My life aquatic with Fiji 76g EXT

[Zissou Intern]

It has been a few months but I’ve made a lot of progress. First I did some aquascaping because I wanted to let the tank cycle while I completed some remaining tank projects.

I found this part really challenging, both because it was difficult to visualize what I wanted, then it was even more difficult to make my imagined design from rock. I ended up choosing some interesting rock shapes, then adding some smaller rocks with glue, epoxy, and sand. Here is what I eventually came up with:

 

[Zissou Intern]

Early on I was debating whether to use a reef controller. I decided to try to go without one, relying instead on a WiFi power strip and apps for my pumps and lights. I guess my thinking was that I’d rather spend time building and designing than programming controller routines.

The big thing I wanted was automatic water changes, which I decided to handle with an Autoaqua Duo AWC. But I wanted to draw both RO and fresh saltwater from my basement and run waste water to my sewer line.

At first I planned to use the Autoaqua AC smart switch socket to control larger pumps. But then I realized that I could instead use a larger 12v pump with higher head pressure along with a barrel cable extension to reach the basement. With that decided I set to work running cables and tubing up my wall, building stands for water containers, and designing a mixing station.

Here are some pics that show the construction and final setup, which has been working really well for the past month:

 

[Zissou Intern]

Stock list so far:

Fish (in order added)

• 2 Ocellaris clownfish (1 from past tank)
• 1 Starry blend
• 1 Yellow watchman goby
• 3 Lyretail anthias
• 1 Longnose hawkfish
• 1 Six line wrasse

Inverts

• 1 large hermit crab (from past tank)
• 1 muscle (hitchhiker from past tank)
• 1 Tiger pistol shrimp
• 10 Blue leg hermit crabs
• 10 small snails (type unknown)
• 1 Strawberry conch snail

Corals

• 1 colony of green ricordia mushrooms
• 2 toadstool leather corals
• 1 large unidentified green carpet mushroom

 

[407_Reefer]

How has the Fiji Cube held up over time so far? Looking into getting the 81 gallon. Between that or water box 110.

 

[Zissou Intern]

So far so good, but it hasn’t been all that long yet. I ordered mid December 2023, it arrived early January 2024 then sat for a while as I finished ordering all of the plumbing, equipment, etc. It has been up and running since early March 2024 with no problems yet. So pretty close to 6 months now. Still, I think that’s long enough for any obvious problems to show up.