Saltwater Newbie! To Document my 29G Biocube Build

[UABsleeper]

Hey, Welcome to my thread. I would say I'm a Newbie Saltwater Junkie! I have been been into aquariums for the past couple of years! I like most people started out with freshwater aquariums! As my addiction took hold i went from 10g then 37g and then 55g haha all in the period of about a year! After doing my research I finally decided to take the plunge into saltwater!

I'm a Full time grad student so I guess you could say i'm a reefer on a for sure tight Budget! That being said i would love to have a couple 100 gallon saltwater system eventually.. but decided to start slow especially since i could be moving in 6 months so to test my hand at saltwater with a 29 gallon biocube

Pictures to come

 

[L00KN 4 NEMO]

I am setting up my nuvo 30l and i am interested in how you will be setting up

 

[143MPCo]

Sounds great, tagging along!

 

[UABsleeper]

Thanks for the interest guys! I must say I'm am a little late starting this thread! The tank has been up and running about two months now but let's start with what got me into the hobby my freshwater tank!

Here is a picture of my freshwater 55 gallon! Honestly not getting as much care as it did before I started the saltwater aquarium I'm really debating if I want to tear it down or not..

German blue ram

 

[Chris-tico]

Thats my favorite freshwater fish.!

 

[UABsleeper]

As you can see from the title Am running the Coralife Biocube 29! It has been up and running for a little over two months now and I can already say that I honestly didn't realize how much more their was in the aquarium hobby until I started my saltwater tank! In the short time I have been in the saltwater side as my wife would say "I've been bitten by the reef bug"

Here is a pic right after starting up tank

Here this is a couple weeks after startup I did use dr tims one and only for the first time and was really impressed

For my rock structure I with with man made base rock and liferock and a piece of live rock to help seed my tank! As you can see only a couple of frags of zoanthids a candy cane coral which looked terrible and is just now starting to look decent

 

[UABsleeper]

Here is a pic from about a month ago after adding a Duncan

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I got a great deal on the Duncan It looks like 1 head and didn't look great when I purchased it but it has sense opened up and now has 6 heads and growing a 7th

Here is my tank to date! I'm really loving how it is progressing

Had to do a little rearranging with my rockwork for my torches trying to go for a euphyllia type garden on the right side

 

[UABsleeper]

Here are some random pictures I took the other day on my coral and current tank inhabitants

Sorry for the poor quality of the pictures taken with my iPhone

 

[UABsleeper]

Current Livestock

-Three different type of zoanthids not sure what strain(if you know please comment!)
-Candy cane
-Two torches
-Duncan coral
-Orange and Blue ricordia

-1 Black and white Ocellaris clown
-1 Orange and white Ocellaris clown
-1 Fire shrimp
-A pistol shrimp and yellow watchman goby
-Cleanup crew: 4dwarf hermits, multiple trochus, Astria, nassarius snails, a turbo snail, and a sand sifting sifting star!

Equipment

-Lighting: Stock biocube PC lighting with two extra added actinic moonlighting for a little extra blue pop

-Power head: Jabeo RW4

-Fiji pink Agra live sand

 

[UABsleeper]

Equipment continued:

Biocube Filtration:
-Chamber 1: Aquatic life internal mini protein skimmer

Chamber 2: bio balls removed two eshop sponges which I have up against chamber one with purigen and filter floss over that
- also have seachem matrix media for a little extra bio filtration and aqueon 150 watt heater

In the bubble trap between chambers 2 and 3 I run chemi pure elite

Chamber 3: I have tune nano osmolator ato!

Hers a pic so you can get a idea of the layout

Thanks all for looking at my thread I really would like to keep everyone updated as I add new corals and my tank progresses! Any suggestions or stuff you see i may be doing wrong please feel free to let me know as stated I'm a saltwater Newbie and am on here to learn from y'all's vast amounts of knowledge and share my experiences as I do!

Questions or comments welcome!

 

[UABsleeper]

Thats my favorite freshwater fish.!

Thank you! For your comment! Yes it's also one of my favorite! That and my angelicus Botia loaches have great personalities!

 

[UABsleeper]

Sounds great, tagging along!

Awesome glad to have you any input is appreciated

 

[UABsleeper]

I am setting up my nuvo 30l and i am interested in how you will be setting up

Good luck to you! Any questions that I may be able to help you with just let me know

 

[Chris-tico]

Current Livestock

-Three different type of zoanthids not sure what strain(if you know please comment!)

you have some eagle eyes zoas. radioactive zoas.. and im not sure about the other one!

 

[UABsleeper]

Got some new corals this past week!

New ACAN

Galaxy Coral

And a pic of my ricordia I couldn't get a great shot of the center which is green because of its location!

 

[UABsleeper]

So since my last update I have made a couple of changes

1) I finally decided to I was tired of the eshop sponges and decided to invest in an InTank media basket! Running filter floss, purigen, and chemipure blue,

2) I decided to buy a tunze 9001 skimmer! Best decision I made yet! Two days and already getting good skimmate! I got tired of constantly adjusting my aquatic life 115 and still getting very little decent skimmate.. Basically to finicky

3) upgraded heater to ehim jäger 100w heater! I love it so far!

Some new corals

Ricordea Mushroom

Branching Frogspawn coral

And Aussie Hammer Coral

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

Looks like everything is coming along nicely!!

 

[UABsleeper]

Ok so time for a little update!

Frogspawn really starting to open up!

Also added a Cherub pygmy angel

Aussie Hammer is opening up

My Metallic green Trumpet Coral was one of the first corals I added to the aquarium it browned out after adding and I thought it had died however it finally looks like it's making a turn around and getting some color back!

And final picture is my Duncan coral doing great

I also picked up a Fox Coral and a small head of Mint Hammer which I had never seen before! Will post pics of this when I can get some!

 

[UABsleeper]

So finally got a couple of pictures of my small frags I picked up the other day!

Mint hammer

Fox coral