Starting a Biocube Night Light Tank

Baby's_1st_Reef

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Hello there!

My wife and I are expecting our first child in the beginning of March and we've decided to turn an old Coralife Biocube 14 a friend gave me into his first tank and night light for the nursery. I have had several FOWLR tanks over the years (including a LED Biocube 32 currently in my office), but this will be my first real attempt at keeping corals. I installed an Intank media basket when I used to run it as a FOWLR tank and I purchased the Steve's LED retrofit kit to convert it over to a more customizable lighting system (wanted to keep the hood for evaporation reduction). If you know of any other good Biocube 14 hacks or upgrades for running it as a successful nano reef I am all ears. As far as livestock plans, the only must have is a pair of ocellaris clownfish, but we are taking the slow and steady approach with this tank and it's only in the cycling phase currently.

Let me know if you have any suggestions for inhabitants to join the clowns.
 

Peace River

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Welcome to Reef2Reef and congratulations on the new addition!!!

Clownfish.gif
 

MaxTremors

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Welcome! IMO, the 14g biocube isn’t large enough for a pair of clowns, once they reach adult size they’ll have 3-4 times their body length to swim without having to turn around. The 14g biocube really only holds a little less than 12g including the back chambers (so less than 10g in the display, not including the water that will be displaced by rock and sand), so with 6-8” worth of fish the tank would be borderline overstocked. There are plenty of colorful and active fish that work in a tank this size, but IMO, it’s just not big enough for a pair of clowns.
 
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Baby's_1st_Reef

Baby's_1st_Reef

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Welcome to R2R! And congrats on the great news. Prepare yourself for the sleepless night :D

Any intention to make a build thread? I have a nano tank too and just started my own build thread.
Thank you! I hadn't thought about doing a build thread on it, wasn't sure it would be of enough interest to the community. I did change my avatar to a picture of the tank under moonlight while it is cycling with some live rock rubble from LFS on the dry rock I set up.
 

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

  • I currently have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 64 36.8%
  • Not currently, but I have had feather dusters in my tank in the past.

    Votes: 59 33.9%
  • I have not had feather dusters, but I hope to in the future.

    Votes: 25 14.4%
  • I have no plans to have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 26 14.9%
  • Other.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
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