It’s been probably 4 or 5 years since we have been active in the reefing community. We moved to Cincy and moved everything from our tanks into 2 100g stock tanks plumbed together. We had to move them into temp housing and then when we finally got into our house. Most things survived the moves, just to have everything wiped out when a heater malfunctioned. We lost probably $10k worth of stuff. That was the beginning of the end of the hobby for us.
Fast forward several years and we now have 2 kids and our own business! More reason why we are out of the community! But my 3.5yo has been begging for a Nemo like all kids go through, so we thought, maybe we should pull a 14 gallon biocube out of the basement and jump back in. I’m hesitant here because I know this is like a gateway drug. We don’t have the time or money to jump back in like we were before, so I’m trying to contain myself. I already find myself dreaming of watching corals open after receiving them in the mail... the water isn’t even in yet!
So here we go... plans are a couple of percs, a yellow clown goby and a neon goby. I have been instructed by Kaiden that we have to have a yellow and blue fish, so that’s what we’re going with. I’m thinking a pep shrimp or 2 would be fun for him to watch. And then hopefully
@kev2me
and I can pace ourselves when adding corals. It’s bad news when we both love this hobby so much! The lights were modded by me way back then with DIY LEDs. I’m sure they’re crazy outdated at this point, but it’ll do. We’ll probably add an MP10 as well. Do those still exist?
Well I plugged the lid in and found that the fan no longer works and I had forgotten one of the LEDs burned out back when my mom was using this tank. Probably because the fan died and she didn’t realize it. I pulled out my LED kit and soldering iron and got to work. LED replaced and fan is on order. If I can toot my own horn, I’m pretty proud of this mod. Looking back at it years later, I did a really clean job and did extras to make this plug and play. Replacing the fan is easy (just as soon as I get it in the mail)!!
Water is filled and salted!
We grabbed a small piece of live rock to get this going. Looks to be a nice piece! I got a stomatella hitchhiker and a zoa or 2. Time will tell if they survive the cycle, but hopefully all of that bacteria helps things out!
We went ahead and added a little prodibio bio digest that we had stored in the basement. No idea if it’s still good all these years later, but it can’t really hurt!
Well the fan came in the mail today and I got the lid all put back together. We’re back in business and that blue glue has returned to our house after way too long!
Our cycle is also underway! I read things about prodibio cycling tanks in 12 hours, but clearly that’s not happening here. Maybe ours is just too old. We won a ton of it in frag swap raffles, so I might as well keep adding it!
Doesn’t look like the stomatella hitchhiker is going to survive the cycle.
We went ahead and added a little prodibio bio digest that we had stored in the basement. No idea if it’s still good all these years later, but it can’t really hurt!
In my experience, any bottled Bacteria/Biological starter has a shelf life of about 1 year. Essentially the bacteria are in a state of suspended animation, but do starve out after a year with no Ammonia. It still certainly can't hurt, it will add to decaying biomass and continue your cycle! lol
"You're gonna need a bigger boat..."-Roy Scheider as "Chief Brody" in "Jaws"
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