12g Dorm Room Nano Cube

[TLuna]

I have a 12g JBJ NanoCube DX. I have had the tank for just over 2 years now. Recently I had to remove a purple tip condy anemone and clownfish which had taken over the tank. I had to re arrange the rocks in the tank and have just introduced a new jawfish and frag of xenia/zoos. Maybe it's because I had lots of xenia and anemone in the tank before but it looks bare. The GSP that I have in the tank has been in the tank for at least 6-8months now and has not grown a lot. Or at least not as much as I have seen in other tanks. The xenia that I put in about 2 weeks ago don't seem to be doing well. I thought they were gonna bite the bullet but they're hanging on. The kenya tree has also showed slow growth. I just added a koralia nano power head.

 

1 coral banded shrimp

1 jawfish

5 Nassarius Snails

1 mushroom

1 green GSP colony

1 kenya tree

1 xenia polyp

 

Questions.

1. What does everyone else think about the tank?

2. Any pointers on coral growth/unhappy xenia?

3. Any suggestions on adding more fish/corals?

 

 

 

 

 

[joesmoe517]

it looks alright, it could use some more rock. What are your water parameters and water change schedules like? what salt do you use? have you changed any of the stock media in the back? Why not point the koralia at the gsp to get a little more growth out of it, they enjoy a healthy amount of flow and spread towards the source of it. Your sandbed looks a bit deep in places, unless this is just recent because of the jawfish moving sand around i would do something about that... dont know what to do though because if its been set up for 2 years like you said you dont want to disturb something that deep for it might release something unwanted into the water. Maybe just siphon the top 1/2 inch out or something without disturbing the bottom layer, it can cause nitrate problems in the future if you dont stay on top of keeping it clean. this is a start maybe.

[JustReef]

+1 more rock.

 

I like your jawfish. That sand bed for him will be just fine. I don't think its deep enough to cause trouble. Might want to add a cerith snail or two to keep it stirred a little better.

 

Are you running carbon? I would think you would see a lot more growth than that. What are your parameters? How old are your bulbs?

 

I wouldn't add anything else until you figure out why your growth is slow.

[TLuna]

Well after spending some time getting my nanocube back to being somewhat presentable I have had a light burn out and my ballast go. I called and priced a new ballast at $50 from JBJ and new lights from the local FTS are about $20. I have decided rather than sink more money into my JBJ 12 which has scratches all over the glass, I have ordered a Nano Wave 9 made by Aqua Medic. It seemed like a decent tank with some factory "mods". It was also in my budget. I had the tank shipped for under $100 dollars. I hope it gets here soon I'm not sure how much longer my inhabitants will make it under my desk lamp. I am looking at finding some fans that I can hopefully drop in fairly quickly for a cheap price. It seems like I am spending all my time looking online at the different ways people have added fans to their medic 9s.