Purchased a 14gallon BioCube, and some goodies.

[Ssteve]

Been dreaming of doing a reef tank for a long time and figured I would wait until I was done with school and had a stable job... Well, I'm done with school but still not in my intended field, but instead of scrapping my reef dreams I figured I would scale back and do a small nano.

My plan is a pair of clowns, inverts and start working on growing some corals that I can eventually transfer to a larger tank, and then use the nano for a frag tank or something like that down the road.

So far this is what I have coming.
-14g BioCube
-eheim jäger trutemp 100w heater
-koralia 240 powerhead.
-Kessil a150w 15k

I plan to use my LFS for live rock and live sand. Going to pull the bio balls and just run liverock and chempure, and don't plan to run a skimmer, just weekly water changes. Anything advice or pointer would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Marinne13]

sounds like you have planned well...what kind of corals do you want to start with?

 

[Ssteve]

I haven't decided yet. I'm personally drawn to color and movement so if I can track down a colorful frogspawn I would like to do that, but I haven't looked into enough to know about them and placing them in a newer tank.

 

[Marinne13]

any LPS coral like frogspawn, hammer, zoanthids, brain coral, mushrooms etc... are great beginner corals

check out liveaquaria.com

 

[Ssteve]

Awesome thank you. Frogspawn and zoanthids are what I wanted to start with so that's good to hear.

 

[Waddi]

Sounds like you have it downpat!
+1 on Marinne
.

 

[Ssteve]

Can a kessil a350w be turned down enough to work with the 14g biocube?

 

[Marinne13]

I wouldn't try it on a 14g

 

[tp1011]

and get your self a ro/di unit i was going to my LFS for water but that got old after about 4 months.
I have a29 BC and love it, look in to Tampa bay salt for you LR and CUC starter package the guy is really cool
and he gives you lots of extras.

 

[SarahSmile]

I don't know about the chempure.
I loved my 14g biocube when I had it, great way to start. You'll have fun. Make sure to keep the front flap open and a powerhead rippling the surface for gas exchange. I did not have luck with a pair of clowns in there. Aggression. It's more fun to do a clown and something else, just in my opinion. Everyone does a pair of clowns. Not to argue with Marinne but I have the kessil a350 and it's fully adjustable. You can turn it as dim as you want and it would be nice to have for when you upgrade. The A150 would be useless when you upgrade.

 

[Ssteve]

So here's a little update. I have a kessil 150 15k now that I'll be using. I'm also pulling the rim and will eventually have a plexi top made for it to help with evaporation. Got live sand and a friend is donating some of his LR from his large tank he just got done redoing his aquascape in.

Question about using his rock though. It's been in a bucket for a week now with saltwater, and is growing some algae. I'm assuming I should be able to just scrub the algae off and start to cycle my tank with it? Anything I should watch for?

 

[Marinne13]

did it have a heater and power head or just sitting in a bucket of saltwater...you can use it but it might have some die off

I would scrub the algae off

 

[Ssteve]

So I picked the rock up. It wasnt heated and didnt have flow but the temps have been just about perfect lately, so hopefully that helps. I scrubbed the algae off, which there wasn't much of, but the rocks have some life in them as I have already seen some tiny little grey/white specks moving this morning. No idea what they are, but my friend is confident the rock will work out fine for me, and since hes had plenty of healthy tanks over the years, Im going to trust his judgement.

Here is my aquascape so far. I like the way it looks in the first picture, minus some sand. I think tonight Ill pull some sand out, unless anyone suggest different? I have another small rock thats in the second pic but Im just leaving that in for the cycle cause I would like that space for some corals.

 

[Marinne13]

that is an awesome little tank...should be fun

 

[SarahSmile]

Looks great! Make sure the rocks on the glass and not the sand.

 

[Sidekick41]

Sarah I didn't know the rocks should be sitting on the sand, why is that?

 

[SarahSmile]

They should NOT be sitting on the sand. The sand will settle and shift with time. Snails and fish will burrow. Your rocks will move around and you don't want an avalanche. Also, it will just trap nasty stuff underneath them. Rocks always go on glass. :)

 

[Ssteve]

Thanks. I have some rescaling to do then and removing of some sand. I'll most likely do that in a couple days.

 

[Sidekick41]

They should NOT be sitting on the sand. The sand will settle and shift with time. Snails and fish will burrow. Your rocks will move around and you don't want an avalanche. Also, it will just trap nasty stuff underneath them. Rocks always go on glass. :)

Darn, then I have a delema since all mine (60 lbs) is on the sand. I guess one by one and I move them back and forth to get them down to the glass as much as I can. Sorry to thread jump

 

[SarahSmile]

That's a bummer Rob, I hate moving rocks around, plus I'm always worried about bristle worms getting my hands. Gives me the heebie jeebies thinking about it.
Rock looks good Steve-I'd leave it all in there, more space for beneficial bacteria to grow and critters to hide.