k_dog345's nano reef! (biocube 14)

[k_dog345]

So guys, figured I'd make a little thread over my tank since I've been frequenting this forum. I'd love to have a thread to look over my reefs progress. So I'll go from beginning to current in this particular post.

Soon after I bought my first reef tank in early spring 2015:



I suffered a huge die off unfortunately because I had no idea what I was doing did not supplement my water with necessary elements, had old lighting that needed to be replaced and soon burned out. It took a month to find a replacement, and it killed a lot.

RIP
- blue wrasse (my first fish )
- flower pot gonipora
- Unknown hairy coral
- Unknown tube coral
- leaf plate
- Xenia
- some zoas
- another unknown green white coral

This obviously discouraged me and it took me a bit to get back into the hobby. After getting my replacement light and some encouragement from my beautiful girlfriend I decided to give this another try. Here's my tank after restocking:



You can see I have some coral that's going strong and others that are barely hanging on. We got a damsel that was unfortunately eaten up by my clowns and died. We also got an emerald crab! My tank was a bit in trouble because of all the nasty build up, I got a clean up crew but they weren't enough


The crap really showed its ugly head when I got a goby

So I decided to clean my tank. And killed more stuff in the process

You can read about this here:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/ammonia-and-nitrate-problem-persisting.231126/

Sadly, I lost:
- spot, a diamond goby
- jeuc, a bandage shrimp
- blue green sympodium
- my conch
- altered the state of most of my corals

Be sure to siphon your sand often! And if you do clean, follow my thread. Don't learn the hard way like I did.

So now a days my tank is running super clean! I got a new light that'll be coming next week for a great price

Also have a new thermometer and coral
Feeding tools along with supplements!

Here is the current life in my tank:
Duncan, hand feeding this guy everyday. I want him to get BIG

My favorite, galaxea coral

My acan, this poor guy is barely holding on to life he's not accepting food either

My acro, which is bleached and a couple of pavonas

My frog spawn, star polyp, and zoas as well as an unknown coral

And I can't forget about chloe and Chad, my two clowns and the variety of hermits in the tank.

Will update my thread as new things come in!

 

[Tru REEF]

Good to see you're still in it, keep going and one day you're going to look back and laugh and enjoy your tank that much more.

 

[IdahoNano]

Keep us updated on how you like/mount your light!

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

Ha ha ha, this is similar to what happened to me. I had a 55 gallon reef and it was too expensive to maintain so i downgraded to a 14 gallon biocube and am now working on a 30 gallon. Fortunately, the only loss was when the power went off and my arrow crab died (Which was bad because i liked him, but ok because i didn't know what to do with him as he ate corals)

 

[k_dog345]

Keep us updated on how you like/mount your light!

Will do, it'll be here tomorrow or the next day. Getting a mount tonight! [emoji3]

 

[k_dog345]

Ha ha ha, this is similar to what happened to me. I had a 55 gallon reef and it was too expensive to maintain so i downgraded to a 14 gallon biocube and am now working on a 30 gallon. Fortunately, the only loss was when the power went off and my arrow crab died (Which was bad because i liked him, but ok because i didn't know what to do with him as he ate corals)

I'd definitely like to upgrade....probably 65 gallons tops. I think it's cool when there's an aquarium you look into and feel like your underwater because it's tall! I can imagine how expensive it'd be though

 

[DustyXB9Reefer]

I've had the same problem with my fish dying too but my levels were at 0. Same tank too.

 

[k_dog345]

Well my light just came in!

Sure is a lot bigger than I expected. Unfortunately, the dimmer doesn't work on the white channels. So I sent it back for an exchange. I'm a little scared of putting it on since I've read acclimating your corals will take up to a month. Also, my corals are doing better than ever under my florescent and blue led strip.

My biggest problem is how I'm going to mount it. I want to go rimless, but can't drill holes in my wall or ceiling (against apartments policy). So we'll have to see how that goes....

 

[IdahoNano]

I've seen some attach brackets to the aquarium stand, and hang it over the tank that way.

 

[k_dog345]

Got some new corals today!

New members of the tank:
Blue zoa
Red zoa
Candy cane
Mushroom
Hammer
Chalice


Still waiting for my led to be exchanged so I can get it set up!

Looking forward to my tanks future

 

[k_dog345]

Man my tank is looking good today! [emoji7]

Phosphates and nitrates were a bit above zero. You can tell because there's a bit of algae growth happening. No worries though, going to do a large water change tomorrow. Need my corals to suck up all the supplements I added last night!

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

Looking great, love the mushroom and hammer, I almost bought a hammer today, but decided against it and bought a frogspawn. Perhaps when i get the 30 gallon up and running.

 

[k_dog345]

Looking great, love the mushroom and hammer, I almost bought a hammer today, but decided against it and bought a frogspawn. Perhaps when i get the 30 gallon up and running.

Frogspawns are so cool! I like them better compared to a hammer. I have one as well but it's barely holding on. Thiugh, today it looked great!

 

[k_dog345]

I got some new coral from my buddy! Kenya trees! My girlfriend and I have always wanted one. Thanks to my friend, our dream came true!

I checked my levels today. Calcium is super high at 540ppm, I was dosing more calcium to bring it up because it was a bit low. But now I'm having to correct my overdose with alkanilty dosing! Ugh a biocube 14 is so easy to get out of balance!

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

Nice corals, and I know what you mean, its a pain in the butt sometimes.

 

[k_dog345]

Added some new members to the tank

1) tiny horshoe crab for sifting my sand (will release when he's too big, I live in Florida)
2) (not pictured) dragons breath macroalgae

Tanks looking good!

 

[k_dog345]

I should also mention my frogspawn is finally getting brown color back along with its glowing green tips. Relieving news because it's been white and shriveled for months!

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

Maybe add some Hawaiian feather dusters?

 

[k_dog345]

Well my light finally got back to me!

Sadly they sent me the wrong mount kit

so my girlfriend and I ran to Home Depot to get something to work temporarily. Which, BTW, is a user here @hannahbanana369

Our work wound up looking like this

I put a little mesh down to protect my suicidal clowns, Chloe and Chad

Next to do is get the right mount kit, take the full rim off, take the wide angle lenses off the LEDs, find a permanent solution for protecting my jumping live stock, and clean up the area.

I have the LEDs set to the lowest settings right now so my corals won't get blinded tomorrow. I'm going to slowly acclimate them and get myself a lux meter so I know what to have the final setting at. I'm hoping they'll like the lights, they have been doing so good under my fluorescents!

 

[k_dog345]

RIP biocube 14.

Over the weekend, I decided to go for the rimless look like this:

Well, I did not have a heat gun so I decided to try and remove the silicon gently with a flathead. Well I added a tad too much pressure at a weak point and CRACK!!!! Split the glass from top to the base and it was leaking water. So I quickly moved my fish and corals to buckets with an airstone and started making some calls.

Well, my girlfriend and I wanted a new, bigger tank any way. And we have the light for it so.... Excuse?? [emoji6]

I set up my new tank over the weekend, will start a new thread soon. It's an exciting time!