Webersp's 14g Biocube

[webersp]

Hi all,

 

This isn't the first time this cube has been setup, but it's been torn down for about 2 years.  I took a job that required me to travel between 5 and 6 days a week and having a fish tank wasn't an option then.  

 

While it sat empty, the seals stayed intact and everything holds water, which is great!  I did, however, end up needing new lights.  I had the RapidLED retrofit kit installed in the original hood, but unfortunately my laziness on cleaning after it was torn down resulted in lots of corrosion and connectors falling apart.  

 

The tank has been back up since 11/11/17, so it's just starting to cycle.  Pretty much everything here is being reused from my last build besides the lights and sand, trying not to spend a ton of money, I bought the cube and stand on Craigslist about 5 years ago for $30 so that's been a good investment so far!

 

Setup so far:

Biocube 14 

Oceanic Biocube skimmer

Hydor Koralia 240

Hydor Centrifigual 260 return pump

Basket with chemipure, purigen, and filter floss 

Micmol Aqua Air 24w Marine

 

The lighting is a new offering from Micmol.  For anyone familiar with the Nemolight,  that company has released a new version called the Prism.  The Prism appears to he a rebadged version of the Micmol Aqua Air.

 

It uses .5w SMD LEDs and does cover a full spectrum.  I haven't had time to mess with the controller yet so nothing has been dialed in yet in the photo, the light stays off anyway since I'm cycling.  The controller has a lot of options so I'll have to see what it can do.  

 

I've never tried using these kinds of LEDs to grow coral but I'm giving it a chance.  I've seen reports with quite a bit of success from the Nemolight and from the Aqua Air V1, so I'll give it a try.  I'm patient and not trying to win any awards for coral growth rates. 

 

Future plans:

Cobalt Neo-Therm  (flat heater so I can have space for it in the back with my filtration, as opposed to the current heater floating in the display while the tank cycles)

Modify the Biocube skimmer with a new air pump and possibly a longer housing.  It's basically useless right now, but the air pump seems too weak to even produce bubbles.  I bought this for $3 with something like 12 airstones at the local flea market years ago.

2 black ice clownfish

 

Those are pretty much the only hard plans for now other than your generic clean up crew. I've always been more interested in softies and LPS,  so expect to see a lot of that on the way!  I will most likely pick up at least a monti frag down the road to place near the top and see how it does with the lights just because I'm curious. 

 

More to come after the tank cycles.  There was a lot of dead matter on the rocks that needed to decompose after reintroducing saltwater, but the process is going well so far and the smell is improving.  The water is still pretty cloudy but it's a process! I'll probably do my first water tests next week and expect to be cycled and ready to start adding a little bit around the first or second week of December, but we'll see!

 

[Oldsalt01]

Welcome back! Looking forward to following the build. Looks like a bacterial bloom from the rock. Add an airstone and more O2 to the tank, which will eliminate the cloudiness in a couple of days.

[webersp]

4 hours ago, Oldsalt01 said:

Welcome back! Looking forward to following the build. Looks like a bacterial bloom from the rock. Add an airstone and more O2 to the tank, which will eliminate the cloudiness in a couple of days.

Thanks!  Been awhile since I've cycled a tank haha.  

 

I'll grab a spare from my parents when I visit for thanksgiving.  My dad bought out an aquarium store 10+ years back and I know there's plenty of air pumps around. 

 

Quick update already, I did have time to check out the controller for the light and it's actually pretty cool.  It has settings for the white, blue, and "special" (UV and some others). For each of the 3 channels, you can set times for the following:

Dawn

Sunrise

Midday

Sunset

Dusk

Night

 

The settings gradually change for each point.  For example, if you set your blues to 50% at dawn and 100% at midday and set dawn to 8 AM and midday to noon, it would gradually ramp up from 50% to 100% over that 4 hour period.  

 

I haven't set a lighting schedule in stone since I'm not close to being ready for livestock, but I did play with it.  The controller displays the realtime percentages, so I can see that it's now 3:18 PM and my whites are at 63%, blues at 97%, and special at 97%.  Kind of neat. 

[webersp]

Updates probably won't continue to be daily, but I thought I'd upload some photos showing some increased water clarity today.  I'll do a change in the next few days, but when I uploaded the original photos I had just replaced the stock Biocube pump with the Hydor 260.  

 

If OldSalt is correct on the bacterial bloom, I'm hypothesizing the increased surface agitation is promoting oxygen exchange and helping clear this up. 

 

I did go ahead and order the Neo-Therm in 100w.  A little larger than needed but it was actually cheaper and I'm keeping the tank open top and near a window.  I like to keep my place pretty cold  (64-66 Fahrenheit) so the extra wattage is welcome. 

 

Quick question, does anyone have any thoughts on bubble tip anemones?  Specifically, would it be "cruel" to attempt to keep one shortly after the tank cycles?  I've had one in this 14g in the past, hosted by 2 black onyx clowns.  The reason I ask is someone on Craigslist nearby has extras about the size of a pickle jar lid and I can pick one up for $20 if he still has one when ammonia levels have been 0 for a bit.  I often see them in the area for $75+, usually around the size of a half dollar, a bit larger.  

 

I know that the chances of success in a young tank are low, but existent with pristine water quality and target feeding.  I wouldn't buy a fish knowing that it would likely die, because I would perceive that as cruel, whereas I wouldn't think anything of popping a $5 Xenia frag into a young tank because my perception is that it's not cruel if it dies.  I know they're inverts, so wasn't sure if this would be something "mean" to try.  Not worried about $20 gambled and if it kicks the bucket I'll pull it before it crashes the system, just don't want to be intentionally cruel. 

 

Speaking of difficult animals though, I'll have to hunt for some pictures, in this Biocube's previous life it was home to a mandarin dragonet.  Using someone else's idea that I saw online, I purchased an emaciated mandarin from a local LFS  (not trying to get into ethics issues of supporting suppliers selling unhealthy fish) and successfully kept him alongside my clowns by teaching him to eat roe from an olive jar daily.  Really neat fish, and it'll be some time before the tank is fully stocked, but I would consider adding one in addition to the black ice clowns, at which point I'd consider this stocked fish wise.  It's something I'll have to think about, I've seen a few online suppliers selling them for $90+ claiming they're captive bred and guaranteed to accept mysis.  Something to look into more, but a purple firefish is currently the more likely candidate for the third and final planned fish. 

 

Apologies for the very blue photos.  I'm still just toying with the lighting system and it's currently ramping down to a 2% blue only setting for night viewing. 

[Oldsalt01]

As for a BTA, I personally wouldn't recommend one for several months. Just because you go through the cycle doesn't mean your tank is stable yet. That takes a while, actually several months. If you put a BTA in there and it dies your tank is gonna crash BIG TIME. Sorry. That's JMHO, but I'm pretty sure others will back me up. Save ur $20 and put it toward a BTA in, say, late Februrary.

[webersp]

3 hours ago, Oldsalt01 said:

As for a BTA, I personally wouldn't recommend one for several months. Just because you go through the cycle doesn't mean your tank is stable yet. That takes a while, actually several months. If you put a BTA in there and it dies your tank is gonna crash BIG TIME. Sorry. That's JMHO, but I'm pretty sure others will back me up. Save ur $20 and put it toward a BTA in, say, late Februrary.

Probably won't bother, I'm going to try to pick up some softies from the guy and I was just curious as to whether or not attempting a BTA knowing it would most likely die would be a "cruel" thing, I know the chances of success in an immature setup are incredibly low. 

[webersp]

Ammonia read zero Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and everything is looking good.  It took less time than expected.  When the rock first went in and die off was heavier, I did large water changes vacuuming detritus.  Once that phase was over I introduced my sand and some Instant Ocean Bio-Spira and began filtration, not sure if this helped to accelerate the process.  I've never used any start up additives and I expected another 1 to 2 weeks before I'd be ready for any inhabitants.  Thanks to the huge sales yesterday/today, I decided to proceed with adding some hardier livestock to my tank. 

 

I went ahead and picked up 2 snowflake clowns (both are pretty small), as well as some softies.  Saw some really beautiful LPS on sale but that's out of the question at this point, I'd like to continue to let my tank stabilize.  This is the earliest I've ever added anything to a tank so I was already apprehensive and didn't want to push it. 

 

The softies are some mushrooms, ricordia, and zoanthids.  Some plain larger polyped ones and some with smaller polyps that are brighter, kind of orange/purple/blue. 

 

Everybody seems to like the lights so far, and I did pick up an air pump from my parents place to replace the stock Biocuber skimmer air pump.  It's a little wet, but it's now doing it's job pretty satisfactorily. 

 

 

[Oldsalt01]

I'm curious about the rock up against the back wall. Aren't you concerned that will cause a fairly large dead spot? For my own edification.

[webersp]

34 minutes ago, Oldsalt01 said:

I'm curious about the rock up against the back wall. Aren't you concerned that will cause a fairly large dead spot? For my own edification.

Honestly I've never given thought to doing it any other way, I tried to leave some open spaces in the back so it may not be as bad as it appears in some of the photos, here's one from the side.  It's difficult to photograph from the other side but it's even a little less dense over there. I had rock up against the wall in it before, though the rock setup was much different previously.  I guess I could pick up some of the Instant Ocean putty to bind the rocks together and move it all out, I can't seem to recall if you can do that while everything is wet, I'll have to look it up.  I used it once with good results to make a pair of freestanding columns in a regular 29 gallon. 

 

The "pile" is really 3 rocks tall at it's highest point, in the past (as in when it was running before) I would just pick them up here and there during my regular water changes and do my best vacuuming.  I've also considered turning the powerhead to blow horizontally across the tank, but I didn't want to completely bombard my rock/coral and things seem more evenly distributed with the current setup.

 

Certainly open to friendly suggestions, keeping a journal can be great for catching mistakes I might've otherwise missed, if nothing else you've got me thinking about it!

 

Also, not that a clean up crew fixes dead spots, but I forgot to mention in my previous post that I'm going to let things stabilize here and add a clean up crew late next week or early the following week if nothing changes.

[Oldsalt01]

I am, in no way, an expert on setting up tanks, nor was my question intended as a criticism. After two years, my Biocube is actually stabilized and I am beginning to have some success with softies. I am also more comfortable with water chemistry concerns and nutrient export strategies, and I think my journal has helped point me in the right direction and reminded me of previous mistakes or stupid assumptions. Zoas, however, continue to elude me, so I still have a lot to learn. The fact that this isn't your first rodeo definitely works in your favor, and I'll be following along to see how things progress.

[webersp]

19 minutes ago, Oldsalt01 said:

I am, in no way, an expert on setting up tanks, nor was my question intended as a criticism. After two years, my Biocube is actually stabilized and I am beginning to have some success with softies. I am also more comfortable with water chemistry concerns and nutrient export strategies, and I think my journal has helped point me in the right direction and reminded me of previous mistakes or stupid assumptions. Zoas, however, continue to elude me, so I still have a lot to learn. The fact that this isn't your first rodeo definitely works in your favor, and I'll be following along to see how things progress.

I'll have to check out your build log!

 

What size Zoanthid frags do you normally buy?  I feel like I usually lose a few polyps off of mine before things turn around and the colony is successful.  Despite being considered a really easy to keep coral, my success rate hasn't been high when buying the tiny frags with 2-4 polyps.  I've also heard a lot of people report that they do better in tanks with some nitrates  (low, not zero) but I've never deliberately raised my nitrates.  Maybe if I get a dead spot in the back it'll help my zoanthids out hahaha. 

 

Mine are fine so far but it's early.  If they kick the bucket it definitely won't be the first or last time I've lost a set of zoas 

 

Here's some morning shots, the tank gets a little indirect sunlight. 

[Oldsalt01]

10 hours ago, webersp said:

I'll have to check out your build log!

 

What size Zoanthid frags do you normally buy?  I feel like I usually lose a few polyps off of mine before things turn around and the colony is successful.  Despite being considered a really easy to keep coral, my success rate hasn't been high when buying the tiny frags with 2-4 polyps.  I've also heard a lot of people report that they do better in tanks with some nitrates  (low, not zero) but I've never deliberately raised my nitrates.  Maybe if I get a dead spot in the back it'll help my zoanthids out hahaha. 

 

Mine are fine so far but it's early.  If they kick the bucket it definitely won't be the first or last time I've lost a set of zoas 

 

Here's some morning shots, the tank gets a little indirect sunlight. 

5 polyps, 15 polyps, doesn't seem to matter, they just melt away. I was given some Pinks 'n Golds summer before last, and they absolutely took off. I was concerned they were going to take over, so I ripped them out, literally. After that it seemed like every zoa I put in there just crashed. I sometimes wonder if they somehow "poisoned" the tank. I had to replace the rock in August because of a horrendous BA explosion, and since then everything seems to be doing better. My Discomas are multiplying, my GSP is spreading on it's rock, and I just added a Ricordea over the weekend that has plumped right up and is looking great. My 5 polyp Red People Eaters just sit, as they have for about the last year, but don't seem inclined to multiply. I'm considering moving them up from the bottom to see if that will help.

 

[webersp]

On 11/26/2017 at 8:58 PM, Oldsalt01 said:

5 polyps, 15 polyps, doesn't seem to matter, they just melt away. I was given some Pinks 'n Golds summer before last, and they absolutely took off. I was concerned they were going to take over, so I ripped them out, literally. After that it seemed like every zoa I put in there just crashed. I sometimes wonder if they somehow "poisoned" the tank. I had to replace the rock in August because of a horrendous BA explosion, and since then everything seems to be doing better. My Discomas are multiplying, my GSP is spreading on it's rock, and I just added a Ricordea over the weekend that has plumped right up and is looking great. My 5 polyp Red People Eaters just sit, as they have for about the last year, but don't seem inclined to multiply. I'm considering moving them up from the bottom to see if that will help.

 

Looks very nice!!!!! It's crazy how we have these tiny little aquariums that can look so different depending on how we decide to aquascape.  Loving that guy in the bottom left!

 

No pictures tonight unfortunately but I haven't done an update in a bit!  The tank is doing well, no loss yet and everyone is still looking happy.  Went through a bit of a bloom, but it's cleared out now and things are continuing to stabilize. 

 

I live in Cincinnati and the big Cincinnati coral swap is coming up here on January 13th, so for now I'm just sort of doing my water changes, watching my levels, and waiting!  I want to save plenty of space because I anticipate there should be a lot of nice things there. 

 

I did go ahead and make some upgrades and added a Tunze Nano ATO, which is functioning nicely so far!  It kicks on about 4 times a day, it's nice to have that level of stability for my inhabitants.  Additionally I added a Hydor Flo rotating director, which seems to be nice for $7.  Nice to have some variety to the water movement to help prevent deadspots.  Only other thing that has been added is a small pulsing xenia frag. 

 

More updates to come, expect a lot of pictures after the swap especially!