Holmesese
Community Member
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2018
- Messages
- 27
- Reaction score
- 21
- What state or country do you live in
- Kentucky
I probably have gone opposite from most ppl in that I have worked my way from very large systems to a small systems. Used to do big recirculating aquaculture systems and worked at a public aquarium. Now I have a fondness for the small tanks and have been running a 10 gallon reef tank and a 5 gallon for 5 years. Now moving both to a 29 to add a little more space. Although the little tanks get a bad rap for being difficult, I find them to be very easy if you resist overstocking and over feeding (I talk a big game but usually fall victim to one or both)
With that said, I got pretty lazy w the two tanks and water changes were few and far between. Finally after no water changes in my 10gallon for about 6 months I had some feather caluerpa go BANANAS. Once it took hold it was game over, 100% water changes, pulling it all out over and over. Nothing I did would get rid of it, I even removed all the sand and kept the tank spotless and it grew like crazy. The pic of the old tank is above, a lot of the coral was looking rough bc of the poor water quality.
The new tank is in my kids room and it has been a process putting the 29 gallon in their room. Since it didn’t have a stand I build one for it that was extra sturdy to handle some hard hits by toddlers.
The Biocube has the stock lighting but I wanted some more so I went the Rapid LED route and am very happy with it! I left the stock lighting in and then built my own light bar w 10 LEDs. Used the solderless this time as the last time I built some my solder jobs didn’t look so good. Anyway the solderless was definitely worth the extra couple bucks. Got the lights finished and they look awesome!!! Really added a lot of light and made the coral pop.
The hardest part was next as I had the old ten gallon and I am trying to get all the caluerpa, hair algae, and red bubble algae off the corals in it so I can move them into the new tank. The only method I have found to work for all three types and get every bit off the rocks is hydrogen peroxide.
I have now used it on the frogspawn, Yuma’s, acans, and mushrooms. I completely submerged the acans, mushrooms, and green Yuma’s in a sw/peroxide mix for 2-3min. So far everything looks good except for the mushrooms, they seem to have taken it pretty hard. My orange Yuma’s and the frogspawn I was too scared to do, so I used a dropper and held them out of water and spot treated w peroxide. After a few days the peroxide killed all three types of algae!Everything turned white and died off. Had it all in the new tank for over a month and not a bit of algae... yet...
Here is the new setup, nothing high end. Lots of nems, a few lps, and soft corals. Outside of lighting edition my main other mod was adding an LED to the back of the tank and putting chaeto in the middle chamber. Not the best photos but you get the idea!
