20g WaterBox Cube - Softie Simple Secondary Aquarium

[nburg]

I decided to 'reboot' my main Red Sea Reefer 450 into a SPS dominant with LPS and wanted to remove all of my leather coral and non zoa/ricordea softies. But, I can't just get rid of my softies as I love them as well, so a simple 20g cube is perfect to get my softie fix. Since I had some pretty big pieces, this thing filled up super quickly! I used 50% dry rock and 50% rock that's been in my main tank for a little over 18 months and some live sand from two little fishies.

 

Since there should be filtration right away, I started by soaking the dry rock with bottled bacteria and aquarium water for about a week to get any die off out of the rock, then added it to the tank. After a few days, I added a single leather, my huge green sinularia, to see if it did well. It molted right away but once it sloughed off its outer layer, it opened up brighter than ever. Over about a 2 week period, I added all my leathers and now this thing is full. My gorgonians were too big so they already got a trim. 

 

I don't want a complex system so just the basics: light, flow & heat.. only thing unnecessary is the ATO, but I won't run a tank without using a Tunze 3155. 

Equipment:

• Waterbox 20g cube
• AI Hydra 26HD
• AI Nero 3
• Sicce 0.5 return
• 75w Eheim Jager heater
• Tunze 3155 ATO
• All managed with a DJA switch board

 

I have 'most' of the corals I am going to add in the tank, but will add some of my ricordea, baby RFAs and maybe some zoas. 

Corals:

• Neon green Sinularia
• Pulsing Sinularia
• Spaghetti Sinularia
• Joker (Japanese) Toadstool
• Willow Toadstool
• Long polyp green Toadstool
• WWC Blue "rainbow sprinkles" Cespitularia
• Pulsing Xenia
• Neon Capnella Kenya Tree
• Branching GSP
• Blue mouth GSP
• Pink bushy Gorgonian
• Purple Gorgonian
• Tracey Morgan Gorgonian

 

As of right now, no fish, but will be adding my yellow tail damsel and maybe 2 other nano sized fish depending on what I can find. Maybe a blenny and something else colorful.

 

First setup:

 

First Corals:

 

Under the hood - tried to get everything stuck to the top of the stand so there is lots of room. I don't have my ATO resevoir yet, but I will clean up the ATO wires once I get it. I saw Jake Adams on reefbuilders do all their tanks this way an love it. Currently doing it for my RS Reefer, but a lot more cords to deal with!

 

 

And Today: getting GHA so I know I am at least good on the nitrogen cycle. I added a snail and a hermit, but will need a bigger CUC real soon!

 

And the sides:

[Pedro]

Beautiful tank

[YHSublime]

Your condo is a whole vibe. 

[roni]

looks great!  You were totally right about it looking stocked from the get go.  Looks bigger then 20 gallons too...

[nburg]

Video update!

 

Edited June 2, 2022 by nburg

[nburg]

Cleaning up the sand in my big tank so moved a bunch of Ricordea rocks over and they fill in nicely. Might chop some of the rocks up and glue single polyps around the bigger rocks

[moga]

wow nice!!!

[nburg]