Hey guys, I'm a regular hand over in the freshwater section, but I thought I'd wander over here and share the 8g retrofitted Biocube I've been working on at my store. The size has been a bit of a challenge to work around (finding interesting, good rock small enough to do an appealing aquascape with has been tough), but I think I've done a pretty decent job so far. These pics were taken about a half hour after a water change was done, so not all the corals are out the way the should be. I also took the photos with my iTouch, so the quality is pretty terrible. I'll try and get better photos once I find my digital camera.





I modified the Biocube slightly. The bioballs came out, and were replaced with a bag of Chemi-Pure Elite, covered with filter floss that gets replaced weekly. The stock filter cartridge came out, and that became the heater compartment. The stock lighting on the 8g Biocube is pretty terrible to begin with, but this one had a ballast burned out so it was only running on one 18w 50/50 bulb...ick. I took the hood off, and hung a Sunshine Systems 32w AquaPanel LED unit over it. The colors and brightness is much, much better in person; the photos really don't do it justice.

In addition, I added a small powerhead with a rotating deflector to help get some more water flow in there, as the stock pump puts out diddly for waterflow. So far it's filled with a mix of zoo's to test it out, with a euphyllia, pink montipora (which is growing awesomely under the LEDs and higher water flow), favites, a leather, and another encrusting coral I'm still trying to identify. I have a coral order coming in on friday with a small blue Crocea clam, so we'll see how well that does under the LEDs.

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Looks like the beginning of an amazing tank. Being open top how bad is the evaporation each day?

Well ,it's so beautiful.

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When i was young ,i had a dream. Blue LED lights

It's manageable, but I do have to be careful and keep track of it each day, otherwise the water level will drop pretty quickly, and in a small tank like that it can be a huge problem.

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Thanks!

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very nice, would like to see pics as it matures

A few updated pics, managed to get my Lumix into work to take a few photos. We got a coral order in from Exotic Reef Imports today, and despite a missing box of corals, the stuff that did show up looked great. Joe sets us up with good stuff.

Anyway, on to the pics!

I forgot to take the macro lens off for this shot... >>



Updated FTS:



Beautiful little blue crocea:



Sexy Shrimp being inspected by the pseudo:



This thing is positively tiny.



Mini-Maxi Carpet, has a wonderful pattern on it. Already open and taking its first mysis shrimp.



The Montipora is growing very nicely; getting about 1/16" of growth a week under these LED's.



Can anyone help me ID this coral?

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Added a few more corals this morning:

Cherry Bomb Eclipse aquacultured Goniopora, muschroom, and a leather:



Blue-Eyed Djibouti aquacultured Goniopora (hard to see the blue eyes on it, but they're there):

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Yeah, so...about that 8g retrofit BioCube. In the process of attempting to remove the top trim tonight, I manage to crack the glass. DOH. Thank god for working in an LFS though; I just went upstairs and grabbed a 14g BioCube off the shelf. It'll at least give me a little more room to work with.

RIP


This is the mini protein skimmer from AquaticLife that came in. This thing is tiny!


Sits nicely against the back wall of the tank, and is held in place with the included trim hook.




I built the rock up around the protein skimmer, both to keep it in place and as a support for the rock. There's plenty of open space behind the rock for critters to live. Sorry for the cloudy pics, I didn't have time to properly let the tank clear up before I took them.



Not really sure what I'm going to do with it at this point. I may toss a bigger powerhead in there and do SPS corals, but I'm still in the deciding stages right now. I'm also hoping the microbubbles coming out of the protein skimmer are just a temporary thing due to it being new. >_>

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Awesome tank Scuff! However, Get rid of that crappy skimmer <_ Throw an Auto-top off unit on there, weekly water changes, and the tank will care for itself