120 Gallon Cube - Drilled Reef Tank

You really should be relying on a CUC to keep your sand clean. You shouldn't have to manually stir your sand.

Yes, i agree. I have learned this the hard way. I am researching what I need to get to increase mine.
With that said, I noticed my same under the rocks is where the most brown crap was built up. The water was fine until I lifted a rock and POOF!
What does everyone think about a sand sifting starfish? I heard bad a good. Also, I am going to increase my conch and snail population. Thanks for the advice, Erin! :Cheers:
 
Sandsifters aren't a good idea in younger (and even older) systems. They usually end up starving.

Conchs and nass snails are the way to go for your sand. You could also get a sand sifting goby to help.

Brittle stars, hermits and shrimp will help with any food that falls to the wayside.
 
Nearly had a catastrophe over the weekend! I was spot feeding some of my corals, real slowly and the next the thing I know, my son is dumping nearly half a container of food pellets into my display tank! I had to vacuum out about a gallon of water to get all the pellets out of the sand. I am going to be watching the water readings real close as I fear a spike in the wrong direction is coming. Lesson learned: don't work with your aquarium with children present.
I will say this though. they do love the tank. I cam home from work on Thursday and there was little hands all over the bottom of the glass. My wife had just fed the boys, who are just about to turn two years old, and there was spaghetti sauce all over the glass in the shape of there hands...LOL:) They love the fish and that is why I do it. I guess they just thought they were helping me out by dumping all the food in at once. :)
 
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I had to buy the best I could afford right now and this is it. Believe it of not, I contacted the previous buyers of the skimmer asked each of them what they thought. I got a lot of feedback from them. Some had a lot of issues, but they were all related to getting the device tuned correctly. I didn't have a issue with the tuning. My issue was space! it fit perfectly under my stand that I have built for the new tank. When I opened the package, it was apparent right away that the pump that came with this device is worth the money. It's not a 200 skimmer but hey, it's what I can afford and I will say that this things SKIMS! Check out the pictures after just 24 hours. I have created this every 24 hours, for the last three days. For $70, I think I made a good choice.

Also, I bought a new fish: it's a sparrow-tail angelfish and he's awesome. I got a deal on him at the LFS. The manager gave me 20 percent off and I bought him for $30.
 

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I have a question though: I have it set to create a somewhat watery output. Is this the preferred way of skimming or is it better to make it thicker? What do you think?
 
In building my own DIY skimmer and now with this one, I have learned one thing on tuning them. I have noticed that you don't want the bubbles overflowing at first. I try to keep the bubbles about 1 inch below the lip while tuning. That way, as the nasty junk starts to collect on the top of the bubbles, they build just enough to stay wet and then get pushed over the top. If your bubbles are to close tot he top, the result is way to wet and you end up pumping all your water out. If they are too far down, the result is a build up of junk at the top of the overflow, not filling up the cup. It's a balancing act, but when you get it right, it's amazing the junk a skimmer can get out of the water.
 
Hello, I have a lot of updates but I have only a single picture right now. I went to Florida for a while and haven't been updating like I would like to. To start, I have finished my custom made hood and stand with the help of my sister. I'll be taking more pictures tonight when I get home from work. The picture I have attached is of the system when just the blue lighting on as it was in the evening. Sorry for the poor quality.

I don't know if I mentioned it before but I have a Pink/ Green Polyps Birds Nest coral which has doubled in size since I purchased the frag from a local reefer. I've recently switched a LED lighting system which uses 3 watt led's instead of the 1 watt led's I used to have. Also, the new system has more twice the number of led's. I really like the new system.

Along with the upgrades to my system, I much more rock to my system. In the process, the clipped my Florescent Horn Coral and broke a 3cm piece off of it. I attached the piece to another rock in hope that it could turn into another healthy piece as the parent of it has grown like made in the recent months.

Also, in recent weeks, my green Chalice Coral has more than doubled in size. So much so that something broke a piece of the part that was over hanging the rock. I placed the broken piece up against the back of the overflow in hopes it takes root and grows up the wall of the overflow. :)

When working on the hood, I added two normal desk fans to the circuit which has the lighting units so they turn on and off with the lights. Since the fans have been running, the evaporation rate of the tank has increased a lot. Also, the air in the hood stays fresher and DRY:)

My Hammer Coral has gone from 3 heads to 8 since I purchased them early summer. My Frog Spawn has gone from 2 to 5 heads since early summer.

My father and I can't seem to keep Jasmine Polyps alive for very long. Still working on that. :)

Anyways, I'll post a lot of pictures tonight when I get home. See ya!
 

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Yeah, me too! My sister did most of the wood work. She is really talented. I'll post some better pictures tonight of her handy work. My part was telling her what I needed, buying materials, and then installing hardware like lights, fans, and support hinges.
 
amazing that your sister did that, would be awesome if we could get one of them in my field of work! all we have is old men who "talk" about how to accomplish the tasks and not actually doing them. tell her Wisconsin needs her in the maintenance field........ just saying!
 
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