1st SW/Reef Tank: 14g BioCube

[Grasspicker]

Yea for sure. Im going to take pictures Sunday before I leave and take them again when we get back a week later. Hopefully things will be looking good.

I know what you mean about the arrow crab tip. Thats why Im keeping a watch on mine. He is walking a thin line right now.

[astiesi]

Just an update...

My latest test results:

PH - 8.2
Alk - 12 dkH
NH3 - 0
NO2 - 0
NO3 - 0
PO4 - 0
Cal - 460
Salinity - 1.024
Temp - 83

I just purchased a Koralia Nano to provide better flow. I'm hoping with additional surface agitation the temperature may come down some. Currently it goes from about 80 at night to 83 during the day. I have the stock hood and the room that it is in is no hotter than 78 during the day. The pump should be here in 5 - 7 days.

I also added a new inhabitant. For about a month every trip to the LFS resulted in my almost walking out with a Fire Shrimp. Slowly the supply at the LFS has dwindled, a month ago they had 30+ in a tank. Over the weekend I checked up on them and the tag was gone. Looking in the tank I saw none, I figured it wasn't my day. About to walk away I saw the runt of the litter, still hanging out in the back of the tank. Watching him for a while he looked great, very healthly. After all he was there for well over a month. I couldn't leave him just sitting there by himself so home he came. I'll post a picture sometime this week.

Other than that the hair algae still sucks. My turbo snail has not moved in over a day and I'm beginning to think he may have died. I'll be posting that question in another thread.

[nstiesi]

Your fire shrimp really has me wanting a more active shrimp. I just don't know if my pistol will kill it or not (probably a skunk cleaner). It just sucks that I go many days without ever seeing the pistol.

I have also discovered that my pistol may also be known as an anemone pistol, which means it may never pair with my goby. It would host in an anemone, but we know that will never happen, lol.

Your fire shrimp is cool as hell though.

[RNicorvo]

Hope your algae problem is getting under control. When I had to change out my crushed coral substrate and I had a couple of patches of algae on some of my lr. Not really bad, but didn't want it to get worse and it was too long, so I placed the rocks in salt water and scrubbed away with a toothbrush and rinsed the rocks in another bucket of clean salt water before putting them back in the tank. Both buckets had RO/DI and SG 1/025 so not to disturb anything too bad. I added a couple more red banded snails and it's been pretty good ever since. I have just one turbo because I heard that they can really grow. I have 2 red leg hermits and 1 elegant hermit.

Yes, your water temp being high like mine keep the algae very happy. I replied back to you on my thread on how I keep my temperatures down as best I can. Chillers for such a small tank are out of the question, the prices are too high and I just do a little more maintanence here and there.

Hope this helps some.

[astiesi]

Well, the turbo snail has died. This marks the first loss of life in my reef. It is really depressing since he was supposed to help with the algae problem that I'm still fighting. I performed another 30% water change tonight. I am hoping at some point the tank will again look good enough to snap some more pictures.

RNicorvo - Great information. I may need to remove the rocks as some point soon and try to scrub them down as well. Just hesitant to do it since I don't want to stress out my coral too badly, they are glued down to the rock.

I may try upgrading the stock fans at some point. I'm thinking this may help with the temperature problem.

[astiesi]

I decided to experiment with the stock pump. I swapped it with the maxi-jet 600 that I had for mixing saltwater. This will only slightly increase flow (160 gph vs. 137 gph) but the maxi-jet should be more energy effecient (7.5W). I will monitor and see if this has any effect on temperature.

Question for anyone who is keeping up with this thread. What attachment, if any, should I use for the inlet? Should I put the prefilter grid support on or just leave it open?

[ZAPCOnj]

Do you have any photos similar in distance to the ones in your first post. I'm considering a 8 or 14 bc for my office at work and want to get a feel as to what the 14 looks like with rock in a room/wall/counter. they could be old since you're battling the algae problem.... just not sure if i want to go 8 or 14 at work...

thanks

[astiesi]

ZAPCOnj - I don't have any pics of it from further away than the ones I have been posting all along. I'll snap a couple tonight and post them for you.

[ZAPCOnj]

that would be great.... Thanks!

[yungreefer2410]

to jump in on the football topic. LSU LSU LSU!!!!!!! (just so you know i've been a fan for life not a ban wagon)

[astiesi]

ZAPCOnj - Here is a picture from a bit further away. I hope this is the kind of shot you were looking for. Sorry it took a few days, got a bit busy over the weekend.



For anybody keeping up with this thread I got a picture of my tank's newest inhabitant. It's a bit blurry as I was surprised by just how fast the little guy could move. I woke up this morning and the shrimp has already molted, guess that means he's doing pretty good and getting bigger.



As for the algae problem, I have reduced the amount of time the 10k lights are on each day to only 2 hours. I am leaving the actinics on longer as I have read that algae cannot use the actinic light and I don't want my corals to go into shock. I'll see how this works for a couple of days. I will be getting my koralia nano delivered tomorrow which will double the flow in the tank, hopefully helping to further prevent the algae from taking hold.

My temperature has been in the 79 - 82 range the past week. This is with only leaving the lid about an inch open to allow some air flow. Replacing the stock pump with the mj600 did not appear to effect the temperature.

[astiesi]

Yungreefer2410 - I can't wait for Oct 11, if UF wins just 2 more games this year, as long as its LSU and GA it'll be a good year. Go Gators!

[yungreefer2410]

yea i hope lsu does just as good this year as last year. my family went to the lsu asu game. asu is really good for a 1aa school. i actually use the gators as my dynesty on ncaa 09 cause my brother took lsu. its fun to gator chomp ppl after i beat them lol

[ZAPCOnj]

great! thanks for the shot. that was just what i was looking for.

I just needed to see roughly how big the unit looks on a table with rock in it....

Looks great! do you find the moon lights too bright at night?

[astiesi]

At first my wife didn't love it so I ended up turning them off every night. Now that we have a newborn in the house it makes a great night-light. It has never bothered me.