Ludnix's 14g Oceanic Biocube

[ludnix]

Hey Everyone! Here's my latest tank build that I'm just getting started on! I'll update with pictures as progress is made.

Here's the full tank and stand shot. It's the first day with live rock so the waters a little cloudy still but it's on it's way!

Tank info
I'm going to make this into a mixed reef with heavy emphasis on zoanthids, ricordeas, and few SPS thrown in.

• Oceanic Biocube 14
• 5lbs of rinsed sand
• 7lbs of Fiji Live Rock

Heating:

• Jager 50w Heater

Filtration:

• Polyester Filter Foam
• Live rock
• upgrade to filter basket?

Lighting:

• 9 Blue CREE XR-E
• 6 White CREE XM-L
• 2x 0-10v Dimmable Nano Drivers

The Stand Build:

I started by cutting two 1x12 pine boards down to about 24" long. I used Titebond III and wood screws to mount the two boards onto the top.


In this shot you can see i'm testing the fit of the biocube on the boards I attached. I used a plunge router to bevel the edges and make it match the rest of the stand.

Painting the stand and replaced the old hardware with new brushed nickel versions.


In this picture you can see the smaller original stand top under the newly constructed one.

I drilled holes for the aluminum knobs I bought I radioshack. These tighten down on the potentiometer's posts and replace the stock rapid LED knobs.


Here's a view of the back of the stand. The Dimmable ballasts are mounted inside the back front panels, the potentiometers were mounted just above them through the wood.

The LED array:



This was an old light I had laying around, it just needed White LEDS added to it and the heatsink shortened a bit. I measured then cut the heatsink down with a hacksaw. Glued into the hood of the biocube with E6000, hopefully it sticks! It's 9 blue LEDs that are fairly old models, and 6 of the Rapid LEDs newer white leds. Each string of blue and white get's it's own Dimmable Driver from RapidLED.

Here's the intial rock work setup. I'm going to epoxy the rocks together if I settle on this arrangement. Just so things don't fall over later when it damage corals.



Plans for the future:

• Remove plastic tray in first chamber to let heater be placed deeper.
• Close lower intakes to promote surface skimming.
• purchase/make media basket
• replace stock return pump with maxijet 900

Fish wish list:

• Royal Gramma
• Barnacle Blennies
• Mandarin Goby if will eat prepared foods.

Invert Wish List:

• Emerald Crab
• Royal Urchin
• Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
• Procelain Shrimp / Anemone Crabs

 

[ludnix]

Today I made of one of the planned modifications to the back chamber. I was able to remove the false bottom in chamber 1, allowing the heater to be further submerged and no chance for detritus to get trapped under it. I punched the false bottom with a long flat head screwdriver until it snapped in half and then removed the pieces.

Next up I went to making the overflow wider on the divider between chamber 1 and 2. I purchased a media basket holder for the middle chamber, so this widened opening will allow more even water flow over the media tray.



Here's the back filter area as it is stock. The narrow divider between chamber 1 at the back of the photo and chamber 2 is what I will be removing.


Coping saw was the least messy tool for this sort of job I had. I have a cordless dremel tool, but any of the attachements would have been messy with exception of maybe the cut off wheels, but they are last resort for me. The coping saw ate through the plastic like butter and allowed me to get the angles I needed.


All cut and ready for the new basket!

 

[ludnix]

Got some new items for the tank!


InTank filter installed with Filter Floss in the top, Purigen in the middle, and Chemipure in the bottom. It has a water flow director that sits on top and spread the water more evenly across the filter.


I purchased a replacement MJ900 for the stock Oceanic pump. The stock is something like 130gph and the MJ900 is closer to 230gph so it's a significant increase in flow. The biocube riser tube fits on without any extras.

I think I may need to re-seat the pump, so far it's working though and a big increase in flow. Slightly noiser due to vibration so I may add some neoprene cushion.


The tank itself is going through it's diatom phase so it's going to be a little ugly until it balances itself out.

 

[ludnix]

A Local club member hooked up the frags for the tank! Look at all them trying to acclimate in that tank!


Giant thanks to Gman for the frags!


One of my favorite zoanthids, Tubbs Blue Zoas.



Hairy Red Zoanthids. I believe these are the descendants of these in an older photo from my old 120g:


The hairy red looking zoas in the 120g

Back to the cube:

Watermelon Zoas


A giant "frag" of purple Stylophora and a pink stylophora mounted behind it!


Fresh cutting of Ponape Birdsnest.


Purple Rim Montipora, once more of my plumbing supplies arrive I will angle the flow to give these SPS a little extra current.


I believe this was a Sunset Montipora I'm looking forward to seeing it encrust!

Still getting used to taking photos with this aquarium, but here's a full tank shot!

 

[Reef-roach]

Looking good, Eric! Great to see you back in action!

 

[Smite]

Looks great! It makes me miss my nano cube.

 

[ludnix]

The biocube is chugging along nicely. I've added a Jebao RW-4 wavemaker pump to the tank and have seem immediate results from the increased flow. A huge upwelling of loose detritus was stirred up and filtered out. I've since done a water change to help keep those nutrients out of the aquarium.

I've settled on a lighting setting that I like and the corals seem to appreciate. 100% blue and 50% white seems to get good response after running for a week with those settings.

I've also been fortunate enough to get some frags from Mega_Mike and Reef_Roach and I have to say the tank looks pretty awesome with their frags in there!

Full Tank Shot:


Mega_Mike hooked me up with this frag of Seasons Greeting Montipora:

To the right you can see a pink nub of acropora efflorescens just to the left of the Sunset Montipora.

Check out the growth on the Purple Rim Montipora:
October:

November:







Here's the view from my desk of the tank, very nice to be able to take look at the tank between projects.

 

[ludnix]

Stepped up my waterchanges for the biocube! I had been using distilled water which I had to carry up to our second floor apartment. Now I've got an RODI unit and some waterchange trash cans with a float valve. Now I can just hook up the RODI hose bib to the sink in the morning and have a full bucket of water by the time I get home!

10g Brute trashcans from the local restaurant supply, brutes are great as they are strong enough to hold water.

This float valve kit from amazon for $15. It has a pressure selenoid you connect to the RO/DI unit to shut off the water when the bucket is full.

These furniture casters were $18 at the hardware store.I had to use these instead of the twist lock caster bases rubber maid sells as the smaller 10g cans do not have the same base as their larger line.

Spectrapure 90GPD unit with maxcap DI cartridge.

0 TDS! After letting the first 5 gallons go down the drain I started collecting and we are in business!

 

[Smite]

Nice! Your tanks gonna love it.

 

[Reef-roach]

Looking good, buddy! How's the efflo doing? I lost it in my recent AEFW battle.

 

[Salty0331]

Nice, have had mine for over 10 years! Still love it

 

[ludnix]

Looking good, buddy! How's the efflo doing? I lost it in my recent AEFW battle.

It's looking a little pale from the Purigen bleaching event, but it's still alive! I haven't gotten a single millimeter of growth on it yet, but I've made some new changes that I'm hoping are going to increase stability and get start seeing some excellent growth. I'll be sure to bring you a frag once I get it to grow.

 

[ludnix]

Here's a short video of some Red Planeria in the tank. These guys shouldn't harm anything, but are interesting to look at. Next post will share all the things that are currently trying to harm the tank!

 

[ludnix]

When it rains it pours!

I am currently battling brown dinoflagellates in the tank. Treatment was raising the pH and 4 days with no light. I haven't seen them return but it may have cost the corals a little color. If conditions continue to be steady they should color back up though.

This FTS is day one with the lights back on. Corals have paled out a bit, but they will get better.
If Dinoflagellates were not tough enough, the weakened state of the corals has exposed these bite marks. They are consistent with Acropora Eating Flatworms. There were a few marks before the lights were turned off, but it was much more severe by the time they came back on.

Treatment begins:

Corals are removed the rockwork during a waterchange. All acroporas are removed 100%. Nothing will go undipped. The purple bonzai most affected was also the most encrusted. My Stanley 3/4" wood chisel has become my reef chisel, glad I didn't invest in the expensive ones yet! The rock that most of these acros were attached to was brushed in the dirty water change bin to remove any AEFW eggs. We'll see if I got them all or not. Once the rock with acros was out of water the AEFW were easily visible, they stayed wet while the rock began to dry. I tried to manually remove one to get it under the microscope but ended up damaging it too badly (darn!).

I also took this time to remove any vermitid snails I could find on the rockwork. Next update I'll share how the corals handled the dip, and we'll observe their recovery. Time will tell if all the AEFW were removed. I'm very fortunate to only have acro frags growing, my heart goes out to those with colonies who have to deal with them.

 

[Reef-roach]

Sorry about the AEFW, buddy, keeping my fingers crossed you got 'em all! Love the detail you put into your posts. When you have a chance, would you mind sharing your par meter results on this thread?

 

[revhtree]

Thanks for the update and sorry about the AEFW!!

 

[ludnix]

Sorry about the AEFW, buddy, keeping my fingers crossed you got 'em all! Love the detail you put into your posts. When you have a chance, would you mind sharing your par meter results on this thread?

I'll definitely be making a post soon with that information. I'm looking forward to seeing other club members results as well. Would love to help any of them out produce images with the PAR levels overlayed as well, might make for some easier transitions between club trades if we can all have an idea of quantifiable lighting conditions.

Thanks for the update and sorry about the AEFW!!

Thank you for the awesome community! Journaling my last tank on ReefCentral was a real resource for myself to look back on, I'm looking forward to recording this tank here and building a similar resource.

 

[ludnix]

Day after the corals dips. You can see I remounted most of the frags onto plugs so they could be dipped again if necessary.

SPS are pretty pale from the whole experience. I left in them in the dip for probably close to 25 minutes. Depsite their poor coloration you can see the polyps are extending again, not crazy PE but promising. That's your efflo on the left Reef_Roach, you can see I really grew it out since you gave it to me. Seen below in the center grouping of frags.

Close up of the Purple Bonsai, the small section of dead flesh at the base had been there before the ordeal, I seemed to have some STN when I reintroduced recharged purigen a couple months ago. I'm not using purigen anymore due to these issues. It's one sad looking coral right now, but with poylps out i'm sure it'll be back in shape in no time.

This one is also from Reef_Roach, I couldn't see any bite marks, but it got dipped just the same.

 

[ludnix]

These are just some shots of the rest of the tank, despite the issues with dinos, flatworms and purigen I think they rest are looking pretty okay.

Hammer coral, I hope to have a small euphyllia collection but there's not much room in here! I was attracted to this specimen because it's the variety of Hammers that grows in wall shape rather than the branching hammer. I love them both, but the wall hammer is harder to frag and thus less commonly found. I'll get the branching variety too at some point in the future. Would love a torch, but their tentacles can get pretty out of hand in a high flow tank and currently I've got 2 Jebao RW-4 running the tank.

These Acans are supposed toa pretty blue color, they didn't like the recharged purigen either! That said they still are showing a great feeding response and have put on some growth.

These hairy zoanthids have not stopped growing despite the many issues the tank has seen. They are one tough morph!

You can see the hairy zoanthids even growing in the shaded sections, up and around the rock. They are going to take over that rock! You can also see the Cryptonite Caulestrea have split into 4 distinct heads.

 

[ludnix]

Hardware changes:

I've added a Oceanic Biocube Protein Skimmer to the tank. I had been holding out to find a better unit, but I really could not find anything that's available anymore. I think Tunze had a model that used to work with modification to the back, but it's design has since been made more boxy and just won't fit. I'm not a fan of the biocube brand skimmer because it's $50 for an airstone and tube of plastic, but what can you do? I am getting a very light tea out of the skimmer, with adjustment I might get something thicker.

I also permanently disfigured the hood of the tank by putting a 80mm silent fan on it. This provides significantly better cooling to the LED heatsink. I plan on installing a finger guard and better screws in the future. Despite it's ugly appearance it has kept the heatsink cold to the touch even with the LEDs at maximum current.