14 Gallon Biocube

[nanoreef11]

Well I am new to the marine world and I have no past knowledge of taking care of fish. I started to research on this website about the basics of saltwater. I really wanted a bigger tank like 30/40 gallons because it seemed that it would be a lot easier to take care of than a small tank. I knew that which ever tank I would settle on I would take care of it. I went to my LFS for a couple weeks in a row and i decided on a 14 gallon BioCube. It would easily fit on my dresser and it had a nice look. Also the lighting and mechanical filtration was all included which would make up for an easy installation.

10/12
-BioCube 14 gallon Aquarium
-Added about 10 gallons of saltwater
-Added 20 pounds of Arganite Live Reef Sand

10/16
-LFS advised me to cycle the tank with some yellow tailed damsels
-Added 10 pounds of LR
-Timers added for the lights
-Actinic 8:00am-12pm
7:30pm-11:30pm
-Daylights 9:00am-11:00am
8:30pm-10:30pm

10/21
-Diatoms forming on LR and live sand

11/06
-Went to my LFS to get my water tested for CUC and the nitrates were a little on the high side so i will wait for everything to zero out.
-Adding CUC next week

11/13
-Water was perfect
-Purchases
-Glass Cleaning Pad
-Acrylic Cleaning Pad
-Siphon
-5 gallon water jug
-Stress Coat
-Stress Zyme
-Carbon Filter Pad
-Cleaned the Glass
-Did a 4 gallon water change
-Changed the filter pad
-Added a cap full of stress coat and stress zyme

CUC Added
-4 hermit crabs
-1 zebra turbo snail
-4 nassarius snails

12/11
-Added 2 True Percula Clownfish
-Think I am going to take the damsels back because they are very aggressive towards each other

12/31
-Damsels have been returned

1/08
-Blood Red Fire Shrimp Added to the tank

Currently-

Tank houses the 2 percula clownfish and the blood red fire shrimp. Feeding once a day flake food and frozen brine shrimp. Wanting to add a royal gramma sometime soon and an anemone. Doing weekly water changes of 2.5 gallons. Salinity is kept at 1.023 and temp is 78.2-78.8. Everything on the BioCube is stock but wanting to increase the pump size. Don't have a test kit because I get my water tested at my LFS. I would like to add some corals but not sure as to what kind i should add with my lighting. If you have any comments/suggestions I would greatly appreciate them because I have only been doing this for almost 4 months now. Thanks for looking and updates are soon to come.

 

[timpetty]

Tank looks great!

One minor suggestion from a fellow newbie....

You mentioned adding an anemone to your tank. This is usually considered a bad idea in a nano tank. This is a link to a few days ago when I asked the same question.. Anemone in Nano

 

[nanoreef11]

Well I understand where you are coming from. Should i not get an anemone for this tank or possibly wait a year for the tank to mature and know how to keep other corals before getting the anemone? I know that an anemone can take an entire tank with them if they die, so should I stay away from anemones even if i learn how to keep stable water conditions and become experienced with saltwater?

 

[Adrinal]

Well I understand where you are coming from. Should i not get an anemone for this tank or possibly wait a year for the tank to mature and know how to keep other corals before getting the anemone? I know that an anemone can take an entire tank with them if they die, so should I stay away from anemones even if i learn how to keep stable water conditions and become experienced with saltwater?

Get some experience on your belt keeping that 14g stable.
Let the rock cycle for a year so it is stable itself.
BTA would be fine in that tank, just remember the PC's are going to need to be swapped every 7months or so. See if anyone has tested PAR over time with them; 7months is just my best guess.

 

[badlandz]

I noticed you split the timers up to light up in the morning and the evening. I'm just wondering if that would cause any issues since natural light doesn't work that way. I'm guessing it is ok right now with fish, but what about when you get corals?

 

[nanoreef11]

Adrinal I was planning on switching the pc's out every 6 months as to thats what i have been told from the LFS. I have also started working for my LFS because he is a solo guy on his own running his business. He takes care of about 80-100 tanks and we have become good friends so he offered me a part time job in the mornings to help clean the tanks in his store. I hope to learn a lot from this job because reef keeping is my new hobby. I only work 5 hours a week but I enjoyed helping him last week when I started. Also what kind of corals would you guys recommend and at least a year for an anemone? I was thinking about a torch coral, frog spawn, and polyps.

Yea badlandz I was wondering if I should change the timers to come on for 10 hours straight for the actinics and 8 hours for the daylights. I think your right about the corals doing a lot better with lighting setup continuously like in nature.

Thanks for the comments.

 

[Musho3210]

i would just forget about the nem completely

 

[nanoreef11]

Musho I think I will haha because even though it might be a nice addition to my tank it will just create problems in the future. I was hoping to get an anemone for the clowns to host even though they dont need one. What else might they host? Torch coral?

 

[Musho3210]

Musho I think I will haha because even though it might be a nice addition to my tank it will just create problems in the future. I was hoping to get an anemone for the clowns to host even though they dont need one. What else might they host? Torch coral?

well, techincally, they practically host anything they feel like, vege clips, magnets, algae, corals.... Your biggest bets would be tentacly corals like frogspawn, torch, you could try a leather toadstool

 

[nanoreef11]

Would the lighting on my tank be okay for a frogspawn/torch? Should i change the timers to go on at 1:00pm-11:00pm? instead of 2 seperate events?

 

[Musho3210]

plenty of light

 

[nanoreef11]

what about the amount of hours the lights should be on each day?

 

[nanoreef11]

Last night I changed the lighting times to:
actinic:1:00pm-11:00pm
whites:2:00pm-10m

hoping to get a coral in a couple weeks or so

 

[f!$h luv3r]

nanoreef11 is a super cutie!!!



haha. i love you babe

 

[nanoreef11]

Well today when I got home to feed my fish I noticed that the increase in lighting has created some brown algae (diatoms) on the sand and a little more than usual on the glass. Should I just let the CUC take care of this and give it time or should I decrease the lighting times? I also had a question about the stock pump. I was looking at the maxi-jets 900 with a hydorflow. Would this fit in the stock location of the original pump and would it give sufficient flow throughout the tank?