My first reef effort- 16 gallon Biocube

[Reefsmith]

My current build, 4 months in:

-16 gallon Biocube with stock lighting plus I added an LED strip to give it a little extra. Haven't done a PAR reading yet.
-Stock pump, added a hydor circulation head
-added a Tunze 6040 power head for circulation
-converted middle chamber into a microfuge with chaeto.
-started with dry rock and live sand

Current live stock
-Pair of Clowns
- 1 Blue Damsel
-1 Duncan
-1 Xenia
-1 Mushroom
-1Zoa colony
-Green star polyp
-1 Tuxedo urchin
-1 emerald crab
-A variety of snails
-1 TIger conch
-some blue legged hermits

The livestock seem to be doing well. The GSP is very tempermental, but some of the posts here suggest it is very hardy, which I am glad to hear. I seen some copepods in my refugium area, but not in the main tank.

I run it at 78 degrees, with lights ramping up to 6 hours of full intensity and back down over 12 hours.
I try to keep salinity at 1.025.

 

[muggle0981]

Sounds good

any pics

 

[Reefsmith]

 

[Oliver]

Be careful with gsp it will take over all the rocks and kill corals. I also have a 16g bio cube and started out with small piece of gsp and ended up getting ride of the rocks it was growing on.

 

[muggle0981]

Very nice

 

[Jeremy hall]

Did you keep your lights off the first four months ?

 

[Reefsmith]

Yes I did. In hindsight, I wished I hadn't. I added some seeded bioballs from my LFS and let it cycle for 3-4 weeks before ammonia cleared and I was able to add livestock. I was running my lights during that time unnecessarily, and may have promoted the first wave of diatoms. But they are unavoidable anyway from what I understand, and ultimately not as frustrating as my war with cyano.

 

[Jeremy hall]

Yes I did. In hindsight, I wished I hadn't. I added some seeded bioballs from my LFS and let it cycle for 3-4 weeks before ammonia cleared and I was able to add livestock. I was running my lights during that time unnecessarily, and may have promoted the first wave of diatoms. But they are unavoidable anyway from what I understand, and ultimately not as frustrating as my war with cyano.

Have you considered a el cheapo uv sterilizer .
I bought mine on wish and started a thread apparently a couple others got the same one on Amazon for more but they all say it does a great job I think my 10watt was like 10$
No pluming just dropped it my overflow and wipe it down when I clean my sand

 

[Reefsmith]

Good tip, I'll have to look into that. Thanks!