My 270L cube - the slow progress - one year and counting

Cube · Jan 16, 2012

Hi guys

In 2010, I started my 270liter (about 71 gallons) cube. Since then, a lot has happened to my tank and I am always surprised, how many different ways there are in this hobby. I am looking at this from a German perspective and compare "my" methods to the ones, that I can find in many US-reefing forums. Especially the advised actions during the "cycling" phase are a lot different in most forums in Germany, than the ones I can find here.
So my idea is not just to give you a look at my tank today but to recap the development of the tank basically from day 1.

So here it is: My brand new tank as it arrived in 10/2010. This was a great day! Seeing the tank with water for the first time.

As you can see, I built up some pillars, DIY, with Life rock. Now, the "slow" approach begins: The most common definition of the "cycling" phase is, that you basically wait about 3 months, before adding any fish or higher corals into the tank and wait for the algeas to come and go again... yup, three months of patience. So here is month number one:

After some brown algeas, the tank became greeeeen (still month number one):

please note: At this point, there was already no Nitrite anymore in the tank, just some phosphate left, hence the nice green look.

I'll spare you the pics of the first CUC and waiting time

Here is the tank in month number 3, first softies moved in!

After about 5 months, an anemone and a pair of clownfish moved in and they settled in great! This was proof for me, that the tank was on the way to become established:

Oups, only 5 pics per post? Alright guys, than that's it for now, I made it until about 06/2011. So come along with me in case you are interested, how tank further developed.

Feedback & questions always welcome!
Recent pictures of the tank coming soon!Cheers

Wy Renegade · Jan 16, 2012

Those pillars are cool - I assume you drilled and dowled? Strange you only got five pictures, usually you can get 10. Keep em coming.

capt85 · Jan 16, 2012

Wy Renegade said:
Those pillars are cool - I assume you drilled and dowled? Strange you only got five pictures, usually you can get 10. Keep em coming.

Its probably because you are german

Willkommen!

Looks like a great start. Cant wait to see the rest.

Cube · Jan 17, 2012

Wy Renegade said:
Those pillars are cool - I assume you drilled and dowled? Strange you only got five pictures, usually you can get 10. Keep em coming.

Thx mate. Yes, I drilled and put a PVC pipe through all of them which is fixed on the bottom of the tank.

@Capt85. Yeah, probably...

I guess its some noob protection thing, to make sure you cannot spam too much in the forum before you did some more posts. So help me achieve the next membership level by contributingn to my thread here!

So let's continue the story of my tank: Where was I...
After the anemone settled in (apart from moving 10cm to hide its foot behind the rock it was on, it didn't move at all, so I assume it's happy) I figured its time to start with LPS/SPS.
These were my first:

They all are doing quite well. The only problem I still have is a bit of bleaching, probably due to low nutrients. My Nitrate, Phosphate levels were almost always around zero, never figured out how to get them a bit higher safe.

Of course there are some fish in the tank besides the occelaris. The first, you can see on the pic of the brain coral, he's great. After being very shy for the first month or so, he became quite curious, always sitting on his favourite places like the brain coral where he can see the whole tank.
Then there is a sifting goby and some chromis. Thats it. so you can see i kept the bioload quite low and concentrated more on the corals.