12 gallon Coral Garden

Welcome to my thread about my 12-gallon nanocube!

I started this hobby with a 3/4 of a gallon pico reef. People said to start big, but my budget said to start tiny! I had a great time keeping a emerald crab, a margarita snail, and a hermit crab in that tank with a couple zoanthid corals and a playothoa or two. Eventually i got tired of the emerald crab eating every piece of macro algae that I put in the tank and replaced him with a porcelain anemone crab. Greatest lil things in the world, and in my current opinion, the only crab to purposely put in a reef tank. I kept that tank going for six to seven months, drooling at larger tanks at the LFS and online. Finally I couldn't stand living with just my tiny reef. I had to go "big."

I decided to go with a 12 gallon nano-cube because they seem to be the favorite tanks that I read about online. I have never been so excited to go to the LFS and spend money then when I got my tank.

Tank Specs

12 Gallon nanocube (doesn't hold a whole 12 gallons of water...)

7lbs of LR planning on adding more eventually (was being used in a display tank, so very very cured)

5 lbs of Live Sand (out of display tank, same as LR)

Critters so far:

Pods, Tiny snails, 2 clams/scallops (not sure if alive), lots of tube worms and vermetid snails.

So, my father and I were admiring my new live rock, (Griping about how much it cost and trying to get him to understand why a rock is called live ), when a tiny white tube stuck out of the front of the rock and started spraying white clouds of stuff into the water column. It was truly a weird show. My father said my new rock was a bit to happy about its new home.... Any clue what this could have been? Sorry, no pics of it, I was too dumbfounded to grab the camera and snap some!

Pic taken just after adition of my Liverock!

i guess you shouldn't have been rubbing the rock that way lol..sorry though, I have no helpful info, just wanted to make a joke

Heres a pic of the whole aquarium, with sum ugly stickers on the front. I took them off by applying butter to them, leaving it over night, and picking them off. It took two applications to work, but it got allt he sticker goo off and the aquarium glass is now spotless!

I found a Hairy crab while I was admiring my aquarium last night, i couldn't hand pic him off for fear of harming him. He was tightly lodged in a crack in the rock... I put a regular drinking glass in my aquarium under a piece of over hanging rock, and put a piece of sinking fish food in it *ureaka* An instant home-made Crab Trap!!! After two days of not catching him, i found him in the morning sitting in the bottom of the glass looking mighty mad. I put some aquarium water on a white plate, and took some pics to show you guys. Any idea what kind of a crab he is? He is currently living in my .75 gallon pico where he cant cause too much harm! He is about half an inch big, and blends in perfectly with hair algae!!

I let my tank sit for a week with ammonia, nitrate and nitrite reading 0 before I added any creatures to my aquarium... besides for the hitchhikers! Since all my readings are good for a week, I’m assuming my cycle is done, I still don’t plan on adding any fish or big creatures for a month or so to let the pods and stuff get a good hold in the aquarium. Today I added the following:

Clean-up crew:

The porcelain crab from my pico

The margarita snail from same

4 nassarius snails from LFS

1 Cerith Snail from LFS

Any suggestions on additions to my clean up crew?

I also bought a 4 inch Hairy Shroom from the LFS for 20 dollars. I think it was a total steal! I even get a lil smooth mushroom for free! (its on the right in the pic, sorry about the poor quality of the pic)

Its a Hairy coral crab of the Xanthidae family. You are lucky to get one on the live rock. They are fun to watch at night. Hope that helps.

The crab may be a decorator crab. I had one and removed it when I found it eating my 20 dollar zoo frag. 20.00 or free crab.????? Bye bye free crab. Here is a photo of the one I had.

That hairy mushroom is friggin' sweet!

i have some hairy shrooms like that, mine are huge, span about 6 inches across when fully open. nice set-up so far though keep us posted. btw mayonaise works way better than butter for removing stickers, the oil soaks in faster jen

Your hairy mushroom is really pretty. I hope your tiny mushroom doesn't get covered up!

So another exciting adventure today, I was admiring the copepods running from hole to hole on my liverock when out of no where a stomatella snail (Stomatella varia) came chugging out of a big hole, squirted some green stuff into the water column, and then retreated back into the hole.

Whats up with things squirting in my aquarium! I don't even rub it!!! ( lol @ BigRed25X )

At first I thought it was a nudibranch, which thriiled and terrified me at the same time, but after finding a similar creature on the hitch-hiker FAQ (http://www.reefs.org/hhfaq/) it turned out to be a stomatella snail. My camera was out of batteries so no pics this time, but I promise to get one next time I see the lil bugger running around in the middle of the day. (Supposedly they are nocturnal...)

is your water level always that low?

put some water in there.

Wow, it’s been a long time since I posted. Sorry about that guys. I crashed my car and have been having medical issues, so that’s why. Anyways, you want to hear about the tank. I've added allot of things to my tank, and its beginning to look like a real reef! I added a bunch of stuff...

Corals:

One Sarcophyton Frag (Toadstool Leather)

One yellow/green zoanthid colony

One yellow/green zoanthid frag with mixed red/green palyothoas

Invertebrates:

2 porcelain anemone crabs, one white, one colored

2 skunk cleaner shrimp

1 margarita snail

4 nassarius snails (I'm nicknamed them the Shnoz gang because of their proboscis things)

3 micro-brittle stars which have since multiplied

All the rest of the amphipod and worm hitchhikers

Fish:

None yet, any suggestions?

sorry too hear about the car accident. looking good on your set up, i too just got some frilly mushrooms from tonga. i love them too. did you make any mods on your cube?

March 1, 2005

My tank:

Top view:

Sarcophyton:

Updated Hairy Mushroom Pic:

Porcelain Crab:

Cleaner Shrimp Pair

Nice lil start you got there...remember quality not quanitity in a tank that small, look for the brightest colors you can get, you'll be happy you did when its said and done

I second DRZL. Get good colored corals, even if they are smaller. Corals grow, eventually, that is.

Thnx for the advice guyz, any advice for exact corals (trying to stay with softies only) or the fish? I was thinking clown gobies and/or two-spot gobies... anyone know a good blenny?

ZOANTHIDS! :-) But that's just my personal opinion

lol,i have some yellow zoanthidsright now, and plan ongetting more wheni find cool colors locally. I meant fish though, lol!

fish, i think clown gobies, neon gobies, eviota gobies, would all be great. Then have 1 slightly larger centerpiece fish such as a firefish or maybe one of the shrimp gobies.

I'm a big fan of my yellow watchman goby. I thought "boring yellow", but it's actually got beautiful iridescent blue spots, too. And of course, there's the whole shrimp goby/goby shrimp thing, but that doesn't always work out (as in my case )