60 gallon dream cube

[DazAquariums]

9/27/2020

3/15/2020

I will be updating this thread as I go along and adding pictures later today of the tank where it stands currently. Till then a little back history and the few photos I have on my phone will have to do.

I've had several tanks over the years and have really loved this hobby. Started off with a little 20 gallon long with nothing more then a powerhead, heater and hangon back media filter. I ended up breaking my last tank down a few years ago to make room for one of my dream builds, a 120 gallon tank. I was going to do a no expense spared build. Well sadly I never got to finish it. When I was going to move the tank and equipment to a new home I notice it had a huge crack in. This left me incredibly sad as it never even got to see water .

After this I was given a 30 gallon cube tank which something was better then nothing. I got it started and had it cycling when a buddy of mine came over and saw and wanted it for a frag tank (its proper purpose) and offered to exchange it for a 60 gallon cube he had stored at his house. I of course quickly agreed for the simple fact that it was more water volume, better viewing and I always wanted a cube tank.

So after much struggle I was able to get everything switched over to the 60 gallon cube and get some additional rocks added to it and water. I waited a few additional weeks on the cycle to start stocking it.

Always updating
Equipment list
60 gallon cube
Trigger System Ruby 20c
Reef Octopus Classic 150 INT Protein Skimmer
BRS Reactor (carbon)
BRS CO2 scrubber
Jebao dct 6000
Ecotech MP10
Maxspect Gyre XF230 Gyres
AI Hydra 26HD
Aquatic Life T5 Hybrid
Prime HD for sump
Eheim Jager 150w heater
Reef Breeders ATO
Jebao 3.4 Wifi Doser (Calcium, Alkalinity and auto water change)
Apex EL
AFS
B/O Box
Apex Trident

Livestock
Platinum Clown x2
One Spot Foxface
Diamond Goby
Firefish
Scopas Tang
6 Line Wrasse
Rainbow BTA x3
Rock Flower Anemone
Cleaner Shrimp

Corals
Soft Corals
WWC Pandoras zoas
Tutti Fruity zoas
Bam Bam zoas
Rasta zoas
Green Polyp Toadstool
Green Star Polyps

LPS Corals
Sweeetheart Favia
Green Duncan
Neon Green Candy Cane
Hollywood Stunner chalice
BBQ Chip Pavona
Green Blastomussa

SPS Corals
Green Birdsnest
Birds of Paradise
Tyree Seasons Greetings montipora
Orange Monti Cap
Green Stylophora
Purple Stylophora
Green Slimer

 

[Flippers4pups]

Following. Pictures?

 

[WiscoFishNut]

Best of luck with the build! I love my 60g cube for the non-standard look they have. How is yours plumbed?

 

[DazAquariums]

The 30 gallon frag tank. It was pretty nasty to start. I had to do some scrubbing to make it look nice.

This is the result of some scrubbing and a little replumbing.

This is the completed project with the 30 gallon. I tried very hard to have a refugium by using two pumps. Anyone who has done this before knows this doesn't long term work. I think the most success I had was for about 2 weeks and then the water level went stupid so I had to scrap the idea completely.

The day that the 60 gallon cube showed up. The difference seemed way bigger than I though it was going to be.

60 gallon sitting waiting to get replumbed. The drain side was leaking so thats going to take priority.

New sump when it came in! I was so excited for it!

Color match plumbing for the drain line. Return line will get done at a later time.

New sump and drainline installed

 

[DazAquariums]

Following. Pictures?

Working on it slowly haha. Still at work Ill need to take better photos when I get home as well.

 

[DazAquariums]

Best of luck with the build! I love my 60g cube for the non-standard look they have. How is yours plumbed?

Its slowly being re plumbed currently from the upgrade. Gonna be redoing the return hopefully this or next week.

 

[BullyBee]

Looks good man! I love cube tanks. No matter what side you look at it’s like you’re always looking at the front of the tank

 

[WiscoFishNut]

Its slowly being re plumbed currently from the upgrade. Gonna be redoing the return hopefully this or next week.

Good stuff! Is the sump area fairly noisy? I have that same tank and my only complaint is it's a bit noisy in the sump where the drain is.

 

[DazAquariums]

Good stuff! Is the sump area fairly noisy? I have that same tank and my only complaint is it's a bit noisy in the sump where the drain is.

Yeah I tried putting a piece of pvc from the drain deeper into the water but it did little. With as much flow as in the tank the water going through the overflow, drain and the last baffle of the sump create noise. I don’t mind it much it’s in a room with other animals and their stuff makes noise too.

 

[DazAquariums]

Working out the kinks on shooting photos of coral. Comes out insanely blue. So spending some time doing some research on it.

Last week I added some Chaeto to the sump. Had to build a little cage for it since it was going everywhere. Going to hopefully soon be upgrading the bulb that’s attempting to grow because I think it’s just to underpowered

Here’s a quick full tank shot as of tonight. I’ll update the main section with a stock list for anyone interested and once I get the art of coral photography down I’ll post some pictures!

 

[DazAquariums]

Tomorrow I borrow a par meter from my local reef club. I’ve seen success on a 60 gallon cube with a single 26 HD but I want to make sure the lights are tuned. I know as things grow in I will have to upgrade.

Green polyp toadstool

Tutti Fruity Zoas

WWC Pandoras Zoa

Hollywood Stunner Chalice

Tyree Seasons Greetings Montipora

 

[DazAquariums]

I took some par readings today. I was surprised how high some of the readings were. I have a lot of optins for where to play corals moving forward.

After getting my par readings around the tank I decided I was going to be moving various corals around. I moved my Monti cap (which will need to get moved again because either the stylo is going to shadow it or its going to shallow my chalice) and a bunch of other corals to more appropriate places around the tank. Even stuck some gsp on my back glass in hopes that it will grow out in time and cover the back glass nicely.

Down below is my current lighting schedule. So far its done fairly well. I have increased the peak time then what the original profile called for. Right now its set to acclimation mode with everything dimmed 50% and UV down to 60% of its original value. In about 4 weeks it will be back to full strength and Im really hoping the coral all love their new spots and start to really shine.

This weekend I will be going to Marine Aquarium Warehouse in Tampa and hoping to get a few more additional pieces to set around the tank that I have been wanting. Also tomorrow I will be ordering my new Apex to replace the ReefKeeper Elite system I am currently running on.

 

[DazAquariums]

Apex has been ordered! Now time for the wait!

 

[DazAquariums]

So I went for my birthday to buy a Diamond Goby so I could keep my sand looking nice. Within the first day this fella decided he wanted to move things to his liking. He ended up covering all covering all the corals on the sand bed. So I had to make a quick frag rack.

 

[DazAquariums]

Just a quick update on everything that has been happening. I'm going to try and acquire some photos later tonight when I get home to show progress on the tank.

The biggest change is I ended up getting my Apex. What a massive upgrade this was for me over my ReefKeeper Elite V.2. I have been slowly working on getting various things setup on it and I'm very happy with it!

One very bad thing happened during this time. My beautiful Kole tang named Chloe passed. This is the first death within the tank and its completely un-explainable. I have no idea why she died and nothing else has died so far. I have since added a Diamond Goby to the tank since and he has adjusted very well to the tank!

 

[Anchor]

Nice looking set-up.. I see you use the same set up method I do.. the Hit or Miss one.. It is a fully functional and defined method that a lot of newer reefers use I hear (not that you are new). I also like the planned hit or miss method.. cause you know it will eventually be that way.

Sorry to hear about your tang. I lost a Tomini last year.. it was heartbreaking.

 

[DazAquariums]

I haven't been able to update in a while. Since my last update a lot has changed within the reef tank.

After my tang had died my other two fish (clowns) died as well. The developed white spots one morning before work and before I could get home that night to pull them out and think about possible treatments they had passed away. After this I left just the goby in the tank for several months. After about 3 months I decided to try and add more fish into the system. I added two platinum clowns and let them swim around and hangout for awhile and see how they would do. Afterwards I ended up adding a firefish (impulse buy) and a Copperband Butterfly to the tank. I also added a six line but one day in he died, I'm assuming due to stress of shipping. Since then all fish have been happy, healthy and doing their thing in the tank.

I had a little issue with red slime. It seemed to have covered just about everything very quickly which was very frustrating. After a few water changes, red slime remover and some additional water changes the issue has since went away. During the process I did however lose a coral. I had bought a bubblegum Mille and it ended up for lack of better term eaten by redslime.

Outside of that one coral I have not lost any other coral since the start of the tank. I did sort of misplace a Walt Disney frag after knocking it off of a plug and Im fairly certain it became the gobies but we will just pretend that never really happened. All the corals have shown some sort of growth as well. I will attach a few photos I took this morning of the tank and some progress that had been made. Later today I will compile additional photos to add and possible descriptions as like I stated a lot has changed.

Full tank shot from this morning. Most of the fish are visible in this shot.

My Duncan coral and Candycane both have split now. The Candy cane only once but is in the process of again. The Duncan was one head and now has about 6 additional ones coming in.

This is the Rainbow BTA I got recently. I have a buddy who has a literal 150 gallon tank completely full of these and one came off the rock and he called me to come pick it.

My Birdsnest coral that I started with. The picture doesnt do it justice at all. It was a one inch frag when I first got it. Its now the size of a softball.

This thing grew like a weed. I have cut it several times and finally I had to just simply move it because it was beating up on other corals it was to close to. Its now sitting much lower on the tank but seems to be getting more water movement and is starting to grow again.

These have just exploded in the tank. I have fragged them several times now and they keep on coming back and very quickly!

Favia that I got during a live auction. Its grown but it has taken about ages to see any real increase on it.

Currently this is the only coral kind of giving me a little issue. I have some bleaching at the base from when it got a little shaded. I have moved it slightly and gave it more flow hoping that it will continue to grow and not continue down that path.

 

[DazAquariums]

Onto some additional updates I have done a lot with new equipment. So much so that my sump area looking horrible and crowded.

I was able to finish wrapping the stand so that it didn't look nearly so bad. Next to it is the frag system that I built. But more on that shortly.

This is the current sump area. Its not very fun to work in and I have to undo various things every time I have to get inside of it to work. But for me this is part of the success for me.

Right now I am running biopellets and carbon. The biopellets have really helped in keeping nitrates in check as they were really starting to creep up. I have been able to really get them down and keep them constant. The next is carbon just to polish the water. I only plan on running this for 30 days then I will probably turn it off for 30.

This is the doser I have been using. I wanted to try it out and new I was going to need more than this moving in the future. I plan on using this for the frag system and upgrading to the Apex DOS. So far this has been very handy in keeping my calcium and alkalinity stable. I also use it for auto water changes.

I ended up upgrading my old skimmer to the Reef Octopus Classic 150 INT. I will say this has been one massive difference maker! I Have since driller it twice, once to add in a line for the CO2 scrubber and one for a float valve I plan on adding to my Apex B/O box.

The Apex WAV, I would never recommend this to anyone with a 2 foot tank. This thing runs only a handful of hours a day and generally at 1-2% and still moves a good amount of water. This is defiantly designed for those with much bigger and longer tanks!

I have also increased my water storage protentional. I now have rodi water and saltwater being stored. Once a month I have to make new salt water instead of every 5th day now.

 

[DazAquariums]

So today I picked up a 6 line wrasse. So far he seems to be fairly healthy and active. Hopefully since he’s coming into the tank later his aggression is none since I think that’s what killed my other wrasse was messing with the goby.

Also have been doing some research lately and I have figured out my future tank. I’m going to be going with a planet aquariums 155 gallon 48 X 30 1/2 X 25. I want to get something that has some extra depth in it.

If anyone who reads this has an experience with planet aquariums please let me know your thoughts.

 

[DazAquariums]

So I get a new fun battle. I have this long brown hair algae. Not sure what it is but gonna do my weekly tests tonight and see what we find.