Vikinglord's 29 Gallon Biocube

vikinglord13 · Nov 10, 2019

Hey all,

I'll plan to post updates on my 29G biocube here. I'll be posting a video to Youtube tomorrow so hopefully I can link it before I go to bed before tomorrow night.

Anyways, my current system is a Sixline Wrasse, Azure Damsel, and a Black Blenny. I'm glad they all get along.

As far as corals: various zoanthids, blue sympodium which is my favorite, some shrooms, and a gorgonian.

Inverts: some astrea snails, maybe one trochus snail, a nassarius snail, about 4/5 zebra hermits, 1 dwarf blue-leg hermit, and a hitchhiker crab that I think belongs in the Xanthid group.

Lighting: I just gutted the default stuff and have upgraded to a current LED strip. I like it so far, I'll be making a review video for youtube in a couple weeks.

Filtration: primarily biological with a "cryptic" zone in the first chamber, and a refugium/scrubber in the second chamber. I siphon the sand when I do my monthly water changes and have a filter pad only then.

MERKEY · Nov 10, 2019

Sounds good and we love pics!!!

vikinglord13 · Nov 10, 2019

Let me see if I can find some goodies...
This seems to be the most recent. I've been taking mostly videos lately haha!
Sadly most of the passion fruit zoanthids melted away due to lighting problems with the original flourescents going bad. I've now fixed that with the current, I'm waiting to see how the zoas respond.

vikinglord13 · Nov 13, 2019

Here's the latest video I've taken. The passion fruit zoanthids seem to be responding well. I'm liking the Current LED so far, many of the corals are showing colors I've never seen before with the bland flourescents I had. I'll be doing a Current LED review here soon.

Katrina71 · Nov 13, 2019

I'd love to see more of your black Blenny.

vikinglord13 · Dec 14, 2019

Thanks Katrina! He/she is pretty timid so it's hard to get some shots of him/her. I'll post what I have shortly

vikinglord13 · Dec 14, 2019

Hey all,
Here's a quick update video of my tank. I've been slacking on pump maintenance amd monitoring my parameters so now I'm paying for it!

(No shots of Tron, Katrina).

vikinglord13 · Dec 24, 2019

Katrina71 said:
I'd love to see more of your black Blenny.

Hey Katrina,

Here are two videos of Tron I posted awhile back. Let me know if you'd like to see more

Tron the Black Blenny

Lights Out, Tron's Out!

count krunk · Dec 24, 2019

Do you still have a hood on it?

El_Guapo13 · Dec 24, 2019

Love the tank. Honestly, I sometimes forget that I have a sixline as he likes to stay in the back until something interesting happens in the front of the tank. Same with my fire shrimp. Half the time I can't tell if he is alive and just staying motionless, if it is a shed exoskeleton, or if he is dead. Aren't aquarium critters just fun!!

vikinglord13 · Dec 24, 2019

count krunk said:
Do you still have a hood on it?

Yep, I gutted the hood and the Current LED fits underneath just nicely.

El_Guapo, I definitely agree! I had my tank for a good two years before I discovered what I think to be a xanthid crab living inside one of my liverock pieces.

vikinglord13 · Feb 1, 2020

Here's a video I put together of my trip to Birch Aquarium back in 2019, I figured you guys would enjoy it

vikinglord13 · Feb 19, 2020

Strangely enough, some of my zoanthids look off again. The remaining orange passion fruits died within a coupke days of my "lighting problems" recording. Now my eagle-eye zoas are giving me a problem. I've noticed two things:
1) what appear to be black dots on the zoas
2) the asterinas are on them. For quite a few years these guys never gave me a problem so I've been thinking they're eating dying tissue or dying zoas.

I just tested my water and pH is 7.8; ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate are 0; Alkalinity is 7.6, Magnesium is 1340, and Calcium is 445. I don't have phosphate test kit so I'm not sure what that is.

I'm thinking the problem is either
A) disease
B) insufficient trace elements
C) asterinas

What do you guys think?

vikinglord13 · Feb 19, 2020

I've attached a picture for reference.

vikinglord13 · Mar 15, 2020

Due to my suspicion of lack of trace elements I've started dosing Red Sea's Reef Energy parts A and B. It seems to be expensive, we'll see if it works. The eagle-eye zoanthids seems to be responding well. I'm considering lowering the light intensity by 5-10%.

About a month ago one of my lavender mushrooms split in two, yesterday I noticed one of them left a piece of a foot so now instead of one, I now have 3!

Vakko · Mar 22, 2020

vikinglord13 said:
Strangely enough, some of my zoanthids look off again. The remaining orange passion fruits died within a coupke days of my "lighting problems" recording. Now my eagle-eye zoas are giving me a problem. I've noticed two things:
1) what appear to be black dots on the zoas
2) the asterinas are on them. For quite a few years these guys never gave me a problem so I've been thinking they're eating dying tissue or dying zoas.

I just tested my water and pH is 7.8; ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate are 0; Alkalinity is 7.6, Magnesium is 1340, and Calcium is 445. I don't have phosphate test kit so I'm not sure what that is.

I'm thinking the problem is either
A) disease
B) insufficient trace elements
C) asterinas

What do you guys think?

Your alk is quite low vs your calcium.
Also, your pH is basically at the bottom of the scale.

If you were to raise your alk, your pH would go up, too.

vikinglord13 · Apr 3, 2020

I will be testing again tomorrow.

I'm also thinking the light may be too intense for the zoanthids. The dragon-eye zoas are still going strong, the eagle-eye zoas still haven't recovered 100%, they do look better though. I decreased my light intensities by 5% each to see if that would help. I might decrease it 5% more, the zoanthids are laying pretty flat compared to what they used to - granted, the old lights were horrible!

vikinglord13 · Apr 14, 2020

For those of you curious about the Current light, check out this thread where I posted my review video.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/current-marine-orbit-led-light-review.709676/

vikinglord13 · Apr 26, 2020

I'm considering one or two critters to add to the tank. Here is a list of what I'm considering. I'm curious what you guys would think would be the best two to add in your experience.

1) Urchin, probably tuxedo urchin. Primarily just to reduce how much time I spend getting coraline algae off my glass
2) Cleaner shrimp. Get more action in the tank, maybe help overall fish health / stress. I'm just a little concerned the six-line wrasse would eat it...
3) sand-sifting goby. Again, help with general maintenance. I'm thinking either an orangemarked, yellow watchman, pink spotted watchman, or two-spot. I have a refugium and have a "cryptic" zone in the first chamber of my "sump" area. I know there are lots of critters I can't see in there. I'm not really concerned about the maintenance from the fish potentially dropping sand on the lower corals. I'm leaning towards the two-spot just because it's the smallest one.

That's it. I'm just looking for something that will help improve the overall health of the reef and reduce general maintenance. Thanks for the ideas!

vikinglord13 · Oct 29, 2020

It has been awhile since I posted anything. My apologies!

Many things have happened...
We purchased a pink spot goby, we named it Gobi Wan. After a couple weeks we didn't see if anymore so we presumed it was dead. Well after a month thinking it was dead, I found him in my overflow when I was inspecting the heater! He must have jumped into my chamber 1 with the liverock rubble.

We're pretty sure the black blenny died. We haven't seen it in awhile and I've checked the LR chamber. We'll see if it shows up.

I've been battling diatoms and possibly cyano for about a month which has been frustrating! I'm hoping I can get ahead of it soon.