Brent’s Red Sea Desktop Cube (1 Viewer)

[Bschowa]

I have been out of the hobby for about 5 years but decided to jump back in with a small tank to see if I still enjoy it as much now that I have kids



Picked up a desktop cube tank because I liked the idea of being able to pick my own equipment and the size was perfect.

Tank has been wet since mid november, with no livestock in it, mid February I put some pods snd snails in and then 2 weeks ago I found a pair of clownfish and frogspawn on Facebook that were my first corals and fish in the tank. I took a zoanthid frag I was fif at Jonty’s meeting out of quarantine last weekend and put that on 3 plugs to add some color to the tank

I have entered the ugly stages of the tank right now with algae growing on the glass and instantly taking over the frags of zoanthids which I am unsure of id

I

If anyone out there can point me in the right direction it would be appreciated. The algae on the glass needs to be scraped with a razor to get them off, not sure on the zoanthids but I plan on doing a hydrogen peroxide dip when I do my water change.


Here is a graph of my nitrates and phosphates I test weekly as of now and just am tracking them to see what is needed, following the test I do a 10 gallon (50%) water change.
The item I felt was weird this week was the phosphates continued on their swing like usual and the nitrates bottomed out I tested multiple times to be sure. Could this be caused by the algae growth?

Also if anyone has any suggestions for nutrient export in an all in one tank such as this I would appreciate it as well, my current system is to do the water changes and use poly filter pad as a filter sock as the filter sock chamber is 2.5” maybe? It came with a mesh sock but I always used to use a felt sock and change them out to hopefully reduce nutrients that way.


Can’t wait for the frag swap to start grabbing a few more corals!


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[postie1686]

I love those little hygger power heads for small tanks!

 

[Bschowa]

I love those little hygger power heads for small tanks!

They do seem pretty nice, not sure on longevity but as far as footprint and looks I really like them. I have them turned down as far as I can and they seem like they provide the perfect amount of flow for my current stock list!

This is the tank I got from you actually haha, it has been a very slow process!


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[postie1686]

lol I figured it was probably that tank! As far as the power head goes I’ve had mine running for 14 months and never clean it

 

[jlanger]

You didn't mention the size of the tank, but managing nutrients on something as small as a desktop should be achieved with regular water exchanges. Depending on the eventual bio load, you may need to do 50% water exchanges to keep the nutrient levels in check.
If you run mechanical filtration, changing out the floss or pad every couple days will also help mitigate an increase in nutrients. It doesn't take long for trapped food to break down and dirty up the water.

As far as the algae on the glass, does it look "feathery" like bryopsis? That's an annoying algae, for sure.

 

[Bschowa]

You didn't mention the size of the tank, but managing nutrients on something as small as a desktop should be achieved with regular water exchanges. Depending on the eventual bio load, you may need to do 50% water exchanges to keep the nutrient levels in check.
If you run mechanical filtration, changing out the floss or pad every couple days will also help mitigate an increase in nutrients. It doesn't take long for trapped food to break down and dirty up the water.

As far as the algae on the glass, does it look "feathery" like bryopsis? That's an annoying algae, for sure.

Sorry, the tank is approximately 20 gallons so my thought process was on board with just water changes, I like the idea of potentially Adding some sort of skimmer/export method but with the low profile of the Aio chamber I’m finding it hard to even add something as simple as carbon efficiently.

Here is some more pictures of it. It seems to grow from a main “ball” in the center and add “legs” each day on the glass, they only had 3 “legs” the last time I tried to take pictures

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[jlanger]

Sorry, the tank is approximately 20 gallons so my thought process was on board with just water changes, I like the idea of potentially Adding some sort of skimmer/export method but with the low profile of the Aio chamber I’m finding it hard to even add something as simple as carbon efficiently.

Here is some more pictures of it. It seems to grow from a main “ball” in the center and add “legs” each day on the glass, they only had 3 “legs” the last time I tried to take pictures

I would do large water changes. Even at ten gallons, it's not that difficult or expensive.

To me, that does look like a species of bryopsis which can be treated. Many people have used a fluconazole treatment; Reef Flux perhaps.
I had some of it show up on frags and I manually removed it along with using peroxide and a toothbrush to scrub the plugs. You could give the frags a peroxide bath if manual removal/brushing cannot get in between those polyps.

 

[Bschowa]

I would do large water changes. Even at ten gallons, it's not that difficult or expensive.

To me, that does look like a species of bryopsis which can be treated. Many people have used a fluconazole treatment; Reef Flux perhaps.
I had some of it show up on frags and I manually removed it along with using peroxide and a toothbrush to scrub the plugs. You could give the frags a peroxide bath if manual removal/brushing cannot get in between those polyps.

Thanks for the help! I will start looking into bryopsis treatments


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[Bschowa]

Tank has been running fairly smoothly for a while now, adding a bubble tip today and hopefully a stick or two in the coming months


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[asifiqbal2]

Looking good! This could be just parallax but are both the power heads placed on the back wall ? Or one is further front

 

[Bschowa]

They are both running along the back wall, I occasionally move the one on the left to the front of the tank but I’ve found with the return pump pushing water forward everything seems to swirl pretty good around the tank. And as far as visually it definitely looks better without a pump in the middle of your view from the side of the tank


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[asifiqbal2]

Got it. Yeah , visually would look better in the back. Looks like you have your flow form and function down.

 

[Bschowa]

Definitely works for now with just hammers and zoanthids I’m sure I will have to fine tune things in the future when I start adding sps


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[Bschowa]

It has been a while since I have programmed an advanced apex control, just wanted to verify that this is the correct format

Fallback OFF
If pH > 8.4 Then OFF
If Time 22:00 to 12:59 Then ON
OSC 0:00/6:00/54:00 Then ON

I am looking to set up a 1.1 dosing pump I’ve got laying around to dose kalk for 6 min per hour between 10 pm and 1pm with a failsafe that turns it off if the ph rises above 8.4

Does this look correct?

Is this a better option to space things out a bit more?

Fallback OFF
If pH > 8.4 Then OFF
If Time 22:00 to 12:59 Then ON
OSC 0:00/1:00/9:00 Then ON


I figured I would start low and gradually increase dosing time until I dial it in but wanted to start low as it is a small tank with very little coral load


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[spsick]

I think the time and OSC statements may conflict but I’m a bit rusty. @Ben Nicholls is the resident expert.

 

[Bschowa]

It is possible I had some lines flipped because it turned on at 5 which should have been outside of the window since my lights are on

Here is my updated code, hoping that it does not turn on at 6 here

Fallback OFF
OSC 000:00/001:00/009:00 Then ON
If Time 13:00 to 21:59 Then OFF
If pH > 8.40 Then OFF


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[Bschowa]

Does anyone have a direction I should look for this strand of algae? I’ve been treating it similar to hair algae and having issues with getting it to disappear,

Started as a small chunk on a zoanthid frag plug and has grown to this whole rock now, pulling the rock out and dipping in peroxide after scrubbing with a tooth brush makes it look alright for a week or so and then it comes back with a vengeance almost worse as if I am spreading it

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[Fish'InMN]

If it is more feathery than hair algae then it might be bryopsis. Your description matches my experience in that none of the normal algae fixes work. I believe there's a couple treatment options these days either fluconazole (sp?) from a vet or pharmacist, or I thought there was a commercial product I can't remember the name of...

 

[Bschowa]

If it is more feathery than hair algae then it might be bryopsis. Your description matches my experience in that none of the normal algae fixes work. I believe there's a couple treatment options these days either fluconazole (sp?) from a vet or pharmacist, or I thought there was a commercial product I can't remember the name of...

Doesn’t really look feathery as what the briopsis pictures look like on google, but I did experiment with reef flux in a quarantine tank and that did not appear to make a difference.

My nitrates were at 2.8 and my phosphate is at .11 as of Tuesday night

It seems like it gets worse when I do a water change which is about 50% every two weeks with nyos pure salt

And I’m only feeding my tank once a day at night with 2 clownfish and a flame hawk fish

But being an all in one tank my nutrient export seems to be very limited and I have been using water changes as my main source


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[clownnut]

hair algae, get a few hermit crabs, and put them in a cage with the frag for a few days.
to keep nutrients in check and get something that will eat them for long term.