My Little Reef Tank ™️

[notMrDurden]

So I have had this tank (Neptunian Cube) less than a week, she's still dry because I work a full time job and have kids and all of that.... You know, life. Anyways, I finally got a stand built (mostly) and have her set where I want.


Day one of actually working on everything, got my stand roughed out.

Day two I got the stand sanded and stained. I'm the future, that bottom area is going to be a shelf and the entire mid section is going to be enclosed with a little door

Got her set up where I want! Messed around with the lighting, because this light is significantly more interesting than my freshwater tank. Enjoy me playing with inspecting my lights.

Next up: Scape!

 

[Woodyman]

Coming along nicely!

 

[Echo2656]

i love the stand

 

[notMrDurden]

i love the stand

Thank you! I was looking for something nice and didn't want to drop the coin when I already had the supplies in my garage. I had 3 adults sit on it at the same time last night and move around and it was solid. I think it will hold a 17 gal just fine

 

[notMrDurden]

Coming along nicely!

Thanks! I figured if the option was here to show it off, I might as well be super proud of my little baby

 

[guily yalai]

You're starting a meaningful work, waiting for your archive

 

[notMrDurden]

Update 6/11/22-

After a few agonizing days of realizing that I didn't really know what I wanted out of my scape, I finally bit the bullet and got everything together how I thought I wanted it. I put it in the tank and turned on the light. I think I like it. It took me a minute to realize that asymmetric looks awesome.

I guess the next step is water!

 

[notMrDurden]

After walking past it a few times this evening, I think I like it a lot. Pretty sure I am sold on this one!

 

[guily yalai]

Creation is infinite

 

[mbarton2010]

When you are ready, ill have some frags waiting for you

 

[notMrDurden]

When you are ready, ill have some frags waiting for you

Most excellent! I'm excited to get cycled and stable

 

[notMrDurden]

"you can't just post a random picture of testing equipment and cycling supplies and expect people to get it"

Yes. Yes I can. Picture of tank is kinda pointless because we just added water so it's suuuuper cloudy and of course we started the cycle. Now we wait...

 

[notMrDurden]

This week's update

Livestock:
Ocellaris clownfish (Nemo)
Wyoming White clownfish (Steve)
Before anyone starts thinking anything funny, they are just roommates and nothing more!
Chaeto coming this week!

Equipment:
Apex El coming in this week. It might be a bit overkill for a tank this small, but I got it by chance. Kinda a long story.

Future:
-Going to go ahead and get the pH probe for sure, not sure about the others.
-Working on figuring out what ATO type system will work best for me. Right now we have someone here all the time so a gallon jug is working just fine.
-Corals/Nems? Who knows. My fiancee was chomping at the bit at the LFS when we were picking these up... I honestly think she might be more excited than me

 

[notMrDurden]

Update: the ugly phase?

I am currently 24 days after the initial tank fill.
-2 clowns: classic and Wyoming white
-1 zoa frag
-chaeto - have noticed a few copepods

Less than a week ago I had this show up. Since then it has kinda grown stringy (assuming because of water movement). I will get an updated picture when I get home.

What I've been told: diatoms, keep an eye on it but it will die down eventually. Pay attention to and decrease the amount and quality of light
What I've read: his is the ugly phase and it will pass. Cleaning it up won't do much until silicates are depleted. You can clean the glass though. Pay attention not to overfeed, use less light. Weekly water changes.

There are a lot of great resources here, but as always: 1000 ways to skin a cat and everyone has their own opinions. So I'm going to see where this one goes

 

[notMrDurden]

Biggest update: looks like the algae is cyano.

It started to get worse so I added some inverts... 3 trochus, 4 white tipped cerith, 3 nassarius, and 3 dwarf blue legged hermits. It's not alarmingly horrible, but I'd like to get rid of it as naturally as possible.

Also got come zoas and a favia (not pictured). So that's great that this is going on.

Picture of tank, then an up close of ugliness.

 

[notMrDurden]

Tank update... What I thought was cyano ended up being dinos... Not a lot has been going on with the tank with the exception of fixing the problem. I seem to be pretty clear now, but I'm still going to be cautious for a few more days.

Picture from last night's tank view attached for your viewing pleasure. I'm over the moon that my tank is clear.

 

[notMrDurden]

Tank update... What I thought was cyano ended up being dinos... Not a lot has been going on with the tank with the exception of fixing the problem. I seem to be pretty clear now, but I'm still going to be cautious for a few more days.

Picture from last night's tank view attached for your viewing pleasure. I'm over the moon that my tank is clear.

Update: dinos made way for looots of GHA, I ended up moving the clowns to the 90gallon tank and letting this tank go fallow. I currently have an urchin in here that is happily eating all the algae, just living it's best life