FDchase 14 gallon cube

[Retro Heat]

Definitely will be watching this build. Especially since I just bought the same tank and I'm a few months behind you on setting it up. Just finished my stand but I still have to build a door for it. Love your aquascaping.

 

[FDchase]

Thanks. I checked out your build and the stand looks very well done. I’m still waiting for my wife to pick a new tv stand before I put something on the outside of mine so the furniture can hopefully match.
Got the lights set up more. I set it up at 8” which the BRS videos says is suggested hight for 12” cube. At 15” it should be pretty good. Had to make a piece of plastic to keep the mount level.

It is much less blue in person.

 

[TheyGaveItToMe]

I like more of a natural look. So blues are set to about 20-25 cool white is I think 40, uv and moons 0, red and green are 2-5. It’s also on acclimation mode set to 15% over a month. Fish seemed stressed out when I first put the light on so I’m trying not to blast them too hard.
Also is there a way to change spectrum without changing sun up and down and having all light kick back up to 60?
I’m hoping once the fish get used to the light I can play around with the light a bit more and find some setting people use with success that isn’t really blue. Also need to try to get a par meter.

I have the same aquarium different light. But, I run the blue 100%, cool white 30%, and red and green 0%. And, when the white channel is on it looks natural, but the coral needs the blue not the white.

 

[FDchase]

So I changed spectrum settings to the BRS recommendations. I also restarted acclimation mode and reduced it down to 7%. My black clown started hiding in the back corner and the wife said he was there all day. Once the lights started ramping down he started acting normal again so I think the brightness was stressing him out after being in a tank lit by natural light through the window for almost a month. When I get home I’ll see if my plan worked.

 

[kevgib67]

I was reading the beginning about how your wife left and turned off the ac and the tank crashed. I thought to myself please let it have ended in a divorce and not a missing person. What a relief as I continued to read and it was neither! Great scape, looks like your on the right track, keep it up.

 

[FDchase]

That tank was in a slow decline. Started with a little AIO cube to a 70 then 50 then a 20 over the span of a few years. Reef tanks for a high school budget then a broke young newlywed budget isn’t a good combo. At the time I was thinking of giving up and that kinda just sealed the deal.

The wife was unharmed in the crash and still around to see this one start up.

 

[FDchase]

Finally got a diatom outbreak. Everything was clean and algae exploded in about 3 days. Hermit crabs have been putting in work nonstop and are clearing very small patches but can’t keep up. Also picked up a baby tuxedo urchin. When it is on the rocks it will clear big patches but likes to take constant breaks unlike the crabs.

Ive also reduced feeding considerably less which is keeping the clowns from hiding in the back corner all day. Thinking about getting a few snails. Was thinking of 1, maybe 2 nassarius and 2 or 3 cerith snails. I’m worried I’m just going to provide an alternative food to my currently vegetarian crabs.

 

[FDchase]

We’ll the urchin did a pretty good job of cleaning up the algae. There is also a green algae starting to form. Can’t tell what it is but I suspect it’s hair algae. Water seems to be stable. But sitting at 20 nitrates. Hoping it will go down slowly with the smaller feedings I’ve been doing. Also couldn’t resist and got 4 corals from the cheap frag tank.

The green, I believe micromussa, has inflated a lot since I’ve gotten it. It also accepted a couple small pieces of mysis. The red one looks a lot more colorful than at the store but won’t accept food. The zoas are open and seem happy, as happy as a coral can look I guess.

 

[kevgib67]

We’ll the urchin did a pretty good job of cleaning up the algae. There is also a green algae starting to form. Can’t tell what it is but I suspect it’s hair algae. Water seems to be stable. But sitting at 20 nitrates. Hoping it will go down slowly with the smaller feedings I’ve been doing. Also couldn’t resist and got 4 corals from the cheap frag tank.

The green, I believe micromussa, has inflated a lot since I’ve gotten it. It also accepted a couple small pieces of mysis. The red one looks a lot more colorful than at the store but won’t accept food. The zoas are open and seem happy, as happy as a coral can look I guess.

Wow, really came along well! Corals look great, don’t worry about the red one still acclimating. You may want to consider placing your zoas on a rock island so you can control their spread. Here is a picture of my island.

 

[FDchase]

Was wanting to make the island with the pink ones on it a zoa garden. I was thinking of putting the greens in the sand next to the island so they don’t take over the whole rock before the others can get off the plug.
Plan for now, we’ll se how it goes, was to have the zoa island. Acans covering the rock where the 2 are now and up the arch, random lps through the middle main structure and hopefully sps along the top ridge.

 

[FDchase]

Green spots are getting bigger in size in some spots and going away in others. Nothing is really growing into something that’s identifiable.

Also moved my green zoas just in time, they were already trying to spread onto the main rock work. Also found a new tiny head on the pink zoas.
Also got 3 LPS corals during WWCs live sale today. Not sure if I should post screen shots now or wait until I get them. But I know I’m excited. Never had corals as colorful as these one coming in any of my old tanks.

 

[FDchase]

Almost forgot. Urchin finally found one of the many shells sitting in the sand bed

 

[FDchase]

Starting to see small specs of red/purple show up. I’m hoping it’s coralline. There are a few small specs in a couple spots on the rocks. I don’t think it’s cyano because it would not blow off at all. But I’ve also never noticed cyano in the early stages so not sure how it acts in tiny patches.

 

[FDchase]

So here are the corals I got from the world wide live sale.

I got a cosmo platygyra.

Watermelon psammaocora.

Beetle juice Aussie.

Blue stylo.
I am slightly worried about the Aussie. It seems to have gotten some shipping damage and is showing a tiny bit of what I think is skeleton. But all 3 heads open during the day and will have feeders out lightly so I hope it will be ok. Cosmo was looking sickly at first but colored up after the second day and saw feeders this morning. Sorry for the blue pics, lights are still ramping up to full day.

Also got 3 astraea snails. 2 went to the back and I only see occasionally. One went absolutely crazy on the top most peak and left the rock bare after 2 days of work. Probably going to pick up another 3 next week. Urchin is doing a good job but can’t keep up.

 

[FDchase]

Definitely got a large patch of coralline now.

It’s growing best where the outlet of the pump is.
Other news is my tunze comline filter has started to blow bubbles. There is plenty of water in the main chamber. So no idea what is going on. Going to wait it out until I get a controllable power head then turn down flow on the comline.
The snails are also putting in work. Every time they move to a new spot they absolutely just mow down every bit of algae.

 

[FDchase]

I was gone for 6 days at the hospital while my son was being born. Last 2 water tests I did before leaving showed nitrates were undetected on my test kit. So that made me feel better about my dad over feeding the clowns. Got back home to a very dirty tank but after scraping the glass I got a nice surprise to see the 3 snails and urchin did a number on the algae.

I was also expecting to loose my blue stylo and psammocora. Also to my surprise the

stylo, which still doesn’t have good PE is showing the smallest amount on starting to encrust the glue holding it to the frag plug. The psammocora was also starting to loose color before I left but is coming back, not coming back the same highlighter yellow but highlighter green

Finally my purple micro healed from the damage and was at a point I felt was good enough to add to the island

 

[FDchase]

Lights turned on only to find my stylo under attack by both a snail and the urchin.

 

[FDchase]

Picked up a couple things yesterday. One nassarius snail and 2 astraea snails. Hoping the nassarius will clean up the sand bed nicely. The nassarius has only moved about a half inch and finally raised its snorkel after 24 hours.

I also picked up a mini acan colony for $40.

And for a general update, we named the clownfish awhile back, I know it doesn’t really matter but it’s fun for me and the wife. Female, orange, is named Queen Anne after black beards ship Queen Annes Revenge. And male, black, is Davy Jones. My stylo has also shown a decent amount of growth and is finally showing some polyp extensions.

 

[FDchase]

I think ugly stage is coming to an end. There was quite a bit of cyano on the sand. All of that is gone and most of the algae turned into a mush. And all the hair algae except for a small patch right at the pump outlet and a zoa frag is looking like it’s dying. Also started seeing pods around the corals, I think they are really helping cut down the algae.

Also seeing good growth on my corals. Platygyra, stylo and my purple micro all look like they’re growing.

 

[FDchase]

Lots of pods working on the algae.