Haggisman14's Oceanic Biocube 29

[Haggisman14]

Just a quick update. Nothing new has been put in the tank as we will be moving at the end of March, so everything is going to stay as is for now. Out of the 3 SPS I had placed in the tank, two died, but my tri-color is standing strong and starting to sprout some new nubs. My single head orangeish-red acan has also grown about 5-6 mini heads, and they are continuing to grow very nicely.

The cyno that had gone away came back. I attribute it to my skimmer. After I placed the skimmer in the tank and ran it 24 hours, after the cyno went away, all my softies closed up. So I began leaving the skimmer on and off every other 24 hours. After that the skimmer went through a phase where it kept bubbling over. After some research, I limited the air through the air hose, and the overflowing stopped (maybe it wasn't fully broken in). Now I"ve got that situation under control, and the cyno that came back is now going away again.

During the next month I'm doing nothing but maintenance to the tank with probably 2 more water changes until I move. After I move, I'll have room to install a ro/di filter, and begin making my own water and salt. Since I'm going to keep the cube for awhile, I don't think i'm going to do a full blown water mixing station, instead just get a nice 10-25 gallon NSF container so I can make fresh RO top off, and then every week or two weeks make a fresh batch of salt. After seeing everyones various results, I think I will end up making the switch back to Instant Ocean. I was happy with that back in the day, and hey, if Jason Fox can keep his corals looking how they look with IO, that works for me!

Until next Month! I'll try and take some pics once I begin breaking everything down, and then install everything again. I do have about 10 lbs of some various rock from BRS, might add a few more piece when I rebuild the reef.

Only other "near" future purchases are the AI Hydra 26 - Might be a bit overkill for the cube, but I love the spectrum options, and the build in programs etc. Plus I'll be able to move that to my Red Sea Peninsula tank in 3-5 years

As always, thanks for looking!

 

[Haggisman14]

@WWC, the little single headed acan I won, now has about 7 baby heads on it (can't capture all of them b/c of the angles) Wahoo!!

 

[Haggisman14]

The move is almost here!

20lbs of new BRS dry live rock arrives tomorrow. New empty 5 gallon buckets will be purchased over the weekend...Tank move occurs NEXT WEDNESDAY!

WAHOO!!

 

[Haggisman14]

Kudos to BRS - the reef saver rock they sent it awesome, definitely more than enough to do what I need to. Happy to have it increase my bio-filtration, as well as give me more areas to create some cool aquascaping and more importantly more surface area for frags!

Going to do my PraziPro treatment tonight, so I can do my second one the the day before my tank move...let it sit for 24 hours, and then move the tank that night with a nice water change.

Then its time to let the tank settle back in for a month or two, and then I'm dying to do a @Battlecorals order for a killer SPS pack, and another order from WWC for some more zoa's and acans!

Then fingers crossed if I'm good boy this year...hopefully Santa will bring me a Hydra 26 HD for Christmas!

 

[Haggisman14]

Here's a bummer of an update. My flame Angel that has been one of my best tankmates since the beginning just kicked the bucket. My wife calls me and tells me our 3 year came to tell her that Shiny (our thin stripped hermit crab - any of you with kids know Shiny is from Moana), is making a hold in the red stripped fish.

Ugh!

 

[Haggisman14]

My wife cracks me up "eating him like a dang fish filet-0-fish!"

 

[JBKReef]

Poor guy... not sure if the tale was consumed first or what but it looks beat up... Hopefully no other deaths will occur. What will you do for maintenance once you get home?

 

[Haggisman14]

this morning he was 100%, swimming around and everything, fully intact.

Wife said at one point there was a pile of my little hermits and the big guy all over him, so they're been tearing him up. Soon as I get home i'll be taking him out, and then I also have to do a PraziPro treatment, and then tomorrow is tank move and water change.

 

[Haggisman14]

Good news bad news. With the 7.5 ml of PraziPro, I made a little milky consistency, and blasted my torch with it with the turkey baster...worked like a charm. Little buggers flew off and saw some of them melting. Still saw some this morning going over the glass, but I'm hoping the majority have died, and will die today.

Bad news, my tri-color acro that had just began encrusting really nicely, has started to RTN. I'm hoping it doesn't go all the way, as it was really beautiful, but time will tell. Hopefully it survives my move tonight.

Keep you posted!

 

[Haggisman14]

So the tank move was a success all in all. Tear down of the tank went quickly, about 30 minutes or so, then about 15 minutes to load into the car, and about a 20 minute drive...all in all not that bad. Got to the new place around 9:30, and was all finished by 11:15.

I was able to add some of my new BRS Reef Saver Rock which i must say is pretty quality rock, and re-aquascaped as best as I could with a big sand cloud. As you all know, the stands in the BioCube leave a lot to be desired, the way I had it previously set up was really a pain in the butt, I took this opportunity to wire everything up as quickly as possible, but also the best I could. I laid everything out so that my power supplies are all on the top shelf, and the only thing down below is a net, turkey baster, food and top off.

Only think that went wrong was that as of this morning my coral beauty kicked the bucket. I'm wondering if something happened, as my flame angel died 2 days ago (prior to the move). My 2 clowns, 6-line, and bangai cardinal all seem to be find, as well as all of my inverts.

After my 2 Prazipro Treatments, I'm still seeing some polyclads on my dang torch. This time i'm only seeing one of them...hoping he's the last of them. These dang bugs just won't die! Really not sure what to do at this point. Do I just say heck with the, and let it be...or do i keep treating the tank with PraziPro?

And what you all want...the pictures!

 

[Oneforone]

Been following along for a few weeks now, finally created an account to post I'm glad the move went smoothly. I plan on moving early next year sometime and also have a 32g biocube, your move didn't look to painful. Keep up the updates, I enjoy seeing other cubes

 

[Msteven1]

Nice rock work! Just finished reading all the posts. Great job. I started my Bio 29 a little over a year ago. Unfortunately I let things go this summer and long story short, I ended up with cyno outbreak and hair/mat algae on most of my rocks.

Well I got the fever again, and last weekend I did a complete tear down and started fresh. Wow, it took me 7 hours but after seeing your pics and reading your stories I am pumped to get started on corals again!!!! Keep posting!!

 

[Haggisman14]

Oneforone and Msteven1, glad I'm able to inspire you guys a bit. I've definitely got a long way to go, but I feel it's a good start!

So it's almost a week since the move, and no more fatalities. I did notice my one acan that sprouted all those baby heads has lost a couple - probably due to stress, but other than that all is well. I do still have polyclads so I think this week I'm going to take the torch out of the tank, and do a dip specifically in prazipro, and just turkey baste, and shake the heck out of the coral to hopefully finally eradicate them from the tank. The amount of polyclads definitely is far less that what it was originally. Fingers crossed!

I"ll try to update some pics in the next few days.

Thanks for looking!

 

[Haggisman14]

Good morning everyone! So tweaked a few things in the tank. Had to mount a ricordia rock that fell, as well as relocate one acan that was now on the back of a rock (due to past aquascape) I also moved around my return and additional flow pump to get the flow better in the tank. Most of the polyclads seem to be gone from the torch. I did see what slinking across the back...but i'm hoping he's the last one and he just dies (I really don't want to do another PraziPro treatment and stress out the tank.

Here are some daylight picks for your pleasure! Last picture you can see is the start of my "acan garden" Love those little guys!

 

[Haggisman14]

Quick Tank Update:

So it’ll be 2 weeks since the tank was moved on Wednesday, and everything’s doing great. Over the weekend I did a little bit of tweaking to the tank. I adjusted the float valves in the rear of the tank to keep the water level perfect. I adjusted the skimmer cup to a good level now that it’s not foaming at the mouth b/c of the PraziPro treatments, and I also adjusted the placement and flow of my Jaebo PP4. Originally I had it on as a on/of pulse action, but after playing around with angles etc., I put it on the wave maker ramp up/ramp down, and it’s working really nice going opposite of my RFG from my main return.

Fingers crossed, it seems as if all the polyclads are gone. I saw one going against my back wall the other day, and manually removed him. I no longer see ANY of them at the base of my torch, and my torch is finally starting to expand back to hits almost full potential (something is hasn’t done for almost 1-2 months now.

My hammer on the other side of the tank is also extremely happy and expanding way more than it has in the past. About 2 weeks ago I noticed that the one head split into to (I saw the mouths split), and they are not both looking really great!

Can heads are continuing to form on all Acans. The new central rock placement seems to be a happy place for all of them. A large 2 headed Acan i got from WWC looks to have about 2-3 babies that I can see , my one rainbow Acan that is a super slow grower seems to have another head at the bottom of it. And the single Cherry Bomb Acan from WWC is starting to regenerate the heads that were lost during my initial move. a Really cool favia frag I picked up about 3-4 months ago that I thought pretty much died is starting to come back to live (crazy how resilient some corals can be). It's starting to color up rather nicely. Hopefully it'll start encrusting now!

Overall I’m extremely happy with how the tank is now. I was glad to get some reorganizing done when I move the tank (wire management, and new placement of power bricks etc to clean things up. I’ve also not got some dedicated closet space so all of my stuff no longer needs to sit underneath my stand.

Plan is still to let the tank settle and grown for the next few months. Had a lot going on with the house move etc, and gotta money up some cash for new light fixtures etc…corals have to take a back seat.

By summertime I”ll have the tank into a good grove, and hopefully WWC will have a new live sale for some new LPS/Zoas, and by then I should also be able to finally get my first Battle Box from @BattleCorals…he’s got this killer pack i’ve been eying for over a month now.

Well, thanks for looking. Will try and update with some pictures in a few days for weekly updates.

Thanks!

 

[Haggisman14]

Some close-ups...thanks for looking!

The WWC Tri-color got messed up after my second PraziPro Treatment, but it seems pretty hardy and has started to encrust over the skeleton that had RTN'd

Another LFS zoa find that are pretty cool.

Torch is finally starting to expand again...bye bye polyclads

Random pink zoa's from my LFS

WWC Armor of the Gods...love it...but SUUUUPER SLOW grower, I don't see any new growth at all, but i'm sure that will change.

Hammer is looking better and fuller than ever!

 

[Oneforone]

Pictures look awesome! Do the acans ever split heads or just grow new ones? I bought an Acan a month ago or so and it has definitely grown in size quite abit, but still only 3 heads. I need to get some good pictures of my cube, even if just for growth recording. Keep up the updates, I love checking in and seeing others progress

 

[Haggisman14]

To my knowledge, acans do not split, as the flesh expands, new heads are formed on the outside super small, and then they grow out bigger. I believe some people frag Acan's by cutting them in the middle, and then they regrow around the cut end.

 

[Haggisman14]

Quick Friday update: Findings on my Jaebo PP4.

Overall I love the little powerhead. Gives me the added flow that I need in my cube. However it doesn't work perfectly. I had placed it on the "wave maker" function where the pump ramps up and down in force so there is always flow coming out of it. Problem is, it only seems to keep the flow going for maybe a few minutes to an hour, and then it completely backs off. Ive found the only way to keep relatively strong force coming out of this is with it cycling on and off, in about 1.5-2 second intervals. I have it on the opposite side of my return, so having them like this, and having the RFG (random flow generator) coming out of my main return, keeps the flow random when they meet up.

That's all for today folks! Have a great weekend!

 

[Msteven1]

Quick Friday update: Findings on my Jaebo PP4.

Overall I love the little powerhead. Gives me the added flow that I need in my cube. However it doesn't work perfectly. I had placed it on the "wave maker" function where the pump ramps up and down in force so there is always flow coming out of it. Problem is, it only seems to keep the flow going for maybe a few minutes to an hour, and then it completely backs off. Ive found the only way to keep relatively strong force coming out of this is with it cycling on and off, in about 1.5-2 second intervals. I have it on the opposite side of my return, so having them like this, and having the RFG (random flow generator) coming out of my main return, keeps the flow random when they meet up.

That's all for today folks! Have a great weekend!

I have the same power head and when I first set it up I had the night sensor on. It ramps the flow down at a certain light level. I found that it doesn’t take much loss in ambient light to go into night mode. Just want to make sure, as I turned mine off.
Since the total tank clean thinks are going well. I have some patches of hair algae coming back some I am going to treat again tomorrow. I left the corals on the sand just for this reason. Also going to do a sand vacuum.
I am designing a sump where I can add volume and either a scrubber or Fuge. Maybe both?!