The rebuild of my cube has officially began.
To keep it short I decided to rebuild my cube for a few reasons. First I had set it up a few years ago and wasn't focused on it at the time so I just let it stabilize. I did water changes and kept the glass clean. But I had only a few soft corals, my yellow tang, and a few chromis. I decided I was ready to get back into the cube and do it right. First issue was the tank had become over ridden with Hydroids, vermintide snails, and flat worms. I treated for the flat worms 3 times with no success. They would come back after a few months. With these issues I wasn't comfortable spending the time or resources on coral and new fish. I made the hard decision of just restarting it, moving the tank to a better location to allow for some automation and have it near my other aquariums.
The tank before:
First thing was I built a 40g breeder stand and grabbed a 40g I had in the garage that I was going to use as a sump at one point but didnt. This was going to be my temporary tank for my few coral and my fish while the rebuild and cycle takes place on the cube. As Im sure you all know, when you have been in the hobby for awhile you have enough odds and ends laying around to toss a whole new tank together. Its been going fine. I don't plan to use any rock or sand that is in this tank. I will eventually frag off any corals I have on the rocks and put them on frag plugs so that I don't re-infect the new system.
After I got the 40g set up I started breaking down the 93g, I removed all the plumbing, tossed all the sand. I ended up acid washing my rock so that I could reuse it. After I did the acid was I put it in a bleach cure and its been in that for about 5 days. It already looks great. Rock is white and doesn't have any life on it anymore. Ill leave it in in the bleach bath a few more days and then ill start the process of removing all of the chlorine.
Today my brother in-law and I moved the aquarium and stand from upstairs to its new location in my office/basement.
That's my journey so far. Looking forward to sharing it with you all and documenting it.
To keep it short I decided to rebuild my cube for a few reasons. First I had set it up a few years ago and wasn't focused on it at the time so I just let it stabilize. I did water changes and kept the glass clean. But I had only a few soft corals, my yellow tang, and a few chromis. I decided I was ready to get back into the cube and do it right. First issue was the tank had become over ridden with Hydroids, vermintide snails, and flat worms. I treated for the flat worms 3 times with no success. They would come back after a few months. With these issues I wasn't comfortable spending the time or resources on coral and new fish. I made the hard decision of just restarting it, moving the tank to a better location to allow for some automation and have it near my other aquariums.
The tank before:
First thing was I built a 40g breeder stand and grabbed a 40g I had in the garage that I was going to use as a sump at one point but didnt. This was going to be my temporary tank for my few coral and my fish while the rebuild and cycle takes place on the cube. As Im sure you all know, when you have been in the hobby for awhile you have enough odds and ends laying around to toss a whole new tank together. Its been going fine. I don't plan to use any rock or sand that is in this tank. I will eventually frag off any corals I have on the rocks and put them on frag plugs so that I don't re-infect the new system.
After I got the 40g set up I started breaking down the 93g, I removed all the plumbing, tossed all the sand. I ended up acid washing my rock so that I could reuse it. After I did the acid was I put it in a bleach cure and its been in that for about 5 days. It already looks great. Rock is white and doesn't have any life on it anymore. Ill leave it in in the bleach bath a few more days and then ill start the process of removing all of the chlorine.
Today my brother in-law and I moved the aquarium and stand from upstairs to its new location in my office/basement.
That's my journey so far. Looking forward to sharing it with you all and documenting it.