Kevin's 60G Cade Cube

[ksliech]

Newer one 4/2025 came with titanium hose clamps, no plastic clamps

That’s good to hear, those plastic ones were horrible.

 

[ksliech]

Lots of updates! Headlines:

• Flame Angel suddenly started nipping at *everything*, which explains why my derasa was suddenly partially retracted and all SPS lost polyp extension. Got him out of there with a fish trap and everyone rebounded quickly! Derasa is now growing like crazy
• Built a new lighting mount to have my AI Blades up with the Kessils in preparation of getting a custom hood made. Started a thread about it here.
• Added an Avast K1 kalk stirrer, which now handles all of my Ca and alk needs (replacing automatic B-Ionic dosing). pH on average is now 8.3 instead of 8.2, which is great
• Started dosing nitrate (NeoNitro) and phosphate (NeoPhos) to get my levels above 0. I think these really low levels, which I used to target 20 years ago, are the cause of some browning and bleaching I've experienced over the past few months. Nitrate is now at 3.8 ppm, and I'm getting great polyp extension across the board.
• Dictyota is partially under control, but still pretty widespread. If I don't see this turn around soon I'm going to Reef Flux the tank, which I really don't want to do. I have a thread about it here.

Here's a FTS with the new lighting rig and kalk stirrer off to the left.

Mystery Wrasse all up in your face, but look at that Derasa's recent growth! Also WWC AOI zoas looking great and starting to multiply. I have 3 plate frags in the sand there as well. The one in the back bleached within a week of dropping it in my tank and I think it's due to my ultra-low nutrients, so I'm working on that.

Overhead SPS shot

 

[ksliech]

I've been having coloration issues with my SPS, either bleaching after introducing into the tank or browning dramatically. I also have an orange plate frag that bleached out. After making sure my lights are reasonable and all tank parameters are in good shape, it became clear that this is very likely an issue with my 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate. Occasionally my Hanna checker found 0.02 phosphate, but most times 0 or 0.01.

I'm going to target 5ppm nitrate and 0.05ppm phosphate.

About 10 days ago I started measuring daily and dosing NeoNitro. It took 8 daily doses of 10-15 ml until the 8th day, when it finally measured above 0: 3 ppm. Since then it's been easy to increase it a bit, and just this morning I'm reading 5ppm, boom. During this dosing period I've noticed better polyp extension and some slight color improvements.

I just started dosing NeoPhos yesterday, but my measurement has stayed at zero. I expect to have a similar period over the next few days as I dose and the tank soaks up the newly found phosphate before I get to my target level.

Long term I don't want to be dosing nitrate and phosphate directly, and thinking about adding Reef Roids to my Plank auto feeder.

Any thoughts on my nitrate and phosphate targets or long term ways to maintain them without dosing? Also, thinking about a Trident NP but I've heard mixed results with them.

 

[ksliech]

Dictyota is fully cleared out, and everything has really colored up and growth has taken off since I started dosing nitrate and phosphate. Fighting pretty bad cyano in the sand now, which I siphoned out this weekend so things are momentarily perfect.

Here are some fresh shots!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Dictyota is fully cleared out, and everything has really colored up and growth has taken off since I started dosing nitrate and phosphate. Fighting pretty bad cyano in the sand now, which I siphoned out this weekend so things are momentarily perfect.

Here are some fresh shots!

Those mushrooms are starting to grow like crazy!

 

[ksliech]

Hit the 1 year mark!

Added a mismatched pair of storm clowns: Mochastorm and Blackstorm. Here they are, with one nipping at me already

SPS and softy growth is really taking off. My mushroom and zoa gardens are really coming in well.

I have two acros in particular that are absolutely ready to explode into big colonies. They've each encrusted out very well and now have a ton of branches starting to emerge from the base.

Other updates:

• Dictyota started to come back so I hit it with Reef Flux again, and that immediately wiped it out. Hasn't come back since!
• Been struggling to maintain nitrate and phosphate, so finally set up my DOS-QD with NeoPhos and NeoNitro today for automatic dosing
  • I pulled the chaeto out of my refugium weeks ago to try and help keep the nutrients up, but they still plummet with out active dosing
• I switched from BRS kalk to Avast's brand kalk for my K1 after I found the BRS's sludge at the bottom getting incredibly viscous and potentially damaging to the stirrer motor (Avast recommends against BRS for this reason). But after switching to Avast, I can no longer maintain my Ca and Alk with it, presumably because it's a bit weaker. Switching back to BRS this week and going to clean it out more regularly ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Now that I've hit the 1 year mark and the tank is really thriving, I'm going to really stock it up. I have 3 orders coming this week - so may have gone a bit overboard. Especially excited for a pair of maximas from Clam Mania!

 

[kevgib67]

Hit the 1 year mark!

Added a mismatched pair of storm clowns: Mochastorm and Blackstorm. Here they are, with one nipping at me already

SPS and softy growth is really taking off. My mushroom and zoa gardens are really coming in well.

I have two acros in particular that are absolutely ready to explode into big colonies. They've each encrusted out very well and now have a ton of branches starting to emerge from the base.

Other updates:

• Dictyota started to come back so I hit it with Reef Flux again, and that immediately wiped it out. Hasn't come back since!
• Been struggling to maintain nitrate and phosphate, so finally set up my DOS-QD with NeoPhos and NeoNitro today for automatic dosing
  • I pulled the chaeto out of my refugium weeks ago to try and help keep the nutrients up, but they still plummet with out active dosing
• I switched from BRS kalk to Avast's brand kalk for my K1 after I found the BRS's sludge at the bottom getting incredibly viscous and potentially damaging to the stirrer motor (Avast recommends against BRS for this reason). But after switching to Avast, I can no longer maintain my Ca and Alk with it, presumably because it's a bit weaker. Switching back to BRS this week and going to clean it out more regularly ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Now that I've hit the 1 year mark and the tank is really thriving, I'm going to really stock it up. I have 3 orders coming this week - so may have gone a bit overboard. Especially excited for a pair of maximas from Clam Mania!

Looking forward to seeing the new orders especially the clams!

 

[ksliech]

Looking forward to seeing the new orders especially the clams!

Big bummer: Clam Mania never sent them, and stopped responding to my emails. I posted about it here, and you'll find lots of other threads like this. Such a bummer, they have amazing looking clams!

 

[kevgib67]

Big bummer: Clam Mania never sent them, and stopped responding to my emails. I posted about it here, and you'll find lots of other threads like this. Such a bummer, they have amazing looking clams!

So sorry about that and yes I saw a lot of threads. I hope you’re made whole.

 

[ksliech]

So sorry about that and yes I saw a lot of threads. I hope you’re made whole.

Thanks! My credit card company took care of it so it's not a big deal thankfully

 

[ksliech]

Some shots from today:

Here's some funny business that's happening during my current horrific outbreak of dinos:

Many of my zoas are partially closed and stretching a bit, while others are extremely happy (see previous photo). Not sure what's going on here.

Low Nutrient Issues
I've been having trouble maintaining my phosphate, which has been around 0.02 ppm, while my nitrates have finally stabilized around 10. I'm trying to get to 0.05-0.10 phosphate, and it's been a tough slog. The past few days I've been testing and dosing big daily to overcome whatever's sucking it up so quickly and hope to have it straightened out this week.

I think the low nutrients are what caused my dino outbreak after chemiclean finally wiped out my cyano problem. The dinos at least don't smother things as quickly but man would I love to just see a nice white sand bed for once, haha.

Ca + Alk Consumption Way Up
I thought it was switching kalk brands was the cause of my rapidly depleting calcium and alkalinity, but switching back didn't help! Turns out things are just growing so well that kalk can no longer keep up with demand. I got my spare DOS-QD head hooked up with All for Reef and am no dosing 20ml / day and the demand is satisfied. Growth of my SPS is fantastic and I'm getting great color finally.

 

[Eric Cohen Verified Sponsor]

Big bummer: Clam Mania never sent them, and stopped responding to my emails. I posted about it here, and you'll find lots of other threads like this. Such a bummer, they have amazing looking clams!

I always reply. And I sell clams. Corals and fish! I’m not just the rock guy:)

 

[ksliech]

I always reply. And I sell clams. Corals and fish! I’m not just the rock guy:)

Haha you are the best communicator out there - I’ll take a look!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Some shots from today:

Here's some funny business that's happening during my current horrific outbreak of dinos:

Many of my zoas are partially closed and stretching a bit, while others are extremely happy (see previous photo). Not sure what's going on here.

Low Nutrient Issues
I've been having trouble maintaining my phosphate, which has been around 0.02 ppm, while my nitrates have finally stabilized around 10. I'm trying to get to 0.05-0.10 phosphate, and it's been a tough slog. The past few days I've been testing and dosing big daily to overcome whatever's sucking it up so quickly and hope to have it straightened out this week.

I think the low nutrients are what caused my dino outbreak after chemiclean finally wiped out my cyano problem. The dinos at least don't smother things as quickly but man would I love to just see a nice white sand bed for once, haha.

Ca + Alk Consumption Way Up
I thought it was switching kalk brands was the cause of my rapidly depleting calcium and alkalinity, but switching back didn't help! Turns out things are just growing so well that kalk can no longer keep up with demand. I got my spare DOS-QD head hooked up with All for Reef and am no dosing 20ml / day and the demand is satisfied. Growth of my SPS is fantastic and I'm getting great color finally.

Do you have a game plan for getting rid of dinos?

 

[ksliech]

Do you have a game plan for getting rid of dinos?

I'm going after it a couple different ways:

• Primary way: Working on getting my phosphate up and stable, as it keeps bottoming out while my nitrate stays around 10 ppm. I think this nutrient imbalance is the root of the problem
• Secondary: Added a bunch of pods, but this didn't do much

If this doesn't work, I'm not sure what my next step is. The amount of them has been going down over the past week, so that's a good sign.

 

[ksliech]

Overhead shot of new clams! These 3 maximas have since been moved to their hopefully final spots up on the rock work.

Today I think I've finally broken through the crazy phosphate update capacity of my system that was running at 0 phosphate for over a year. Every time I dosed Neophos to get myself up to 0.1 ppm, the next day the measurement would be either unchanged or lower. It was really getting sucked up by the system and took a real long time to get past that. Here's the timeline for those who may go through something similar:

TL;DR: It took over a month of mostly daily measurements, automatic dosing, and big manual corrections to hit 0.1 ppm.

• On 9/1 I started automatically dosing Neophos and Neonitro since both of my levels were near zero and I was having trouble maintaining with manual dosing
• I started testing every couple of days and would do manual doses and and increased the daily automatic dose
• By 9/7 I was able to maintain nitrate at around 10 ppm with an automatic daily dose of 9ml
• Phosphate would get up to 0.05 at most, then drop back to 0.01 or 0.02
• By 9/26 I was testing daily and adding 10-25 ml of Neophos manually per day, plus an automatic dose of 12ml. That's a ton! Every 5ml of NeoPhos should increase my phosphate by 0.02 ppm, so this is major consumption
• On 10/7 I increased the automatic dose to 30ml, which should be 0.12 ppm per day! Crazy
• Starting 10/8 I was able to maintain 0.05 but kept having to do bigger manual does in addition to the 30ml
• Then finally today, I measured 0.18, way too high, but great that it finally overshot my target of 0.1
• I decreased my automatic dose to 15ml (0.06 ppm) and we'll see where we're at tomorrow

I can't wait to see how the system does with stable, ~0.1ppm phosphate and ~10ppm nitrate. I also hope to not have to dose this stuff forever.