Vermont's Cube

[rboutin111]

Hi All,

This is the story of our 29 gallon BioCube. On February 2013 my girlfriend and I randomly stopped in to a local pet store in New Hampshire for our dog. They had a large selection of aquarium supplies as well. Back in college in from 2006-2008 I had a fish only saltwater tank. I’ve always wanted a reef tank. I had to take a look at what they had. In the corner was a used 29 gallon BioCube for sale with a stand and UFO LED light fixture for $400. I asked my girlfriend how cool would that be to set up a reef tank in our living room? She was all for it. We started talk to the manager about what else we would need to start a tank. He quickly rambled off a heater, InTank media basket, media, a Tunze 9002 protein skimmer and most importantly a 5 stage RO/DI system. All of which I had no clue about at the time. Our $400 purchase quickly turned into a $1000 purchase with a long list of other items we would have to eventually get. We did it anyways. I set the tank up right next to the couch in our studio apartment.

The tank sat empty for a month until the RO/DI unit arrived and we could purchase the Red Sea Pro Salt, 20lbs Carib Sea Arag-Alive Bimini Pink sand and 28lbs of BRS reef saver dry rock along with on small piece of BRS reef saver live rock.

We played with our aquascaping outside of the tank.

Set up the RO/DI unit in our kitchen. Fortunately our studio apartment was once a hair solon that had a washing machine in it. The connection was very easy.

Now the tank has water, rock and sand it’s time to let it cycle. We did testing every week with API test kit.

Once the tank cycled for 6 weeks we added a small cleaner shrimp and a blue Ricordea Florida and a branching hammer.

 

[rboutin111]

Before long we started to realize that our aquascape wasn’t going to work well for the corals we likes. We changed it. The old scape is on the left new on the right.

We quickly learned about cyanobacteria, green hair algae and many other types of algae. We also found out that xenia coral could quickly take over the tank and is very hard to remove.

 

[rboutin111]

We went slow and didn’t use any chemicals to do a quick fix. Every week we were making changes and learning way more then we could have imagined. It was a slow process, but we were getting the tank to look like we wanted.

We bought and lost a lot of corals in an expensive learning process. It could have been a lost worse if we had a larger tank.

By November 2013 our tank was filling up. We were still trying to remove most of the xenias and now we have flat worms to deal with. Each week I would suck out hundreds of them with a turkey baster. I couldn't keep up!!! You can see them all over the glass.

 

[rboutin111]

In December 2013 we have come to realize the UFO LED light we had wasn’t doing a good job. So we upgraded to a Kessil A360W-E. This light is amazing. The controllability and shimmer it provides is fantastic. I tried to connect it to the Reef Keepers with no such luck.

One year later on March 2014 the tank is stable and we have over stocked it with coral and anemones.

This resulted in coral wars!!! Our unattractive orange Lobophyllia attached and killed both of our beautiful Trachyphyllia. :mad2:

We added a this stunning star fish.

 

[rboutin111]

Hey all, I broke out my DSLR to take some updated photos. I'd love to get some feed back on how to take better photos. I really need a good quality macro lens.

Yuma with 3 babies

Eagle Eyes

Ricordea Florida

Frogspawn

Duncan

 

[rboutin111]

Leather Toadstool

Blue/Green Mushroom

Torch

Cleaner Shrimp

Yellow Watchman Goby

 

[rboutin111]

Yellow Watchman Goby

DaVinci Clowns

My favorite Ornate Leopard Wrasse

 

[rboutin111]

Laying on the floor looking up at the tank is a interesting perspective

 

[Scubafrog]

Great timeline post. Thanks for showing the highs and lows. I started a 29G Biocube 9/1/14. It has been fun, exciting, rewarding and aggravating all at the same time.

Dealing with GHA and brown sand now as I swapped out my sponge filters with an inTank and Tunze 9001 at the first of the year. Hoping to have something like yours by my one year anniversary. Following your new build. Looks great so far.

 

[ryleary]

Looking good, hope mine looks that good in a year. Love those clowns. Keep up the good work.

 

[rboutin111]

Great timeline post. Thanks for showing the highs and lows. I started a 29G Biocube 9/1/14. It has been fun, exciting, rewarding and aggravating all at the same time.

Thank you. It's a great starter tank. I'm currently in the process of setting up a 57 gallon tank. You can see that thread here. https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/member-tanks/186682-my-57-rimless.html

Dealing with GHA and brown sand now as I swapped out my sponge filters with an inTank and Tunze 9001 at the first of the year. Hoping to have something like yours by my one year anniversary. Following your new build. Looks great so far.

Looking good, hope mine looks that good in a year. Love those clowns. Keep up the good work.

I have been through so much with this tank. Recently I was away for the holidays for 2 weeks. I lost two fish and one coral. The tank look like a mess and I has cyno outbreak. I'm still trying to get it under control. Stick with it. Check out my new build thread https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/member-tanks/186682-my-57-rimless.html

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Keep it up!