60 gallon cube, very first tank!

[ams3210]

It’s not really a big deal right now. They will serve their purpose and you can always re-home them later. I just be careful on the impulse livestock buys going forward and you’ll be fine. I think Sea King should have recommended different damsels though. Or something utilitarian like an Algae Benny that would serve a purpose. Selling you those particular three damsels wasn’t really very cool at all.

I agree, every other part of my tank so far I’ve researched extensively before implementing, I just got too excited with getting the first livestock in the tank. For the time being they’re behaving, and each of them seems to have claimed their own little territory in separate parts of the tank so that’s good. How soon should I be worrying into rehoming? Do you recommend I rehome all three eventually?

 

[TheWB]

I agree, every other part of my tank so far I’ve researched extensively before implementing, I just got too excited with getting the first livestock in the tank. For the time being they’re behaving, and each of them seems to have claimed their own little territory in separate parts of the tank so that’s good. How soon should I be worrying into rehoming? Do you recommend I rehome all three eventually?

You’ll probably be ok with just the three of them since they are still on the smaller side. As they grow they will become more aggressive and territorial which becomes a problem when you try to add new fish. Those bullies have the potential to physically hurt newer, shyer fish and can harass them into disease induced by stress. If it was me I would re-home all three of them before I put anything else in, why chance all the drama. Whether that’s a month from now or 6 months from now just depends on your schedule. I’d leave them be for now, enjoy them, decide what you really want, and then swap em out at the right time.

 

[ams3210]

You’ll probably be ok with just the three of them since they are still on the smaller side. As they grow they will become more aggressive and territorial which becomes a problem when you try to add new fish. Those bullies have the potential to physically hurt newer, shyer fish and can harass them into disease induced by stress. If it was me I would re-home all three of them before I put anything else in, why chance all the drama. Whether that’s a month from now or 6 months from now just depends on your schedule. I’d leave them be for now, enjoy them, decide what you really want, and then swap em out at the right time.

How does one go about rehoming a fish? I imagine on here there’s some way to coordinate that with someone, would the fish store take them back potentially?

 

[TheWB]

How does one go about rehoming a fish? I imagine on here there’s some way to coordinate that with someone, would the fish store take them back potentially?

The fish store will sometimes take them back. You may get a little store credit, you may not. Depends if it’s a popular enough fish. You likely won’t get much of anything for those particular damsels. You can also put them up on social media sites sometimes people with large tanks like to get them. It pays to have reefing buddies with bigger tanks. My only reefing buddy with a bigger tank probably wouldn’t want those particular fish.
Those are the things you can try.

 

[ams3210]

Well folks, I did it! After much reluctance, I went through with rehoming the damsels. Unfortunately, exactly what made me reluctant about rehoming came to pass, and the arch in my aquascape fell apart. Initially I was upset, but instead I decided to take this as a lesson in being flexible and going with the flow. Instead of rebuilding the very difficult to build in the first place arch, I rearranged things a bit which leaves me with more space for corals to grow into and less anxious about the haphazard arch coming down unexpectedly one day. (Excuse the cloudy water, everything being taken out today was quite the ordeal.)

To replace the three damsels, I got two baggais and a hawkfish, and I’m already enjoying them a lot more than the damsels. They’re way less skittish, and the peace of mind knowing they’re (hopefully) not gonna try and kill anything I add after now makes all the headache of today worth it.

In addition to the new fish, I got a cleaner shrimp, a conch, and three frags! One purple toadstool, one blue/orange mushroom, and one acan. Don’t think their current placement is where they’ll end up, I didn’t fasten them down at all, but once I got everything acclimated and ready to go in the tank I was ready to have my hands out of saltwater for the rest of the day. So freaking excited to finally get coral in the tank, what made me start this whole thing in the first place!!

They don’t look the best under my tank’s current second hand LEDs, but I pulled the trigger and bought a Radion XR15 pro during the BRS Black Friday sales, so hopefully I’ll have that set up and them looking better soon. It took weeks of consideration, but since corals are my focus light and flow are technologies I’d rather not skimp on, I decided to save in the long run by investing now and not wasting money on a midrange product that wouldn’t achieve the same aesthetic or biological purpose.

For now my flow solution is two AC power heads, one ~2.5k gallons an hour, one around 600 gallons an hour, pointed at the same spot in the middle of the tank. I have a dual outlet smart plug on the way so I can set them up on timers to run together and separately, hopefully create some amount of random flow until I recover from the Radion hit and can get a better set up. Right now my eye is on the maxspect jump 4K gyre, which I would run in addition to the two smaller pumps I have now, though at a much lower frequency.

So yeah, those are all the updates for now! I’m pretty content with where I’m at and look forward to leaving things as they are for a bit after all the change, see how these first corals perform, and let everyone settle in. Thanks for reading, and as always any advice or feedback is welcome and appreciated!

 

[Fish Styx]

 

[ams3210]

Not sure what this means, but thanks hahaha

 

[Bakedpwn]

what mortar or epoxy did you use to make the aquascape? it rules!

 

[Fish Styx]

Not sure what this means, but thanks hahaha

It means I'm popping in and taking a peek! I like what you've got going on so far.

 

[ams3210]

what mortar or epoxy did you use to make the aquascape? it rules!

Thank you, I put a lot of time and consideration into the aquascaping so that means a lot! I used an unbelievable amount of super glue and instaset for most of it, and aquastik epoxy for the things I added or changed since getting the tank wet. The initial arrangement didn’t have enough privacy for the fishes, so I broke apart a larger rock to built the cave structures in the front and back. I lucked out since the tank came with about 50lbs of awesome looking dry rock from a previous reefers set up which I think helps it look a lot more interesting now while it’s still naked.

 

[ams3210]

It means I'm popping in and taking a peek! I like what you've got going on so far.

I see, thanks for checking it out I was looking at your build thread, very impressive and so well documented!

 

[Fish Styx]

I see, thanks for checking it out I was looking at your build thread, very impressive and so well documented!

Thanks! Feel free to come out of the shadows and join the party over there. Lots of good and knowledgeable peeps. We also revel in nonsense, so there's that, too.

 

[TheWB]

Well folks, I did it! After much reluctance, I went through with rehoming the damsels. Unfortunately, exactly what made me reluctant about rehoming came to pass, and the arch in my aquascape fell apart. Initially I was upset, but instead I decided to take this as a lesson in being flexible and going with the flow. Instead of rebuilding the very difficult to build in the first place arch, I rearranged things a bit which leaves me with more space for corals to grow into and less anxious about the haphazard arch coming down unexpectedly one day. (Excuse the cloudy water, everything being taken out today was quite the ordeal.)

To replace the three damsels, I got two baggais and a hawkfish, and I’m already enjoying them a lot more than the damsels. They’re way less skittish, and the peace of mind knowing they’re (hopefully) not gonna try and kill anything I add after now makes all the headache of today worth it.

In addition to the new fish, I got a cleaner shrimp, a conch, and three frags! One purple toadstool, one blue/orange mushroom, and one acan. Don’t think their current placement is where they’ll end up, I didn’t fasten them down at all, but once I got everything acclimated and ready to go in the tank I was ready to have my hands out of saltwater for the rest of the day. So freaking excited to finally get coral in the tank, what made me start this whole thing in the first place!!

They don’t look the best under my tank’s current second hand LEDs, but I pulled the trigger and bought a Radion XR15 pro during the BRS Black Friday sales, so hopefully I’ll have that set up and them looking better soon. It took weeks of consideration, but since corals are my focus light and flow are technologies I’d rather not skimp on, I decided to save in the long run by investing now and not wasting money on a midrange product that wouldn’t achieve the same aesthetic or biological purpose.

For now my flow solution is two AC power heads, one ~2.5k gallons an hour, one around 600 gallons an hour, pointed at the same spot in the middle of the tank. I have a dual outlet smart plug on the way so I can set them up on timers to run together and separately, hopefully create some amount of random flow until I recover from the Radion hit and can get a better set up. Right now my eye is on the maxspect jump 4K gyre, which I would run in addition to the two smaller pumps I have now, though at a much lower frequency.

So yeah, those are all the updates for now! I’m pretty content with where I’m at and look forward to leaving things as they are for a bit after all the change, see how these first corals perform, and let everyone settle in. Thanks for reading, and as always any advice or feedback is welcome and appreciated!

You did the right thing by trading in the damsels.
Too bad about the arch but I think the new scape looks great. Cubes can be hard to scape.
Looks like you got some good starter corals there.
Glad you are enjoying the new fish so far. Hawks usually have pretty good personalities.
Smart move going with the Radion. Better to get what you really want instead of stopgaps like you said.
I just bought the Maxspect 4K gyre during the recent BRS sale. I think in a cube it would be interesting to mount it in a corner with the two sides of the gyre angled in different directions. You might not need anything else in there.

 

[ams3210]

You did the right thing by trading in the damsels.
Too bad about the arch but I think the new scape looks great. Cubes can be hard to scape.
Looks like you got some good starter corals there.
Glad you are enjoying the new fish so far. Hawks usually have pretty good personalities.
Smart move going with the Radion. Better to get what you really want instead of stopgaps like you said.
I just bought the Maxspect 4K gyre during the recent BRS sale. I think in a cube it would be interesting to mount it in a corner with the two sides of the gyre angled in different directions. You might not need anything else in there.

Having the damsels out is a big relief. They already chased each other around the tank so much, I can only imagine what they’d do when the tank becomes more crowded and they get bigger and meaner. Much happier with my baggai and hawkfish, they swim right up to me at the front of the tank and they’ve only been home a few hours! Once I can a lid figured out I’m considering adding a goby pistol shrimp combo, a yellow wrasse, and some kind of algae eater.

That’s what I was thinking for the gyre, mounting it vertically to make sure the whole tank is experiencing flow. Might keep just the smaller power head in running infrequently on a timer, just to add some additional variation. Guess I’ll see once I can get it in place! Loving my tank and reefing experience so far.

 

[ams3210]

Well y’all, it’s going poorly. Really poorly. A few days ago I added a silver belly wrasse to the tank, which helped open my eyes to the fact that my falco’s hawkfish was a big bully. Upon the addition of the wrasse, he started chasing the wrasse around, keeping him hiding under the sand at all times. Then I notice that both my banggai cardinal’s fins are getting shorter and shorter. I make a post on here asking for advice, and getting rid of the hawkfish was the popular consensus. In the process of capturing the son of a gun, I had to once again tear apart my tank which this time destroyed the aquascape as it was completely. I’m back to individual rocks essentially, I don’t even know where all my coral are (since I added a few more which I also now see was mistake), gonna have to sort through the rubble tomorrow but in the course of two days I went from an aquascaped tank with four fish and a coral arrangement I was happy with to a pile of rubble with coral mixed in and only the silver belly remaining though undoubtedly traumatized (both the cardinals died and I gave the hawkfish to an LFS).

I feel like I really screwed up here, and I’m hugely disheartened by todays events. Unfortunately I need to go to work soon, so I can’t sort things out right now and frankly I think if I tried it would only be to the detriment of my tank and myself at the moment. And advice on how to move forward from here would be hugely appreciated. In terms of parameters I’m still testing 0 for ammonia and nitrite, nitrate levels are good and my phosphate was getting a little high, so a couple days ago I performed a 30% water change and added some GFO in a media bag. At the moment my biggest struggle is picking livestock that fit my aesthetic AND my goal for a peaceful tank, and not just the first one. As well as not just picking a fish because it’s what the LFS has in stock and in my price range.

I’m also incredibly frustrated with the LFS I got the fish from since they originally sold me the damsels with no warning of their aggression or size, and then to replace the aggressive damsels sold me an aggressive hawkfish when I went in specifically asking for docile fish! They even sold me a cleaner shrimp with the hawkfish, which I quickly learned was not a winning combo from the get. It’s a lesson that I really really REALLY have to do my own research, and stick with that research. For the time being i won’t be adding anything else, since I’ll be going away for Christmas and don’t need to introduce anything else to worry about.

If you read through all that, thanks! I am not having a lot of fun with reefing right now.

 

[tsharpe291]

Well y’all, it’s going poorly. Really poorly. A few days ago I added a silver belly wrasse to the tank, which helped open my eyes to the fact that my falco’s hawkfish was a big bully. Upon the addition of the wrasse, he started chasing the wrasse around, keeping him hiding under the sand at all times. Then I notice that both my banggai cardinal’s fins are getting shorter and shorter. I make a post on here asking for advice, and getting rid of the hawkfish was the popular consensus. In the process of capturing the son of a gun, I had to once again tear apart my tank which this time destroyed the aquascape as it was completely. I’m back to individual rocks essentially, I don’t even know where all my coral are (since I added a few more which I also now see was mistake), gonna have to sort through the rubble tomorrow but in the course of two days I went from an aquascaped tank with four fish and a coral arrangement I was happy with to a pile of rubble with coral mixed in and only the silver belly remaining though undoubtedly traumatized (both the cardinals died and I gave the hawkfish to an LFS).

I feel like I really screwed up here, and I’m hugely disheartened by todays events. Unfortunately I need to go to work soon, so I can’t sort things out right now and frankly I think if I tried it would only be to the detriment of my tank and myself at the moment. And advice on how to move forward from here would be hugely appreciated. In terms of parameters I’m still testing 0 for ammonia and nitrite, nitrate levels are good and my phosphate was getting a little high, so a couple days ago I performed a 30% water change and added some GFO in a media bag. At the moment my biggest struggle is picking livestock that fit my aesthetic AND my goal for a peaceful tank, and not just the first one. As well as not just picking a fish because it’s what the LFS has in stock and in my price range.

I’m also incredibly frustrated with the LFS I got the fish from since they originally sold me the damsels with no warning of their aggression or size, and then to replace the aggressive damsels sold me an aggressive hawkfish when I went in specifically asking for docile fish! They even sold me a cleaner shrimp with the hawkfish, which I quickly learned was not a winning combo from the get. It’s a lesson that I really really REALLY have to do my own research, and stick with that research. For the time being i won’t be adding anything else, since I’ll be going away for Christmas and don’t need to introduce anything else to worry about.

If you read through all that, thanks! I am not having a lot of fun with reefing right now.

it sounds like a good place to start over from. let the dust settle so to speak and go about it slowly. I know it's hard not to add stuff when everything seems to be going good but patience and a little bit of planning will go a long way.

 

[ams3210]

Ok, it’s a few days later and I’m feeling much better about things. Sadly neither of the banggai cardinals or the wrasse survived the ordeal, and with the falco back to the LFS that left me at 0 fish. I rearranged the rocks until they felt stable and I was relatively pleased, adjusted the powerheads, and positioned the corals as best I could. To keep the biological filter going I got a tangaroa goby, a watchman goby, and a firefish goby, all of whom seem to be settling into the tank well.

This is how the new scape looks, don’t love it as much as the original but I’m still pretty happy with it. Before everything went down, I got a couple upgrades in place: I made a mesh lid for the tank which I think turned out pretty well, and I installed my radion XR15.

I have the radion running on the AB+ preset, with the kelvin turned down a bit since I like a little bit more of the daylight look (though to be honest with where I have it I feel like I might as well turn it all the way back up, or lower it a good bit more). I’ve really enjoyed not having to worry about manually controlling the light and the daylight effect it gives is really cool, love watching my coral gradually wake up and settle down over the course of the light cycle.

I’ve got the tank recovered, and now I don’t plan on adding anything more until at least March! Gonna take it nice and slow, wait for things to mature more and settle after all the chaos, and take my time to more specifically plan out what I want the tank to look like in the long run. Right before everything happened I was planning on putting together a par map for my tank (my LFS rents a meter), so maybe I can get around to that finally. In any case, happy with where I’m at and excited to leave the display alone for a bit. Thanks so much to @TheWB who was very helpful as I figured out how to bounce back from this.

 

[TheWB]

Ok, it’s a few days later and I’m feeling much better about things. Sadly neither of the banggai cardinals or the wrasse survived the ordeal, and with the falco back to the LFS that left me at 0 fish. I rearranged the rocks until they felt stable and I was relatively pleased, adjusted the powerheads, and positioned the corals as best I could. To keep the biological filter going I got a tangaroa goby, a watchman goby, and a firefish goby, all of whom seem to be settling into the tank well.

This is how the new scape looks, don’t love it as much as the original but I’m still pretty happy with it. Before everything went down, I got a couple upgrades in place: I made a mesh lid for the tank which I think turned out pretty well, and I installed my radion XR15.

I have the radion running on the AB+ preset, with the kelvin turned down a bit since I like a little bit more of the daylight look (though to be honest with where I have it I feel like I might as well turn it all the way back up, or lower it a good bit more). I’ve really enjoyed not having to worry about manually controlling the light and the daylight effect it gives is really cool, love watching my coral gradually wake up and settle down over the course of the light cycle.

I’ve got the tank recovered, and now I don’t plan on adding anything more until at least March! Gonna take it nice and slow, wait for things to mature more and settle after all the chaos, and take my time to more specifically plan out what I want the tank to look like in the long run. Right before everything happened I was planning on putting together a par map for my tank (my LFS rents a meter), so maybe I can get around to that finally. In any case, happy with where I’m at and excited to leave the display alone for a bit. Thanks so much to @TheWB who was very helpful as I figured out how to bounce back from this.

Happy to help where I could. Glad to see things are getting back on track.

 

[ams3210]

Happy new year reefers! Hope everyone had a great holiday season. I’m back with another update on the tank! Since my last post, things have calmed down and are looking good. Currently in my tank I have a yellow choris wrasse, a firefish goby, and a watchman goby. All three seem very settled in, and are starting to be less shy when I walk in the room which is exciting. In the last few days of December I did add a pretty small royal gramma, and having seen literally 0 signs of it I’m gonna assume it is no longer with us. All three fish are eating well, and hopefully soon I can add another fish that’ll add some movement since the watchman still mostly sticks to his burrow. The yellow choris wrasse is the best addition by far, I constantly see him pecking at the acrylic and the rockwork working on pest control, and he’s quite the fancy swimmer to boot!

As for coral, I have yet to experience a coral mortality, so everyone keep your fingers crossed for me hahaha. I believe this is thanks to the frequent water changes I’ve been doing, at first it was a 20% once a week but now it’s more like 20% every week and a half/two weeks since my parameter tests look good. I hope to continue reducing this frequency, but until I have a better control over my nutrients I’ll keep them up. The coral I’ve added that I’m most excited about is a decent sized fox coral that an LFS gave me a great deal on, it seems to be pretty happy so far! I’ve also started target feeding my coral with regularity and though with some of them I haven’t had much luck getting them to take mysis or brine, there are still a satisfying number of good eaters to watch gobble everything up.

I received some nice reefing gear for Christmas, and my tank now features a maxspect jump gyre 4K powerhead which I have running horizontally near the top of the tank on gradual pulse mode at 30% max power, as well as a SMF algae scrubber which I’m hoping can replace my use of GFO once it’s up and running. My next goal for the tank is to figure up a kalkwasser dosing method, at this point it’s looking like I’ll pick up one of the BRS low flow dosing pumps and get that set up on a time with a limewater reservoir. I’ve also been working on a hood for the aquarium, since the light of the radion is pretty harsh on the eyes once the sun goes down.

Aside from an unconcerning number of flatworms on the glass and a single asterina starfish I found and promptly removed, I’ve been very lucky to experience no problems with any pests or problem algae thus far. After watching BRS’s video on biome cycling, I’ve been adding a bag of copepods every few weeks to ensure that as my tank is getting established there’s a strong population of micro fauna keeping my livestock fed and nuisance microorganisms under control. I’ve also noticed a good number of vermetid snails, and have been adding a few bumblebee snails every time I go to the LFS to try and combat it before it’s a problem.

Overall I’m feeling really good about where I’m at with the reef. The slight layer of algae on things makes the tank feel more alive compared to the sterile white beginning of the rocks, and I’m even noticing a good number of coralline algae spots pop up all over the rockwork! The fish seem happy, the coral seem happy, and I’m a happy reef keeper

 

[Hairy Tee]

Tank looks cool! I've been a diehard freshwater enthusiast for many years but 2 months ago, I started up my first ever saltwater tank...a Biocube 32 I had running as freshwater tank. I love it so much I purchased an Innovative Marine AIO SR 80 Pro. I can't believe I never tried saltwater before! Based on the past few months in setting these up, I would suggest one thing...since you're main focus are corals, think less about making a cool aquascape you think will be cool and make your focus more about the corals you want and where they will be placed in your tank. This should be a big part of how you build your aquascape. Keep in mind that over time as the corals grow, you won't even see the rock work! You will want lots of shelves or landing spots on the rock work (flat places to easily place the corals) and have them at different heights in the tank. In addition to this, think about what types of corals you really want...Softies, LPS or SPS. Softies and most LPS don't require intense light like SPS corals so they will most likely be placed at the middle to bottom of the tank. SPS are much more difficult to keep and will require more rigid lighting, water flow, calcium, alkalinity and magnesium levels that are all dialed in. Softies and some LPS are more forgiving so are much better to start with. I've primarily gone with Softies and some LPS for this reason. I spent an entire weekend building this amazing aquascape for my IM SR 80 using Marco Rock. It looked so cool but the more I looked at it and thought about putting all my corals in it, I realized it wasn't going to be really functional 6 months to a year from now when all my corals grow out. So, I broke down 75% of what I built and spent another day redoing it to make it more accommodating for my corals. I kept the maximum height of the rock to only half the height of the aquarium. While having lots of caves, arches and swim through areas for fish and invertebrates, I made a lot more flat areas where I can easily place my corals. It came out so much better and I am so much happier that I redid it. That's my advice from another newbie that just went through what you are now experiencing! Enjoy and good luck!