Anybody with 24 Cube Help please

[somthinfishy20]

Does anybody else here besides me just have stock lighting in the nano cube. If so, what kind of corals are you growing, I want to start with something good and I just need the reassurance that someone else is growing a reef with just the 72 watts. Thanks

[wb9258]

Yeah, I have a xenia, frogspawn, hammer, bubble, flowerpot, zoos, brain, leather, gsp, mushrooms, galaxy and all have been doing very well. I have stock lighting and just do regular water changes. I know some of these corals are not great for a nano cube, but I have had great luck so far. I would not recommend the xenia and bubble because they grow so fast. I love the flowerpot although I believe they have short life expectancy.

[somthinfishy20]

Your tank sounds really cool, have any pics. Do you dose with anything.

[sNEIRBO]

I have the stock Nano Cube, and have tried the following corals - I'll list them in the order I added them, and will note which were successful, and which were failures as I go.

 

Added the following at 6 weeks after startup -

Torch Coral - still alive, a blast to watch it sway around with the Hydor Flo.

Trumpet Coral - GROWING quite well, one of the polyps has already split twice, the other is getting ready to split.

Hammer Coral - had a little mishap - a hermit knocked it over onto a Plate Coral which ate about half of it. It is currently recovering quickly.

 

Added the following at 7 weeks after startup, bought all from Seacrops.com -

Orange/Orange, Green/Green, Red/Pink Zoanthids (CPR frags) - alive, not spreading

Pink center Diasy Polyps (CPR Frags) - alive and spreading

Yellow centered Star Polyps (CPR Frags) - alive and spreading

Blue Striped Mushroom (CPR Frags) - alive and growing

Pearl Colored Bubble Coral - alive and doing great. Another cool one to watch eat.

Purple Short Tenticle Plate (WYSIWYG) - alive - very cool to watch eat.

Cyanrina (WYSIWYG)- alive, but got attacked by one of my hermits not long ago. It's torn up pretty bad, hopefully it will come back

Fox Coral (CPR Frag) - Died about 3 weeks after putting it in the tank. Not sure of cause of death, but it was a CPR and may not have been completely healthy.

 

At 8 weeks after startup I added the following, both were purchased from an LFS -

Sun Coral - small Golf Ball sized rock with about 10 cups on it. This is growing well, but requires a lot of time to hand feed. I saw at least 5 new cups growing on this one today.

Green Star Polyp Frag - originally had about a dozen little polyps on it when I put it in the tank, now has about 40. Growing really well.

 

On Thursday, (10 weeks after startup), I added the following all were purchased from LFSs -

'Shroom Rock - about 25 Watermelon 'Shrooms on Golf Ball sized rock

Blue/Green/Purple Translucent Button Polyps - small frag with about 10 polyps, a medium sized Feather Duster and a Medium sized Coco Worm on it.

6" Long V shaped Stick Frag w/ about 300 Multi Colored Zoanthids on it. All kinds of different colored zoos - Green/Blue w/ Peach Eyes, Green/Green w/ yellow eyes, Orange/Blue with Peach Eyes, Orange/Green with yellow eyes, just about everything you can imagine with Green, Orange, Blue, Yellow and Peach. This is the showpiece in my Tank right now.

 

I'm currently on the lookout for some Nano sized Toadstool, and Xenia Frags.

 

I'm not currently dosing. I've taken water samples to my LFS for analysis, and they said everything is looking good. They recommended when I added my LS, to put crushed coral under the LS. They said that would stablize PH and Calcium for a LONG time. So far it's working. As soon as I see anything start to look bad, or crash, my LFS said they could recommend additives to stablize again. For right now, I guess I'm just lucky.

 

As far as feeding goes, I feed my 2 Perc (1 Reg, 1 Black & White) frozen food just about every night. When I do, I shoot a little food at all the meat eating corals (Plate, Sun, Cyanrina, Bubble, Trumpet) so they get some food. Two times a week I add some filter feeder additive to the water. I just dump it in Chamber 3 where the pump is at.

 

I just recently noticed that coraline algae is starting to spread in my tank. I have signs of light purple, dark purple and red coraline on the back wall. All of those colors were on the live rock I orginally added. The 'shroom rock I added on Thursday has Green coraline on it, so I'm hoping that spreads as well.

 

That's what I love about this hobby. When it starts to get mundane, head out to the LFS and pick up some new corals!

 

I've tried taking pictures in the past, but for some reason my Kodak Digi-Cam doesn't like taking pictures of my tank. Everything always comes out blurry. I'm trying to borrow my sister's top dollar Olympus with hopes I'll be able to get good pix then.

[steelhealr]

Man sNEIRBO...I can't get close to typing that much. Somethingfishy 20, I have stock lighting and I'm having good luck as well. Would you believe I have a gorgonian still alive after 2 weeks? I do...who knows if it will make it,but, for now it is alive. The only coral not doing so great is a brain I just added..it's not opening up yet. Here are tank pix so you can see what stock can do. I'm putting in links because I don't like to hijack threads with pix:

 

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y55/steel...ealr/nano56.jpg

 

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y55/steel...ealr/nano59.jpg

 

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y55/steel...ealr/nano57.jpg

 

Feel free to PM if I can help also. SH

[mwp]

There is PLENTY you can grow with the stock lighting (although I'm considering an upgrade on our 24). Here's what our current stocklist looks like:

 

Red Mushroom Polyps

Ricordea Polyps (Ricordia florida)

Green Hairy Mushroom Polyp (Rhodactis indosinensis)

Yellow Zooanthus Colony (30 polyps or so?)

Green Star Polyp

Pulsing Xenia (Pom Pom variety)

Blue Striped Mushrooms

Blue Mushrooms

Daisy Polyp Colony (Clavelaria sp.)

Alveopora sp. (tiny, on Daisy Colony, possibly Alveopora_tizardi)

Unidentified Clavelaria sp. (mixed in with Daisy Polyps)

A 2nd Unidentified Clavelaria sp. (mixed in with Daisy Polyps)

Unidentified Antler Leather Coral (neospongodes?)

Montipora sp. "Blue Edged"

Yellow Centered Zooanthus colony (approx 20 polyps)

Yellow Finger Leather Coral

Anthelia colonies (split up into multiple frags)

3 Heads of Frogspawn Coral (Euphyllia divisia)

 

By far we're getting the fastest/best growth out of our octo-corals, specifically the Green Stars, Daisy Polyps, Anthelia and Xenia. The Green Stars came in as 3 small frags, like 6 polyps each..the best one is in the front of the tank and in 6 weeks has about 25-30 polyps now. The Xenia started as one small frag, about 10 polyps, and is now 4 branches with well over 100 polyps++ - that's 30 days of growth! The Anthelia came in almost DOA but has sprung back...7 days to attach when simply placed on a rock and has already been fragged..it's growing like a weed. The Daisy polyp colony...well in less than 3 weeks it has entirely filled in and we're trimming regularly so that the little hitchhiker Alveopora can get some light and grow.

 

Our mushrooms...that's another story. While the Rhoadactis has almost doubled in size, it seems like the Red Mushrooms are still getting used to the light (surprisingly it seems to be too intense for them). The Ricordea are doing alright; they're placed on the bottom. FWIW, 3 Tridacnas (1 crocea, 2 maxima) that have been placed on the bottom gravel are doing just fine so far, but we're only a week or two into those.

 

The Montiopora?? Well, it's already been fragged and has healed nicely...can't really say it's growing fast though...kinda still too early to tell.

 

So our setup is pretty much STOCK at the moment other than the addition of Purigen, a small water pump on a "wavemaker" timer, and the surface skimmer mod I posted a few minutes ago. We test regularly (perhaps too often!) and I can tell you this much, 24 gallons of water isn't all that stable! I'm dosing Reef Builder for Alkalinity pretty regularly, and have switched over to Seachem's Reef Calcium and Reef Complete to maintain calcium levels after 2 rapidly dissolving Sea Lab 28 blocks put our CA at over 600 ppm. As far as other additions, I'm regularly dosing with Reef Plus and occasionally feeding just a drop of a concentrated phytoplankton supplement (mostly for the clams and feather dusters).

 

So we set up on this particular tank on June 18th. I'll post these pictures from the July 24th, that's just 5 weeks and a day. We've since added the Frogspawn, a bit more live rock, and rearranged the whole thing..looking forward to crystal clear water in the PM for some updated pictures

 

(from the left)

 

(from the front)

 

(from the right)

 

FWIW,

 

Matt Pedersen (aka. MwP)

[mikedege]

in my stock 24G(except i upgraded my pump) i have

 

4 acan lords (various sizes)

1 rainbow acan echinata(large)

1 green acan ech (small)

4 blasto wellsi

1 blasto merletti

15 different Zoas

Hammer

pink yuma(3")

orange yuma(2")

pinkish purple yuma (1.5")

green rhodactus

3 Florida ricordeas

about 25 purple mushrooms

3 Head candy cane.

 

everything is doing well, ive had my tank up for about 8-9 months, and the only thing i've lost was a certain yuma, but i think its was hurting before i even put him in.

 

i do weekly 10% water changes, and dose Calcium/magnesium/stronium/iodine.

 

I'm basically out of room for any more corals, so i am in the process of cycling my new 62G tank, to move most of this stuff into.

 

-Mike