illumnae's 2ft cube reef tank

[illumnae]

Hi all! After about a year mucking around trying various combinations of predator tanks, I decided to settle down a little and try something a little more mainstream. After seeing so many of your beautiful tanks here in this forum, I decided to give an SPS dominated reef tank a try, instead of spending my time and money watching lionfish after lionfish die

Given that I'm an absolute newbie when it comes to SPS, I decided to follow an established brand regime instead of trying to achieve SPS worthy parameters myself, because I know I lack the discipline to try and keep the livestock and feeding low, and also if I experiment around myself with various methods, I know my hands will be itchy to keep tinkering around and I'll never achieve a stable tank, which is essential when keeping SPS. So after lots of research and taking into account advice given on the thread I posted, I decided to go with the Fauna Marin system! Costs me a bomb to start up this system, but I think if it really delivers the results then it would definitely be worth it!

I've ordered the tank (supposed to be delivered tomorrow, but delayed a day till Saturday - hope no more delays!) and bought most of what I need to start up already, so I can't wait for this weekend to get things rolling!

Here's some of the specs:

Tank: 2 x 2 x 2 ft glass tank with beananimal overflow (almost coast-to-coast but a few inches leeway on each side to allow for return pipe)

Light: Aqua Illumination Hydra 52

Skimmer: Bubble Magus Curve 7

Reactor: Gem Surfs Reeftech Zeovit Reactor Z100-B

Chiller: Hailea HC-150A

Return: Jebao DC-6000 with 3 outlet return manifold to power return, chiller and reactor (1 spare for carbon reactor if needed)

Wavemaker: Maxspect Gyre XF130

Hardscape: Aquaroche

Substrate: Caribsea Arag-Alive Bimini Pink 40lb

Salt: Fauna Marin

Dosing: Fauna Marin Balling Lite and Zeolight system

Really hope to succeed with this setup!

[illumnae]

Delivery earlier today!

I need to head down to iwarna to grab a few more small pieces of Aquaroche plates to complete my scape.

[Harlequinmania]

Wow.. full fauna marine system!

Please share some of your tank pics

[Lee Hon Myung]

sweee! will be following your page closely, thinking of adopting the fauna marin system too!

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[illumnae]

I'll try my best to do justice to the FM system. I hope I don't mess it up

[Admiraltian]

Keen to know how's the fm system goes compared to zeovit. Camping here.

[zorden]

Follow

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[illumnae]

Tank delivered and being set up! Was delayed by 1 day as cabinet wasn't ready.

[Bunster]

Congrats on the new tank!

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[illumnae]

Thank you! They made the return manifold size wrong so now going to buy hose reducer. Hope this setup will be complete before 4pm when iwarna comes to fill in water

[anmiheng]

Haha.... Excited!!!!

[illumnae]

Yup very excited! Now waiting for water and sand

[illumnae]

I haven't plugged the AI Director in to sync with my light yet. I hope it won't be too complicated... The tank isn't very near my router so hopefully can detect. If all goes well I may convert all my tanks to Hydra52

[illumnae]

Sand is in, water is in, light is set up! CRA did the beananimal overflow wrongly by having the emergency drain durst far down too so that needs to be rectified.

Other than that, cycle started, with first dose of FM bacteria tomorrow! I soaked the dry aquaroche in bacteria concentrated water so that all the pores would soak up bacteria and not just water. Turns them into "live rock" without the pest hitchhikers. I'll be heading to lck to buy pods tomorrow too.

[anmiheng]

Swee swee lah!!!

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[PoorPicasso]

Nice. Fast movement

[illumnae]

Parameters after 2 days of cycling with rotting ghost shrimp (from my Lionfish feeder shrimp box)

Ca: 484

kH: 7.1

Mg: 980

Ammonia: 0

Nitrites: 0

Nitrates: 2

Phosphate: 0.35

I used Iwarna ultra filtered NSW, and the basic 3 parameters are very very out of whack. Phosphates are high, but it seems that my bacteria innoculation works as I'm already seeing Nitrates on day 2. What I did was to prepare a "bacteria soup" 2 days beforehand by loading NSW with Seachem Stability, Prodibio Biodigest, Microbe-Lift Nite Out II, Brightwell Aquatics Microbacter 7 and throw in some Prodibio Bioptim and rotting ghost shrimp. I left the mixture overnight for the bacteria to start multiplying when feeding on the rotting ghost shrimp and Bioptim, then soaked my dry Aquaroche rocks inside the "bacteria soup" overnight before placing into the tank. What this does is suck all the bacteria laiden water deep into the pores of the Aquaroche, effectively creating a "Live Rock" effect instead of waiting for the bacteria to slowly populate the insides of the Aquaroche. While bacteria dosing into the water column does work, I believe that this process speeds it up alot because it drives the bacteria deep into the pores of the rock.

I have been dosing the FM "basic 3" - UltraBio @ 100% recommended dose, UltraBak and UltraMin S at 20% recommended dose per FuEL's recommendation. I have also so far dosed 1 vial of Biodigest and 1 vial of Bioptim.

Will keep up with the FM dosing daily and hope that the nitrates remain low and Phosphates go down.

[tofubox]

Tank delivered and being set up! Was delayed by 1 day as cabinet wasn't ready.

Haha, i see two very familiar faces from CRA. They help me move my tank.

Anyway, great setup! Hope to hear more on FM products!

[illumnae]

Thanks bro, CRA did the piping wrongly for me, all 3 durso facing down, so no emergency drain. When deaquatic called them (tank ordered from deaquatic made by cra), they ask me fix it myself. Up till now still not done. I don't want to touch it in case void the warranty if anything goes wrong. Quite dissatisfied with their service,they haven't changed since my last bad experience a few years back. Bopian I guess since their quality and reputation is good, they can afford to slip on basic service.

[Admiraltian]

Thanks bro, CRA did the piping wrongly for me, all 3 durso facing down, so no emergency drain. When deaquatic called them (tank ordered from deaquatic made by cra), they ask me fix it myself. Up till now still not done. I don't want to touch it in case void the warranty if anything goes wrong. Quite dissatisfied with their service,they haven't changed since my last bad experience a few years back. Bopian I guess since their quality and reputation is good, they can afford to slip on basic service.

That's sounds bad. Hope everything for ur tank is working fine now. Gd idea in soaking ur aquaroche in bacteria culture overbite before placing in ur DT.

[Bunster]

Sorry to hear about your experience... Would think twice about ordering anything from them now. Hope they realise that their reputation is at stake and rectify the problem soon

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[Yono_Pranata]

nice scaping! anyway how is the piping problem bro? Resolved?

[illumnae]

Thanks everyone for the encouragement! Edmund from DE Aquatic rushed down during his lunch break for Aquarama setup to get it done for me. No sound no sight from CRA.

The tank itself is progressing well! Cycle has definitely completed as Nitrates went up to 10, then dropped to 0.5 as at today. Ammonia and Nitrites have remained at 0. I've added in some Phosphate remover as well, since my Phosphates are inexplicably high. Dropped from 0.35 to 0.17 today, will leave the remover in the tank till it drops to undetectable levels. Looks like my idea of "creating" live rock from dead rock works very well! I more or less had a 1 or 2 day cycle. Could be the dosing of Fauna Marin basic 3 (Ultra Bio, Ultra Bak and Ultra Min S) in conjunction with Prodibio Biodigest and Prodibio Bioptim too. I will stop the Prodibio dosing from today onwards and just do Fauna Marin.

I've added in some Strombus conches and Yellow Arrow Shrimp from Iwarna's Philippines shipment earlier this week, and will be adding in Nassarius and Trochus snails later today. Hoping to be able to grab a couple of emerald crabs from Iwarna's shipment tomorrow over the weekend to round up my cleanup crew - fingers crossed that they will have leftovers since I can't drop by tomorrow.

The first fish has already gone into the tank as well. Original plan was to quarantine the fish using Tank Transfer method for 12 days, but it looked so stressed and miserable in the QT tank that I was afraid it would die,and so I took the risk and put it straight into the tank. Thankfully it was swimming around looking alright this morning after spending the whole night buried in the sand. Can anyone guess what the fish is? I picked it up yesterday

[patricklhc]

Shares with us what fish is so lucky to first go into your tank

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[Ken_ng]

Thanks everyone for the encouragement! Edmund from DE Aquatic rushed down during his lunch break for Aquarama setup to get it done for me. No sound no sight from CRA.

The tank itself is progressing well! Cycle has definitely completed as Nitrates went up to 10, then dropped to 0.5 as at today. Ammonia and Nitrites have remained at 0. I've added in some Phosphate remover as well, since my Phosphates are inexplicably high. Dropped from 0.35 to 0.17 today, will leave the remover in the tank till it drops to undetectable levels. Looks like my idea of "creating" live rock from dead rock works very well! I more or less had a 1 or 2 day cycle. Could be the dosing of Fauna Marin basic 3 (Ultra Bio, Ultra Bak and Ultra Min S) in conjunction with Prodibio Biodigest and Prodibio Bioptim too. I will stop the Prodibio dosing from today onwards and just do Fauna Marin.

I've added in some Strombus conches and Yellow Arrow Shrimp from Iwarna's Philippines shipment earlier this week, and will be adding in Nassarius and Trochus snails later today. Hoping to be able to grab a couple of emerald crabs from Iwarna's shipment tomorrow over the weekend to round up my cleanup crew - fingers crossed that they will have leftovers since I can't drop by tomorrow.

The first fish has already gone into the tank as well. Original plan was to quarantine the fish using Tank Transfer method for 12 days, but it looked so stressed and miserable in the QT tank that I was afraid it would die,and so I took the risk and put it straight into the tank. Thankfully it was swimming around looking alright this morning after spending the whole night buried in the sand. Can anyone guess what the fish is? I picked it up yesterday

Iwarna shipment?

Which goby?