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Eguld's ambitious 14G Biocube


eguld

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This is my first salt water tank and I am loving this hobby. I am using a 14G Biocube and 16lbs of awesome live rock (cured).

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To bring everyone up to date, this is what is happening in my tank:

 

Livestock

-black mis-barred false percula clownfish (bigger than the orange and is the head of the hierarchy in my tank)

-orange false percula clownfish

-green clown goby (he was hurting in the LFS and is slowly getting better, I hope)

-six line wrasse (just started eating formula 1 and 2 pellets yesterday)

-green mandarin (I have read the faq on nano-reef and I have also read everything I could find on keeping them in nano reefs, see below for details of what I am doing to make this work) also the poor guy had a torn fin that I noticed on the car ride home.

 

CUC

-3 astrea snails

-1 margerita snail

-1 unknown snail came with other snails has a spikey shell (it is very slow compared to the others)

-4 blue legged hermit crabs

-3 sexy shrimp

-1 fire shrimp (a.k.a blood shrimp)

-1 anemone crab

-1 hitchhiker crab (appears to be from the same family as emerald crab and he eats red buble algae!!)

 

Corals

-Frogspawn Coral

-Kenyan Tree Coral

 

For the Mandarin I have setup a 10G tank (will only use 5G to reduce the mess) to culture tigger-pods (tips or tricks always welcome) and I currently have an experimental micro algae culture setup (2L pop bottle with phyto feast live and air bubbles), which I will expand soon.

 

I am currently waiting on the delivery of my mediatray from intank (StevieT's company), which I will put filter media on top, chaeto in the middle, and chemi-pure elite on the bottom. I have removed the blue sponge and will put tigger-pods where the chaeto is and let them slowly get sucked into the main display. I will likely keep using the standard biocube filter aswell.

 

 

Inspirational link for keeping a mandarin in a nano-reef (well written): http://joshday.com/mandaringoby.htm

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pictures are coming tomorrow morning.

 

ammonia, nitrite and nitrate have always been zero. I attribute this to high quality fully cured live rock, lots of it, and the macroalgae that hitchhiked its way on some of the live rock (but just a guess on my part). also, lots of water changes.

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Just came back from all you can eat sushi ($14, gotta love Vancouver sushi) and they let me take home some small fish roe (little red eggs). So, I tried to feed the mandarin some fish roe and it didn't care for it at all but my clownfish, six line wrasse, fire shrimp, and the hitchhiker crab all loved it.

 

I figure this is an interesting way to supplement their diet once in a while.

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Well, my ambitious plan just failed...

 

My sad update:

 

1. my clown goby died (he never ate much and wouldn't eat even if spot fed, I am not too surprised) two days ago.

 

2. my mandarin also died today (I am at a loss as to why, he was hunting and eating, I was dosing the tank with lots of tigger-pods each night).

 

3. In the process of removing my bioballs (6 each night), my nitrates rose to 5-10 ppm (mediatray will arrive by end of week hopefully).

 

4. KH is really low 4-5 but my ph is still at 8 (i am going to use some baking soda tonight).

 

Revamped future plans:

 

1. build a pod pile (in the future I will try a mandarin again, maybe a healthier one - fatter gives it more time to acclimatise)

2. increase my CUC, they are falling behind (thinking about adding: 1red scarlet, 2 cerith snail, 2 nassarius snail)

3. upgrade my salt mix from instant ocean to something that has a better built in ph buffer

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BLoCkCliMbeR

how long has tanky been set up? whats your feeding schedule?

 

-tigger pods are a waste of money IMO...i havent been able to get a good culture going....arnt they a cold water species? they are free swiming right? most of my hitcher pods cling to rock/glass, there are thousands of kinds....

 

as far as getting a pod pile to work long term in your tank, its pretty much hit and miss....mostly miss in small tanks, and will probably become a trash collector/nitrate factory....

 

-youll have better luck once you get your fuge goin, but its not going to be enough to sustain a grazer like a dragonette....the other fish will eat pods too whether you know it or not...

 

ive had luck in the past w/ a seperate "culture" tank, that i ran dirty as heck w/ lots of macro just for pods, but its a PIA,(harvesting mostly) and unless you have more than one goin (they have to be mature) your not gonna get enough for the long haul....youll have better luck if you train.

 

you can get new salt, but instant ocean is usually buffered pretty good, its just low in calcium...

 

i wouldnt worry about dosing so much, just get a good brand of salt, and keep up w/ WC for now

 

good luck w/ your dragonette quest

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I would skip the mandarin. That bioload really is too much, and a stable pod population with two clowns in a 14 isn't going to happen.

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I would skip the mandarin. That bioload really is too much, and a stable pod population with two clowns in a 14 isn't going to happen.

 

I agree that at least for now I should stick with my 3 fish and work on building the system stability. But I would still like to try and get a pod population going, it might require a very creative setup.

 

Is it normal that my clowns seem to eat 2-3 times more than my six line wrasse?

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Here are the pictures finally

 

one to two weeks ago:

DSCF1483.jpg

 

Yesterday, notice how nicely the corals have grown (most happened after putting in the media tray with chemi-pure elite):

MobilePhotoOct102009113622AM.jpg

 

More pictures to come when I get more time

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  • 3 weeks later...

Update:

 

Installed StevieT media tray with chaeto and lights in middle

 

discovered amphipods in my tank (thought they were isopods, i got really lucky here)

 

have a bunch on tiny white bugs (copepods?) that like to hug the glass (there was a bloom of them and now they seem to have stabalized)

 

1 or 2 weeks ago:

bought a chemical to deal with cyano-bacterial growth (worked)

added nassarius snail

added a snail with a smooth shiny white shell

added a large ball of chaeto to my copepod culture (all the copepodes seem to be hiding in the chaeto)

 

4 or five days ago:

noticed two white dots on my black clownfish, which went away and then 1 returned and now there are none (I have a10 gallon tank and copper treatment ready if this is ICH and not clownfish disease)

 

Yesterday:

added a xenia frag

 

added an anemone

 

added a tiny bright star fish that I do not know anything about except that it stays tiny and supposedly survives and does well in established tanks

 

I will post updated pictures soon.

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white spots have not reappeared and all fish seem healthy.

 

starfish is moving around all over the place and there is another copepod bloom going on, YAY!

 

currently the temperature is getting too hot by the end of the day due to the lights and my coral in the bottom left is unhappy by the end of the day. I plan on upgrading the fans in the next few days to drop the tank temperature a couple degrees.

 

Updated picture, I had just fed frozen brine shrimp with selcon so the water is not as clear:

IMG_0386_rotated.jpg

 

Nassarius snail sucking up a tube to get the brine out, this is shocking:

IMG_0380.jpg

 

My anemone in the middle:

IMG_0384-1.jpg

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Update:

 

added an anemone

 

added a tiny bright star fish that I do not know anything about except that it stays tiny and supposedly survives and does well in established tanks

 

IMO established means at least 6 months. I think you should slow down a bit.

 

I may have missed this, but if you have not updated your lighting to metal halide your anemone will die. Your starfish will also most likely die.

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IMO established means at least 6 months. I think you should slow down a bit.

 

I fully agree that my tank is not fully matured but i do think my tank is nearing maturity and in terms of inhabitants, it is time to leave things alone for awhile.

 

I may have missed this, but if you have not updated your lighting to metal halide your anemone will die. Your starfish will also most likely die.

 

I hate to use this as an argument but I did check with my LFS about the lighting in my biocube and he said it would be fine: upon further investigation I may (likely) need better lighting, thank you for mentioning this.

 

I have heard that starfish (in general) are very sensitive and I realize that there is a high probability that it will die.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have finally figured out the exact type of starfish in my tank!!!

 

It is a Red Bali Star (max size 3-5", good thing it stays small)

 

So far the starfish and anemone are alive and well. the starfish likes to move around a lot and the anemone is doing fine as long as I feed it every other day Selcon enriched frozen food (currently brine until I buy some mysis/shrimp/krill this weekend). The anemone also seems to like it if I randomly turn on my extra power head (I guess it like wave like oscillations?).

 

Out of curiosity I have started 2 2l bottles with a little chaeto to see if I can grow them to fill the whole bottle and if copepods will grow simultaneously in the bottle.

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eguld,

i would just like to say

i think your tank looks great

and your corals look heathly too

well done keep the pic`s coming :)

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eguld,

i would just like to say

i think your tank looks great

and your corals look heathly too

well done keep the pic`s coming :)

 

Thanks, I'll be sure to keep the pics coming.

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Just ordered the biocube 3.24 upgrade (with actinic) from nanotuners.com should be here in 2-3 weeks (i'm guessing) it was that for $17 shipping or next option was $52, so....

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I have just noticed that the pulsing xenia has spread (it has anchored itself) to my main live rock from the fragment it came on and that at least one branch of my frogspawn is splitting? (is propogating a better word?)

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Here are some updated pictures from after i split the pulsing xenia and the frogspawn:

 

DSCF1608.jpg

 

DSCF1609.jpg

 

DSCF1610.jpg

 

DSCF1613.jpg

 

Updates:

I have not seen the hitchhiker crab in about a week (he usually hangs out on the right side of the glass next to where my desk is). He might just be molting again (I haven't seen a body yet).

 

Coralline algae has spread onto the glass and plastic backing and is hard to get off.

 

I split the pulsing xenia into three branches.

 

I split the frogspawn into two pieces one with 2 branches and one with a single branch (all branches are splitting)

 

I found the corpse of a dead blue legged hermit crab that had gone MIA about a month ago and then I tried to feed the corpse to the anemone but the anemone didn't eat it.

 

There is an outbreak of cyano-bacteria in my refugium but only where the chaeto algae is.... I am going to check nitrates and phosphates tonight

 

Edit:

 

My attempt to grown chaeto algae in a 2l pop bottle seems to have failed but it also seams to have created green water.

 

Also, in the last 10min it appears that the anemone has deflated and is almost dead. I am surprised at how fast it went from looking alright to looking like it had been shot a few times and is bleeding out.

 

Edit 2:

 

The anemone may have just been "pooping" for lack of a better word and I will see how it is doing tomorrow.

 

I also found my hitchhiker crab again he was in a hole beside the anemone (he probably ate the corpse of the blue legged hermit crab).

 

I took out my media tray and used hot tap water to kill everything on it (cyano-bacteria and my copepods). I did the same for the chaeto and the chemi-pure elite then removed the chemi-pure for now to see if it even does anything. I also changed all the filter floss to give my tank a new start.

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