(The death of the)12g nano cube

[AlisaMac]

Years ago I received a 55g for a present an desperately wanted to do salt water but after pricing out rock/sand it just wasn't something I was financially sound to be taking on at the time.. Well years go by and I start spending time with this very handsome guy with a 75g reef tank and my tank fanaticism was ignited once again!

After spending days in front of his tank and eyeballing his old 12g nano unused in is basement, I some how convinced him to let me start up the nano with his help. (Granted it wasn't THAT hard to convince him because naturally anything that out grows my tank he gets for free..)

So these are my trials and tribulations with my first reef tank and my hopes and aspirations for the future

 

Equipment

-12g nano cube

-2x 12w pc 50/50 lighting & led moonlights

-stock filter (3chambers, sponge, ceramic rings, bio balls, stock pump)

-50w (I believe) heater

 

Day 1:

pulled out the tank. cleaned everything up and tested everything out. found one functioning bulb and one functioning fan. everything else was good to go and could get me cycling while I replaced/ordered the rest of the equipment. the man friend keeps a very efficient system set up for his tank which made it ridiculously easy for me to get started. We added the aragonite reef sand and already cycled water from his 75 as well a some LR from his sump to kick start everything. tested out the specific gravity and once we had everything where we wanted it for now, started the waiting game.

 

 

 

Day xy&z:

the next few days I got to play with this extensive testing kit an tried to become a far more patient person.. I never thought id be so damn excited to go buy rocks.. I had been a few times to a couple lfs an knew what I wanted roughly (one place a really ugly rock..) I purchase 3lbs of totoka lr and my coach allowed me to buy some snails! I went with 5 bumblebees for their multi-use an outright adorable appearance. my total lr now was about 5lbs. I left before my lights came on the next morning and had been alerted about mid day about my diatom bloom got home from work and sure enough there was the yucky brown stuff. This could only mean one thing. Oh yes, it's crab time. Went to my lfs of choice an spent way too long in front of these crabs going back an forth between scarlet's an blue-legs. The guy was helpful in explaining that I should get the scarlet's because since the crabs can be predatory, blues might try an steal the shells off of my bumbles.. so three scarlet's and 4lbs of fiji lr later I have arrived to where I am now.

 

Plan:

since the man friends basement is a virtual treasure trove of aquarium supplies, there's is a 10g that I intend to turn into a refugium once we can get a stand built.. The cube is currently on a nasty end table that has just a tiiiiiiny lean to it.. I'm a big fan of everything coralmorphologic has and would love to get some ric's from them as well as other undetermined coral. A far a fish I'm thinking about a yellow watchman goby but I've got some time before I need to cross that road.

 

here are some pictures for now and would love to know what everyone thinks so far

 

initial rockscape

 

rockscape that i'm reasonably happy with

 

the big picture.

 

youuu better leave that snail alone!

 

the 75

[AlisaMac]

going to get a grouper today, it'll fit right?

 

 

 

Jusssssst kidding.. more crabs

[AlisaMac]

SO! in the man friend's 75g there is a nice piece of frogspawn that has a couple of small branches coming off and lucky for me one of these clones broke off. We first discovered this piece on one of our night explorations. It's probably one of the most exciting things to watch, with the exception of the bristle worms that come out to do who knows what at night. The flow kept blowing it around so he suggested we put the baby in my tank.. So now it's glued to a piece of lr and looking happy in the 12g.

 

ariel view

 

from the side.. one of the bumbles in the background..

 

the big piece in the 75g

[AlisaMac]

So last night the "broken" fans both started to work again.. no clue why this would happen but they've got to be replaced anyway. I thought for sure someone would have something to say or at least share in my excitement over the frog spawn...

[Paul&Ash]

cool little startup, and welcome to the reef keeping life... its fun..and as your coach will say, be patient, nothing good happens when you go fast in this hobby... like the rocks so far...

following along

[AlisaMac]

Thanks!

 

In other news the 75g is missing its court jester goby.. haven't seen it in about a day and a half.. There is a pretty aggressive clown fish in the tank and we're wondering if she or the wrasse bullied it into hiding or worse.. I've got a pretty good video of Josh getting attacked by her during a water change and if I can find a way to upload it i'd love to share, its pretty hilarious..

[AlisaMac]

A bit of a scare today. After over a week with the three red legged hermits in the tank I noticed something strange this morning. There were red legs behind a piece of rock in the back and I thought no big deal just a crab doing his thing... but wait a minute, all three crabs are up on rocks all ready.. I moved some rock around and pulled these legs out and they look just like the ones still on the crabs so I'm a little lost. I tried to read up on this and I hope its molting but I'm not sure these crabs molt? The internet also told me it could be stress.. But my levels have been steady and they've been eating fine for weeks.. The temperature might be a little high but that just involves a heater adjustment. If any one has had anything similar happen I'd love to have a little more insight on this.. I think it's time to send in some new shells, I dont know exactly how big these guys get but they are pretty good sized.

 

The frog spawn is doing well, it's fully extended and looking very happy.

 

These bumbles aren't doing their job to the full extent. They're doing a great job on the lr but my sand and glass need some attention.. time for more snails.

 

The 75g is still missing its goby.. so the odds of a little fish hide and seek going on are slim to none

[wimby]

Good start I would remove the ceramic rings and the bio balls I hear they are nitrate factories. Other then that it looks great.

[AlisaMac]

I'm hoping to be less dependent on the bioballs/ceramic ring filtration system when eventually the refugium gets set up. I've got to make a major equipment purchase before any substantial livestock additions. But I have noticed the nirate levels are a little elevated but we've been doing water changes to counter them.

[AlisaMac]

!! Just got home from the lfs with some goodies, two coral frags and snails for me, and a sea hare for the 75! just acclimating now and I'll have pictures soon

[AlisaMac]

ok! here are the pictures..

 

This is sea biscuit the hairy sea hare from the 75g

he's very funny to watch.. a little heavy to be scaling the glass, sometimes he'll just fall right off

 

one of the astrea snails making a break for it..

 

this little chunk was only $15 and has three small mushrooms on it..

 

also $15, it's still very tightly closed.. cant wait to see it open

 

also added 3 black margarita snaIls who are going to town on the glass, and the two astreas... overall a pretty good haul

[AlisaMac]

randomly went to the lfs on a whim (not my favorite one either) and was impressed. We found a purpley/blue sebae anemone on a 3lb piece of rock with a chunk of bright yellow sponge on it for $58 and haaaaaad to have it for the 75g. Didn't find any for the 12 so I'm a little disappointed, but I did rework my rockscape a bit and glued down my xenia. I had a scarlet set on sabotaging my frags and kept knocking it over. Pictures to come tomorrow when everything is happy again

[AlisaMac]

Ok here are the pictures..

 

the reorganization of my borrrring 12

 

the larger of the three mushrooms on that rock across the way

 

the xenia finally glued down and looking reasonably happy

 

!!The sebae! the coloration is hard to get with my camera phone but its a whole bunch of purple pink and blue hues, very pretty.

 

The bonus sponge and hitch hiker anemones.. I'm posting this one in the ID forum, no idea what the dark guys are but there are four or so that we can see..

 

My new lights should be here wednesday.. nothing exciting just replacement pc's

[ajmckay]

Nice tank, it looks really good. I also like the more recent rock scape you put together.

 

Also, to nano-reef. It's a good forum for smaller tanks. A lot of us also keep larger tanks as well, so a 75 would even fit in.

 

Overall it looks like your "coach" is steering you well. It's not the easiest hobby to get involved with (successfully) and it truly helps to have someone nearby to help out. That and it's a whole lot easier to get corals and such as frags from another person. Cheaper too.

 

That said, I'm glad that you got some astrea and margarita snails... They're real good workers. Unfortunately the bumblebee snails aren't as much (or rather in the right way if you have too many). They do eat detritus, but they are also carnivorous. Meaning that they'll eat up many of the beneficial worms and such in your sand and on your rock. They may munch on stuff like the little featherduster worms which usually pop up. Also they will sometimes prey on other snails. Fortunately they stay pretty small, but you never know. So sometime you may consider taking out some of them so you have a smaller population.

 

good luck!

[sublunary]

Hi Alisa! I just noticed your comment on my thread and popped over to check out your tank. I love the cove-like rock scape you ended up with. I wish I'd left myself that much open sandbed for bottom-dwelling corals.

 

Looks like you're off to a great start! I can't wait to see how it develops! (And I'm sure it will develop fast - you won't be calling your tank boring for long!)

[AlisaMac]

That said, I'm glad that you got some astrea and margarita snails... They're real good workers. Unfortunately the bumblebee snails aren't as much (or rather in the right way if you have too many). They do eat detritus, but they are also carnivorous. Meaning that they'll eat up many of the beneficial worms and such in your sand and on your rock. They may munch on stuff like the little featherduster worms which usually pop up. Also they will sometimes prey on other snails. Fortunately they stay pretty small, but you never know. So sometime you may consider taking out some of them so you have a smaller population.

 

good luck!

 

Thanks. As far as the bumbles, they were the first livestock in the tank and I kept supplementing them because they didnt do anything but stay on the rocks. I don't like the idea of them eating the good stuff so I appreciate that bit of info and am gonna work on phasing them out. One of my margaritas had a small feather duster-esque hitchhiker on his shell and thats gone so I can only imagine it's because of them.

[AlisaMac]

Hi Alisa! I just noticed your comment on my thread and popped over to check out your tank. I love the cove-like rock scape you ended up with. I wish I'd left myself that much open sandbed for bottom-dwelling corals.

 

Looks like you're off to a great start! I can't wait to see how it develops! (And I'm sure it will develop fast - you won't be calling your tank boring for long!)

 

Thanks, I'm soo much happier with rockscape now too I'm typically a pretty impatient person so this is stressful lol. I guess this being an expensive hobby is helping me take my time.. but all i really want is lots of squishy coral

[AlisaMac]

Apparently we cant go a week without going to a fish store.. Soo here's what I got yesterday.

it was $8 a mushroom and we found a tiny tiny one that they must have missed at the store.. so there are five total and they match really well with the other frag I got last week.. The tiniest of the three I already had got knocked off and was found floating around the tank. We had been tossing around the idea of propagating the mushrooms and took this as the perfect opportunity..

 

He's the one who read up on this so I have no idea if this is gonna work but it would be really neat if it took. He's got an awesome hairy shroom that we'd love more of.

 

We figured out, thanks to the id forum, that the hitchhikers on the sebae were majano anemones so we went on the offensive against those.. Everything on the net said to use joe's or kalk juice and I'm sure those are great but we just syringed boiling water on them. They melted away and we just sucked up the remains.

 

Soo thats about it for now just expecting my lights on wednesday, had one of my astrea snails kick the bucket, and seabiscuit is still one of the coolest creatures in the 75g

[Macron]

I really like the scape. You should start adding some zoas to it soon.

[AlisaMac]

I really like the scape. You should start adding some zoas to it soon.

 

Thanks I've seen a lot of ugly zoas so I'm being very picky, but there are some aquacultured ones that I'm in love with. One of my next moves (besides the refugium project) is to start filling out my nooks and crannies and zoas are on the list! At this rate who knows if I'll ever get fish.. lol

[AlisaMac]

I'm apparently a compulsive livestock shopper... Got this pink rose urchin tonight..

It's not the best picture of it but it looks like its photobombing the xenia so I like it..

 

Had to move all of the mushrooms around because the light was too strong and really made the blue and green ones angry enough to make them purple so I moved them lower and sort of in the shade. They really aren't fans of the rock they came on because at least two look like they really want to detach so we'll see how that goes.

 

The frogspawn has gotten a bit larger and I can see it's mouth now so that's encouraging..

 

Since tomorrow's wednesday whoooo knows what'll happen because who can resist a lfs the day after a restock..

[AlisaMac]

unfortunately nothing exciting at either of the big stores last night except talking to someone about trading in Josh's black and white clowns (who wont host anything) in for some saddlebacks.. Today we spent all day cooking a feast and now we're outside in the garage in the balmy 35° weather working on my stand!! well he is.. i'm watching lol

 

he's got this all planned out I'm just along for the ride..

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

[ajmckay]

AM, sounds like things are moving along!

 

I would just like to stick in a plug for researching everything thoroughly before you buy it.

*edit* I'm not trying to imply that you did no research btw... Just a general statement in the case below.

 

Specifically the urchin. While it's small you'll probably find it interesting and a unique addition, however, they're not usually recommended for nano tanks for several reasons. First, they get quite large. Next, urchins are particularly efficient herbivores (sometimes omnivorous)... They like a lot of different types of algae, and they can eat it in amazing quantities. Unfortunately many of them seem to enjoy the beautiful coralline algae we desire so much. Now in a larger tank the amount of coralline that gets eaten can get replaced relatively soon by new growth, but in such a small tank I'm not sure if you'll find that the case. They have sharp beak-like mouths and the actually cut through rock quite well. You'll be able to tell because you'll wake up in the morning and see little "stars" cut into the rock.

 

Some have success dropping in algae wafers at night, but without having enough natural macro algae they're difficult to feed. Algae wafers and lettuce are usually eaten up first by faster animals, and also it's not in their nature to go straight toward a food item. They're foragers so you'll see them all over the tank, though usually they hide during the day.

 

Another thing that makes them difficult to keep in nano tanks is that they are good bull dozers. Meaning they're extra strong given their size. They can knock over rocks much larger than they are, and they can pick up rubble/coral frags/other things and either carry them around for camouflage (depending on the species) or just knock them over.

 

I'm not saying they can't be successfully maintained in nano tanks, but long-term they usually aren't.

 

Finally, I'm looking forward to the stand. I'll be applying polyurethane to my DIY stand tomorrow! Fortunately it's in the basement though 'cause it's coooooooold.

[AlisaMac]

Aj I totally hear you on the urchin causing mass chaos because he's ripped some glued frags up and likes carrying around the snails and hermits. I do a general research on my spontaneous purchases (gotta love smart phones) and I'm very fortunate to have Josh's 75 because I can always transfer. I've got a bunch of pictures ill put up tonight (currently at work) of the piggyback rides, the saddlebacks, and my new Daisy polyps!!

[AlisaMac]

Oook so I couldnt get decent pictures of the saddleback's because they just swim toooo fast. They're doing well and we're just waiting for them to host the sebae

 

that frag was super glued down... this urchin now lives in the 75g..

 

look at how big it's getting!! theres a picture on this thread somewhere of the baby frag.. veryyy happy with this!

 

I'm just waiting for this unhappy green shroom to lift off and find a new rock.. I don't know what else it wants from me!

 

My daisies! I had been trying to find these in a smaller piece for a few weeks now and finally buckled and bought this larger piece.. It fits great into a nook on the sand bed so I'm very pleased. I took this picture yesterday and it's not bad but they are much happier today.

 

Josh has been staining the stand in the basement because it's too cold outside and we've just gotta get it sealed and together and I'll have my stand! I'm on a spending freeze until I force myself to buy the pump for the sump. (but pumps aren't exciting!)

 

Soooo thats about it for now..