Happyfeet's Biocube

[Happyfeet]

Well, I've finally got enough people asking me to post pictures of my tank I've decided to go ahead and post it up. I hope you guys enjoy my tank at least a quarter as much as I do!

 

It's not the cleanest tank, I still have hair algae and yes, it is annoying. 

 

Here you can see my IT2040 LED fixture

 

Here you can see my MP10 controller and my Reef Octopus BH-1000 Skimmer

 

Here is where I store all my reef stuff and I've set up to start dosing 2 part, because the kalk wasn't keeping up with my tanks demands.

 

Full tank shot using my cellphone, bummer the torch coral doesn't look golden in the picture.

 

That's probably enough for now I guess! There are some coral skeletons as you saw, I put the LEDS over my tank at 50% thinking I would acclimate them slowly. Little did I know 50% was still stronger than they were used to and I ended up nuking half my corals literally in a matter of hours. Lesson learned!

 

I don't think I'll be winning any photography awards 

Edited March 10, 2014 by Happyfeet

[YHSublime]

Looking great! Hard to grow in a bc like you are, so hats off!

[Happyfeet]

Oh it's not so hard, just have to be very consistent same as any tank. Hardest part I've found is keeping up with the demand on Calcium. I'm hoping switching over to 2 part dosing will fix the issue.

[matt]

Nice, really dig this set-up. Glad to see you posting pics. Maybe I will get motivated one day too

[tomtom2245]

Looks great! Do you have an ATO setup?

[Happyfeet]

Nice, really dig this set-up. Glad to see you posting pics. Maybe I will get motivated one day too

 

I made the mistake on my first 75 Gallon tank. I did not set it up right and cut corners. I'll never do that again, just a lot of wasted time and money.

 

Looks great! Do you have an ATO setup?

 

I have a dosing pump that slowly drips water into my tank at the same rate it evaporates. I was looking at some ATO options, but how they work worries me. I felt a steady drip was a better option than an ATO.

(I should say I was worried about the float switch mostly because my cats have a tendency to play with things. This just seemed right up their alley) 

Edited March 11, 2014 by Happyfeet

[BowieReefer84]

Awesome tank!  I like the dark substrate.  Biocubes are one of my favorite setups.  Is that a 29gal?

 

Here is my favorite tank I have had yet from inception to peak to epic fail.

http://wamas.org/forums/topic/39572-mikes-29gal-biocube/page-1

[Happyfeet]

Awesome tank!  I like the dark substrate.  Biocubes are one of my favorite setups.  Is that a 29gal?

 

Here is my favorite tank I have had yet from inception to peak to epic fail.

http://wamas.org/forums/topic/39572-mikes-29gal-biocube/page-1

The two posts on your thread, one on January 18th 2012 and  one on September 20th 2013 broke my heart. The beautiful tank then the next photo the bubble algae distribution center. 

 

I got all my algae in my tank from a cat that decided a fish tank was a good litterbox.

 

It is a 29 Gallon Biocube, girlfriend got it for me for my birthday a while back. I think the dark substrate was the best and worst choice I've ever made. I'm not sure how I'm going to keep it clean as the corals keep growing in. The inner cave is almost completely in accessible to me now. 

[hlem]

I like your corals, especially those new sps and that acan

[Happyfeet]

Yeah I got great deal on them!

[Happyfeet]

Quick Update: Was loosing color on my corals couldn't figure out what was wrong and realized my dKH test wasn't testing properly and my Alk for my 2 part was clogged and not dosing. dKH fell significantly which was causing the color loss I believe. I didn't realize just how much color I had actually lost until visiting a fellow reefers tank and thinking... "you know my coral doesn't look like that anymore". 

 

Problem solved, slowly raising my dKH back up, currently sitting at 7.2 dKH after raising for a couple days.

 

I took a picture to document the close call and remind myself to always check to make sure my equipment is working properly. I also got new test kits in double to double check params every so often.

 

The top corals aren't as bleached as the picture leads the viewer to believe, it's just my camera can't handle the high light and white washes the colors out.

 

Edited May 29, 2014 by Happyfeet

[JR-Tanked150]

Good catch, looking foward to a shot of the tank in a month or two.

[YHSublime]

Very nice!

[Happyfeet]

I realize I'm pretty bad at making updates. 

 

So here is a small update on this tank. I'll make a larger one later this week.

 

Unfortunately the tank crashed in December and almost everything died. The heater got stuck in the on position while I was on vacation, it's amazing anything in the tank survived. What did survive lost a lot of color and is only now starting to recover.

I'm in the process of updating my system and adding corals back in, I'll post pictures of the new setup once I'm done later this week.

[DuffyGeos]

Very sorry to hear that. It was a great looking tank. Did you buy a new heater yet? If not, maybe think about buying 2 heaters that are half the size of the one you had so the chances of cooking the tank are reduced. What type did you have?

 

I love the black sand in the small tanks, it makes everything pop.

[Happyfeet]

Very sorry to hear that. It was a great looking tank. Did you buy a new heater yet? If not, maybe think about buying 2 heaters that are half the size of the one you had so the chances of cooking the tank are reduced. What type did you have?

 

I love the black sand in the small tanks, it makes everything pop.

I bought two Finnex Titanium heaters to replace the single Stealth I was using before. Lesson learned. 

 

I like the black sand as well, though I wasn't sure I'd like it when I first started out. It goes very nicely with the black theme of the Biocube and fell in love with it after I put it in the tank.

 

 

[Happyfeet]

Ok, I was feeling industrious today so I finally finished upgrading my system. I only have one more thing to attach and that's another MP10, but I don't think is really required yet.

So my main goal was to hide my equipment and there simply is not enough space in the BioCube stand. My solution was to re-purpose an old bookcase I was going to throw out and turn it into an extension of my stand to hide my equipment. Turns out if is darn near perfect and worked better than I ever imagined it would. Here is a picture of the tank and bookcase, eventually I'm going to hide all the wires using a channel for them. The wires going between the two really annoy me, hopefully I'll hide them this weekend, so it wont look so cruddy.

Here is the upper portion of the bookcase, it has turned into the section that houses my new Neptune Apex. Hopefully I wont get any heater malfunctions anymore. If I do have a malfunction, at least I'll get emailed and it will shut itself off!


Here is the lower section which is housing my dosing station


Hopefully I wont have a repeat of my previous crash, I lost a lot of big corals it was heart breaking.
Anyways thanks for stopping in to see whats up.

 

[DuffyGeos]

How do you like the Dos?

[Happyfeet]

How do you like the Dos?

So far it is really nice. I wanted a doser that could be accurate down to tenth of a ML, which is highly important when dealing with smaller tanks, and it's delivering so far. The setup was really easy and using the Fusion interface really simplified dosing. I literally just plug into the cloud browser how much total volume I want to dose over the day and how many times I'd like it to dose in the day.

 

Going from the Aqua Medic Reefdoser to this a huge step up. I just wish the DOS came with a model with 3 pumps.

 

I'll give another review in a month after I've put it through the paces.

[Happyfeet]

How do you like the Dos?

 

One of the 4 heads on the DOS has started to back siphon, I was disappointed because one of the selling points was it wasn't supposed to back siphon at all. I've contacted Neptune Support and they are going to be sending a replacement motor. They think its an issue with the rollers.

 

 

[Tinpanva]

Great looking cube! What type of leds you running? Tank age?

[Happyfeet]

Great looking cube! What type of leds you running? Tank age?

 

Hello Tin, 

Tank is about 3 years old, had a recent die off due to a heater, some stuff survived, not much.

Lights I'm using are the Evergrow IT2040 LED fixture

 

Thanks! It's not perfect yet, but it is getting there.

[Happyfeet]

So I'm pretty bad at photography, but I reaquascaped my tank and thought I'd share.

Some of my corals are actually coming back to life. I left some of the corals I thought might live in the tank, and some of them have actually started coming back and coloring up. Pretty neat to watch how resilient coral can be.
My Reeftech Starburst monicap that I thought for sure would be toast has actually colored back and and looks great, though half of it did actually die.

Here is a quick FTS of the new aquascape.

[YHSublime]

Cool! I tossed all mine because I was pretty sure they were dead. Looks nice, the 29 is def a good size tank.

[Keraxis]

Nice setup.