I've wanted to try SW for a long time and always planned on my first reef tank being in one of the all-in-one cubes. This past August, I found this BioCube at a yard sale for $20 with a Nanocube stand.
Step one: leak test (with some base rock that came with the tank
A few weeks in (sometime in Sept maybe?) with some live rock (and floating some mangrove propagules to promote germination-they are now in my brackish tank)
Some orange hitchhiker palythoas that came on a piece of liverock
Another piece of liverock and first fish, a firefish
Newest liverock came with a nice hitchhiker mushroom
Lost the firefish to a mysterious injury, added a yellow tail blue damsel and a few small zoa colonies and did a little rearranging (also notice the difference in algae, the tank has really stabilized in the past month or so). Also added a Hydor nano "wave maker" to outflow of the pump. It rotates to constantly change the flow pattern in the tank. The fish and especially the mushroom seem to really prefer it over the constant directional flow before.
The mushroom is growing and about to produce a new polyp
Also added a couple mini/maxi carpet anemones, one green, one purple. The purple one attached to my magnetic algae scraper for a while, but I coaxed it back off into a better spot.
The green one looks really nice under the actinics
Will keep adding updates as I finish the rock work (want more in the top right and center) and add more corals.
Step one: leak test (with some base rock that came with the tank
A few weeks in (sometime in Sept maybe?) with some live rock (and floating some mangrove propagules to promote germination-they are now in my brackish tank)
Some orange hitchhiker palythoas that came on a piece of liverock
Another piece of liverock and first fish, a firefish
Newest liverock came with a nice hitchhiker mushroom
Lost the firefish to a mysterious injury, added a yellow tail blue damsel and a few small zoa colonies and did a little rearranging (also notice the difference in algae, the tank has really stabilized in the past month or so). Also added a Hydor nano "wave maker" to outflow of the pump. It rotates to constantly change the flow pattern in the tank. The fish and especially the mushroom seem to really prefer it over the constant directional flow before.
The mushroom is growing and about to produce a new polyp
Also added a couple mini/maxi carpet anemones, one green, one purple. The purple one attached to my magnetic algae scraper for a while, but I coaxed it back off into a better spot.
The green one looks really nice under the actinics
Will keep adding updates as I finish the rock work (want more in the top right and center) and add more corals.
