I picked up a Biocube 14 today.

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Loving this thing so far. For $100 it came with the live rock, water and pods that had been in it, and the seller had added occasional biospira to keep it active -- it's an almost 5 year old system now:

IMG_1093.jpg


It's the LED one, which is cool too. I stole a small piece of the advanced live rock and added it to the refugium in my 3 month old 55, too.

I had a smart power strip here, so I've plugged the lights into 3 ports that I can schedule, and I found an old iPod to control it -- fortunately the power strip also has USB ports to keep the iPod going all the time. It will sit dark and fallow for a week, then I'm planning to run PC2 for 12hours and add PC1 for 8-10 hours once there's livestock in it. I'm hoping that with the "moonlight" aspect of RFA spawning I can hopefully work the moonlight into the schedule.

My plan is to fill it with RFAs and 3 sexy shrimp, plus a Tuxedo Urchin and a CUC. I'm trying to figure out what the CUC should look like right now. I'd like to pick it up locally, rather than order online, as I feel like the kit that I got from reefcleaners last time around didn't fare well when shipping was delayed and it was below freezing for days.

My LFS has a few RFAs in stock, so I'm going to keep feeding this thing up to 2ppm ammonia to make sure it's in good shape, and maybe pick up a snail and a turbo snail.

My main tank is really intended to be a coral grow out tank, so it's in the basement. This thing is right in the living room -- even with the lights off and nothing but algae and rock in it, the burble is so soothing.

I'm more than ready to listen to any stocking thoughts or changes.
 
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Congratulations on the new tank! I encourage you to read through @Ron Reefman's thread(s) on RFAs - there is some great stuff in there like using PVC end caps and a lot more. Good luck!
 

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Congratulations on the new tank! I encourage you to read through @Ron Reefman's thread(s) on RFAs - there is some great stuff in there like using PVC end caps and a lot more. Good luck!
It's a great thread, I've read it twice now :]

Just a point of info. I now have 28 RFA in end caps and another 20 or more spread around in the rocks with my zoas and other corals. Many of the ones on the rocks are very small yet as they were just born about 6 months ago!

And I have not confirmed this yet, but in moving my RFA in end cap around from tank to tank to tank as I'm setting up a new system, I think the RFA like having sand in the end cap. The ones I've had that got filled with sand (after the RFA was well settled in, seem to be happy to stay in the end cap. The ones that have been in end caps without sand are a bit more inclined to move out. I had about 15 RFA in caps without sand and after each move 1 or 2 of them would climb out of the end cap and stay attached to the outside edge of the end cap at, or just below the level of the sand surface.
 
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Try a random flow generator in there!

I’m definitely thinking about that, it’d be easy enough to add.

My only concern is that the tank is for RFAs, which don’t like too much flow. I was going to pull a Koralia nano from lesser duty in another tank and move it into this one, but between the two that might be too much.

maybe I could get away with just the random flow generator? Or maybe I could if I upgraded to an mj600?

Since I’m hoping for breeding to occur I’m afraid to add fish that will eat the spawn. I think the sexy shrimp would be ok, but I’m not sure what other wish could be trusted.
 

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I’m definitely thinking about that, it’d be easy enough to add.

My only concern is that the tank is for RFAs, which don’t like too much flow. I was going to pull a Koralia nano from lesser duty in another tank and move it into this one, but between the two that might be too much.

maybe I could get away with just the random flow generator? Or maybe I could if I upgraded to an mj600?

Since I’m hoping for breeding to occur I’m afraid to add fish that will eat the spawn. I think the sexy shrimp would be ok, but I’m not sure what other wish could be trusted.

I'm not sure where the idea RFAs don't like flow? They may close up when first hit or exposed to it, but they get used to just fine. However, if you have stronger flow, I'd suggest shutting it off when you feed. You can turn it back on when the RFAs open up again. That's usually just a few minutes.
 
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Well, the first livestock got drip-acclimated last night, and entered the tank -- an RFA and a tuxedo urchin.

The urchin just started exploring like Magellan -- what a cool thing for a tank! It's like a little mountain goat, it's constantly moving and devouring. I spotted my first vermatids, so I'm hoping he'll keep them in check. He's not very big yet, though:
IMG_1108.jpg


He got comfortable pretty quickly, although he did spend quite a bit of time up at the surface of the water around the rim of the tank. He's moved back down more today, though.

The nem did NOT appreciate the move, though. At first it was just shriveled and hiding under a small rock, then when I got up this morning it had completely disappeared under the scape. After a few hours it appeared inside the cave, where it eventually attached and hung upside down and closed up for hours. These being my first livestock (except for the fire goby in the QT downstairs), this whole thing was pretty stressful.

I figured that the full light was probably too much for it right now, since the lights at the LFS weren't much, so I cut back on the lighting, and came down afterwork at 5 to find it opening up and sticking its head out of the cave a little to soak up some light:

IMG_1109.jpg


Much better! It's not in that much light really, I just turned it on for a second to snap the pic. I guess I'll slowly add more light over the next week or so. I've got a smart powerstrip set up for it, with the lights plugged into it and an ancient iPod set up to schedule the lights, so I can do things however I want, which is cool. I don't even have to do long stretches of light, I could keep the dim light on for ~8 hours, and turn the brighter ones on for brief bits throughout the day, as if clouds are passing, until it gets more comfortable.

Did I mention the vermatids? Yeah, I've got some vermatids.

IMG_1110.jpg


Again, I'm just getting started, so I think that's what they are. It sounds like they commonly pop up after a fallow period, which is what we've got here. I'll probably try crushing them tonight, as there are too many for my one tiny urchin to deal with, I think, and I don't want to end up with an infestation. Right now they're confined to one rock, so I can pull it and crushcrushcrush fairly easily.
 
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I killed off all of the vermetids on one of the rocks, but have now spotted two on another one, so more work to do there.

The tuxedo urchin (now known as Tennessee) has already gotten noticeably bigger, and absolutely DEVOURS the coraline -- the whole back wall was pink, now it's more white than anything else. He really gets around, too, it's fun to watch.

Jerry, the anemone, doesn't want to settle anywhere, and has yet to stay in the same spot for more than 4 or 5 days before moving on. He's checked out probably half of the spots in the tank -- on the rock, under it, on the other rocks, between the rocks (which was really cool, because his boot was fully extended for that period), but he seems happy and healthy otherwise. Maybe he's just a travelin' anemone?

A week from Saturday I hope to pick up a few more RFAs and 3 sexy shrimp for this tank. It's hard to target feed him mysis, so some of it always floats off, and I'd like to have something in there to pick off the strays.

The bumblebee snails also seem to be doing well. I've seen one munching at the base of a vermetid, but they certainly haven't eradicated them. You would think there wouldn't be a lot of hiding places in a 14g cube, but I'll go a week without seeing them, then one day they all appear.

I'm going to a fregfest next weekend, and hope to pick up a few more RFAs for this tank. I'd like to get them breeding if I can.
 
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I picked up 4 "ultra" RFAs at the frag fest (along with my first corals, a couple of zoas that are in the other tank in my sig), and they've been perfectly happy for about a month now.

Well, maybe not perfectly happy at first -- one of them was upside down for a couple of hours, and didn't seem like it wanted to right itself. It was really weird and stressful, but I finally got it upright and it's beautiful. I'll post some pics later.

They're happily eating shrimp pellets every few days, and I leave a couple sitting around for the bumblebee snails and the sexy shrimp. Did I mention the sexy shrimp? I added one, since they've been really hard to find locally. S/He's very cool, and I can't wait to add a few more. I figured they'd be good for cleaning up any food that the nems miss, but they hopefully won't eat any nem spawn or eggs. It's *very* attached to one of the nems and hangs out with it all the time.

The weirdest thing, though -- my original nem, who is now named Gerry, cannot sit still. He travels the tank constantly, in a new position every couple of days, while the others just sit in one place and chill. He'll climb the rock and hang out over the edge, then be sticking out from under the cave, then find some crevice in the back of the tank, then hang out on the wall...

For a few days he was actually cuddled up with another nem we call Amy. One day he was next to her, the next he was under her like an umbrella.

These guys are too cool, and very fun to watch. Since the kids are home from school this has become science class, and my 11 year old has gotten very good at feeding them with these 20" tongs I picked up.

The tongs are also awesome for things like crushing/removing vermetids and fine-cleaning some things. I also got some bubble algae and cleaned it off with a turkey baster.

It's mostly a very healthy system. There are a ton of copepods, which I think the nems can pick off and eat on top of the shrimp pellets that they get. The urchin DEVOURS the coraline, but it grows back pretty quickly.
 

A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

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