60 Cube Build!
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bshowe
Community Member
Thanks!
I used the 3 foot flexible hose made by Eshopps and then I bought roughly 4 feet of 5/8" Lee's vinyl tubbing. I have never had a tank before where I hard plumbed anything. Maybe I will try it for my next tank! Plus because the X-Aqua is so expensive, I didn't want to attach anything permanent to it in case I didn't like it and wanted to sell it. I used Aladdin Magic Lube (liquid silicone/teflon sealant) on all the joints. The stuff works great for stopping and preventing leaks, plus you can still take apart the parts later without ruining them!
Good luck on staining your stand! I look forward to seeing how it turns out!
OP
OP
bshowe
Community Member
Alright so I was going/trying to go slow with this tank... but it looks like I decided to go the instant reef route! Now we slow down and enjoy what I have! :biggrin1: (Plus the credit card needs to be paid off, so I can't afford anything more for several months! Haha.)
When I was home over Winter break, I noticed my old 75 gallon tank was not being properly taken care of, so I decided to grab my favorite pieces and frags of the corals I really wanted. The rest of the corals are up for sale in my father's lfs. We decided what lives lives and just be happy with what I have. I now feel great knowing I am fully emotionally detached from my old tank. I still liked my fish there and they are doing great, but I will have to find new ones out here. The only thing in my old tank I may have sent to me is my pair of Frostbite Clownfish overnight shipped in several months when the tank is much older and established.
Additionally, I knew I would never be able to afford what I wanted again out here in California for corals and decided to bring my favorite corals back. So I decided to save on shipping, bagged up probably $2000+ worth of coral and brought it on a flight back from the East Coast in a checked suitcase that cost $35 to check. I would have taken pictures of everything in the suitcase, but I got in extremely late, forgot, and wanted to get everything as quickly as possible in the tank.
Since last time I brought back a brand new Aquatic Life 24" T5 HO that my father gave to me and put new ATI bulbs in it. My suitcase also contained tons of misc. equipment I needed like test kits, nets, additives, refractometer, etc. I had with my old tank. I also brought one of my RapidLED fixtures from an old nano tank that I may convert in the future to stunner strips with new parts. Also order a Vortech MP10 that is on the tank now and the BRS dual reactor for carbon and gfo.
As for livestock to start, I was going to wait a week or so, but went to the lfs here to get some putty for corals and saw my all time favorite fish of a ruby red scooter. He was eating live brine and they seem to be really hard to find out here so I got him, a pair of clowns, cleaner shrimp, and Rainford's goby. I also knew I would bring back a lot of pods on my corals and got some cheato to start growing pods in my sump.
So here is a list of what I brought and some quick iPhone pictures. Some things are still trying to open up and I will work on better photos soon.
- 5" Ultra Maxima Clam
- 4 Types of Ultra Acan Lords
- Fruit Loop Zoas
- Spiderman Zoas
- 11-12 other kinds of Zoas with varying colors of red, green, yellow, blue, and orange
- Green Micromussa
- Green and Purple Favia
- Green Polyp Toadstool Mushroom
- ORA Red Planet
- Green Birdnest
- Purple Polyp Birdnest
- 2 kinds of Acros that someone gave me on the way out here
- Purple Monti Cap
- Orange Monti Cap
- Green Hammer
- Frogspawn
- War Coral
- Green Star Polyps
- Green Clove Polyps
- Jawbreaker Mushrooms
- Blue Sympodium
- Green and Purple Ricordia Mushroom
- Orange Spot Ultra Aussie Mushroom
- Rose Bubble Tip Anemone
- Orange Plate Coral
- Yellow Sun Polyps (Tubastrea NPS)
- Hollywood Stunner Chalice
- Green Button Polyps
- 2 different kinds of Blue Mushrooms
- Red Blastomussa Wellsi
Sump view after some cord management and organization:
Front View:
Right Side View:
Left Side View:
I must say that I love my attention to detail this time for equipment to make my reef look beautiful and focused on the corals and fish! :biggrin1: I love how the only equipment in the tank are the small part of the MP-10, a temp prob, a magnet cleaner, and the X-aqua which doesn't really take up that much space.
Now the fun begins of enjoying my tank! Next possible projects in the future are a water top off system (already got the tanks from the $1 per gallon sale), led stunner lights, automatic 2 part dosing system, and maybe a reef keeper lite plus.
When I was home over Winter break, I noticed my old 75 gallon tank was not being properly taken care of, so I decided to grab my favorite pieces and frags of the corals I really wanted. The rest of the corals are up for sale in my father's lfs. We decided what lives lives and just be happy with what I have. I now feel great knowing I am fully emotionally detached from my old tank. I still liked my fish there and they are doing great, but I will have to find new ones out here. The only thing in my old tank I may have sent to me is my pair of Frostbite Clownfish overnight shipped in several months when the tank is much older and established.
Additionally, I knew I would never be able to afford what I wanted again out here in California for corals and decided to bring my favorite corals back. So I decided to save on shipping, bagged up probably $2000+ worth of coral and brought it on a flight back from the East Coast in a checked suitcase that cost $35 to check. I would have taken pictures of everything in the suitcase, but I got in extremely late, forgot, and wanted to get everything as quickly as possible in the tank.
Since last time I brought back a brand new Aquatic Life 24" T5 HO that my father gave to me and put new ATI bulbs in it. My suitcase also contained tons of misc. equipment I needed like test kits, nets, additives, refractometer, etc. I had with my old tank. I also brought one of my RapidLED fixtures from an old nano tank that I may convert in the future to stunner strips with new parts. Also order a Vortech MP10 that is on the tank now and the BRS dual reactor for carbon and gfo.
As for livestock to start, I was going to wait a week or so, but went to the lfs here to get some putty for corals and saw my all time favorite fish of a ruby red scooter. He was eating live brine and they seem to be really hard to find out here so I got him, a pair of clowns, cleaner shrimp, and Rainford's goby. I also knew I would bring back a lot of pods on my corals and got some cheato to start growing pods in my sump.
So here is a list of what I brought and some quick iPhone pictures. Some things are still trying to open up and I will work on better photos soon.
- 5" Ultra Maxima Clam
- 4 Types of Ultra Acan Lords
- Fruit Loop Zoas
- Spiderman Zoas
- 11-12 other kinds of Zoas with varying colors of red, green, yellow, blue, and orange
- Green Micromussa
- Green and Purple Favia
- Green Polyp Toadstool Mushroom
- ORA Red Planet
- Green Birdnest
- Purple Polyp Birdnest
- 2 kinds of Acros that someone gave me on the way out here
- Purple Monti Cap
- Orange Monti Cap
- Green Hammer
- Frogspawn
- War Coral
- Green Star Polyps
- Green Clove Polyps
- Jawbreaker Mushrooms
- Blue Sympodium
- Green and Purple Ricordia Mushroom
- Orange Spot Ultra Aussie Mushroom
- Rose Bubble Tip Anemone
- Orange Plate Coral
- Yellow Sun Polyps (Tubastrea NPS)
- Hollywood Stunner Chalice
- Green Button Polyps
- 2 different kinds of Blue Mushrooms
- Red Blastomussa Wellsi
Sump view after some cord management and organization:
Front View:
Right Side View:
Left Side View:
I must say that I love my attention to detail this time for equipment to make my reef look beautiful and focused on the corals and fish! :biggrin1: I love how the only equipment in the tank are the small part of the MP-10, a temp prob, a magnet cleaner, and the X-aqua which doesn't really take up that much space.
Now the fun begins of enjoying my tank! Next possible projects in the future are a water top off system (already got the tanks from the $1 per gallon sale), led stunner lights, automatic 2 part dosing system, and maybe a reef keeper lite plus.
OP
OP
bshowe
Community Member
Oh wow, that is a long time! I grew up with crushed coral because my father strongly believes in undergravel filters, which he has used in his LFS for 40 years on his tanks. I have learned that has mixed feelings in the reef community and is not really a good choice for reefs, which I now agree with. The bubbles and salt creep drove me crazy in one of my old tanks! It can be good for FOWLR though. I wanted to really try sand out for the first time in this tank.
I have question though... What is the secret to keeping the sand bed clean? How do you get that pristine white back like when you first put the sand in? How do you not have to stir it every day to get rid of the brown algae? How long do you run your lights or what do you do? Am I just experiencing the new tank syndrome and is that part of the cycle with sand as the tank matures? My levels aren't anything really crazy high. PO4 was 0.03ppm and NO3 was 16ppm.
OP
OP
bshowe
Community Member
I figured these videos were worth sharing. Not the best quality, but what is happening in them is remarkable to me! :shocked:
I was able to get my Ruby Red Scooter to eat Mysis!!! :whoo:
I wish I had a secret to it for everyone to share, but to my knowledge this is the first time I have ever seen one eat Mysis and I have no idea how I did it. His feeding response to it is also insane. He loves it! This gives me good hope for this fish and maybe they can be trained like Mandarins to eat frozen food.
To help the community, all I did was started off target feeding him with live brine shrimp when I bought him. He loved eating them in the store I bought him from. There are also lots of copepods for him to hunt for in my reef tank. I feed Hikari Mysis everyday and I think one day he just discovered it and went nuts for it. That is all I have done. Enjoy!
[video=youtube;gVFDfVuS7bU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVFDfVuS7bU&feature=youtu.be[/video]
[video=youtube;IikfHz9qOgs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IikfHz9qOgs&feature=youtu.be[/video]
I was able to get my Ruby Red Scooter to eat Mysis!!! :whoo:
I wish I had a secret to it for everyone to share, but to my knowledge this is the first time I have ever seen one eat Mysis and I have no idea how I did it. His feeding response to it is also insane. He loves it! This gives me good hope for this fish and maybe they can be trained like Mandarins to eat frozen food.
To help the community, all I did was started off target feeding him with live brine shrimp when I bought him. He loved eating them in the store I bought him from. There are also lots of copepods for him to hunt for in my reef tank. I feed Hikari Mysis everyday and I think one day he just discovered it and went nuts for it. That is all I have done. Enjoy!
[video=youtube;gVFDfVuS7bU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVFDfVuS7bU&feature=youtu.be[/video]
[video=youtube;IikfHz9qOgs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IikfHz9qOgs&feature=youtu.be[/video]
OP
OP
bshowe
Community Member
Hi R2R & Club Cube!
Here is a long overdue update to my 60 cube reef. After a major setback to a terrible nasty ich outbreak thanks to a horrible LFS, everything is running smoothly and doing great now. Below is Part 1 of 2 on an update.
Part 1:
The quick story is I bought a Purple Tang from one LFS that has really good livestock and went to another LFS the same day that I got one or two nice corals from before. They had a nice little Chevron Tang that I had been looking for and wanted to introduce the two tangs at the same time to avoid aggression over territory. Well that turned out to be a BIG mistake. The Chevron Tang broke out with major ich the next day and was apparently masked by disease from their system that must of been heavily medicated. He looked perfectly fine in the store and was eating great. All my fish in my tank stayed disease free for several days until the plague got them from that LFS. :frusty:
I immediately separated the two tangs and put them in quarantine tanks. I luckily had two 20H on hand that I was using for salt and fresh water mixing. After fresh water dips and using some medication I lost the Chevron Tang after a few days. I went back to the LFS to ask for some credit and help since they sold me a bad fish and they basically told me to F*** off. I was nothing but polite to them and was shocked at how they treated me! :shocked: Never shopping there again and they are a disgrace to be in business as a LFS! All they seemed to care about was money.
I was able to cure the Purple Tang and he stayed in quarantine for over a month (21+ days with no signs of ich). My cube broke out with ich on other fish and it killed my pair of ruby red scooters and my pair of clownfish. After 30 days of no sign of ich in the main tank the Purple Tang went back into the 60 cube. He is doing great in there and eats like a pig!
Right after the Purple Tang went into my 60 cube reef, another LFS, that I now go to for livestock for since they are the best, had an amazing sale of buy 2 get 1 free. They ran this sale a few times and from it I picked up a new pair of ruby red scooters (who now eat mysis as well!), a pair of hi-fin banded gobies, a yellow tail blenny, a fire shrimp, and a trio of leopard wrasses. The store is wholesale as well as a LFS, so the fish come straight from the Philippines, Indonesia, etc. and tend to be really good because they have good suppliers and the fish spend less time in transit or multiple wholesalers and stores. I bought the leopard wrasses because they looked extremely healthy and were eating in the store. They then were quarantined in one of my 20H for 3-4 weeks, and now they are doing great in my 60 cube reef. They love mysis and just tear it apart as soon as it hits the water! Very beautiful and active fish to watch!
So the main point of this post is lesson learned. From now on I will always quarantine my fish and I now dip all my corals!
Part 2 below is about some tank upgrades as well as photos!
Here is a long overdue update to my 60 cube reef. After a major setback to a terrible nasty ich outbreak thanks to a horrible LFS, everything is running smoothly and doing great now. Below is Part 1 of 2 on an update.
Part 1:
The quick story is I bought a Purple Tang from one LFS that has really good livestock and went to another LFS the same day that I got one or two nice corals from before. They had a nice little Chevron Tang that I had been looking for and wanted to introduce the two tangs at the same time to avoid aggression over territory. Well that turned out to be a BIG mistake. The Chevron Tang broke out with major ich the next day and was apparently masked by disease from their system that must of been heavily medicated. He looked perfectly fine in the store and was eating great. All my fish in my tank stayed disease free for several days until the plague got them from that LFS. :frusty:
I immediately separated the two tangs and put them in quarantine tanks. I luckily had two 20H on hand that I was using for salt and fresh water mixing. After fresh water dips and using some medication I lost the Chevron Tang after a few days. I went back to the LFS to ask for some credit and help since they sold me a bad fish and they basically told me to F*** off. I was nothing but polite to them and was shocked at how they treated me! :shocked: Never shopping there again and they are a disgrace to be in business as a LFS! All they seemed to care about was money.
I was able to cure the Purple Tang and he stayed in quarantine for over a month (21+ days with no signs of ich). My cube broke out with ich on other fish and it killed my pair of ruby red scooters and my pair of clownfish. After 30 days of no sign of ich in the main tank the Purple Tang went back into the 60 cube. He is doing great in there and eats like a pig!
Right after the Purple Tang went into my 60 cube reef, another LFS, that I now go to for livestock for since they are the best, had an amazing sale of buy 2 get 1 free. They ran this sale a few times and from it I picked up a new pair of ruby red scooters (who now eat mysis as well!), a pair of hi-fin banded gobies, a yellow tail blenny, a fire shrimp, and a trio of leopard wrasses. The store is wholesale as well as a LFS, so the fish come straight from the Philippines, Indonesia, etc. and tend to be really good because they have good suppliers and the fish spend less time in transit or multiple wholesalers and stores. I bought the leopard wrasses because they looked extremely healthy and were eating in the store. They then were quarantined in one of my 20H for 3-4 weeks, and now they are doing great in my 60 cube reef. They love mysis and just tear it apart as soon as it hits the water! Very beautiful and active fish to watch!
So the main point of this post is lesson learned. From now on I will always quarantine my fish and I now dip all my corals!
Part 2 below is about some tank upgrades as well as photos!
OP
OP
bshowe
Community Member
Part 2:
So my birthday present this year was I upgraded the lighting on my 60 cube to a Radion G3 XR30w Pro as well as I built a frag tank, which will use the 4 bulb T5 HO fixture I had on the 60 Cube previously. :biggrin1:
The frag tank is a Mr. Aqua 30 gallon tank that is 24" x 24" x 12" and is plumped into my 60 Cube with an Eshopps Pf-800 Overflow, Rio+ 1400 return pump, and a Jebao RW-4 for circulation in the tank. Below the frag tank is one 20H that is my quarantine tank and the other 20H is used to mix up fresh saltwater for water changes. Currently a Tailspot Blenny lives in the frag tank to pick on algae.
I plan to use it to grow out frags of some of my corals or new corals I acquire as well as bring in rainbow acans from my father's LFS on the east coast to sell. I need something to help support this way too expensive hobby! :lol:
Here is the frag tank. So much real estate to fill it up with!
As for pictures of my new livestock below are some of the updates.
Here are some quick FTS.
Here is the female Ruby Red Scooter. The male is still timid and does not like to be photographed.
Here is the pair of Hi-Fin Banded Gobies.
So my birthday present this year was I upgraded the lighting on my 60 cube to a Radion G3 XR30w Pro as well as I built a frag tank, which will use the 4 bulb T5 HO fixture I had on the 60 Cube previously. :biggrin1:
The frag tank is a Mr. Aqua 30 gallon tank that is 24" x 24" x 12" and is plumped into my 60 Cube with an Eshopps Pf-800 Overflow, Rio+ 1400 return pump, and a Jebao RW-4 for circulation in the tank. Below the frag tank is one 20H that is my quarantine tank and the other 20H is used to mix up fresh saltwater for water changes. Currently a Tailspot Blenny lives in the frag tank to pick on algae.
I plan to use it to grow out frags of some of my corals or new corals I acquire as well as bring in rainbow acans from my father's LFS on the east coast to sell. I need something to help support this way too expensive hobby! :lol:
Here is the frag tank. So much real estate to fill it up with!
As for pictures of my new livestock below are some of the updates.
Here are some quick FTS.
Here is the female Ruby Red Scooter. The male is still timid and does not like to be photographed.
Here is the pair of Hi-Fin Banded Gobies.
OP
OP
bshowe
Community Member
Here are the Leopard Wrasses and Purple Tang. The Purple Tang loves to try and photobomb all my photos if he can.
Here is a good photo of the Purple Tang since the Leopard Wrasses are really hard to photograph all together because they move so fast.
Here is the Yellow Tail Blenny with a Hi-Fin Banded Goby. I love these blennies because they have so much personality!
Additionally, there is a Yasha Goby that lives in that cave with the 2 Hi-Fin Banded Gobies.
So here would be my current livestock list:
Purple Tang
3 Leopard Wrasses
2 Hi-Fin Banded Gobies
Yasha Goby
Rainford Goby
Ruby Red Scooter Pair
Yellow Tail Blenny
Cleaner Shrimp
Fire Shrimp
Harlequin Shrimp (Currently trying to eradicate the little astrea stars in my tank.)
Red Tile Star (Living in sump and then moving to frag tank when there is more algae to munch on.)
Tailspot Blenny (Lives in frag tank)
Here is a good photo of the Purple Tang since the Leopard Wrasses are really hard to photograph all together because they move so fast.
Here is the Yellow Tail Blenny with a Hi-Fin Banded Goby. I love these blennies because they have so much personality!
Additionally, there is a Yasha Goby that lives in that cave with the 2 Hi-Fin Banded Gobies.
So here would be my current livestock list:
Purple Tang
3 Leopard Wrasses
2 Hi-Fin Banded Gobies
Yasha Goby
Rainford Goby
Ruby Red Scooter Pair
Yellow Tail Blenny
Cleaner Shrimp
Fire Shrimp
Harlequin Shrimp (Currently trying to eradicate the little astrea stars in my tank.)
Red Tile Star (Living in sump and then moving to frag tank when there is more algae to munch on.)
Tailspot Blenny (Lives in frag tank)
SeahorseKeeper
Where's the mysis?
I love the leopard wrasses. Looking good! 
OP
OP
bshowe
Community Member
Hi R2R!
Long time since posting so I figured I would try quick videos this time! Tank seems to be doing well at around 7 months old now!
Current livestock list:
Purple Tang
2 Leopard Wrasses (Big female decided to kill the smallest one
)
Whip-fin Fairy Wrasse
2 Hi-Fin Banded Gobies
Yasha Goby
Rainford Goby
Ruby Red Scooter Pair (Female is PREGNANT!!!)
Yellow Tail Blenny
Helfrichi Firefish
Pair of Blacker-Ice Clownfish
2 Disbar Anthias (1 Male & 1 Female) - In process of selling due to being too high maintenance.
4 Purple Queen Anthias (1 Male & 3 Female) - In process of selling due to being too high maintenance.
Cleaner Shrimp
Fire Shrimp
Red Tile Star
Quick front view video of my 60 Cube Reef
Quick top down video of my 60 Cube Reef. I bought one of the coral viewers and was trying to see what my tank looked like from the top. Gives the reef a whole new perspective!
Long time since posting so I figured I would try quick videos this time! Tank seems to be doing well at around 7 months old now!
Current livestock list:
Purple Tang
2 Leopard Wrasses (Big female decided to kill the smallest one
)Whip-fin Fairy Wrasse
2 Hi-Fin Banded Gobies
Yasha Goby
Rainford Goby
Ruby Red Scooter Pair (Female is PREGNANT!!!
)Yellow Tail Blenny
Helfrichi Firefish
Pair of Blacker-Ice Clownfish
2 Disbar Anthias (1 Male & 1 Female) - In process of selling due to being too high maintenance.
4 Purple Queen Anthias (1 Male & 3 Female) - In process of selling due to being too high maintenance.
Cleaner Shrimp
Fire Shrimp
Red Tile Star
Quick front view video of my 60 Cube Reef
Quick top down video of my 60 Cube Reef. I bought one of the coral viewers and was trying to see what my tank looked like from the top. Gives the reef a whole new perspective!
