darkdrako Posted January 2, 2009 Share Posted January 2, 2009 I posted this in the members section as well, but I think it is better in here. After much reading and money saving, I have finally gotten my hands wet and set up my 12gallon Nanocube. I was very excited to get my live rock and put it in. It took almost 2 hours to get the scape how I wanted and I'm glad it took that long! Here is what is in the tank: 17lbs of assorted live rock 10-12lbs of Caribsea Arag-live sand Koralia Nano Maxijet 900 w/ Hydor Flo Stealth 50w heater I've already seen a handful of feather dusters, what looked to be a hairy crab, and a black cucumber. And now for the cloudy FTS Front Right Left After the dust started to settle My daughter making sure I did a good job! Here is the cucumber. I've read mixed reviews if I should leave it in the tank or not. Unsure what this is until it opens up a bit more My first test is showing lots of ammonia so.....LET THE CYCLE BEGIN!!!!! : I'm still trying to figure out this damn camera for my wife (she rather me learn and then teach her!) Link to comment
marinebiologist Posted January 2, 2009 Share Posted January 2, 2009 thats some really nice rock work. were did you get yours from because im going to order 16 lbs for my 12 gallon from premium aquatics. that sea cucumber looks cool to. Link to comment
shan Posted January 2, 2009 Share Posted January 2, 2009 thats some really nice rock work. were did you get yours from because im going to order 16 lbs for my 12 gallon from premium aquatics. that sea cucumber looks cool to. I love your rock work!!! Im a 12g nanocuber too!!!! Congrats! It will be fun to watch your tank grow! Link to comment
darkdrako Posted January 3, 2009 Author Share Posted January 3, 2009 thats some really nice rock work. were did you get yours from because im going to order 16 lbs for my 12 gallon from premium aquatics. that sea cucumber looks cool to. I also ordered it from premium aquatics. Its their Nano Live Rock. Most of the pieces were about a pound each and after a few tries we got it to work together. I was trying to go for a cove kind of look but alot of the pieces had little cliffs so I made it into a cavernous cove! Link to comment
reefer714 Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 Hello fellow reefer, welcome to the obsession, the rock work looks great, I'm sure you can't wait to put creatures in there. I'm your neighbor I live in Franklin Square. My family comments all the time on mine "What no fish" I have a Bio cube 14 and I'm filling it up fast.. go slow so everything will live. regards Rick Link to comment
darkdrako Posted January 5, 2009 Author Share Posted January 5, 2009 So, last night, I decide to do a little flashlight viewing and have now found three crabs! Two of them are only about 1/4" wide with hairy legs and seem to be grazing on some of the brown algae that has begun to develop. The other is about a 1/2" wide, black with gray marking on its shell and red eyes. I think it is some form of a xanthidae (which I am under the impression that it's bad ) Here is a picture I got of him Link to comment
darkdrako Posted January 14, 2009 Author Share Posted January 14, 2009 Just an update, I have been in my cycle for two weeks and now have my wonderful brown, green and some red algae all over the place! My parameters have been the same for 5 days now: Temp: 80F Salinity: 1.025 Ammonia: 0ppm Nitrite: 0-0.1ppm Nitrate: 5ppm pH: 8.1 Alk: 1.6 I have not done a water change yet, so I hope the Nitrates will lower and the pH will increase a little. I also have purchased some Astrea and Cerith snails (3 each) and 5 or so Nassarius snails to start to get a hold of the algae. Question: Is it too early to do a water change and/or add chaeto to help with the nitrates? I know some people have tanks that show 0's across the board and others that have 5 or less ppm of nitrates. If the latter is the case, how can you tell when your cycle is over? There is no intention of buying up everything I see to add it. Link to comment
knoxvegas Posted January 15, 2009 Share Posted January 15, 2009 If your still showing nitrites, then the cycle is not over. Once nitrites hit '0', you will do a WC to lower the nitrates to a respectable and add cleanup crew. The only way to lower nitrates is export of some kind. Either WC, macroalgae that gets trimmed/thinned out, or some kind of chemical media to absorb it, which eventually gets removed. Link to comment
darkdrako Posted January 30, 2009 Author Share Posted January 30, 2009 So my tank is almost completely cleaned by my CUC. After getting a different brand of test kit, my ammonia and nitrites are zero (and have been for 2 or 3 weeks apparently) and nitrates are 0-5ppm. I did a 20% water change and will hopefully be getting my first coral(s) this weekend. Current inhabitants: -black cucumber (died and was removed) -2 hitchiking hairy crabs -1 hitchiking black xanthidae crab -1 peppermint shrimp -1 emerald crab -3 astrea snails -3 cerith snails -5 nassarius snails New hitchikers: - 1" long almost clear pistol shrimp living in one of the hollow rocks! Only got to see it for a quick second but it was definitely a pistol shrimp. - Handful of button polyps; some about a 1/4" wide -a very pink encrusting sponge Link to comment
SiLkk Posted January 31, 2009 Share Posted January 31, 2009 great photos, keep up the good work! Link to comment
dreboogie Posted January 31, 2009 Share Posted January 31, 2009 nice sponge, all the ones I find on my rocks are clear Link to comment
southstar066 Posted January 31, 2009 Share Posted January 31, 2009 like the pink sponge alot. keep us posted Link to comment
darkdrako Posted February 2, 2009 Author Share Posted February 2, 2009 So I purchased my first corals! I felt like a kid in a candy store! I picked up 5 in total. - pink hammer - neon green zoa (3 polyps) - orange/blue ricordea - neon orange candy cane (2 heads) - reddish purple favia Everything looked like it was doing well. The zoas opened, the hammer has puffed up after adjusting my salinity, the candy canes had their feeders out at lightsout. The zoas were not attached to anything so I glued them to a small piece of LR that I had knocked off. This morning though, I did not see them where I had left them. It was a very small piece of LR so maybe a snail or the water flow knocked them over. Hopefully the hitchiking crab or the peppermint shrimp didn't get to them. I will have to take a look when I get home and post some pictures. Link to comment
darkdrako Posted February 2, 2009 Author Share Posted February 2, 2009 Yay! I love it when I get emails like this. Here are some pics of the new additions (they are not too happy because my wife decided to turn on the lights while the tank was in its night period). Ricordea Candy Cane Hammer or Frogspawn (can't tell yet) Favia Zoas FTS Btw, all of these placements are temporary (mainly the hammer) until I find the best places for them. Live aquaria has the best place recommended for the hammer at the bottom of the tank. I can put it in the lower right corner of the tank which would get direct light and flow from the hydor flo coming around. Would that be ok? I don't want to leave it at the top of the tank like that but didn't want to glue it down to the rock and make it unhappy where it was. Also, anyone know how to make it so that the pictures come up as a thumbnail with the black border on it? When I do it with Photobucket, it justs posts a small thumbnail that looks like a camera-phone pic. Link to comment
darkdrako Posted February 5, 2009 Author Share Posted February 5, 2009 Just a quick update: Turns out it is a frogspawn not a hammer. I have adjusted the placement of it a few times and I think I am ready to glue it down. Everything seems to be doing well. All of the zoas have opened up and are looking a very very neon green! Might be getting some more frags for my upcoming birthday so we'll see! Edit: While feeding my shrimp and corals a little bit, a special little visitor decided to come out of hiding! Link to comment
darkdrako Posted February 9, 2009 Author Share Posted February 9, 2009 Bought some more corals this past weekend as well as a 2.5 AGA pico for my wife. No more corals for me until March now. The tank will be 2 months at that point so maybe I'll purchase a fish or two..haven't decided yet. Anyway, so here they are Picked up the big clusters of zoas for only $40! There is 50+ polyps! I also purchased an open brain that was bleached out for $5. We'll see if I can nurse it back into health. Edit: The zoas were in two clusters and I just took some of the loose hanging groups and glued them to some rubble. Link to comment
Psychosis Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 The tank is looking good. You might be going a little fast when it comes to adding live stock, but you seem competent enough. What might you be planning to do with the hitcher crabs? Link to comment
darkdrako Posted February 9, 2009 Author Share Posted February 9, 2009 The tank is looking good. You might be going a little fast when it comes to adding live stock, but you seem competent enough. What might you be planning to do with the hitcher crabs? I know it was a little fast thats why there will be no other additions for a while. They were birthday presents so I couldn't say no. Most of the corals are going to go into the 2.5gal when it is done cycling. As far as the crabs, they haven't done anything bad to remove them yet. The two smaller ones seem to be happy to just pick off the rocks, the larger black one actually just recently molted so I haven't seen it for a bit. Unless they start to eat the corals, they are welcome in my tank. Link to comment
Psychosis Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 Just be wary, especially of that large black one. I can tell you the two smaller ones are probably gorilla crabs if there hairy, and the large one is a stone crab. Sweet pistol btw. I hope my birthday goes that well Link to comment
coralcor Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 nice ric!! all i got is a green one but im not complaining.... much... Link to comment
darkdrako Posted February 18, 2009 Author Share Posted February 18, 2009 When it rains it pours. So, last week I decided to rescape my tank because my original design did not provide enough space for the corals to be viewed from the front of the tank. I took as many precautions as I could (remove all corals, do not disturb sand etc.) It went as easily as it could for being so nervous. On a side note, I figured out that I suck at scaping. I distrubed as little sand as I could and the tank was settled and clear within an hour of finishing. All inhabitants were accounted for and all parameters were the same as before the rescaping but there was still a slight spike in my nitrates. They went to about 20ppm from 0-5ppm prior. Perhaps there was something that was distrubed or pinched and killed on the rocks? As a result of my inexperience, my frogspawn started to receed into the skeleton until one morning I woke up to see the skeleton being picked clean by the nass snails and pepermint shrimp. All of my other corals look very good and even the open brain seems to be regenerating some of its tissues and a little bit of color On top of all of that, something decided that the xenia looked good enough to eat. By the time I caught on a made a temporary rack from leftover acrylic, it was too late. The stalks were severed at their base and eventually seperated. There is still the "foot" of the xenia attached to the rock. I have read somewhere that it will begin to grow from that. Only time will tell. Edit: I went home and found the foot of the xenia was picked clean. It was the peppermint shrimp. No other invertebrate could have made it onto my frag platform. Apparently the mysis was not enough so I purchased some pellets. Here are just a few recent photos and a full tank shot Link to comment
SiLkk Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 Looking good do you have any fish? Link to comment
Lutra Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 Are we sure that's a pistol, it's not a color I'm familiar with (not a pro at them at all though). Sorry to hear about the coral losses. That happened to my frogspawn too when my husband got a little poke happy. Link to comment
darkdrako Posted March 1, 2009 Author Share Posted March 1, 2009 SiLKK : No, I don't have any fish in there yet. I am going to give it a few more weeks to make sure I won't have any problems. Lutra: I am pretty sure it is a pistol shrimp. I don't know of any other shrimp that have a claw like that but I am also not a pro. Link to comment
darkdrako Posted April 20, 2009 Author Share Posted April 20, 2009 So I haven't updated this thread in over a month. Only a few additions. I added an acan (ended up with brown jelly) and a second one that my wife had purchased, another orange ric, a purple chalice, a xenia, a green clown goby and a misbarred false perc. Everything is doing well. The zoas are growing nicely. The new acan seems to be happy and the trumpet is splitting nicely. The trumpet Here is the new acan FTS with the previous acan Link to comment
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