Hello from VA

I spent a large portion of my childhood in Newport News.

 

Welcome!

 

I learned something already! Didn't know what an apex controller was! Now I do! Thanks for bringing something new to my attention.

 

welcome to the hobby and forum! would love to see pictures of your setup

 

These are when the tank was cycling. I don't have any recent pictures. My Kessil connected to my Apex makes taking pics difficult because when I'm home the lighting is actinic or close to it. I'll set up my DSLR and get some mid day shots this weekend and I'll also try to get and photoshop some evening pictures to show the corals fluorescing in the actinic. Actinic looks great, but totally washes out my iPhone.

 

very nice! what are your plans for the tank? besides running the apex lol

 

I've got some corals in there now. A hammer, some zoanthids, star polyps, kenya tree, a stylophora pistillata, pavona, porites rus, seriatapora, a piece of green montipora cap, and a small leather. These are all things my in-laws gave me. I have a royal gramma keeping them company. It's sort of a hodgepodge right now. That little rock bridge in the picture, I was planning on placing several different sp of zoanthids on it to make a sort of rainbow.

I'm going to be picking up a pistol shrimp with a goby soon and when my hammer grows a bit larger I want to get some sexy shrimp to go with it. Down the road I'll get a cardinal and a pair of clowns. I'd really like a carpet anemone but that's a pipe dream so a bubble tip it is. I was also thinking about a clam but now I think I'd rather have a pom-pom crab. And when that's all done I'm going to throw in a lionfish and it will be a BATTLE ROYAL!!! Just playing, no lionfish.

Right now I'm fighting my chemistry. Something is eating up my carbonate. My brother-in-law thinks it may be a type of live plankton in the Azox food I was using to feed the corals. After some experimentation I think he might be right because I fed the other day and measured alk and Ca 12 hours later and they both took a big drop. So I'm ditching the Azox food and using Reef Code A/B two part to dose. Once I get my parameters stable I'll give some real thought to my plans for corals in the tank.

 

sounds like you have some great plans for the tank!

 

Yeah, I hope so. I just hope I can get my parameters under control. My alk was 5 dKH last night. I've been fighting to get it back up to 8 ever since I added that coral food. Apparently, as I'm told, plankton will go after the carbon in the carbonate if they have no other carbon source. I'm operating on that concept as my Mg is at a desired concentration, my salinity is right at 1.025 SG, and my Ca has been stable the whole time. So it's just the carbonate taking the nose dive.

I think I'm going to do a 50% water change tomorrow and hope that gets rid of most of the uneaten live plankton. We'll see.

 

OK, got some decent pictures. They're phone pics still. I'll get some DSLR photos with corrected color soon. I'll put it in a feed cycle so Mr. Grandma (our royal gramma) and our peppermint shrimp come out to play.

In the front of the tank from left to right, porites rus, hammer, green monti cap frags with zoanthid frags, and some star polyps. On the rocks is a zoanthid colony, stylophora pistillata, pavona, seriatapora, more green monti cap, and a leather. In back there are three kenya trees. The biggest is the original and he keeps asexually producing new colonies. Good for trade I hope. I've got the green monti cap frags on the bottom because I'm hoping to get them to whorl.

Hope you all like the pics!

Album: New beginnings, a 29 gallon biocube story

by Jim Bonds

Oceanic 29 gallon biocube HQI with stand and protein skimmer. Kessil A160w, Korallia Hydor Nano, Cobalt Aquatics MJ1200 return pump, Cobalt Aquatics Neo-therm 150W heater, Apex controller.