Perry's AIO 50 cube
 

Hello fellow gurus :)
Well the home improvements are nearly complete, and I sold off the old system in order to make these projects happen. My fiance and I painted the entire interior of the home, and my dad and I installed new laminate wood flooring. I knew the 120 had to come down in order to make this project happen. That said, we had a perfect corner to put a smaller setup, and I scored a prototype Waterbox 50 gallon AIO cube from work. So, I am back with a new setup that will be of the mixed variety. Alright then, on to the system setup and equipment.

Tank: 52.4 Waterbox AIO rimless all panels low iron glass(dual overflows)
Skimmer: Aquamaxx WS-1 skimmer
Lighting: Kessil A360W and Kessil A160W
Top Off: Pacific Sun Sentry
Doser: E-shops twin doser and Bubble Magus single doser
Controller: DA RK Lite
Powerhead: Soon to come
Pump: Eco Pump (350gph)

In the tank:
Rock: Mixture of Live Fiji Air Rock, and Real Reef Rock(total around 40lbs.)
Fish: Pair of True Percs, pair of Black ORA cardinals, long nosed hawkfish
Inverts: 20 sps frags, scoly, ricordea garden, acans, a few zoas, 2 fighting conchs, misc snails and hermits

System:
AF Probiotic Reef Salt
AF Vitality, Amino Mix, Build, and Energy
AF Life Bio Fil(passive in media tray box)
AF Carbon(passive in media tray box)
AF NP Pro
AF Pro Bio S

Great to see you up and running. I am sure this will be a beautiful system.
What was the deciding factor for you to chose the Kessils?
Are you starting completely from scratch or did save any of your old acros?
Will be subscribed and following along.

Subscribing! Glad you're back!

Hey Perry!
Glad to see you back! :)
Yes, I'm also intrigued by your lighting choice.
Also wondering if you've kept frags from the old system
Looking forward to watching this system grow out.
Any thoughts on using AF Life Source?

Hi Kevin,
I went with kessils cause we had some returned laying around that we could not really do anything with. So, the a160w is running only blue at 50% and the a360w is running around 60% with around a 20k look. Trying to go kind of easy on the lighting and let things settle in. The corals all came from LFS that took my colonies. I have been up and running for a few weeks, and some livestock transferred over from a 25 gallon lagoon, fish and rics, and polyps. Yesterday I called the LFS and told him a price, and to pick out around 10 sps frags. To my amazement, Steve hooked me up with 20 beautiful frags. Some were high $ named frags. Thanks for checking things out, hope all is well!

Thanks Brandon, Yeah you cannot keep a sps junkie tankless for too long, lol :)

Hey Matt,
Covered the lighting deal in Kevin's post, and starting fresh with new frags. All of them are sweet, and named, but I did not write them all down, and nor do I really care, lol.. As far as Life Bio Fil, I am using 1 liter in a mesh bag, in the media tray in the overflow of the tank. I am also running carbon, and have a spot for phosphate remover if needed. The Life Bio Fil is pumice, so a biological media to help with nutrients, but comes pre-loaded with Bacteria. The skimmer seems to be up to the challenge and rocks, but, I will be running ULNS, so it will be important to have a large area for bacteria to home. So glad to be back with a new setup, our home apperance has been greatly improved, and the tank brings it all together. I am stoked to have a small easy to run little system. I think I will be able to pull off something pretty sweet, time will tell :) Thanks Matt!!!

Thanks Perry, looking forward to this tank.
I was asking about AF Life Source, the mud..
Wondering about it as a contained, in sump sand bed as opposed to broadcast dosing it which sounds messy to me..

Nice Perry! Looking forward to following along

Perry.... knowing your skills this will be a beautiful tank in short time.

Cheers
Daniel !!

Pictures please !!

Hey Matt,
From my understanding, this is dosed into a high flow area, apparently the water will temporarily get cloudy, but return to normal. I will likely take some home to try, I can then have a better understanding. I will update you as I begin use.
Cheers!

Thank You Connor,
I am really trying to keep this tank as simple and stylish as possible. I feel with the 2 kessils, I will be able to create sufficient light for sps. I love the simple look of this tank, and so does my fiance, so after all the hard work on home improvements, I must keep things tidy, or else....LOL :)

Hi Daniel,
Thank you for the vote of confidence. We shall see... I will put up some pics real soon, but nothing really impressive enough to share yet :)
Thanks Daniel!

Really pleased to see you getting a reef running again Perry, looking forward to seeing it all come together buddy :thumbsup:

Thank You Andrew!

The tank is running great, I am doing nothing but Probiotic Reef Salt changes weekly, and trying to dial in the exact parameters. So far so good, I have lost a few testers, but that is on me and my lack of knowledge for LED's. They provide more light than I would normally see with me eyes, so I am still trying to get it....LOL... Soon I will feel confident to show something other than boring... :) Nothing but frag sticks and my flubber ;)

Intro Video

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Nice intro. Looking good Perry!
Will be neet to see the acros growing out from the pyramid.

Nice to see this thread, looking forward to seeing the progress!

Awesome looking tank now. Those sps frags once grown are going to look sweet. Can't wait to see it.

Thank You Matt!!! We shall see, I have an update though, and it will be a great move for me.

Thanks Mark,
Smaller for now, I love the simplicity, and feel as though I can will be more than satisfied with the smaller setup.

Thanks Bro!

Update:

Lighting will change in a week or so.
I purchased a brand new Hamiliton Cayman Sun pendant, and will be using a 20K Radium 250watt bulb. I will still use the Kesslil A160WE to supplement with blue up and down ramping. I plan to run the halide for 7 hours a day only.
Thanks for checking things out, I will update as soon as the new light comes in :)

My name is Matthew Graham and I approve of this message. :)

Awesome. Can't wait to see the tank with the halide on top.

Great stuff!

Will having the the MH change the nature of the reef? Will it still be a mixed reef or will it now be sps dominate?

Best fortune with all that you do.

Kevin

Nice work Perry! I'm a little sad to see the larger system go but it will be fun to follow the new tank!

LOL,
I am glad you approve Mr. Graham :) You really cannot go wrong with a single 250watt radium over this footprint, should light this tank to perfection!

Hopefully next week man, I am stoked and this should work perfectly :)

Thank You Kevin! I have grown way too fond over ricordeas, my scoly, acans, etc... So I will keep them all in one tank and try to balance health for all corals, this will be tricky, but I think for me the halide will be easier. I am certain I could get it done with LED, but I KNOW 100% that I can achieve coloration with halides. I just do not have the confidence with LED, already burned a few acro frags and bleached a couple more. With t5 and halide, this would not have happened. The human eye cannot capture certain sensitivity in LED that you can with more linear lighting, this causes amateurs like me to over light with LED, thus scorching them. Anyway, I will still use the a160we for max blue at 50% with angle for actinic up and down viewing, I think it will pair nicely with 7 hours halide daily. Thanks again for checking in!

Hey Tim, thanks for the kind words man! Yeah, I have basically divided my reef by half, and starting over with frags, lol... This setup is basically easy, and automated, so I will hopefully get some growth going and fill this bad boy up! This tank will be loaded with corals, and will be placed with max health in mind, using shading for light sensitive corals, and filling the open space with large colonies.... Ahhh.... the vision is coming :)

Update:
Started using AF Life Source, and did not have any adverse reactions to the tank. The mud is dispersed by placing and kneading with my fingers by the return pump. The tank is cloudy for maybe a half hour, and no real visible deposits, unless a larger piece escaped. This is a mud, it does not smell foul, it smells of minerals, like soil, very earthy. I understand this to be an extraction off the reefs of Fiji. The idea behind it is to help balance the micr-biology of the tank. With my tank being rather new, I see no harm in this :) Skimmer did not over-produce during dosing. Within an hour, the tank was crystal clear. I might mention that the tank has well seeded sand from my previous 120 gallon tank, and a few pieces of rock from that tank. I also have a piece of fiji live rock(air rock). I have tons of micro life, but absolutely understand the importance of balance with SPS. Cheers!!!

Hey Perry, glad you are trying out this product. I'm curious about it. I was considering using it like Mark did (he is using W. S. Fiji mud) in a container, in a more static way. Instead of broadcasting it in the tank, using it as a sand bed in the sump.. maybe put it in flat containers that can be removed and replaced on a regular basis.. Because it is so fine, I don't think I'd make the bed thicker than 1 1/2 inch to 2 inches deep..
Broadcasting is makes me wonder where all the particles go.. I guess a skimmer and filter sock would remove some but I'm more concerned about it clogging biomedia..
Any thoughts?

Hi Matt,
I cannot imagine using it as a mud bed, to me it seems with water contact, that it would break down, it is literally mud :) When I broadcast, sure it settles, but the deposit at this point is so fine, it is even hard to see it build on the sand bed. I am using about 2 tablespoon worth every couple of weeks. I ball it up, then just let the water hit it and it quickly breaks down into a soot if you will. The water becomes cloudy grey, then it returns to normal. I would not see this really clogging sand or rocks, it is too fine for that. As you said, probably 40-50% is lost into the filter socks, skimmer, and other forms of filtration. Although my tank is rather new, I am confident that the micro-biology of the tank is well balanced. I will probably have to use it a few more times to see any benefits, but so far nothing bad has occurred :)