100g Cube

[kcstoker1]

It was about this time a year ago that I was purchasing all the pieces of my "new" 100 Cube from Glass Cages. The tank/stand/lights were all new aspects of my system, which also contains a 20H refugium and a 20L frag tank running on a 55g sump. All of these tanks as well as my skimmer were going to remain. All I was really doing was replacing a 125g Display Tank with a new 100g Cube Display tank. Except that didn't go so well...

After quite a few problems and a handful of mysteries I had to take the tank down after Thanksgiving last fall and start over. We had the floors replaced in our house over December so I couldn't set it back up until January.

Long story shorter, around Mid-March the tank finally balanced itself out and things started to go the way I was expecting. I've spent some time the last few weeks video-taping the tank as part of a video journal I will be keeping. These images are stills from the video.

It's a 2-sided viewing experience, so this is the "front".

"Side"

Green Brain and Cleaner Shrimp

2 of my 7 zoas.

Frogspawn

Alien Eye Chalice

Red and Green Chalice

Green Chalice

In future posts I'll get into more detail on equipment and the entire system. More photos and video to come.

 

[downbeach]

Beautiful tank, welcome to the club.

 

[Sunny]

Very Nice Tank. I have seen some awesome looking cubes in last 24 hours

 

[greybolt03]

Welcome to the club!!! Loving that cube can't wait to see more pics....

 

[kcstoker1]

Thanks, all.


More pics.

Fish List:

Yellow Tang
Ignitus Anthias (1)
African Flameback Angel
Starry Blenny
Black and White Ocellaris
Yellow Watchman Goby
Wheeler's Goby
Blue-Striped Neon Goby

Fish still to come:
Tanaka's Wrasse
Indigo Pseudochromis
Mandarin

Possible a group of 4 Purple or Red Firefish.


I wanted a group of 4 Anthias but 3 of them succombed to either Gil Flukes or the stresses of Transport and QT and never made it into the Display. Adding more now is hit or miss and could be a very expensive miss.

 

[TanksNStuff]

Great looking cube. Welcome to the club!

 

[kevin]

nice cubbbbe!

 

[adesimone1]

Welcome to the cube club

 

[kcstoker1]

So it's been a while since I posted last. Things have been up and down since then. Probably still going through some new tank stuff. Lots of corals are doing well and growing well. A handful are struggling, but for the most part things are ok.

The cyano in the pictures above is gone and now I've got massive GHA issues. So maybe I can get some input on that. About a month ago, I stopped feeding for a week, turned the lights completely off for the same period and started new Carbon and GFO with a nice, clean skimmer. After that week, the GHA had actually grown. I'm a little clueless as to how. At this point I go in and manually remove it in clumps every 3 weeks.

I got some CUC reinforcements that didn't do much. A Lettuce nudi, some emerald crabs, more astreas but they haven't done much to keep it in check. Most of the new CUC didn't make it very long. Only 1 emerald left out of 4 (I think anyway). Snails did ok, but they stick to the glass. Nudi hung out in one particularly algae ridden spot for 3-4 days and then started glass surfing. After 2 weeks I never saw it again. Maybe a sea hare?

Skimmer is an MSX 200, tank is a 100g cube. Running Carbon and GFO. 4 Korallias in the tank generating around 4800 gph in-tank flow and a Mag 5 return.

I'll post some updated pictures in a day or two with the algae growth, the growing corals and some of the corals that aren't doing as well.

Thanks for any input.


PS... anybody live in northern NJ? Especially Bergen County? Seems like a lot of members are central and south Jersey.

 

[Empire]

maybe it's your RODI? what are you using to store your RODI water?

 

[kcstoker1]

White 55 gallon food-safe barrel. Same one I've used for 3 or 4 years. Just replaced all the RODI filters about 2 months ago.


Here are some recent photos.


Algae area:

Green Cyphastrea

Armor of gods

Orange Zoas

Basslet and Anthias