Fat_Cat's 19 gallon rimless cube

[LivinTheSwreefLife]

Haven't updated in a while... might as well show a pic! The tank is cycled and is now home to 2 clownfish :) also now home to some algae since this pic was taken BOOOO ALGAE. I just ordered a snail CUC though so that should help. I also just got my AquaC Remora skimmer and set that baby up last night.

More pics to come!

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Looking good!

 

[LivinTheSwreefLife]

Been a long time since I updated, sorry about that! New pic will be posted this week. I took the "SPS" out of the title of this thread because, well, the SPS I tried in this tank haven't done so well... this is probably due to a combination of things (no skimmer so higher nutrients, and I'm having trouble getting my dosers dialed in to keep the alk/calcium up). But, the LPS I've put in the tank are thriving. So for now, more LPS than SPS.

 

[LivinTheSwreefLife]

Time for updated pics! Please excuse the fact that it's a little dirty atm:

And the one frag I really splurged on... SC Atom Bomb... hope it grows super quick! (already forming another eye since last month yayy):

I know the tank looks kind of empty... I'm dying to add more corals, but trying to not go crazy on the spending. One piece at a time! Can't wait for that rock to look nice and full of corals!

 

[beastium]

Nice frag =) how's the tank? This is the one with the 45° mitered corners, right?

 

[LivinTheSwreefLife]

Nice frag =) how's the tank? This is the one with the 45° mitered corners, right?

Thanks! Yeah it's my pride and joy hehe

 

[beastium]

Yea it's a slick tank! Any new pix

 

[LivinTheSwreefLife]

Hey guys. I'll post a new pic soon, but in a nutshell, things have not been great in the tank this past month. Which is totally, 100% my fault because I made a really n00b mistake.

I bought a Jebao dosing pump a few months back and dialed it in. But I was convinced I had not calibrated right because the levels of alk and calcium remained consistently low/would drop if I stopped supplementing manually. So I kept nudging up the mL dosed per dosing on the machine, thinking that EVENTUALLY I would make up for calibration issues and it would dose enough to keep things stable.

Turns out, I had the interval set wrong. It was only dosing every 30 days. So the levels would be low for 29 days and then would shoot up on day 30 because I had increased the doser so much to compensate! Ugh. Such a n00b. I seriously can't believe I did that.

Anyway. I am sticking with manual dosing until things are back on track. I'm very lucky in that only 2/3 corals seem to have suffered, and the third one (the only expensive piece, my atom bomb chalice) is fine-- not as colored up as it was before but still growing and not receding. So, I got very lucky.

I will post again when I get this fixed.

Live and learn right?

 

[LivinTheSwreefLife]

Picture time! Here's one from last night, with actinics only. Slowly but surely adding corals...

 

[Flameback Pair]

What kind of light is that?

 

[LivinTheSwreefLife]

What kind of light is that?

It's a Current USA Nova Extreme Pro lamp... 6-bulb T5HO. They discontinued it actually, I bought it used. It was hard to find a good T5 lamp for this setup because of the measurements of the tank... most standard sizes were too large since the tank is only 18" wide (as it is this lamp is a little big at 20" wide).

 

[Tahoe61]

^ that light will get it done for now. Eventually you want to show off that rimless look. I

Hows the dosing going?

I see an sps?

 

[LivinTheSwreefLife]

^ that light will get it done for now. Eventually you want to show off that rimless look. I

Hows the dosing going?

I see an sps?

Oh definitely... I'd love to put a Nanobox duo over this tank, and probably will eventually. But I got this light used for cheap and couldn't pass up a good deal.

Things are going much better! I am dosing by hand just because I tried to recalibrate and still had issues (I think it had to do with pump placement, I'm going to add a shelf inside the stand and try to rearrange things). Doing that, things are stable once again. That is an SPS, it's a rainbow birdsnest, though not so much rainbow coloration anymore... it came from a tank lit by LEDs and when I moved it to T5 it changed color a bit.

 

[LivinTheSwreefLife]

Tank is looking much less empty as of today! I filled it up with 12 new SPS frags compliments of a great reef2reef seller.

I'll post some pics of the frags themselves soon, but for now a FTS under actinics

 

[Flameback Pair]

Are you testing nitrates?

 

[LivinTheSwreefLife]

Are you testing nitrates?

I am, with an API test kit though so not the most accurate (I will switch to Salifert when it runs out). I have always shown 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates. I feed pretty lightly since it's just the two clownfish and do a 10% water change every other week.

Everything is doing well, with the exception of one acropora (blue tort). It just hasn't colored up since shipping. The yellow tort that came with the same shipment looks great though so I don't know what's up with the blue.

 

[LivinTheSwreefLife]

Here's a few frag pics as long as I am here. All are under actinics, sorry for crappy camera phone pics:


And lastly the SC Atom Bomb. This coral took on a very interesting morph in my tank.. It was much MUCH more red when I got it, and the blue streaks were more pronounced. At first I was upset about the morph but now I kind of like it, it stays that way no matter where it is in the tank so I might as well enjoy it. It's showing reds, orange, green and blue... Kind of reminds me of a Jackson Pollock painting, basically just all the colors smeared around lol. Again sorry for the photo quality I have got to get a decent camera, maybe for Christmas... EDIT: new pic from end of Oct:

Original colors, for comparison:

 

[LivinTheSwreefLife]

End of November update. I went away for 10 days to get married abroad, and when I returned several of my SPS corals were bleaching. No idea what happened, I had someone coming by to feed the fish (pre-measured amounts) and I tested all the levels upon return and everything seemed to be in order. Must have been some contaminant or something?

It's been about a week of running carbon and doing small water changes. The damage seems to have stopped and no new corals are bleaching (aside from those that were already damaged). Altogether it affected 5 SPS corals. Two already totally dead and removed from the tank, and another two of them I'm pretty sure will not recover. The last one MAY bounce back, if I'm lucky. Luckily the two more expensive corals I've got (one was an SPS frag for my birthday, the other my Atom Bomb chalice) were not affected.

It's been frustrating. Seems like a lot of setbacks and relatively little growth/encouragement. It wasn't this hard when I had a larger tank that's for sure, but I guess that's what I signed up for when I went nano huh?

I'll post updated pics some time in December probably. Still not much to look at though :(

 

[Flameback Pair]

If your tank was to totally crash and you lost everything, would you give sps a try again in round two?

 

[LivinTheSwreefLife]

If your tank was to totally crash and you lost everything, would you give sps a try again in round two?

I would, only because sps is my favorite part of reef keeping. Not sure what I would do differently though... Maybe upgrade to metal halide lights and/or get a rock that allowed for more variation in how high up in the tank I could place them, because I think they would like more light. But I am still hopeful I can make it work with at least some of them. I have two digis, a monti and one acro that are doing great so we will see.