60 gallon dream cube

[DazAquariums]

So after my post of the issue with the hair algae I did some test to find out my nitrates and phosphates were reading zero across the board. The spread has slowed recently but its still on the back glass, powerheads and the frag rack that I have inside the tank. But I did however go get a Scopas Tang the next morning. Pretty small little guy and was getting his butt kicked by a larger Scopas at my LFS. Couldn't resist and just today I caught him cleaning up bits of the algae so win win there.

One little issue I have with the new guy though is he completely destroyed my Hollywood stunner chalice. Bonus of this I have some new frag of it.

Today was just tank maintenance day. Cleaned the skimmer and changed out the carbon. I must say this is my first ever Reef Octopus skimmer and I don't know if I would ever want to try anything else. This thing is really kickass. The one I was using before it was the Curve 5 from Bubble Magnus and I just really don't care for it. I could never really get it tuned 100% correct and it always seemed to skim a little to wet for me. This thing though! I can have my sump level to the max and it just pulled out non stop dark skimmate all day everyday. I love it! I have an old Super Reef Octopus S-2000 in the garage that I may need to use in future builds!

I did order a new bulb for my refugium light. Its more powerful than the home depot grow light I was using but its still a cheap amazon grow light. I have seen a lot of good reviews on it and even though my cheap Home Depot light did just about everything I needed it for I decided it was worth trying something new out. During all this process I also moved my CO2 scrubber back so I could have additional room to have a larger spread on the fuge. So hopefully I will have insane amounts of chaeto growth soon.

 

[ReefLab]

sweet build. curious if you know what brand/where the previous owner got that 60 cube? They're kind of hard to find!

 

[reefer024]

Sweet glad to see another 60 cube. Here's mine

 

[DazAquariums]

sweet build. curious if you know what brand/where the previous owner got that 60 cube? They're kind of hard to find!

Its transferred hands a few times. The buddy who I got it from got it from his neighbor who got it from the original owner of it. It is a Deep Blue cube though. Most people around here use to have an old reef shop order tanks and he had a company that sold Deep Blue before they and he went out of business.

 

[DazAquariums]

Sweet glad to see another 60 cube. Here's mine

Thank you! I like yours as well. I see we both are Firefish owners! I love mine he's got a very interesting personality. What are you lighting it with? Looks like T5s?

 

[reefer024]

Thank you! I like yours as well. I see we both are Firefish owners! I love mine he's got a very interesting personality. What are you lighting it with? Looks like T5s?

Ya he's pretty cool. I have a 4ft 4 bulb t5 with ati bulbs. They grow coral great, I'm going to add a frag tank next to it since I have extra length on the t5. I started fragging stuff out to make some extra money for new stuff.

 

[DazAquariums]

Ya he's pretty cool. I have a 4ft 4 bulb t5 with ati bulbs. They grow coral great, I'm going to add a frag tank next to it since I have extra length on the t5. I started fragging stuff out to make some extra money for new stuff.

Awesome! Yeah I had started my frag tank and then due to a small oversight on my part I cracked the tank during the test fill. So now instead I think I'm going to pick up a 50 gallon rubber maid stock tank and just use that. Here's a picture of when it cracked.

 

[reefer024]

Awesome! Yeah I had started my frag tank and then due to a small oversight on my part I cracked the tank during the test fill. So now instead I think I'm going to pick up a 50 gallon rubber maid stock tank and just use that. Here's a picture of when it cracked.

That sucks, hope the next one goes more smoothly.

 

[DazAquariums]

So a few things have changed. I was able to add a frag system into the same room as my tank. It’s a 50 gallon Rubbermaid from tractor supply.

I have also added T5s to the cube as well. Which you can see in the photo. It’s the aquaticlife hybrid fixture. So far I must say I like it! The corals seem to really like it as well.

 

[reefer024]

Looks good, any frags in the tub? What will you be using as frag holders?

 

[Paleozoic_reefer]

That frag tank looks really good! Great job.

 

[DazAquariums]

Looks good, any frags in the tub? What will you be using as frag holders?

I’m using egg crate and pvc for now. We will be purchasing a new cnc soon and it’ll get new acrylic ones then.

I also purchased the viparspectra today for a budget lighting solution

 

[DazAquariums]

That frag tank looks really good! Great job.

Thank you! It’s been a super fun project

 

[DazAquariums]

So today is the first day after the blackout. I have completely lost my chalice. I still have some struggling frags of it but the mother colony is completely gone sadly.

Outside of that it would appear everything else is doing well. Everything is opening up fairly nicely and I don't really see much as when it comes to Dinos. I think I'm going to try and run the Fuge a little longer and have it work a little harder to out compete Dinos. We will see what the next few days bring.

 

[DazAquariums]

So still sort of battling Dinos. It seems to not really be spreading that I can tell.. still have some on the glass though. But here are some random photos of things in the tank.

And a quick shot of a couple frag in the frag system. It’s going through an ugly stage currently and having to clean algae off them and such.

 

[RichtheReefer21]

Nice system. A lot packed in. Sounds like ur on the rebound from the uglies. Hope it continues that way going forward.

A cnc at home? Ya we can be friends.. ha! Thats sick to have i bet. Acrylics is a reefers dream.

 

[DazAquariums]

So after a good long long while I’m doing an update. After my last post I continued to battle dinos for several months. I ended up after trying everything I was reading about how to solve the issue decided to just cut the lights for 60 days and black the tank out (after trying several 3 day blackouts). I moved all Stoney corals into my frag system to sell off while this happened and at night would ensure my fish were fed and anemones. This was a crazy drastic measure but honestly it seemed to work out.

After I took off the blackout tarp and slowly ramped the lights back up I was kind of surprised I didn’t lose any of my soft corals, fish or anemones. It’s been almost two months and everything is really starting to shine again. I am battling aiptasia but it’s whatever. There numbers are slowly going down. I have also been replenishing my corals which has been fun.

I have since dismantled the frag system as I sold off everything in there and have made it a homemade pond out back. I did also start a new 29 gallon biocube anemone build that I’ll start posting here shortly. It’s been a wild wild ride. I’ll make a post after this with the few pictures I have as of recent and this week try to take some more for an update.

 

[DazAquariums]

 

[DazAquariums]

One of the pieces of equipment I did purchase during my downtime was an Apex Trident. I’ve heard semi mixed reviews with it but I’ve had a great time using it. It’s probably not insanely perfect but it seems to come close enough to my Hanna checkers that I feel like I could trust it.

I try to subscribe to the idea of chase less numbers and be more concerned with stability over anything else. So I try to keep my numbers constant and worry less about having the perfect numbers.

 

[count krunk]

What a journey! I may may may be getting an apex later this year. How do you like it?

My 40 breeder has had it's fair share of downturns but it seems to have turned the corner and it's really starting to shine now.