Zer0's JBJ RL-10 AIO Cube

Zer0

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Hello R2R, I usually hang out on nano-reef.com but I've recently thought of keeping a thread updated on here as well, as I find the R2R community very pleasant and helpful.

Equipment:
- JBJ RL-10 AIO Cube
- Cobalt Aquatics 75W Neo-therm
- AI Prime16 HD
- AI Nero 3
- Sicce Syncra 0.5 return pump
- Overflow chamber has a DIY media rack running filter floss and activated carbon
- 2nd chamber is filled with chaeto, which has an IM 9W Chaetomax fuge light

This tank is not yet a month old, but soon. Everything has been smooth sailing so far, except for a small hiccup a few days ago that ticked off most of the coral. I rented a PAR meter because I was curious, and it turned out I was blasting everything with a lot of light. Some coral didn't seem to mind the extra light, I think because they came from high-light environments already. However, I'm not entirely sure how accurate the readings I was getting are, since the meter I received from BRS was pretty much dead on battery life. It only stays on for about 15 seconds, and sometimes the readings fluctuated wildly even when I held the wand still. So I opened a support ticket with them and I'll be sending this one back and they're going to send me out another one to use.

Anyways, I was originally running all blue/UV channels at 50%, red and green at 20%, and then CW at 80%, which gave the tank a 14k look, which is what I prefer. I believe that was too much light to start off with, so now I have everything running at 30%, except red and green channels at 10%. This new light level seems to be doing well at the moment, but a couple of my SPS pieces are definitely unhappy, as I'm just not getting the same polyp extension I was with the previous light settings.

Here are some photos:
















Some things have changed since those photos and I'll be updating with new ones soon. Thanks for looking!
 

revhtree

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Looking great and we appreciate you sharing your reef here as well!
 
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Zer0

Zer0

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So things are still chugging along. I recently had a pod explosion, they've really taken over the glass so
much so that when you look at the tank from far away you can see them all as tiny dots. Not sure what
to think about that. I've seen Noodle picking at the glass a lot more frequently, so maybe he's eating them.
Either that or he's just eating the film algae.

I lost a peppermint shrimp last night, but I'm not entirely sure why. It was a young one, small, so I don't
think it would have died of old age. I found his body stuck in one of the two water level holes in the false wall.
All of the other inverts and Noodle seem to be fine, but I'm still curious as to what may have caused that
shrimp to perish.

I also bought new salt and I won't be using this Oceanic salt anymore. I don't have any concrete proof, but
I think it might be expired, or just not viable anymore. I've noticed that my coral, at least some of them,
have started looking more irritated even though all of my water parameters seem to be in the acceptable ranges -
all except my Calcium. I have a Salifert test kit for Calcium and I did it twice yesterday, once in the morning
and once at night, and I followed the directions to the T each time, and the tests came back as 500ppm. The
test water just never changed from pink to blue, even after I ran out of reagent in the 1mL syringe. I don't know
if having a sky high Calcium could be causing issues, but I can't imagine it's good overall to have Calcium
that may be even higher than 500, since the test only goes up to 500ppm.

Another bummer is that a few of my SPS pieces are on their way out, I'm pretty sure. The blue stylo is loosing
tissue every day and is almost completely bleached. I'm going to try and frag the good parts and see if I
can save some part of it. Both of my green montipora digitata frags, which had been doing really well for the past
few weeks since I got them, both sloughed a ton of tissue the day before yesterday. One of them has started
bleaching, but I think the other one could make a comeback maybe, as although it turned brown, it has decided
to extend its polyps today. Maybe there is hope for it. Unsure at this point.

All of the soft coral and LPS look great. My blasto looks amazing, and I love watching it eat. I feed it
every day since it eats what Noodle does. I think it's currently my favorite coral.

An additional problem I'm having, is that these stupid baby nassarius snails keep getting stuck in the
holes in the false wall, causing the water level in the back chambers to go all out of whack. They happen
to be just the perfect size to get stuck and act as a cork. I have to pull them out every time they get stuck
otherwise they can't get themselves out.

New salt will be here on Monday, I'll do a 5G water change that day and see what happens. I went with IO Reef Crystals. It's cheap, I can get it in bulk, and a lot of people swear by it, so I'll give it a go.
 

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I had the same problem with my salifert calcium test kit. I bought an API one and it tested around 420. Wonder if they had a bad batch exp date 08-2025
 
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Zer0

Zer0

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So my green montipora digitata frags never recovered, they just sloughed until they were
completely bleached. They weren't expensive but I do feel bad about killing them. I'm confident
that what caused it was a bacterial bloom caused by a spike in phosphates, which was due to me
greatly overfeeding Reef Roids. My phosphates went from undetectable on my Hanna checker to
.22 overnight. Everything was ticked, but after a couple large water changes, things started looking better,
except for the green montis.

As of right now, everything is actually looking pretty great in the tank. I have pods that cover the glass
overnight after scraping the algae off. I'm seeing coralline growth on the rocks popping up everywhere as well
as on the Nero and my return nozzle. The rocks are starting to color up as well. Everything has been growing at
a nice speed, all of my zoas have sprouted new polyps, my bubblegum monti has begun enctrusting on to the rock
at its base, which is a welcomed surprise. My aquacultured red goni so far looks great every day, I think it
likes its current spot - moderate lighting and flow that varies between low and moderate. When I was mounting
it to the rock it released a single polyp probably from being irritated, however, that little polyp found a
spot in the rockwork and latched on to it and has started growing another polyp next to it lol. That was also
another welcomed surprise. I'm looking forward to seeing how it grows and progresses, hopefully it continues to
do so.

I'm also currently trying to bring an sps piece back from the brink. It started bleaching during that bacterial
bloom, but it stopped after the water changes. So I removed it from the rockwork, mounted it to a plug and
placed it in a spot that should give it optimal light and flow. I've been taking pictures of it every day
to compare any further bleaching/tissue loss, and so far it looks like it has stopped. I'm hoping it can pull
through, but if it does start to get worse, I'll wind up fragging off bits and pieces in an effort to save it.

My alveopora, which was one of the first coral in this tank, has started expanding its flesh over the
dead skeleton that I assume was a result of the fragging process, as well as the rock that I mounted its
skeleton to.

The blastos have sprouted 3 new heads already, and I'm very fond of this coral. I feed it mysis every day and
it is absolutely fascinating to watch it eat. I'll probably make a video of it soon.

I also have a video of some bizzare tunicate or sponge that seems to be doing fairly well in the tank. I
made a video of it, but it's a bit blurry because it's in a particularly difficult spot to focus on. I've
noticed that this tank has a lot of spots that cause weird distortions to the eye. I'm assuming it's
because of the small size/dimensions of the glass panels, but taking photos/videos from any angle other than
straight on causes distortion/warping that the camera mirror does not like at all.
















Here is the SPS I'm currently trying to rehabilitate:



And here is a video of the weird sponge/tunicate thing(sorry for the background noise):




Anyway, that's all for now. Thanks for viewing!
 
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Zer0

Zer0

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I really love Noodle.

This hobby has always been about coral to me, but for some reason, this Blenny and its personality has perhaps swayed me. I can't imagine this tank without Noodle.

What does that say about me?
 

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So things are still chugging along. I recently had a pod explosion, they've really taken over the glass so
much so that when you look at the tank from far away you can see them all as tiny dots. Not sure what
to think about that. I've seen Noodle picking at the glass a lot more frequently, so maybe he's eating them.
Either that or he's just eating the film algae.

I lost a peppermint shrimp last night, but I'm not entirely sure why. It was a young one, small, so I don't
think it would have died of old age. I found his body stuck in one of the two water level holes in the false wall.
All of the other inverts and Noodle seem to be fine, but I'm still curious as to what may have caused that
shrimp to perish.

I also bought new salt and I won't be using this Oceanic salt anymore. I don't have any concrete proof, but
I think it might be expired, or just not viable anymore. I've noticed that my coral, at least some of them,
have started looking more irritated even though all of my water parameters seem to be in the acceptable ranges -
all except my Calcium. I have a Salifert test kit for Calcium and I did it twice yesterday, once in the morning
and once at night, and I followed the directions to the T each time, and the tests came back as 500ppm. The
test water just never changed from pink to blue, even after I ran out of reagent in the 1mL syringe. I don't know
if having a sky high Calcium could be causing issues, but I can't imagine it's good overall to have Calcium
that may be even higher than 500, since the test only goes up to 500ppm.

Another bummer is that a few of my SPS pieces are on their way out, I'm pretty sure. The blue stylo is loosing
tissue every day and is almost completely bleached. I'm going to try and frag the good parts and see if I
can save some part of it. Both of my green montipora digitata frags, which had been doing really well for the past
few weeks since I got them, both sloughed a ton of tissue the day before yesterday. One of them has started
bleaching, but I think the other one could make a comeback maybe, as although it turned brown, it has decided
to extend its polyps today. Maybe there is hope for it. Unsure at this point.

All of the soft coral and LPS look great. My blasto looks amazing, and I love watching it eat. I feed it
every day since it eats what Noodle does. I think it's currently my favorite coral.

An additional problem I'm having, is that these stupid baby nassarius snails keep getting stuck in the
holes in the false wall, causing the water level in the back chambers to go all out of whack. They happen
to be just the perfect size to get stuck and act as a cork. I have to pull them out every time they get stuck
otherwise they can't get themselves out.

New salt will be here on Monday, I'll do a 5G water change that day and see what happens. I went with IO Reef Crystals. It's cheap, I can get it in bulk, and a lot of people swear by it, so I'll give it a go.
I also lost my Peppermint Shrimp after only like a week. I think he got pinned against the back on the Nero when it goes to flush mode at night. It was sad. But my Scarlet is doing great!
 
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Zer0

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I've been pretty busy this past month so I've kind of left the tank on autopilot, didn't add any new coral, just kind of tweaking the chaeto lighting schedule so that my nitrates and phosphates aren't 0. I also finally got rid of the peppermint shrimp that had grown a taste for my red goniopora. I also got rid of one of my blue legged hermit crabs because it grew into a monster and started bulldozing everything and just basically caused havoc. Everything really looks great though, which is nice, and the bubblegum montipora has started to really take off in growth.



I do have a small cyano problem unfortunately, it hasn't really taken over all of the rocks yet, but it has spread a bit. I just siphon it out during water changes. I think it was brought on by my 0 nitrates and phosphates, which is why I'm trying to test new lighting schedules for the chaeto in the back chamber. Anyways, I'll just dump some photos.































































































The photos aren't really in any particular order other than the date they were taken. I'll try and get a decent FTS shot after water change on Sunday. Thanks for looking!
 

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Hey! Fellow JBJ RL owner (20 gallon version) with the same light too!

What are you light settings? Photos look great. I'm into a whiter light myself, but it seems like everyone recommend blues these days.
 
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Zer0

Zer0

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Hey! Fellow JBJ RL owner (20 gallon version) with the same light too!

What are you light settings? Photos look great. I'm into a whiter light myself, but it seems like everyone recommend blues these days.
Hey there!

My light profile is pretty basic, one hour ramp up and down, 7 hours peak, and I run 40% across all blues and UV, 20% red and green, and then 50% CW. It gives about a 15000k look, which is what I prefer. And I do agree, lights nowadays are very very blue. Although I do think the bluer spectrum probably has its benefits, I’m just really not in to it lol.
 
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Zer0

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I also forgot to mention that I’ve been keeping a particularly large Majano anemone alive in a plastic container. It’s about the size of a nickel(USD) now, and it’s been in this jar for about a month. It gets a 100% water change once a week during the water change for the tank. Seems like the light spill from the Prime is keeping it happy. It moves around the plug stem from time to time, but mostly stays put. I’ll be keeping it for as long as it stats alive. A bit of an experiment I guess.
 

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I wasn’t happy with any of the photos I took, I’m pretty terrible at taking full tank shots. It’s not great either, but the best one I could get was with my phone, so it will have to do for now.
 

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I'm starting a round of chemiclean today, trying to get rid of what I believe to be cyano. It has mostly gone away by itself in the display, but in the back chamber where I have been growing chaeto, it pretty much took over and I'm convinced it smothered my chaeto, to the point where I have only a tiny amount left, which I'm trying to revive. I threw an air stone in the tank temporarily just to be extra safe about increasing oxygen levels during the treatment. Hopefully it all works out, but we'll see.



Anyways, here's a shot of the short green goni I got last week.



 
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Here was a relatively large bristleworm slinking around between zoas looking for food.
 
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