New to Reefing- 4 Month Cube journey - Build Thread

[mudjawd]

Note: Please ignore the Ikea light that used for lighting the tank for the pic.

Hi All.

I am new to reef aquarium and this is my first reef tank that I setup last week. Planning for mainly zoas and easy corals and probably will move to hammers later. That’s all. Plan is to kickstart tank cycling using ammonia today. The tank will without any livestock for 4 weeks or until no nitrite/ammonia detected.

fish: will add after 4 weeks. Not decided on fish yet. Perhaps a goby, couple small perculas and some Cleanup crew.

light: I’ll put it after a month or so after adding fish (ie 2 -2.5 months from now) Perhaps Kessil 360x as I like it more. also will add coralline algae (do they sell it) at about the same time and hope it doesn’t die.

I’ll Add zoanthids if I see the coralline algae spread. Meanwhile I’ll read more about quarantine and treatments prior to adding them to tank.

water change: 25% weekly initially after adding fish and then maybe 10% weekly once the tank matures. Maybe will add a small skimmer later. Some people keep chaetos in the filter space of waterbox cube 20 (not sure if that is a ok idea as I have some space left there)

is my plan too safe? I have over 10 year experience with planted nano tanks and I’ll consider myself pretty successful but reef is a totally new experience so I am taking it slow.

 

[Bleigh]

Do some research, but I like to add hardy corals before fish. Check out the reef therapy podcast. They’ve been talking about it too.

Was the rock live or dry? If it’s live, it may cycle within a day-two.

Other than that, sounds like a great plan! Love the scape!!!

 

[mudjawd]

Do some research, but I like to add hardy corals before fish. Check out the reef therapy podcast. They’ve been talking about it too.

Was the rock live or dry? If it’s live, it may cycle within a day-two.

Other than that, sounds like a great plan! Love the scape!!!

Thanks. I have been watching few videos on YouTube where I’ve seen people talk about introducing hardy corals within the first week. The rock was dry (caribsea liferock). I’ll hear to the reef therapy podcast. I can then try to add the Harry ones like gsp or Xenia.

 

[Bleigh]

Thanks. I have been watching few videos on YouTube where I’ve seen people talk about introducing hardy corals within the first week. The rock was dry (caribsea liferock). I’ll hear to the reef therapy podcast. I can then try to add the Harry ones like gsp or Xenia.

I did goniastrea as my tester. Then added like 50 corals 3 days later.

 

[mudjawd]

Update: cycling completed. Made some scape changes and added a small Duncan and gsp to see if it survives (made a 25% water change before adding it). The approach was that if it dies then I wait for 2 more weeks and let the tank cycle a bit more.
However, Duncan opened up couple hours after adding it and is loving it I’d guess. Gsp has few of its polyps open (it’s been less than 12 hrs since I added them).

If I see good progress this week then next week I’ll add few zoanthids.

 

[mudjawd]

Documenting some more.

- Added Acan and few candy canes. GSP is growing already. Duncan is doing great.
- Going to start feeding the corals with reef roids from today (twice a week with very little quantity)
- added two clownfish. Might add few more cleanup crew after some time

 

[FjordReef]

I love your rock work! Looks awesome

 

[mudjawd]

Thanks

 

[mudjawd]

Added some zoanthids. No idea which one is this.

 

[mudjawd]

Added a frogspawn. Tank coming up ok.

 

[mudjawd]

Update after almost 2 months of first setting it up. Added few more corals. Doing 30% water changes to fight hair algae. Also added Tunze 9001 skimmer (still breaking in). Corals are all growing good.Still leaving the top rock empty for birds nest coral later (after 2-3 months). I think I will add few more acans and mushrooms in empty places and leave it to grow.

 

[mudjawd]

.

 

[FjordReef]

Update after almost 2 months of first setting it up. Added few more corals. Doing 30% water changes to fight hair algae. Also added Tunze 9001 skimmer (still breaking in). Corals are all growing good.Still leaving the top rock empty for birds nest coral later (after 2-3 months). I think I will add few more acans and mushrooms in empty places and leave it to grow.

View attachment 2296313

Looks so nice!!!

 

[mudjawd]

Thanks @FjordReef

 

[mudjawd]

Almost 2.5 months update

 

[mudjawd]

Pic after adding more hammer corals. Ricordea is growing cool with the bi weekly feeding of mysis shrimp mixed with reef roids.

Tank consuming alkalinity at 0.2 dkh every day.
i think I see some pink spots on the back glass that I suspect to be coralline. Will keep monitoring its progress and hope that it is coralline.

Tank pic and few coral closeup pics with my iPhone and a hobby magnifying glass

 

[mudjawd]

Added few more hammers, candy cane and moved the scape a little to make more space on the left side.
Added a bird nest coral today at the top just to see if I can keep sps corals.

 

[Gedxin]

Looking great! I'm about a month behind you in terms of my cube setup. Love your euphyllia garden!

 

[Gedxin]

You dosing anything yet, or just sticking with water changes?

 

[mudjawd]

Hi there. Started dosing from this week as I stopped doing weekly water changes. The weekly drop off kh is approx 1.6 dkh and 15 ppm for calcium which I am supplementing on a weekly basis. Added a bird nest today so the kh and calcium consumption will increase for sure.