stalkem's Oceanic Biocube 29 HQI (first SW tank)

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Added a Cyphastrea and Candy Cane Caulastrea yesterday. Picked them up at a local Coral Farm (or maybe it's an aptasia farm , but the prices are good). I did a double dip in CoralRX, and then when I was going to trim the plug plate, I ended up just popping the Cyphastrea off, and there were a few worms under its rock and the plug... so those went down the drain. Other than that, they look pretty great!
 

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My Hi Fin Goby was out in the open yesterday, which seemed strange, but didn't seem to be acting weird, other than being out of a cave. Looking over the tank this morning, and I found his carcass, mostly cleaned up by the CUC... mostly the backbone and some faint skin, enough to make out the yellow head and color bands. RIP.

Photos of him being out yesterday... tough to take due to the shell placement and rounded corner of the Biocube. I brought the magnetic glass cleaner down near him, and he swam off to hide in a cave, which seemed normal.

Everyone else seems to be acting fine. Only thing I did out of the ordinary yesterday was feeding my aptasias... could the goby have ingested some of the aptasiax? It's allegedly reef safe, so I wouldn't have thought so.
 

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Duncan is a hungry boy. New Tailspot is assimilating nicely. Scoly eating is pretty interesting too!

Tank is growing nicely. Anyone have a clue what these little tubes are at the base of my toadstool leather?
 

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Duncan is a hungry boy. New Tailspot is assimilating nicely. Scoly eating is pretty interesting too!

Tank is growing nicely. Anyone have a clue what these little tubes are at the base of my toadstool leather?
Glad to see the tailspot is doing well!
 
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Been a while since an update. Last my last torch, not sure why. Perhaps the flow was a little too strong. It was in front of my older torch (which is thriving), and it seemed to be doing fine, until it wasn't. PO4 and NO3 are little high, but have been stable and everything seems to be thriving... and see plenty of posts of people with thriving "dirty" tanks. Oh well!

Met @Jay6363 and gave him my GSP rock, now that it's growing nicely on the back wall. Hope it's treating you well!

Been battling some aptasia with aptasiax. Not totally out of hand, but whenever I think I've gotten ahead of it, I then find a few more... and then I was checking the tank out one night and noticed my first bristleworm. I know I had one coral that I noticed some tiny ones on when I pulled it off the plug, and disposed of the ones I saw... so apparently some (at least one) got through!

Got a little excited during the @TSA Corals flash sale and got a bunch of new corals. Taking my first stab at some SPS... price was right, and from what I've read I think I'll manage with the montipora cap and the acropora. Got some new zoa colors, a blasto, and another chalice.

A few recent pics for fun.
 

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Some update shots of the tank, before the new additions.

Love watching the scoly do its thing... also some how go a cool little bi-valve hitchhiker that's growing under my torch.

Colors are really popping at night!

So my one torch did die :( ... what do people do with skeletons? Just leave them and let things fill in around them? Or remove them, forget and move on?

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Well, we made it to the 1 year mark without many adverse effects... shout out to @aquaticlog for reminding me!

A little battle with dinos, a jerk midas blenny that got beat up, and a torch loss... not too bad, but everything else seems happy (even though I apparently run a "high nutrient" system).

Here's some late night shots last night. Tiger Tail Cuke was eating... Bristleworm doing it's things (I thought they were sand dwellers, but I guess I was wrong)... Royal Gramma sleeping in his cave bed.
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My wife also texted me while I was at work this other day... "It looks like we got more corals :expressionless-face:"
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So I played dumb, and said "so pretty" and asked if our 3 year old daughter got them for me! lol

Also a shot of the favias and the hollywood stunner chalice on their rack, waiting to be placed.
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New addition! Flame Angel for a little splash of color. Also slightly addicted to coral. Got smore more, focused on some reds this time... can't wait for delivery day!
 

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Fresh coral delivery today! Everything is settling in. Gotta snap some new pictures once everything is settled.

Also noticed my scoly has a hole in it . I moved it a bit bc I think my torch was stinging it when I'd turn the powerhead off to feed... But also cleaner shrimp gets a little aggressive trying to steal food.
 

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New tiger torch seems happy.

I think my clowns knocked the acro down that was glued up top. I found it (within a day) down on the sand. I glued it back up... but hasn't seemed to been happy. Still has some color on one said (the side that wasn't facing down), but haven't noticed the polyps coming out. I guess we'll wait and see.

Having fun with all the colors on the moonlight cycle before lights out!
 

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Well, the @SaltwaterAq black Friday month long sales got me... 25% off AI Prime and Hanna, yes please. New AI Prime 16 and some Hanna Checkers (Ph, nitrate, phosphate, and Alk) coming soon! Gonna upgrade this Chinese amazon special light and let these corals grow!
 
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Finally caught some with my long tweezers... 2 of the 7 that I saw. Tough to get a good grab on them in the sand!
 

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I got the new AI Prime 16 all set up. I set it up on the Karen Vazquez Signature Series settings, but I modified the hours of it a bit to match my enjoyment schedule.
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The Flame Angel was picking at my Scoly to the point the Scoly was losing flesh and color. I got a @Printed Reef feeding cage, which is the Scoly's new home, and it is much happier and coming back to it's normal colorful self.

My new hammer was sending out some attack polyps and stinging back my duncan. I think there was a little too much flow on that corner of the rock for the duncan to really be happy anyway because it hasn't grown nearly as much as the other. I moved the duncan to the other side, so it'll probably grow better than and completely take over that side with the other duncan... but that gives me room for one more hammer in the future on that little ledge!
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This trachyphyllia is one happy plump little coral! Living it's best life.
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Not pictured, but my lobophyllia has been receding quite a bit... it's sad. I know my PO4 is a bit high (been stable, but around 0.5ppm), so it's probably that. I got some Phosbond, but have put it in my media basket 2x now, with no noticeable change. I also have some Phosguard that was given to me with the tank and haven't tried that yet, and then I got some PhosphateRX to try as well.

Anyone have any other PO4 lowering tips?
 

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This trachyphyllia is probably one of the most fun to watch!
 

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Semi sad day. I surrendered the flame angel to the LFS. I tore my rock work apart last night to catch him. ticked off many corals and had to reattach quite a few. But now my scoly no longer needs to live in a cage and my toadstool can hopefully finally grow some polyps back. Used the LFS credit to pick up a Rainford Goby for my deskmate.

No plans for much new in this tank. I had an @AquaSD order that UPS killed by keeping the next day package for 3 days, and it showed up with everything inside at about 50°. About half of it looked DOA, and the rest (except for the 2 zoas, that I'm still monitoring and haven't opened yet) seemed to have perished that first night. Very bummed out, but thankful for AquaSDs customer service on that. Most of the order was going to go to my deskmate, but was excited for some new acros. So that'll be probably it for this tank for a while!

Pics of the uncaged scoly eating and more of this trachyphyllia!
 

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