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Phoebe's 14 gal BioCube


Rick778

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Started this tank with my daughter 20 December 2008. It is a standard 14 gallon BioCube. CUC: 5 Nerite Snails, 5 Nassarius Snails, 7 Astrea Turbo Snails, 6 Blue Leg Hermits, 2 Camel Shrimp & Skunk Cleaner Shrimp. Only fish so far is a goby. Coral: Xenia, Purple Mushroom, Neon GSP, Daisy, Green Button Zoo, Green Clove Polyp & Orange Ricordea. Removed carbon from filter cartridge and faced with filter floss. Added Kent Power-Phos to 2nd Chamber thinking phosphates were causing the algae. For maintenance we clean the glass, rinse out the sponge filter, change the filter floss, gently blow out the live rock with turkey baster and do a 1.5 gal water change every week. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

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First mods;

1. Removed the divider on the overflow between chambers #1 and #2: This greatly increased the water flow from chamber to chamber.

2. Added a Koralia #1 pump for additional circulation: Hope this isn't too much. I debated on this or the Nano version.

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Had a red algae out break. Added carbon to the 2nd chamber and the next day it was cleared up. Not sure if it was a coincidence, because when I tested my water yesterday before the water change I still have nitrates at 5+ ppm. 4 days ago I noticed one of my lights not coming on. After some troubleshooting discovered one of the ballasts had failed. Called Oceanic customer service and have free new ballast on the way. While I had them on the phone I mentioned how the fans were very noisy on first stating up. He believed there were two possible causes: 1) If the setup is older it is most likely due to a poor seal on the light cover allowing in moisture which causes corrosion on the fan bearings; 2) On a new system it is most likely the fan mounting. It can usually be fixed by adjusting the tightness on the fan mounting screws or adding felt washers to the screws (vibration dampeners).

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PrincessLiLi

well dont be so qucik to remove all that algae because your inverts are gonna need some food later on when all the algae is gone. maybe you should get some astrea snails to stir the sand if u dont already have any.i have a 29 gallon biocube and my clean up crew looks like its goin hungry it took them about 4 days to clean up the algae and now theres nothing to eat so i gotta feed them seaweed.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Haven't updated in a while ---- a lot has happened :tears:

 

Received the replacement light ballast so back to 100%. Not sure what I am doing incorrectly, but most of the purple mushrooms have shriveled up, the zoa hasn't opened in a while and seems to be slowly disappearing, and the Daisy's seemed to have disappeared. On the positive side the Xenia was going crazy, the GSP is fine, the Clove Polyp has added a second polyp, and the Ricordea has increased by 50%.

 

Then additional disaster struck :angry:

 

Arrrgggg!!!!! The new Zoa I purchased was completely gone in one evening. Just the plug and glue remained. It had about 9 small polyps.

Did some research and it seems the villain is one of these:

- Sundial Snail

- Asterina Star Fish

- Nudibranch

- Spider

- Crab

I do have some small Asterina in the tank, but wasn't worried because most of what I read claimed they were generally reef safe. Now I am thinking I need to eradicate them!!!

Additionally, picked up a Six Line Wrasse to hopefully get rid of some of the other possible nasty critters.

 

A couple days later one third of my Xenia was gone. And then the next morning all but a couple small polyps disappeared! One suspicion I had was a large hermit crab that always seemed to be in the vicinity of the attacks. So I removed him to eliminate this possible cause. Not sure if he was the cause because the next morning the remaining small Xenia polyps were gone.

 

I have been checking the tank after lights out with a red light, but have seen nothing unusual.

 

Any suggestions / help would be greatly appreciated. I am afraid to add anything else to the tank in fear of it being eaten.

 

Most recent parameters: Nitrate: 10 ppm; Phosphates: 0 ppm; KH: 9; pH: 8.4; Ca: 480 ppm; Salinity: 1.023

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  • 3 weeks later...
sarasotacube

Are you doing water changes with r.o. water or with tap water? This could affect the red algae. Try the seapure brand of bottled sea water works good on small tanks,no mixingsalt, no tap water just pour it in. also try adding a fuge to the back. hope everything works out. a bag of chemipure is always a good idea also. Happy reefin, Dave

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Had a red algae out break. Added carbon to the 2nd chamber and the next day it was cleared up. Not sure if it was a coincidence, because when I tested my water yesterday before the water change I still have nitrates at 5+ ppm. 4 days ago I noticed one of my lights not coming on. After some troubleshooting discovered one of the ballasts had failed. Called Oceanic customer service and have free new ballast on the way. While I had them on the phone I mentioned how the fans were very noisy on first stating up. He believed there were two possible causes: 1) If the setup is older it is most likely due to a poor seal on the light cover allowing in moisture which causes corrosion on the fan bearings; 2) On a new system it is most likely the fan mounting. It can usually be fixed by adjusting the tightness on the fan mounting screws or adding felt washers to the screws (vibration dampeners).

 

Hey did you have to send the broken ballast back to them? also the fans?

Ive heard quite a few stories about the ballasts breaking so i might just tell them mine broke and have them send a new one to have just in case because my corals will die without light

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  • 9 months later...

A couple more updates:

 

Australian War Coral

WarCoral12-26-09-1.jpg

 

Zoas & Ric

Zoas12-26-09.jpg

 

Unknown?

Unknown12-26-09.jpg

 

Superman Shrooms

SupermanShroom12-26-09.jpg

 

Unknown SPS

SPS4-26-09.jpg

 

Candy Cane

CandyCane12-26-09.jpg

 

Purple Shrooms

BlueShroom12-26-09.jpg

 

Green Shrooms & Birdnest

BirdsNestGreenShroom12-26-09.jpg

 

Black Clown

BlackClown4-26-09.jpg

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Did a couple mods today.

 

Received a package from In tank yesterday.

InTank2-5-10.jpg

 

Purchased a Media Basket, Double Underwater Light and Fish Saver Guard.

InTankStuff2-5-10.jpg

 

Installed the Media Basket today. Added Macro Algae to the bottom chamber with the Double Light, placed charcoal & Power-Phos to the middle chamber, and filter floss in the top chamber. Had some Macro Algae left over so placed it in the main tank.

 

Also, replaced both compact fluorescent lights (haven't done it in about 1 year).

:blush:

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  • 1 month later...
Very nice, is that Birdnest doing okay with PC lighting.

The reason I ask is i've read that Birdnest's are easy SPS's.

 

The Birdnest is growing like crazy. Started as a little branch about 9 months ago.

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  • 1 month later...

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