Waterbox 20 Cube AIO - SPS Dominant; Auto Water Changes

[firedancer414]

Sorry - I totally disappeared things have been a bit slow going (I think in a good way).

I add water in the last chamber and remove it in the second to last.

The Good:

• I added some tester SPS (green slimer, bonsai, some sort of digi) in December from the LFS and they seem to be doing well. Green slimer has been encrusting, decent polyp extension. Added a neon stylo and a pretty great acan head from the LFS as well a few days ago.
  • Bunch of the Zoas are continuing to grow rapidly
• Alk has been holding very stable - just testing every few weeks
• Somehow, my tank basically never went through the uglies. No hair algae, no bryopsis, nothing. It's been up for about 7 months at this point.

The Bad:

• The algae reactor was way too successful and crashed my nutrients, I finally de-tuned it to have the light turned on for only 1.5 hrs / night. I also almost crashed my tank (!!) when the nutrients tanked, I turned off both the light and pumpand left it off for a while to try to recover some nutrients. When I turned the pump back on a few days later it had this horrible rotting / rotten egg smell. Never turn off your pump to your algae reactor only the light!!
  • Nutrients are in a much better place now.
• I have been having issues with fish mortality - the fish were stressed and got ich at some point, nearly all died. Have been adding them back slowly.
• Almost had my first coral mortality - the Red Hornet slimed off its plug, was able to rescue it - now on my frag rack and seems OK.

Can you guess what day I turned on my algae reactor?? Nitrate finally back

Phosphate now holding around 0.03

The To-Do:

• Still struggling with low pH / acidity in the 7.6-7.75 range. I guess I could re-calibrate the apex but it's always been low. It's on my desk in my office where my dog and I hang out all day. I finally caved and ordered a nano skimmer, and was going to drill a hole in my wall to feed it with outside air (shh don't tell the wife). I'm hopeful I'll need to dose kalk at some point to also help, but the alk has been too stable just with water changes.
• I haven't really dialed in my light yet - I have a Kessil A360x that's running around 40% all blue from 7am-11pm, and the tank gets a ton of natural light from the window particularly in the afternoon. I guess BRS doesn't do PAR meter rentals anymore? Anyway, I need to dial it in at some point.

Short video

February 27, 2023

youtube.com

 

[Petcrazyson]

Sorry - I totally disappeared things have been a bit slow going (I think in a good way).

I add water in the last chamber and remove it in the second to last.

The Good:

• I added some tester SPS (green slimer, bonsai, some sort of digi) in December from the LFS and they seem to be doing well. Green slimer has been encrusting, decent polyp extension. Added a neon stylo and a pretty great acan head from the LFS as well a few days ago.
  • Bunch of the Zoas are continuing to grow rapidly
• Alk has been holding very stable - just testing every few weeks
• Somehow, my tank basically never went through the uglies. No hair algae, no bryopsis, nothing. It's been up for about 7 months at this point.

View attachment 3042174

The Bad:

• The algae reactor was way too successful and crashed my nutrients, I finally de-tuned it to have the light turned on for only 1.5 hrs / night. I also almost crashed my tank (!!) when the nutrients tanked, I turned off both the light and pumpand left it off for a while to try to recover some nutrients. When I turned the pump back on a few days later it had this horrible rotting / rotten egg smell. Never turn off your pump to your algae reactor only the light!!
  • Nutrients are in a much better place now.
• I have been having issues with fish mortality - the fish were stressed and got ich at some point, nearly all died. Have been adding them back slowly.
• Almost had my first coral mortality - the Red Hornet slimed off its plug, was able to rescue it - now on my frag rack and seems OK.

Can you guess what day I turned on my algae reactor?? Nitrate finally back
View attachment 3042177
View attachment 3042178
Phosphate now holding around 0.03

The To-Do:

• Still struggling with low pH / acidity in the 7.6-7.75 range. I guess I could re-calibrate the apex but it's always been low. It's on my desk in my office where my dog and I hang out all day. I finally caved and ordered a nano skimmer, and was going to drill a hole in my wall to feed it with outside air (shh don't tell the wife). I'm hopeful I'll need to dose kalk at some point to also help, but the alk has been too stable just with water changes.
• I haven't really dialed in my light yet - I have a Kessil A360x that's running around 40% all blue from 7am-11pm, and the tank gets a ton of natural light from the window particularly in the afternoon. I guess BRS doesn't do PAR meter rentals anymore? Anyway, I need to dial it in at some point.

View attachment 3042180

Short video

February 27, 2023

youtube.com

Glad you’re back! Awaiting pics!

 

[firedancer414]

Sure can post a few pics - sorry they won't be the best

4 Months of zoa growth (Oct -> Feb)
Utter chaos - up to 5 big heads, from 1 big + 2 babies
AOI - up to 6 heads, from 3
King Midas - struggling, placed it in a shadow - oops
CC Everbrites (green/orange) - ~12 heads from I think 4 originally?
Purple Monster - 3 big heads
Red Hornet - back to 3 heads
Pink Diamonds - 11 big heads up from 1
Devil's Armor - 6 big heads, 2 babies from 2-3

 

[Petcrazyson]

What are you talking about bad pics those look great! Love the Zoas!

 

[firedancer414]

Thanks!

 

[firedancer414]

April update! About 6 months in.

I just love how slow I've been taking things on this tank. On previous tanks have been super impatient and (in retrospect) has led to extreme instability.

Tank has really been growing again now that nutrients aren't bottomed out. The algae reactor I have is just on for 1.5 hrs a day. I broke down and also added a CO scrubber and a small skimmer. It's significantly more maintenance than I like, but it's helped get the CO2 out of the dumps and into the 7.7-7.9 range which seems serviceable (before it was like 7.6-7.75 and terrible. N03 = 3.4 which is ideal and P03 was 0.

The other good news - kH started dropping! It's been stable at 7-7.2 and is now 6.4 (dropping like 0.1/week). The neon stylo has been growing a ton. So I'm going to start with very light amount of kalk in my ATO, which I hope will stabilize alk and increase pH further.

I think this is getting close to the "final form" of my tank. One it's there and stable, and the tester SPS I have a growing well, will be able to start investing in fancy SPS (hopefully a few more months).

I don't have pictures right now the tank is super cloudy after doing some cleaning ... will post later.

 

[Ryebreadiest]

Cool build! Do you have a plan for higher ph?

 

[firedancer414]

Cool build! Do you have a plan for higher ph?

I'm going to try kalkwasser and see what that does. The tank is by a window and I could hypothetically find a way to pump outside air into the tank from the window. I was honestly thinking about some sort of silly DIY solution like, putting the pump in an airtight container with an airline to the outside lol. Sounds like I wouldn't be the first: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/air-pump-with-inlet.729874/

 

[firedancer414]

The neon stylo in the back has been my bellwether coral and has been growing pretty significantly. I added a green slimer and a JF fox flame that the LFS has sitting around.

 

[firedancer414]

Cool build! Do you have a plan for higher ph?

Decided to YOLO it and start drilling more holes in my house. So now I'm feeding the skimmer with outside air, +CO2 scrubbing. Based on experience this should make pH go to the moon.

Kalk should arrive in a few days

 

[Gumbies R Us]

The neon stylo in the back has been my bellwether coral and has been growing pretty significantly. I added a green slimer and a JF fox flame that the LFS has sitting around.

View attachment 3103767

View attachment 3103769
View attachment 3103771

Nice new coral!!

 

[firedancer414]

The outside air didn't really seem to change much (Apr 11), but adding kalk got me over 8 (close to 8.1!!) for the first time. Will wait for things to stabilize but I think we're on our way to getting some nice SPS in the tank.

 

[MikeCRK]

The outside air didn't really seem to change much (Apr 11)

View attachment 3110394

Why would it change comparing to the "inside air"? But seriously, why there would be a difference it is the same air after all (the temp is the only difference).

 

[firedancer414]

Why would it change comparing to the "inside air"? But seriously, why there would be a difference it is the same air after all (the temp is the only difference).

Hypothetically - it's on my desk in my bedroom so I spend a lot of time in here with my large dog and CO2 levels are elevated. High CO2 = lower pH. Opening up windows helps a ton.

I probably need to spend some time debugging it before I declare failure - unclear if lines are kinked or if it's working exactly right.

 

[firedancer414]

So I did a bad thing and drove to my absolute favorite LFS in Phoenix - AZ Reef Monsters - they have incredible stock at incredible prices. I overdid it a bit and got some incredible stock. In general I'm a huge fan of "classic" aquacultured stuff - things that I know have been in aquariums for a long time, and I know what they're going to look like as a colony.

April 16, 2023

youtube.com

On the frag rack ...
- 2 awesome (LFS thought they were from RR?) millies (not 100% sure the names) - one is red/purple, the other is more orange
- Walt Disney frag
- Shortcake frag
- Totally bizarre acro frag they sold me for $20 that has green polyps at the base and red polyps on the stick with a white body (not bleached)
- Hawkins Enchinata
- ORA Pearlberry

Around the tank, the red coral (I used to think it was a fox flame but now I'm not sure) has started encrusting

I also picked up a really pretty green birdsnest, rainbow stylo, and a forest fire digi.

Soooo ... that's probably the whole tank! At some point hoping to put some sort of long torch (NY Knicks / dragon soul). I feel like my tank is ready for $50-75 frags (what I paid for these) but not quite $400 frags.

Brian

 

[firedancer414]

Also if you're in Phoenix, this is the best corals shop hands down:

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www.instagram.com

 

[firedancer414]

Made a mistake with the kalk - my pH jumped from 6.4 on Thursday to 7.7 today (+.25/day in 5 days) and I looked at the calculations and realized that I used a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon, oops. Could have been a lot worse but re-made the kalkwasser and hopefully things will level off.

 

[firedancer414]

duplicate message oops

 

[firedancer414]

Not the best picture, but I'm super interested in this $20 frag I picked up, not sure if it's something specific?

It has a rainbow montipora vibe with red polyps on the stick and green polyps at the base, on a white body. Just really interesting. Never seen anything like it.