My 15g cube

Here's my 16-gallon nano-reef. I have been collecting equipment to set up a 10g nano with a custom 8g fuge (which I still plan to set up), but I snagged this one off eBay for a bargain. The tank has been established for 6 months, and I've owned it for one.

Here are the details:

Amiracle 16x16x16 cube with built-in overflow and w/d filter

Rio 90 pump for circulation

Coralife 96-watt 20" PowerQuad

20 lbs live rock

5 lbs live sand

Assorted mushrooms

Pulsing xenias (quickly taking over!)

Yellow Polyps

Some macro algae

Percula Clownfish

Royal Gramma

Tridacna Maxima clam

Assorted small crawlies

I do 2-gallon water changes weekly and dose daily with 5ml each ESV B-Ionic Alkalinity and Calcium. I use RO/DI water for evaporation makeup.

I feed the fish flake food and add phytoplankton for the corals and clam three times a week.

Current water quality parameters (Salifert test kits):

Nitrates: undetectable

pH: 8.3

Calcium: 400 ppm

Alkalinity: 8.3 dKh

Temp: 78 degrees

I plan to slowly introduce more soft corals and unload some of the xenias.

Very nice looking tank! I like the aquascaping...

You should frag some of that Xenia and make some trades with local reefers.

Thanks! I'm hoping to find some local reefers interested in trading frags. I've got more than enough xenia to go around!

why does this picture look more real than the tank that's sitting right here next to my monitor? my goodness.

nice job. take more from other angles NOW.

Drool. Pom Pom. Wish I had that in my tank instead of garden variety. Looks f'n sweet. I agree with adinsxq-More pics and quick. Your tank is addictive like heroin...

Wow, thats nice. Sooo clean.

I love the slashes of green!

Wow....impressive. I really dig that cube tank.....

Cameron

You have the most plain, simple and seemingly empty tank I've ever seen. Congrats on bringing zen to n-r.com. There's a beautiful flow to your tank and everything looks natural. It's the cleanest and most eyecatching tank I've seen in a long time.

Kudos from me,

Supernip aka Xenia master

Thanks for all the kind words. I really can't take too much credit here--as I said in my first post, I got the tank off eBay, including most of the contents. I've added the yellow polyps and the royal gramma since I bought it, and I guess I can take credit for the current aquascaping.

And at the risk of creating a jealous rage, I will tell you that I got the tank, lights, live rock, sand, clam, xenias, mushrooms, clownfish, Kent RO/DI filter, dosing pump, food and miscellaneous maintenance items for under $175 and a 3-hour round-trip drive to pick it all up.

My initial thought when I bought the tank was that I'd keep the livestock for the 10-gallon tank I'm setting up, and sell the tank and lights, but I've grown pretty attached to this tank, so I think I'll probably keep it and eventually have two nanos. I've already got the 10g tank, custom refugium, and a 96-watt PowerQuad retrofit. I just need to find the time to build a base and hood.

I'm attaching a few more pictures. For those of you interested in the details, I'm using a Sony DSC-S70 digital camera (3.2 megapixels). I set the camera for +0.7EV over-exposure, macro focusing mode, and no flash. I size the pictures using Adobe Photoshop, and fine-tune the brightness and contrast if necessary.

This is a wide shot of the entire tank sitting on the filing cabinet next to my desk. I get to watch this tank all day while I work!

Here is a shot from the left side of the tank:

Yellow polyps with a snail:

Hairy mushroom near the top:

Green mushrooms near the bottom on the left side:

Small sponge growing on the live rock:

Maxima clam from the front:

And the same clam from the top. Notice that it appears a completely different color (more teal than purple) from the top. The color difference is much more noticeable than the camera is capturing.

hey stupid, i spent the last six hours of class NOT PAYING ATTENTION because i was dreaming up a new tank. you suck.

Must say.. That is a very saavy buy.

Well done.

You didnt say where you found this?

I found it on eBay. I have a search set up for anything reef-related in the Denver area and this showed up one day. Here's a link to the original auction.

I picked it up in Colorado Springs.

I picked up some sweet orange ricordia and rhodactis on eBay, and the seller threw in extra blue and green ricordia and a mithrax crab. The corals are settling in and the crab has been gorging on the macroalgae growing in the tank. Here are some recent pictures:

The full tank:

The two orange ricordia colonies:

Some of the extra blue and green ricordia:

And the rhodactis:

very nice. super deal on it too. i am jelous. who did you get the ricordia from on ebay?

Originally posted by Spencerx

very nice. super deal on it too. i am jelous. who did you get the ricordia from on ebay?

The seller's eBay ID is aqa4u. He's only sold a few things so far, but I would expect to see more of him once he gets a handle on lowering his shipping costs (he charged me $39 to ship, but I see on the box he paid FedEx a lot more than that for Priority Overnight service with Saturday delivery).

I won both orange ricordia and the rhodactis (3 auctions) for a total of $32 plus shipping, and he threw in a bunch of blue and green ricordia and the mithrax crab. He also offered to include some turbo snails for free, but I declined. I think I got lucky because he misspelled ricordia and rhodactis and his pictures weren't that great.

I certainly can't complain about the deals I've been getting on eBay!

Damn, you are one lucky SOB.

Fully stocked tank and corals, whats the total so far.... under 300.

**shakes head**

wish i could be so lucky..

Originally posted by c3po

Damn, you are one lucky SOB.  

Fully stocked tank and corals, whats the total so far.... under 300.

 

**shakes head**

 

wish i could be so lucky..

It's even better than that. I bought a truck full of aquarium equipment for $150 at a garage sale this summer (big w/d filter, Hydrothruster pump, canister filters, CO2 system, and more). After I bought this nano, I decided not to set up a large system, so I sold everything on eBay for $575.

Net cost for my nano: about $0.

SO YOU'RE THE ONE WHO OUTBID ME ON EBAY!!!

-I'd been looking for months for a tank like that :*(

I'd love to get some of those xenia from you. Where are you in CO? I also have some metalic green hairy mushrooms I could trade for them.

Originally posted by pseudoreefer

SO YOU'RE THE ONE WHO OUTBID ME ON EBAY!!!

 

-I'd been looking for months for a tank like that :*(  

I'd love to get some of those xenia from you. Where are you in CO? I also have some metalic green hairy mushrooms I could trade for them.

I'm in Longmont. I'd be happy to swap some Xenia for mushrooms. PM me and let's talk.

nice tank, I wish I lived in colorado I could use some xenia oh well

I love your ricordias!!!!!

Scoopsfolks, you have a pm

I'm curious as to how the xenia is doing? Is it out of control yet?

Originally posted by skylsdale

I'm curious as to how the xenia is doing?  Is it out of control yet?

I'm constantly seeing new growth. I traded one frag to the LFS and today I just cut three stalks to cultivate another frag. More frags to follow--there just isn't a lot of room to do a lot in a 16 gallon tank.