Brent's Cube
- Thread starter brentch
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This tank look really awesome
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Thanks @ReeferBray! It's still a young tank, so lots to grow now. I'm excited to see how the corals start to mature and grow in the tank. I have found the sweet spot for dKH, but my Mg and Ca dosing needs to be dialed in a bit better. hopefully I can get things going a bit more smoothly over the coming months.
Amazing work I won't mind a long video of this beauty
Vleis Visagie
Be good or be good at it
Yeah the movement looks perfect. Doesnt blast it into one direction all the time. GREAT BUD
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Thanks guys. I've added a few corals; mushrooms and some awesome Blastomussa, so I'll post photo's soon. The STC controller has switched my heater on for the first time since I've started the tank, so I think it's safe to say that winter is here. I've noticed that my diatoms on the sand have completely disappeared over the last week. Not sure if it's temperature related. My Nennie is stinging the shit out of my Acro and birds nest, but it's too difficult to remove with the foot hidden in the rockwork, so I'll just have to work my coral scape around it.... WIll post photos tomorrow or Sunday after the clean...
Always looks amazing this tank. Normal to have some coral war seeing that the tank is so stocked keep us posted
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So I've been up to a bit of design for a dosing box and ATU box. I've been dosing manually twice a day since I got the tank, and my current ATU box is a 2l bucket from the plastic shop. Time to sort that out...
I bought a piece of 3mm acrylic and designed the cuts on power point. What's nice is that the accuracy is far better than I could do on a saw, and there's no mess or effort, just the time to design it on the PC. I could have bought these, but I'm a poor boy and I can't justify 1k for just a dosing box. I spent around 850 bucks on all the materials (acrylic, acrylic tube, and acrylic glue I got for free) and managed to make a dosing box, an RO top up box, a shelf/tray for my doser, and I even made a cover for my fishing ski echosounder. I still have a few pieces spare..
I just tacked the pieces together with tape just to see that all fitted together as it should. The accuracy is amazing, it's accurate to less than I can make out with the eye, so probably a tenth of a mm maybe? Not sure, but its good enough for this type of work...
So the next thing is to glue it all together and get it running. I'll post pics of the finished product.
The tank is still going well and all inhabitants are happy. I noticed my BTA moved an inch from his previous spot, last week, so I'm not sure what it's deal is. I see the foot hasn't moved much, but the oral disk has orientated itself in a different direction.
Still happy and loving the small tank.
I bought a piece of 3mm acrylic and designed the cuts on power point. What's nice is that the accuracy is far better than I could do on a saw, and there's no mess or effort, just the time to design it on the PC. I could have bought these, but I'm a poor boy and I can't justify 1k for just a dosing box. I spent around 850 bucks on all the materials (acrylic, acrylic tube, and acrylic glue I got for free) and managed to make a dosing box, an RO top up box, a shelf/tray for my doser, and I even made a cover for my fishing ski echosounder. I still have a few pieces spare..
I just tacked the pieces together with tape just to see that all fitted together as it should. The accuracy is amazing, it's accurate to less than I can make out with the eye, so probably a tenth of a mm maybe? Not sure, but its good enough for this type of work...
So the next thing is to glue it all together and get it running. I'll post pics of the finished product.
The tank is still going well and all inhabitants are happy. I noticed my BTA moved an inch from his previous spot, last week, so I'm not sure what it's deal is. I see the foot hasn't moved much, but the oral disk has orientated itself in a different direction.
Still happy and loving the small tank.
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I did some more DIY today, and got the cupboard together. Conduit and the rest to still do, but it's coming along nicely. I'm excited to get dosing this new aquaforest three part.
I'll run the pipes through Conduit to the tank, I think it should look quite neat.
I'll update tomorrow.
I'll run the pipes through Conduit to the tank, I think it should look quite neat.
I'll update tomorrow.
This nano just keep in getting better
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Update!
I've been running the tank on the new Aqua Forest range for the last week. I'm hoping to get some idea of how well the system runs over the next month, especially with its supposed ability to reduce or neutralize the excess chloride ions in the tank ascociated with balling. I am also hoping the addition of microelements in the mix will help enhance the coloring of the corals.
The bubble magus t11 doser is working well so far, I'm impressed with it's performance. It's a far cry from the horrible marine magic doser I had on my previous four ft tank a few years back. I think I even payed the same amount back then, crazy! Nice to see the technology improving I'm enjoying not having to dose twice a day manually. It only took a few seconds, but now it's something I just don't need to think about twice a day. Plus it doses 24 times a day, which should keep my parameters rock solid.
On the fish side, I added a banggai cardinal, and within one day it died. I'm not sure what the issue was, but my parameters are all in check and my dragonette is perfectly healthy... Weird.... On the topic of my dragonette, I've never fed the girl since I got her a few months back. She gets all her amphipod food cultured in the tank. It seems that there are enough small inverts for her to eat in the tank without crashing her food's population. She's fat and healthy, and rules her piece of ocean with impunity. During a short mamorial service, I cut my deceased banggai into three pieces and my anemone devoured it fairly quickly. A R280 dinner, more than I'd order for a main at most restuarants. I hope the BTA enjoyed it. Anyway, I'm not going to try another fish for a while, my corals have enough color and sway to keep my child (and me) interested!
Just on the topic of my hardware... All my original pumps, lights etc are still going well. All the El-cheap-o brands I bought are performing well so far. The BM QQ2 skimmer is working fine, the jebao wp4 is still pushing the water around the tank, and my zetlight 1201 wifi is still shining down on my corals. No issues so far.
I am thinking of plumbing a small frag tank onto my system but I'm not sure what my wife would think when I start bolting more saltwater boxes onto our lounge wall...
More later, time to relax.
I've been running the tank on the new Aqua Forest range for the last week. I'm hoping to get some idea of how well the system runs over the next month, especially with its supposed ability to reduce or neutralize the excess chloride ions in the tank ascociated with balling. I am also hoping the addition of microelements in the mix will help enhance the coloring of the corals.
The bubble magus t11 doser is working well so far, I'm impressed with it's performance. It's a far cry from the horrible marine magic doser I had on my previous four ft tank a few years back. I think I even payed the same amount back then, crazy! Nice to see the technology improving I'm enjoying not having to dose twice a day manually. It only took a few seconds, but now it's something I just don't need to think about twice a day. Plus it doses 24 times a day, which should keep my parameters rock solid.
On the fish side, I added a banggai cardinal, and within one day it died. I'm not sure what the issue was, but my parameters are all in check and my dragonette is perfectly healthy... Weird.... On the topic of my dragonette, I've never fed the girl since I got her a few months back. She gets all her amphipod food cultured in the tank. It seems that there are enough small inverts for her to eat in the tank without crashing her food's population. She's fat and healthy, and rules her piece of ocean with impunity. During a short mamorial service, I cut my deceased banggai into three pieces and my anemone devoured it fairly quickly. A R280 dinner, more than I'd order for a main at most restuarants. I hope the BTA enjoyed it. Anyway, I'm not going to try another fish for a while, my corals have enough color and sway to keep my child (and me) interested!
Just on the topic of my hardware... All my original pumps, lights etc are still going well. All the El-cheap-o brands I bought are performing well so far. The BM QQ2 skimmer is working fine, the jebao wp4 is still pushing the water around the tank, and my zetlight 1201 wifi is still shining down on my corals. No issues so far.
I am thinking of plumbing a small frag tank onto my system but I'm not sure what my wife would think when I start bolting more saltwater boxes onto our lounge wall...
More later, time to relax.
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Full tank shot now
My beloved Blasto's
I want another frogspawn, I really love Euphyllia
Notice the conduit, the horizontal one running from my cabinet houses the dosing pipes.
Nearly done. Each pipe a different color representing each chemical dose.
Blue = Ca
Orange = Alk and Mg
White = reef salt for ionic balance or CL ions.
These are the components I'm dosing. I've stepped away from DIY Chem to see if this is any better. I'm not Walter white, so I assume this will be better than my home cooked coral brew...
Ready to go
So far the corals are okay and I am able to keep each parameter fairly close to it's previous number. Well, enough not to piss them off...
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I really want to plumb another tank into my system. In a perfect world I'd add a lagoon biotype shallow cube with a mangrove sapling like Avacinnia and a few lagoonal / low energy coral species like Physogyra, plerogyra, euphyllia, and I want a clam real bad. I'd also put a few banggai's in there too. I'd be keen to bonzai the mangrove too. I enjoy my bonzai's and have a few I have collected.
Anyway, my line of work probably won't ever allow it, so I'll have to dream on
Anyway, my line of work probably won't ever allow it, so I'll have to dream on