James's 60 Gallon Cube Reef

[sewerman45]

I appreciate the advice. I feel worse about my pictures now though as I shoot in RAW and edited them in lightroom. Haha. I'll just have to keep working on it. Thanks though. At least I know I'm on the right track.

Originally Posted by rishu_pepper

I'll leave the tank questions for the experts to answer, I'm a relative noob myself.

I can help you with your camera stuff, that I am an expert Most cameras including DSLR will have crappy white balance straight out of camera (SOOC) with JPG. If you find/use a camera that can shoot RAW files, then you can use a photo processing software like Lightroom or Aperture to automatically adjust the WB, and it'll usually be pretty accurate to your "reality" colour. Some people use a white/grey card for indexing WB but I don't feel it's too necessary. With JPG you're always crippled in terms of post processing. You can try the WB settings in camera but I find those are usually pretty off.

Let me know if you have further questions.

[rishu_pepper]

Originally Posted by sewerman45

I appreciate the advice. I feel worse about my pictures now though as I shoot in RAW and edited them in lightroom. Haha. I'll just have to keep working on it. Thanks though. At least I know I'm on the right track.

James, no need to feel bad. Lightroom has plenty of functions but sometimes it gets confusing. Try manually adjusting the WB, tint, and saturation. It may give more realistic results.

In one of your pictures, there are 3 light sources (house light, plant light, tank light) and usually a combination of different colour temp will throw it way off to the point of no return. Always meter on the intended light source, that should help. Most DSLR are pretty smart nowadays to determine the WB if you meter on the correct source.

[daplatapus]

The little grape looking things on the vine is Grape Caulerpa. It can be invasive and a bear to remove once established. The little roots get into your rock.

GFO - Granular Ferric Oxide - Used to remove phosphate from your water. Usually used in a reactor and changed out ever month or so. Some use it in a sock and allow water to passively flow through it in their sumps. If you have algae in your tank, you've probably got phosphates. But you don't want to strip it all as corals and things in your tank need it to some extent. It's finding that balance that's tricky.

Carbon - again either used in a reactor or sock in your sump. Used to remove harmful toxin's released by corals etc when they get stressed. Also good at removing some chemicals. I don't think people run carbon all the time, I don't, just when something goes wrong and you're trying to maintain water quality till things settle down.

That's a VERY brief, general answer. Lot's of reading can be done on both.

[sewerman45]

That's all really helpful. Thanks for the heads up about the Grape Caulerpa. I've started manually removing it. We'll see how it turns out.

I am going to read more on the rest. Thanks for the tips.

Originally Posted by daplatapus

The little grape looking things on the vine is Grape Caulerpa. It can be invasive and a bear to remove once established. The little roots get into your rock.

GFO - Granular Ferric Oxide - Used to remove phosphate from your water. Usually used in a reactor and changed out ever month or so. Some use it in a sock and allow water to passively flow through it in their sumps. If you have algae in your tank, you've probably got phosphates. But you don't want to strip it all as corals and things in your tank need it to some extent. It's finding that balance that's tricky.

Carbon - again either used in a reactor or sock in your sump. Used to remove harmful toxin's released by corals etc when they get stressed. Also good at removing some chemicals. I don't think people run carbon all the time, I don't, just when something goes wrong and you're trying to maintain water quality till things settle down.

That's a VERY brief, general answer. Lot's of reading can be done on both.

[sewerman45]

I did a bit of a rescape yesterday. I stacked the rocks higher and opened up the cave underneath as well as shifted everything farther back. I also switched the positions of the zoas and the acans. I wanted to make room for some people eaters that I got at the swap and put the acans in a better position.

Let me know what you think. Is it too symmetrical?




I also want to add some more fish to the tank. Here is the current stock:
- Ocellaris Clownfish
- Six Line Wrasse
- Lawnmower Blenny
- Royal Gramma
- Blue Damsel

Some of the things I was thinking of adding are: Firefish, Coral Beauty, Goby of some kind, or Chromis. Anyone have any good ideas? There's a lot of room in the tank and I would like at least a few more fish.

Any cool invertebrates ideas as well? I have a fighting conch and a cleaner shrimp. Thanks!

[jhj0112]

I love the rockscape.. your tank is also very clean very nice!!
dwarf angel can be risky (coral nipping).. I know many people (including me) have kept dwarf angels with corals though.

Mine (pygmy angel) nip on SPS but leave LPSs alone.. i think every fish is different..

have you heard Vanderbuilt chromis?? they are awesome chromis.. I had them in my frag tank.. they look awesome..
you can also try goby/shrimp pair.. they are really fun to watch BUT I would not recommend it if you plane to keep corals on the sand bed because they constantly dig/shift sand..

[Skimmer Juice]

the six line wrasse might bother the firefish , IMO . Might not though . Firefish also like to jump so those 2 combos I would avoid . Even if the fish is not attacking it could still chase it a cause the firefish to jump.
A yellow boxfish (easiest box to keep) could make a cool addition .

[sewerman45]

Thanks for the kind words.

Those Vanderbuilt Chromis look amazing. That's exactly what I want. Any idea where I could get them? Or does anyone else know where I could get some? I definitely want to get my hands on a few of those.

Originally Posted by jhj0112

I love the rockscape.. your tank is also very clean very nice!!
dwarf angel can be risky (coral nipping).. I know many people (including me) have kept dwarf angels with corals though.

Mine (pygmy angel) nip on SPS but leave LPSs alone.. i think every fish is different..

have you heard Vanderbuilt chromis?? they are awesome chromis.. I had them in my frag tank.. they look awesome..
you can also try goby/shrimp pair.. they are really fun to watch BUT I would not recommend it if you plane to keep corals on the sand bed because they constantly dig/shift sand..

I keep a lid on my tank so it wouldn't be able to jump. I wouldn't want the firefish to be stressed though. I'll look into the boxfish. Thanks for the recommendation.

Originally Posted by Skimmer Juice

the six line wrasse might bother the firefish , IMO . Might not though . Firefish also like to jump so those 2 combos I would avoid . Even if the fish is not attacking it could still chase it a cause the firefish to jump.
A yellow boxfish (easiest box to keep) could make a cool addition .

[sewerman45]

It's been a while now so I figured I'd put up some updated pictures and details.




This is what it looks like right now. I added the gorg in the front as well as a little SPS frag in the middle. I've rearranged it a bit. I added the mp40 for some more flow and I will move the mp10 over to the little tank once I get it rolling. Also the Flame Angel is new.





Somehow the stars aligned and both the cat and the dog both ended up in this picture. I didn't even see the cat there till after. The tank on the left is my summer project. It's going to be a bonsai looking tree euphyllia tank. I am going to add it to the system. I am going to start a journal for it pretty quick.





Here's what the guts are looking like these days. I added a couple of reactors: the biopellet reactor next to the skimmer which I love and a regular reactor above the fuge which I do not like. I have GFO and carbon in the regular reactor and it makes me crazy how fast it gets clogged up. I've stripped it down to the point where there isn't much holding everything in place and it still gets down to a trickle inside of a week.

I had a pretty bad cyano outbreak after starting GFO but I hear that's pretty typical and it's just about gone. I also had some brown and hair algae that was everywhere but that is also almost all gone. Everything else is humming along. I'm not seeing a lot of growth in any of my SPS yet but the tank isn't super old and I am still working on getting my parameters dialed in.

Let me know if you have any questions or pointers based on what you see. Thanks for looking.

[sewerman45]

Long overdue update.

Here's where things stand right now:



As you can see, there have been some changes. I finished the little tank finally and and redid the main tank completely.

First the big tank:





I have been wanting to change the look of this tank for awhile now and had inherited all kinds of problems with the second hand rock that I started with and really wanted a clean start. Eli, at fijirock, was fantastic. I told him what I wanted and he mocked it up for me and then sent it out. Couldn't be happier. That fijicrete stuff is amazing for putting rock work together.

I am not 100% sure what I am going to do with the shelf. Right now I have a couple of acans from before and I might try to go that direction. Or maybe a bunch of different zoas? Anyone have some ideas for me?

I also traded my vertex illumina for a Kessil a360we. I'm really happy with the light. The vertex was great but was a bit too much for the tank and more than I needed.

I'm really excited to see it start filling in. Once I've made sure all my parameters are still dialed in and start to see some growth I will add some more corals to the shelf and to some of the outcroppings.




Last update I hadn't really started working on this one. I got the rock from Eli again and am super happy with how it turned out. There is another torch on the left side that you can't really see as it's retracted from me using the turkey baster to clean up a bit.

I really wanted it to look like a multi colored tree with some pseudo grass on the bottom. I'm hoping the GSP will grow to cover the bottom and stay there for the most part. I went without sand for this one as I've found sand to mostly just be a nuisance.

I have an AI Prime over it and I am really happy with it. It's a great little light and is the perfect size for this project.

My next step is to get a fish or two for it. And maybe a small clean up crew? I'm not really sure what I have to have for cleanup if anything... Anyone know? Also, I need to figure out a fish out two for this setup. It's 17 gallons and it'd be great to have something novel in here that I couldn't have in the big tank. I'd love any suggestions.

The overflow is an all glass mame overflow. I was a little leery at first about this but I really wanted something that wasn't a big eyesore and couldn't really find anything else that was as nice. I was planning on drilling the tank but all the overflows are big and black and that wasn't what I was going for. It's pretty dirty right now but cleans up really easily and works like a charm. It self starts with no problem after being turned on and is pretty quiet.




Here is the whole corner of life and such that I have going on in my apartment. I really happy about the place that the tanks are in. For the first time in a long time, everything is stable and hunky dory.

Thanks for looking.