150 DD cube build

I will try and post a picture tonight...i swear every one i try to take with the iphone looks like blobs in a blue lagoon. I need one of those gopro hero's i can stick underwater!

Yeah, it actually came with a nice net cover that came with it but it does not fit on with the canopy and I really do like having the canopy on there. The crazy thing is I have acrylic and glass panels on there so I would say there was a single 6 inch strip in the middle under the light that was open. How that fish found that specific area and made a leap was just really frustrating. He appeared completely content. He had sifted the entire bottom and made himself a great under rock cave that he was tending to. I never saw him off the bottom of the tank so I just never imagined they were leapers.

Thanks for the BRS recommendation. I don't really want to dismantle the one I have in case I ever want to remove the canopy or sell the tank. I will order some up and make a new one. I probably need to make a new one for my 30 gallon cube as well...makes me nervous my lawnmower blenny might try the same thing.

 

Adding a few photos of the rock work but it really is hard to see. I basically built up the primary reef in the back corner with a smaller island in the reverse front corner. It creates a little "channel" between the two structures and also allows me to have an open area from both primary viewing areas (in front of the tank and on the side seated in the chair). It is really cool to have two equally interesting views with the exact same depth. I really enjoy just sitting in the chair and it is very 3-dimensional.









I also did a really simple "mod" and I added 1 inch corner pieces of wood to the 4 corners. They just sit in place. As I spend so much time looking from different sides I found it a little distracting to see the edges of the glass where they meet. I just cut up an angled corner piece of wood and it dressed it right up. It kind of looks like a picture frame from every side.

 

Thanks guys...and a big shout out to Casey for the latest round of rock he sold me....I really like it. I have always been a sucker for the "branched" rock and this stuff is loaded with feather dusters and interesting little inverts. The aquascaping Casey did on his new 180 puts this to shame but I am pretty happy with the amount I have in there now. It seems like a good balance of open and "clustered".

Next steps are to close the top, add a few scavenger fish and slowly add a few soft corals to better evaluate my lighting and determine if I need more. I am also concerned that my JBJ ATO might add a bit too much kalk at once in the topoff water so I am thinking about how I handle that. I was considering adding a second jug filled with kalk and run that off a Tom's aqualifter at the same time as the maxijet/JBJ adds fresh water. This would mean adding much less kalk each time the ATO runs. I suppose I really need to monitor with a PH meter before I mess with it too much or switch to a drip method of some sort.

 

My sump is an eshopps 200 and I guess I figured it adds a good gallon or so when the ATO float switch activates. That just "feels" like a lot of kalkwasser at once. I am trying to encourage coralline algae growth.

 

Thanks again for the feedback sponge! I took your approach and switched out my maxijet for a toms aqua lifter and moved the JBJ ATO to 14 minute cutoffs. That should be plenty slow for adding topoff water and gets rid of the extra jug. Now I will just monitor things to see how potent of a kalk mix i want to use....will start off pretty diluted and just increase as i move forward.

Thanks, it feels like a lot less work to not mess with 2 containers. Trying to keep this as simple as possible! Hopefully the tom's pump can raise the float in under 14 minutes...pretty sure it will.