DJ Bacon's new and improved 14g biocube with 72 watt nanocustoms upgrade

[Djbacon]

Thanks HH -

 

I did epoxy the main structure together. The looser looking pieces I left so on purpose as to leave room for new LR with coral. I'm fortunate enough to live across the streeet from a LFS with 3 tanks full of specimens, on the same variety or rock currently in my tank :-) So I expect the loose pieces will get moved around. For now they are in there just to aid in filtration.

 

Cheers

[Djbacon]

The tank lives !!

 

A couple photos coming up.

 

Photo # 1 - Growing some fuzz on my LR, this piece in particular has both white and greenish brown hairs starting to rise up, probably need to "full screen it" to see it. Hair Algae?

 

The algae is unique to this one piece of rock. Not sure if this will become a nuisance or if it is something

else all together.

 

Photo #2 - Also seeing a ton of these little feather duster worms popping out in recent days. In both red and white.

[Djbacon]

10 days into my cycle. Readings:

 

Salinity 1.024

PH 8.1

NH3/4 close to 0

NO3 close to 50mg/l !!!

Temp still 79-80

 

Guess this means the nitfiying bateria is doing it's job :-) Looking forward to the nitrite drop and adding my CUC.

[Djbacon]

Saturday 1/19

 

Salinity 1.024

PH 8.1

NH3/4 -0

NO3 -50mg/l

Temp 79-80

 

Assuming the cured live rock and live sand is why everything is dropping so quickly. This tank has been cyling less than 2 weeks. Still going to wait for another week at least before adding livestock but a bit surprised that the chemistry is leveling out so fast.

[Djbacon]

Alage bloom - Well I heard it would happen - here it is, in the last 2 days a nasty brown algae is starting to form on the glass and sand in the tank.

 

Nitrates still a bit high - between 25/100 mg/l. Everything else is reading well.

[Djbacon]

Readings confirmed with my LFS -0

 

Amonia 0

Nitrite 0

Nitrate hight 50+mg/l

SG 1.023

PH 8.1

Temp 80

 

Did my first major water change = 50% to reduce the Nitrates - now reading below 25mg/l. Will do another 20% water change after the weekend and begin adding my CUC

 

Plans at this point are as folllows:

 

1x fire shrimp

2 x cerith snails

2 x nerite snails

2x astrea snails or possible trochus - plan on reading more about he benefits of various snails this weekend.

 

Also considering a small serpent or brittle starfish and possibly an emerald crab. Thoughts?

 

BONUS - After the water change the feather duster worms are really flourishing and I have also found 3-4 very small snail looking critters that have emerged from the live rock post water change. They have 2 antennae like a garden snail and a small opaque shell (one has a darker shell but looks similar)

 

Stomatella Snail?

[Djbacon]

All right,

 

major water change - levels doing great

 

ph 8.1

Temp 78 (droppped this after more reading)

SG 1.023

Ammonia 0

Nitrites 0

Nitrate 12.5ish

 

Will do another small water change in a couple days to try and reduce nitrates a bit further. in the mean time I'd like to introduce my new cleaning crew.

 

Consisting of (due to supply limitations at the LFS)

 

3x nassarius snails (already buried without a trace)

 

4x trochus snails (buy 3 get one free, no joke) - these guys are a bit large and I hear they can be clumsy, knock over coral etc, but for now they are cleaning away.

 

1 x scarlet hermit crab - awesome

 

1 x fire shrimp (pretty shy so far but he is my favorite)

 

Enjoy the pics :-)

[Djbacon]

Oh, and the award winning photgraph of the crew !!!

[Smurf]

Nice Shot! Love the body guards. Lol

[rbrusletto]

looks like a nice start!

[Djbacon]

Thanks. I am especially loving the hermit crab. He is relentless at picking away little bits of algae on the rocks and sand and just a ton of fun to watch. Wish my shrimp would come out of hiding :-)

[Djbacon]

HOLY CRAP - I must have bought a pregnant fire shrimp. I was inspecting the back wall of my tank after seeing a bunch of little white dots on the back wall after a water change. It's been a weird day of weird water parameters.. High nitrates and ammonia in my fresh salt mix from the LFS as well as my tank....

 

Anyway, post water change, I see these little white bugs or something on the back walland I I notice they started moving and I started to freak out. Are they pods?..Ich? WTF?

 

Then the more I watched I started seeing a few really small thing swimming in the water column...Looked like little brooms or something. Just 2 or 3 of them...

 

Then suddenly, my shy little fire shrimp whom I have had all of 24 hours crawls out from HER rock and spews about a THOUSAND MORE into the water column !!!

 

What the hell do I do with this ????!!!! Will they all die and cause a massive spike in my tank?!!! Im a pappa !!

[HoomHow]

Um, pictures ... we need pictures ... lots of pictures ...

[Djbacon]

5 pics of the CUC above, HH

 

Reagrding the drama last night... photos coming up - first - ths mysterious white critters..all over the back wall and floating in the water prior to the birth. Please tell me these are pods and not some parasite that will decimate future fish populations.

 

2nd photo is of the tank immediately folllowing the baby shrimp boom. Only a few left this morning... a little worried about an ammmonia spike as they decompose in the tank.

[Djbacon]

My fire shrimp motled last night. Guess giving birth loosened up her jeans a bit eh?

[Djbacon]

Thinking about picking up my first corals tomorrow. Waiting for a new deilvery at the the LFS. Neon frogspawn or a fiji leather....

 

In the meantime....I have some more unidentified creatures on my glass.... anyone seen these before?

[rbrusletto]

hydroids?

[c est ma]

HI DJ,

 

Tuned in to see your pic of the digitate hydroid (nice pic!) and read your whole thread. Wow, so much excitement already! You probably managed to read about it somewhere by now, but your shrimp spawn really shouldn't affect your tank chemistry...Believe me, you have enough things in there to feast on the little bodies. (the HC and the Nassarius for starters...)

 

What a cool phenomenon to witness! Unfortunately, most of these spawning crustaceans release planktonic larvae that won't survive in our tanks, but they do add to the food web.

 

You're off to a great start.

 

--Diane

[Djbacon]

Thanks Dianne - picked up my first coral Monday. A small Hammer Coral. Pretty excited about this. New full tank shot below. Testing for new levels too. All seems in good order.

 

PH 8.1

Temp 79

SG - 1.024

N03 <10

NH3/4 0

Calcium - 440

dkh - 9.5

Phosphate - 0

 

[spanko]

Very nice hammer.

[HoomHow]

Lookin good! Nice pics, and I still love the aquascaping :-)

[jayxem]

Dude NICE Hammer. What made you decide to go with large one and not a frag?

Man you've already got coral and I still don't even have CUC yet and we started about same time...

ENJOY!

[Djbacon]

Funny thing is its actually 2 branches but each one is about the size of a dime when closed, split off a short stubby cigarette stick. I dunno, I had cycled by 4 weeks, it's been 2 weeks with the CUC since then. I got the next test kit and every thing stayed level as I cycled in the lighting. I feel pretty methodical about this, adding slowly, I do want to get a bunch of zoas next. I know a guy who is growing some SICK eagle eyes and orange bam bams. I expect to get those in about 10 days. Stay tuned !!!

 

Here is a view of the hammer from the side when fully expanded - the thing doubled in size since yesterday. Seems to be doing really well.

 

[Djbacon]

Got a new addition today...Carribean Rose Open Brain Coral (Trachyphillidae) No bioload so its OK (so I am told) to add coral about one a week provided water parameters are good which they are.

 

Still no fish, quite happy with this being a reef tank :-)

 

Photos of him under PC and actinic

 

 

[Mallett]

Spectacular thread you have going here. Been some great information just going through here. I myself just started up a 14g Bio-Cube a week ago. My first SW tank so I'm glad I have someone to follow around. Haha keep it up man, love the tank.