simple low tech nano cube (1 year)

[lil sumpin]

Im thinking actually of getting AI blades. Im waiting till MACNA as that is when new stuff will possibly come out. Currently light does well for now. How do you like the blades so far? Any issue with heat or one side whiter than other?

Honestly a little underwhelmed. I got the glow and grow both set at a saxby like schedule around 30% with a 100 day acclimation to 50%. Theyre for sure powerful lights but I feel theyre a little meh lol..

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

Honestly a little underwhelmed. I got the glow and grow both set at a saxby like schedule around 30% with a 100 day acclimation to 50%. Theyre for sure powerful lights but I feel theyre a little meh lol..

Ok, i just have 2 big coral and my tank isnt anything to special lol. But looking for good spread and shading as I may need to elevate one to avoid touching. And the prime hd (not 16HD) is a point light which will cause shadowing.

 

[lil sumpin]

Ok, i just have 2 big coral and my tank isnt anything to special lol. But looking for good spread and shading as I may need to elevate one to avoid touching. And the prime hd (not 16HD) is a point light which will cause shadowing.

Main reason I wanted blades was for spread. Saw plenty shadowing w reefbreeders nano led that I was previously using, it’s a spot light. A grow or glow would be cool for your pico. The ones I have dont have an imbalanced spread of blues and whites but I do recall seeing a thread showing that defect. I think heat will be an issue if you’re using them at 70 or higher for too many hours of the day

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

Main reason I wanted blades was for spread. Saw plenty shadowing w reefbreeders nano led that I was previously using, it’s a spot light. A grow or glow would be cool for your pico. The ones I have dont have an imbalanced spread of blues and whites but I do recall seeing a thread showing that defect. I think heat will be an issue if you’re using them at 70 or higher for too many hours of the day

I will prrobably be at lower light maybe 50 or less. Prime is 80 blues and violates and uv 40 rest are 30 or below I believe. So not sure. I run heater may need to watch as I ordered solid lid from octo aquatic and planned to mount ontop. May need to get mount if I go that route. Not sure if their mount will fit back chamber with the gap for lid on sump. Maybe they have thin mount or screws are on outside. Thanks for the feed back.

 

[lil sumpin]

A week of skimmate. What do your cups look like?

 

[lil sumpin]

I admit I've been negligent in the sense I let nuisance algae take off a little bit, didnt manually clean the glass or scrub rock for about a month just to see how bad it would really get. WC as per usual, 40-50% every 8-10 days. NO3 and PO4 still 20 and .2 range. When I vacuum sections of the sandbed during WCs, I always see stringy brown-green stuff at the bottom of the waste water bucket. Pretty sure theyre dinoflagellates but currently don't have a method to fully confirm. Here is some of the ugliness in all its glory:

 

[lil sumpin]

This stuff really uglies up the walls of the tank and obstructs the view. I haven’t found the time to really clean it all up, the good old magfloat requires a lotta effort for a tiny bit of cleaning. What I really gotta do is set aside an hour or two to get in there with a credit card and really go to town on the tough film algae. The cool thing is that there’s countless pods on the film algae patches and at first it appeared my wrasse was tackling the glass head on but later realized he’s chowing down pods.

Anyone else do water change Wednesday on Sundays?



an ugly FTS

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

This stuff really uglies up the walls of the tank and obstructs the view. I haven’t found the time to really clean it all up, the good old magfloat requires a lotta effort for a tiny bit of cleaning. What I really gotta do is set aside an hour or two to get in there with a credit card and really go to town on the tough film algae. The cool thing is that there’s countless pods on the film algae patches and at first it appeared my wrasse was tackling the glass head on but later realized he’s chowing down pods.

Anyone else do water change Wednesday on Sundays?



an ugly FTS

I do water change thursdays lol.corals look really happy.

 

[lil sumpin]

I do water change thursdays lol.corals look really happy.

Thursday works too!

Did you end up going for the blade?

 

[Evil1]

Do you dose coral snow after a heavy maintenance on tank? It works wonders and corals love it.

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

Thursday works too!

Did you end up going for the blade?

Im waiting till MACNA to see if anything new will be coming out.

 

[lil sumpin]

Im waiting till MACNA to see if anything new will be coming out.

That’s cool! I wonder what ‘24 will bring in lighting wise.. I’ve been dreaming of a slightly larger setup and would love to try the reefbreeders meridians

 

[lil sumpin]

Do you dose coral snow after a heavy maintenance on tank? It works wonders and corals love it.

Yes, I’ve used it 3-4 times a month since November. I am not completely aware of the science behind it but after finding out this method has existed for a long time, I gave it a shot. Some results I think correlate to its use: fairly clean sand bed but still have some dinoflagellates, there is virtually no GHA or brown algae on rock most appears to be green calcareous algae, water clarity is pristine for days but eventually begins to change after a week of feedings. I’ve noticed that alk tends to drop following the water change and coral snow so that’s something I try to dose accordingly.

 

[lil sumpin]

Asked my LFS about tailspot blennies a few months back… and today we finally got us a tailspot blenny

 

[lil sumpin]

These two have become so well acquainted

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

These two have become so well acquainted

Tailspots have some really nice.color and personalities. Really good choice

 

[kanders87]

Asked my LFS about tailspot blennies a few months back… and today we finally got us a tailspot blenny

Nice addition! They’re entertaining to watch for sure.

 

[lil sumpin]

Found some more sponge growth. First started spotting them in January, they’re taking up more real estate now:

 

[lil sumpin]

I’ve been unable to take the limewood diffuser out of my reef glass skimmer. It’s expanded and now stuck inside the tube. I need to figure out how to shrink the wood diffuser down so I can pull it out of the skimmer tube. Even though it wasn’t much, the thing was consistently pulling out skimmate. With the skimmer down I’m reverting back to the HOB fuge I was running a couple months ago. I didn’t have a light on it when I previously ran the aquaclear 50 as a fuge, the chaeto never really grew. This was much earlier on in the tank’s lifecycle, probably didn’t have the nutrients and trace stuff to support growth of the chaeto. Currently looking for a red and blue spectrum grow out kinda puck or clip on to use for the fuge

 

[FreeEnergy]

Here we go! Back in the saltwater game after over a decade hiatus. Used to have a FOWLR as a teenager but I lost the system to fish disease. This time I’m going for a reef


2024 Goals:
- improved filtration, currently considering upgrading to a canister filter but am also playing with the idea of setting up an HOB overflow and 5.5gal sump
(lil sumpin sumpin)
- accurately chart and measure up parameters and figure consumption out to a T, the best thing I’ve done for my system is keep up with weekly water changes so half this battle seems to be won
- refrain from overstocking and instead pay attention to the livestock already in the system, want to key in on the best methods to get them nice and flourishing
- add fish, pls send stocking ideas!


Jul 2023
Picked up an aqueon 14 cube, reef breeders nano LED, Aquaclear 50 and a fluval m50. Decided to do a budget minded HOB build. Could not find an LFS that would sell me live rock so I ended up using caribsea liferock.



Aug 2023
Let cycle for a month, fritz turbo start, fishless fuel, PNS substrate sauce a week later while starting to ghost feed flake food, used fishless fuel another 2-3 times, started using MB7 and finally was able to acquire live rock rubble to better seed the system.



Sept 2023
Pods, first softies and LPS frags went in. This was a tough stage for me. I will admit all the patience I had cycling was out the window and I ultimately ended up biting off more than I could chew.



Oct 2023
Humbled myself after losing some frags, how you ask? By losing more frags unfortunately. Began treading carefully, testing consistently to start learning the alk, cal and mag consumption.



Nov 2023
By this point I had only done water changes 3 or 4 times. I figured this really needed to change and after some large back to back water changes, began doing 15% weekly. Everything improved, no joke. Also began to use a DIY coral snow following water changes.



Dec 2023
Still struggling w placement. Ultimately I would like to have as few frags on the sand.

My folks: when are you getting fish…?

Jan 2024
Not a whole lot of nuisance algae, I clean the glass 1-2x a week. Keeping up weekly WCs. Havent lost anything lately and hoping that keeps!



Feb 2024
Fish are finally in about 6-7 months after I started this tank. I think it is inevitably going to become a high nutrient system. I like to feed these guys pinches of pellets and flake 2-3 times a day and frozen mysis 2-3 times a week. They’ve settled in fairly well and the coral seem to be looking better every day



Mar 2024
Still doing 40% WC every week. You can see plenty film algae taking hold of the corners and glass and scattered dinoflagellates on sand bed. Finally getting coralline spots on the liferock.

Nice