Jahmic's Tasty Cubed Reef Recipe

jahmic

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#1
Decided it was time for a larger tank, so I picked up Martin's cube...here we go.

Ingredients

Equipment
85 gallon cube
Reeflo Dart/Snapper Hybrid - running Dart impeller (closed loop)
Quiet One 2200 (return pump)
(2x) MP10wes
Jebau WP10
CADlights TIA-1150
ViaAqua 300W titanium heater
25W AquaUV sterilizer (w/ MJ1200)
TLF reactor - carbon (w/ MJ900)
Ecotech Radion Pro (G2)
Apex Jr. - Neptune AFS - Neptune WXM module
JBJ ATO system (w/ Tom's Aqualifter)

Livestock - Fish
Yellow Coris Wrasse
Red-lined Wrasse
Red Velvet Fairy Wrasse
Chalk Basslet
Starry Blenny
Da Vinci Clown pair
Kole Tang

Livestock - Inverts
Skunk cleaner shrimp pair
E. quadricolor x 10
E. crucifer x 6
Gorgonian
Watermelon Chalice
Green Birdsnest
Green Montipora cap.
Red Monitpora cap.
Starburst Montipora
Yellow Scroll Coral
 
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09bumblebee

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#2
Sweet Khalis can't wait to see the build.
 

jahmic

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#4
Re: Jahmic's Tasty Cubed Reef Recipe

This build almost didn't happen...so thanks to everyone that purchased livestock and equipment over the past few weeks. And a HUGE thanks to everyone for their personal support over the past couple weeks as I dealt with the sudden illness and loss of my pup. I was honestly thinking it was time to get out of the hobby due to all of the stress...but am now instead finding myself engrossed in what has been a very therapeutic build. :)

Ok...on to the build!

Yes...my place is tiny. I had to sell the FW tank and play some furniture tetris...here's a pic of the chaos that had to happen to squeeze in the new tank.



Thanks to Gabe I got the tank outside and cleaned out the coralline over the weekend. Mike and Cindy snuck up on me while my head was in the tank though...I think they felt bad for startling me or something, because Mike volunteered to jump in next. ;)

Before polishing:



Midway through polishing:



After polishing:



Loving the clarity. Will probably cuss my first big scratch in the tank, but at least the tank was light enough for me to get it out of my car and on to the stand by myself without incident. I should have filmed that fiasco...it wasn't graceful by any means lol.

Also worth mentioning...this combo is awesome for hand polishing:



I had to get in to the corners after Mike worked on the tank with the buffing wheel. The magic eraser and plastx cleaned up the tight spots with ease. It'd be tedious and time consuming to do the entire tank by hand, but at least I have something ready for the first inevitable light scratch on the outside of the tank. ;)
 

jahmic

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#5
Re: Jahmic's Tasty Cubed Reef Recipe

Time to slowly start scaping...



That's about 60lb of rock. It's ridiculously porous compared to the rock I have in my other tanks, so I'm thinking that I should be able to get away with just this amount in the display. I will likely grab a couple more pieces of dry rock for the fuge, and seed it with some rubble from my other tank...but I cherry picked these pieces for the DT. Hopefully I can make it work!
 

jahmic

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#8
Re: Jahmic's Tasty Cubed Reef Recipe

09bumblebee;239743 said:
Dang your not messing around.
Haha!

The tank still does need to be plumbed, so I'm not off to the races quite yet. For now I'm just stacking rocks temporarily on cardboard. ;)
 

CRW Reef

Blue Whale
M.A.S.C Club Member
ex-officio
#9
Re: Jahmic's Tasty Cubed Reef Recipe

Woe khalis now that's a nice upgrade man!!!! So you have all three tanks running right now?
 

jahmic

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#11
Re: Jahmic's Tasty Cubed Reef Recipe

xjmav;239752 said:
I have a ton of dry rock. You helped me a few times lol, come pick some out if needed

Much appreciated. I'll be in touch soon.

MartinsReef;239745 said:
Man that is one "NICE" cube! LOL Great Job!
Thanks again Martin. Can't get over how nice this stand looks as a centerpiece in my home. :)

CRW Reef;239751 said:
Woe khalis now that's a nice upgrade man!!!! So you have all three tanks running right now?

Well this new tank isn't up and running quite yet... but soon enough, yes...3 tanks will be going. The nanocube will be coming down once the fish are moved over...there are only a few pieces of coral left in there now.

I'm on the fence about keeping the 20 long going...kinda playing that by ear. I enjoy the tank, but need to decide if it's worth the cost and time.

matt.radich;239735 said:
following this one for sure... I'm gonna have to get down there and see this one in person
Always welcome. I have some zoas for you whenever your tank is ready. ;)
 

jahmic

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#12
Re: Jahmic's Tasty Cubed Reef Recipe

Think I have one formation figured out...

That rock on the bottom will be mostly buried in the sand...



Really diggin this rock. I dipped it in muriatic acid over the weekend to remove any bound organics and open up some of the passages through the rock. That helped a ton in trying to find spots to chisel away at...ended up making a nice little tunnel in this one.

Before



After

 
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jahmic

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#13
Re: Jahmic's Tasty Cubed Reef Recipe

Started stacking rock before bed. Bad idea. ;)

I had this basic scape in mind from the start. The idea was to open up a diagonal lane through the middle of tank in hopes that it would encourage the fish to use some more swimming space. Came up with this...



...and decided that it looked too good to risk toppling it in an attempt to move it out of the middle of the floor. Rather than take pics and reassemble it later, I decided to commit and grabbed the mortar. Only one of the "feet" on the larger pillar didn't set...there just wasn't enough surface area contacting between the two rocks.
 
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Haulin Oates

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#16
Jahmic's Tasty Cubed Reef Recipe

I was wondering where this cube ended up!! I can't wait to see this running!!
 

JNG

Butterfly Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#17
Going to be nice watching this one come together. The stand is a beauty, seen that in person down Martins. Good grab Khalis :)
 

aztecdreams

Bat Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#20
Jahmic's Tasty Cubed Reef Recipe

Nice! If you need any help I'm right down the street. I have some acrylic polishing/buffing/scratch removal stuff. I can also frag some Sps for when you get it going
 
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