in the display. Spilled the cup and took 2 corals with it. Smashed one side of an sps coral and broke my Hollywood stunner. So I’ve gone skimmerless. I was able to glue the broken pieces to tiles to give to friends. I’ve been testing daily and so far no issues. Hopefully it continues.

Looks great