My 14g Biocube Thread

[llebcire]

After tearing down my established 75g RR Oceanic last fall due to a move that didn't happen, my wife found me a great deal on a 14gallon Oceanic Biocube. She knows that this is just fueling my addiction to get started again, but this will work for now!

I initially thought it would be difficult to get into a nano - my 75 had a 30g fuge, 100g sump, 500w metal halides w/260w PC's, and had been running 4 years. The nano is, well, small. And without the MH's, I won't be able to keep very many sps.

This tank is in our living room, and seems to be the right size for where it sits. It also goes with what she wanted before - a pair of clowns that will hopefully breed.

Equipment:
14 gallon Oceanic Biocube
Stock return pump (for now, have several MJ's around)
Stock lighting, may or may not upgrade
Heater (in return chamber)
Koralia Nano powerhead
Oceanic Nano skimmer
Bioballs
Existing stand (old TV stand)

24 hour leak test:

Stand and placement in living room:

 

[llebcire]

Towards the end of July, I made a trade with a local reefer - my 100g Rubbermaid stock tank (sump) for 15-20 lbs. of live rock.

The rock looked like it was from a sump as it had nothing growing on it, initially I wasn't thrilled but it's colored up nicely.

I kept it in a 5 gallon bucket with a heater and powerhead for a week or so with no spikes.

On August 1st, I added the rock and some fresh Southdown play sand to the tank along with a half cup of seeded sand from another local reefer.

There was some minimal algae:

And a hitchiking snail of some sort:

 

[llebcire]

I've decided to leave to bioballs in the middle chamber for now as I had good luck with them in the past.

I'm running Reef Crystals @ 1.024 salinity in RO/DI (1.026 before), decided to try dosing Purple Up (got it free), and ran the lights full time from day one. Running actinic from 7am to 10 pm, 10k from 1pm to 9pm.

I checked the parameters on Sunday, 2 days later, and nothing was detected.

I did a 2 gallon water change and added a clean up crew on Monday.

Crew consists of 6 astrea snails, 7 blue legged hermits, and a crab that my wife picked out (she actually went to the lfs and purchased the whole crew).

Pic of the crab that has been knocking things around:

 

[llebcire]

Again the timeline:

August 1st, set up the tank with established rock.

August 4th, clean up crew.

August 7th, pair of false perculas.

August 10th, stocked it when I traded my halides for the following:

5 heads of pink/green frogspawn
2 frags of leather coral
4 polyps of Armor of God
2 frags green cap
1 frag orange/red cap
1 kenya tree
2 purple shrooms
3x3 mat of GSP (brown)
Small rock of green and orange centered zoos

Bad FTS

I was testing water and doing 2 gallon water changes every Sunday and Wednesday - never noticed a problem.

I kept this up until the first week in September - now I'm doing 2 gallon water changes every Sunday.

 

[glaspie69]

this is kinda off topic but a good general point. You might want to watch that kids walker thingy in the pic, we had one just like that and our son about poked his eye out. Long story short, a few phone calls later and some saftey lady came out and bought it from us so they could "test" it. I'd hate to see you kid loose an eye.

 

[llebcire]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13361038#post13361038 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by glaspie69
this is kinda off topic but a good general point. You might want to watch that kids walker thingy in the pic, we had one just like that and our son about poked his eye out. Long story short, a few phone calls later and some saftey lady came out and bought it from us so they could "test" it. I'd hate to see you kid loose an eye.

Thanks for the concern! Any time parent's can pass advice around and potentially prevent a problem it's greatly appreciated!

Back to the pic, I don't see any walkers in it.

Boppie pillow (sp?), wipes, binkie, water jug, etc.

Wait - you talking about this picture:

I'll let my wife know!

Thanks!