Fishoholic's 20g cubealicious tank (sps explosion)

fishoholic · #1 03-23-2010, 04:08 AM

I've never done a tank journal before so I thought it was about time. I had plans to do ones with my other tanks but I got them set up so fast that by the time I thought about it, it seemed kinda late and pointless.

Anyway I'm not like some people (cough Tony cough cough

) who have a tank and sit around thinking and planing it all out etc. (which can be a good thing) but no, I'm the kind of person who once I have a tank I set it up asap.

In the beginning... (ya, I'm lame but you all should be used to me by now

) on March 14th I went to my uncle's house and saw he had some old small fish tanks sitting around by his pool table. One of them was a cool looking little cube tank (20Lx16wx14h) since I have a thing for cube tanks I asked him about it. He said he'd love to get the tanks out of his house and would give them to me to give them away. So I got thinking (a dangerous thing, I know) about what I could do with a cool little cube tank and on Wednesday (March 17) I came by his house and picked up his old tanks. BTW if anyone is curious the other 2 tanks are a standard 10g and a 15g(ish) long tank.

On Thursday I phoned my friend and asked him about the frog fish he had and we worked out a deal for it and I said I'd come by friday to pick it up. So thursday after work I cleaned the 20g cube tank and filled it to test for leaks. There were no leaks so I emptied it and then picked up a stand from my boyfriend's Dad house. I got it all the way home, went to put the tank on it only to find out that I should of measured the stand 1st and not listened to him when he said it was wide enough, because guess what the cube didn't fit on it! Luckily we had a night stand that we weren't really using that the cube fit perfectly. So I filled the 20g cube and got the salinity and temp. in check. Plugged in the Koralia one only to hear a horrible noise coming from it. Messaged another friend about his koralia nano for sale and hooked up my old 900 maxi jet for flow.

You can see part of the stand (that was too small) off to the side in the background.

fishoholic · #2 03-23-2010, 04:47 AM

So on Friday I go to my friends place pick up live rock, lights, and a better heater and my other friend met me there with his koralia nano

I'm thinking yay it's all coming together. We go out for dinner and when we came back we go to get the frog fish and it's dead!

He had it for about a year and neither one of us could hardly believe that it was really dead, but unfortunately it really was

I'm hoping in the nearish future I can get another frogfish for my tank.

But for now I have a 20g cube tank with a bunch of yellow tail damsels in it, I gave the other types of damsels away. I also have a dumb blenny in it right now (since he likes to jump) and that's why there is a funny egg create/mesh screen/gutter guard lid on the tank. I also have my one rock from my reef tank in the 20g with my AI power head (for all you Edmontonians who will know what I'm talking about) red zoos on it. For some reason all my zoos melted in my reef tank and when these ones started to go, I thought I'd try putting them in the 20g. That way my reef rock could help further seed the new somewhat already cured rock, and maybe my zoos wouldn't melt.

The maxi jet was a bit noisy so I went to a LFS and I bought a new propeller
for the koralia one I have. Now it works great and is nice and quiet.

I have only had this tank set up for 4 days and I have changed out some rock twice now (got ones now that are all aptasia free) and have moved the rock work around 4 times. I like how the rock work is now but I will have to move it around again when I need to get the blenny out.

Here's how it looks now. When I get the blenny out I will take the makeshift lid off and put the legs for the lights back on.

makeshift lid

Oh and FYI don't clean the hard salt spot on the glass with your shirt sleeve. As you can see by the pen lid poking through, when you do that you risk putting a hole in your shirt

(still can't believe I did that!)

noirsphynx · #3 03-23-2010, 02:00 PM

Awesome little tank Laurie! Following along on this one

Sorry to hear about the frog fish..........I think Ken has a variety of them coming in.

christyf5 · #4 03-23-2010, 03:26 PM

Cute little tank

I love those wee little powerheads, I was trying to figure out how to put one in my nano but it really doesn't need one, I just wanted one cuz they were so cute

One question, I see one of the lids you have on there has some sort of mesh screen on it. I'm thinking I might have to invest in some sort of lid, is that screen part of a reptile setup or did you build it? If so where did you get the screening? Its not the same stuff that you use for screen doors is it, it looks a bit larger. I was wracking my brain last night trying to figure out something that was less unsightly (and smaller holes) than eggcrate but larger than screen door screening.

Any ideas?

DCDN · #5 03-23-2010, 04:00 PM

Really sorry to hear about the frogfish. I've really been looking at them. Hopefully you can still get one sometime in the future. Tank looks great so far.

Skimmerking · #6 03-23-2010, 04:07 PM

I like it can't wait to see that one too . . oh ya

fishoholic · #7 03-23-2010, 06:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by christyf5

Cute little tank

I love those wee little powerheads, I was trying to figure out how to put one in my nano but it really doesn't need one, I just wanted one cuz they were so cute

One question, I see one of the lids you have on there has some sort of mesh screen on it. I'm thinking I might have to invest in some sort of lid, is that screen part of a reptile setup or did you build it? If so where did you get the screening? Its not the same stuff that you use for screen doors is it, it looks a bit larger. I was wracking my brain last night trying to figure out something that was less unsightly (and smaller holes) than eggcrate but larger than screen door screening.

Any ideas?

I agree the little power heads are pretty cute.

The screen (as far as I'm aware) is a lid for part of a reptile 10g set up, I can't remember were I got it from but I found it in my house with a 10g tank. I don't know if it was bought that way or if someone else made it. When I get home I can post better pic.'s of it, my boyfriend might know were it came form or how to make one like it, I'll ask him and let you know. What size is your nano tank? Maybe you could find a reptile lid to fit it.

christyf5 · #8 03-23-2010, 07:05 PM

No, it won't be for the nano. The nano was fishless until I found a little eviota goby swimming around in the overflow. I thought he died during an autotopoff accident but he's still hanging around in there munching on copepods (I never feed the tank, now I'm like should I? He's been fine all this time) Anyway, I haven't managed to fish him out yet and am thinking theres probably more copepods in the back forty anyways.

Whoops got a little off track there, talk about hijacking. Anyway, the screening is for the big tank, I'm just wondering if I should be preparing for the arrival of a jumper or if he'll just be living in the overflow constantly. I'm thinking since this is pretty much equivalent to the second coming (in my world anyways

) I should get some screening. Maybe I'll have a look at home hardware after work.

fishoholic · #9 03-23-2010, 07:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by christyf5

No, it won't be for the nano. The nano was fishless until I found a little eviota goby swimming around in the overflow. I thought he died during an autotopoff accident but he's still hanging around in there munching on copepods (I never feed the tank, now I'm like should I? He's been fine all this time) Anyway, I haven't managed to fish him out yet and am thinking theres probably more copepods in the back forty anyways.

Whoops got a little off track there, talk about hijacking. Anyway, the screening is for the big tank, I'm just wondering if I should be preparing for the arrival of a jumper or if he'll just be living in the overflow constantly. I'm thinking since this is pretty much equivalent to the second coming (in my world anyways

) I should get some screening. Maybe I'll have a look at home hardware after work.

It's not really hijacking when you're answering my question. I would feel the need to put the eviota goby in the tank and start feeding it, however then he'd probably just go back into the overflow and prefer to eat pods so there might not be much of a point to doing it. I'm a lot of help aren't I

I would definately look into getting some kind of screen/cover if you're going to add a redspotted blenny. Unfortunately I found mine dead this morning

I'm not sure if when he jumped out of the tank Sunday night it did more damage to him then we thought (he seemed ok after Steve put him back in and seemed ok all day yesterday) or if maybe the damsels in the tank killed him or if because it just was set up if that has something to do with it. I'm going to do a water change tonight and test the levels again. Everything was good last I checked but I'll check again to make sure.

christyf5 · #10 03-23-2010, 07:38 PM

Aww man!! That totally sucks

Yeah I didn't see much point in moving the goby and I didn't want to overly stress him out if the likelihood is that he'll end up back in the overflow. I do miss seeing him though, however feeding the tank is a bit of a nightmare (algae growth).

Quote:

Originally Posted by fishoholic

It's not really hijacking when you're answering my question. I would feel the need to put the eviota goby in the tank and start feeding it, however then he'd probably just go back into the overflow and prefer to eat pods so there might not be much of a point to doing it. I'm a lot of help aren't I

I would definately look into getting some kind of screen/cover if you're going to add a redspotted blenny. Unfortunately I found mine dead this morning

I'm not sure if when he jumped out of the tank Sunday night it did more damage to him then we thought (he seemed ok after Steve put him back in and seemed ok all day yesterday) or if maybe the damsels in the tank killed him or if because it just was set up if that has something to do with it. I'm going to do a water change tonight and test the levels again. Everything was good last I checked but I'll check again to make sure.