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Cultivated Reef

Tiki 14g Reef


vegas chad

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And the Rescape picture 12-18-10

 

 

 

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Well after much research my wife and I decided to get a 14g BioCube for our first Nano Reef. We were lucky enough to find a local in town who had one that he had recently taken down that we got for a good deal. Long term plan is to keep several clams in our tank as well as some other of your typical NR type corals.

 

Day one... 1/4/09

Here is our tank before a baking soda scrub.

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An upgraded, Rio400 pump that I need to upgrade to a 600, whoops.

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Rio4 out of the box and going in.

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50w Water heater set at about 78.

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10lb of live sand should do the trick.

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Sand in tank.

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Koralia 1

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Forgot to take pictures of the 15lb of live rock, but here are some after water has been added. Will post more when everything has settled.

 

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Please tell me what you think and how we may improve our tank.

 

A InTank media basket has been ordered as well as under water lights for cheetos that I also picked up. I forget what it is really called. :P

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We would like to have a nice compliment of coral of your typical flavors; mushrooms, frog spawn, polyps, ect... Some shrimp such as sexy and pistol. For fish I would like a small goby, clown, and a maybe a 6line. My main goal for the tank is to house a few clams. I am going to post a thread in the clam forum here soon and ask what I should do to make my tank as clam friendly as possible. #1 on my list is to pick up a nice used chiller to keep my temps very consistent.

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We would like to have a nice compliment of coral of your typical flavors; mushrooms, frog spawn, polyps, ect... Some shrimp such as sexy and pistol. For fish I would like a small goby, clown, and a maybe a 6line. My main goal for the tank is to house a few clams. I am going to post a thread in the clam forum here soon and ask what I should do to make my tank as clam friendly as possible. #1 on my list is to pick up a nice used chiller to keep my temps very consistent.

Vagas chad,

 

Welcome to NR and congrats on your new tank. You are going to enjoy it. It looks like you are off to a good start. Look at doing some of the mods to improve your flow if its an older tank. Are you putting you heater in the tank or in chamber 1? Chamber one is a good place to hide it. :) It looks like your coral selection is good. The softies will do well. Any zoas? Your lps should do ok in the BC but think about upgrading your lights if you want to get into some of the harder lps or sps. Your fish choices look good except for the 6 line. They can get big and they need plenty of room to swim. A rule of thumb is 1" of fish for every 5g of water and the 6 line usually grows up to 3". As for the clams, I don't have any yet but I want some. The BC 14 may be too small for clams. Do some research and talk with folks who have them. From what I have read and have been told, they need excellent water conditions and a good strong light (T5 of MH). The thing with nanos is small shifts make a big differance in water quality very quickly so you need to stay on top of it.

 

Can't wait to see some more pics and some of the rockscape. :D

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Tank is settled down now and looking good. I am not too happy with the rock as I would have liked the main piece to be a little taller however I think I can resolve that with some taller corals on the top. Other than that I am happy with the 15lb of rock. :)

 

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Looking very good :) A few suggestions -

 

-Move the koralia to the opposite side of the tank of the return. Creates more random water movement :)

-Beautiful rocks, don't forget to turkey baste them :)

-Good idea on the mediarack from stevieT, run some regular* chemi-pure in the back with chaeto (I specify regular for the reason being you plan to keep clams, elite has GFO, a known substance to cause relapses of pinched mantle in clams).

 

You can most definitely do clams, but you'll need a lighting upgrade. I recommend LED's on a BC14. And a very stable tank.

 

You can see my BC14 with led/clam combo in my signature :)

 

Keep us updated!

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I'd move the Koralia somewhere else to get opposing, random flow in the tank - not right beside and in-line with the stock return. Looks great other than that!

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We got our InTank Media rack, Fish saver, Underwater light, and Chemical something or other Monday and got it all installed today. I was very impressed with the nice packing, a big thanks to Steve. Here is a step by step of the install. I wont caption them as im sure you can see.

 

 

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I made a goby/pistol shrimp home today... Here are the pictures of it.

 

4- ½” Elbows

1- ½” Tee

4- 3” length of ½” pipe

1- 9” length of ½” pipe

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The lengths of pipe were cut a little sort as space in my 14g is at a premium, cutting them a little short ensures that the elbows and tees will fit flush with one another. Also ½” pipe was used because I plan to put a small goby in the tank, not a larger type such as the Yellow.

 

I first put the two end sections together; a tap with a rubber mallet insured a tight fit.

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Next I inserted the small lengths of pipe into the Tee, and cut the rear span.

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Then I connected the 4 sections and put the opening at the desired angle although that can be adjusted ones it is installed in the tank. After a good scrubbing and wash it’s ready for use! Easy as pie... :)

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Made up my mind that I will get an Antenna or Wheelers Goby as they are both small and colorful. Any difference between the two other than looks that I should know about?

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Vagas chad,

 

Nice project. Let us know how it works out for the goby an shrimp. I'm thinking of doing something similar exept I will drill it full of holes and turn it into a copapod farm.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well alot of progress on the tank. We have been monitoring everything and due to all of the live rock, sand and media basket the tank cycled really fast. We added a handful of hermit crabs, a few turbo and a few auzi snails. We also got this here random snail, any guess as to what it is?

 

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After a few days with those guys cleaning up the growth we added in a coral banded shrimp.

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About a week later we got a fire fish.

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Also picked up 2 different Zoo frags, a nice Green and a wicked Orange, actual name I dont know.

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And last we got a wheelers goby to go with our pistol shrimp that we are going to get in a few weeks.

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Like I said we went a little quick however everything is doing great and the tank is remaining stable. Our fish complement is just about done and our corals are off to a good start.

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