Grant's 14g Biocube

G

Grant

Premium Member
Well, after lurking around here for over a year, I finally finished my home-made stand, and actually have an aquarium with water in it. It's just a 14g Biocube, which isn't anything too special, but here's the build log anyway. [smilie=smile.gif]

The stand is probably way over-engineered for a tank this small. It's a 2x4 frame, with the outside and top made from pine that I had intended to use for bookshelves (looks like I'll be making another trip back to Lowe's to replace that). The inside is some cheaper panelling I had left over from some other project long ago. All of the 2x4's are hidden this way. I had planned on making a standard raised-panel cabinet door for it, but at the last minute decided to use frosted glass for the door panel instead. My plan is to use the two moonlight LED's that come with the Biocube and put them inside the stand to give the glass on the door a blue look to it similar to the tank at night. Part of the reason for the stand being built this way is that it gives me the option of upgrading to a larger cube later (could be a 29g BioCube, or something custom made) without having to worry about it supporting the weight. There's also a shelf built into the stand with an opening at the back to accomodate plumbing for a small sump underneath it later on if I end up wanting one.

The lighting on the tank right now is the standard PC bulbs that it came with, however I've already bought a LED heat sink (made for the Biocube) that holds 18 LEDs. I plan to use this, along with an Apex Jr and 2 Meanwell drivers to handle all the lighting. I haven't decided on exactly what LEDs I'll be using yet, but I figure I have time to work that out while the tank cycles. I have the JBJ NanoGlo fuge LED already on the back of the tank, and the bioballs are long gone. My inTank media basket is on the way, which will have the standard Purigen and cheato setup.

Right now, the tank has water, live sand, and a single large rock (well, large for a 14g tank). Once the sand storm settles down and I can see what I'm doing, I'll be adding a few smaller pieces of live rock. Hopefully building the LED setup will keep me occupied while I wait for the cycle to finish. [smilie=smile.gif]

I know I had more pictures of the stand in different stages, but I can't seem to find any of them now. Once the sand settles down and there's something worthwhile to take a picture of, I'll add a finished shot of the tank and stand (with the door). I'll also use my actual camera instead of my old iPhone camera, so they aren't such poor quality.
 
My media basket from inTank came in this morning, so it's been put in the tank with some filter floss. I put in a 10lb bag of live sand when I first added the water, but decided the sand bed looked too thin, so I went back and got another small bag and put that in.

Sometime tomorrow, hopefully I can get a decent picture of the whole thing and the finished stand. My plan now is on Wednesday afternoon when I'm off work, I'll go get a test kit, a mag cleaner, and a few small pieces of live rock, then start waiting.

Anyone have an opinion on whether or not to bother with Purigen or Chemi-Pure while the tank is cycling? Is it just a waste of money, or would there be any real benefit?
 
Looking good man....nice handiwork on the stand! Keep posting...I just set up a 28 gallon Nano intermediate so I will be building with you.
 
Don't worry about adding them while it's cycling. Wouldn't hurt to run some straight carbon to keep the smelldown, but my wife is pregnant so this is much more important at my house! :)

Looking forward to the pics!
 
@matt_longview wrote:
Wouldn't hurt to run some straight carbon to keep the smelldown said:
Good idea... so far my wife is all for the aquarium, and I even convinced her to go to the monthly meeting at DWA last week. I'd hate to ruin that. [smilie=smile.gif]
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Well, I bought two smaller pieces of live rock (probably about 2 lbs total) from Saltware Paradise, since it's so close to my house. The two guys working there were very friendly, and I'm sure I'll go back. It looked like they had just received a shipment of fish, because there were a lot of containers on the floor being drip acclimated.

So the live rock and sand are in, the temp is stable at 78-79 degrees, and now I'm just waiting. I've also realized that with all the research I've done on reef tanks, I needed to do a little more on how to get a decent picture. My old Fuji digital camera just isn't cutting it. OK, actually, the camera might be adequate for what I need, but my knowledge of how to use it just isn't adequate. [smilie=smile.gif]

Here's a shot of the tank and stand together (where the tank is, of course, just a bright glare from the light), a FTS of the 3 pieces of rock (which looks too blue and shows that I need to clean some sand off the rocks and the back wall), and a closeup shot of one of the smaller live rocks because I was goofing around with the camera. That one almost looks like the colors you see in real life.

[attachment=0]Full Shot.jpg[/attachment]

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Question: I like the more "minimalist" look with the rock. In a tank this size, it's hard to get a very tall rock structure. Do you think this will be enough rock to provide adequate levels of filtration? It's probably about 7 pounds of total rock, but the actual water volumn in a 14g Biocube comes out to be right about 10g with the sand, rock, etc.
 
The pounds per gallon rule isn't really the best to go by because if you have lots of heavy base rock you'll need more pounds than gallons but if you get extremely porous rock such as pukani rock you need around half. It's relative to your bioload more than your number of gallons. I've add another nice porous rock, but I also like the minimal rock look and might also just go low bioload.

Looks great!!
 
Well, I put in a shrimp for a few days, and yesterday finally started showing a slight trace of ammonia. The shrimp was very small (broke it in half) and seems to have completely dissolved I guess. I can't find it anywhere. But I did see ammonia on the API test kit. More than 0, but less than .25.

Also, this morning (ok, afternoon, I work nights), we have pods! I didn't expect it yet, but when I turned on the lights there were small white pods all over the glass.
 
I am at the same stage with my 28g Nano. I had white spots show up all over my glass as well and thought that they were pods. After a few days....they started sprouting little green hairs. Let me know if yours does the same thing....I posted it in the New to Hobby forum to see if anybody new what it was, but nobody responded.....

Keep me up to date!
 
Nope, mine is different. The little white spots are still there, on the glass and floating around the tank. I can see the ones on the glass actually moving around. I am starting to see some very small strands of hair algea here and there, but unrelated to the white specks everywhere.

I also finally got definite amonia reading today of 0.25 (as opposed to all the other times, where it looked maybe slightly darker than 0, but not as dark as the next color).
 
Got my Apex Jr in yesterday and set that up. I still need to take care of the DNS name for it, but got it all working (including the iPhone app) and connected to the Internet using my IP address. I'll get the DynDNS done tonight, but so far I'm very happy with it. Right now all 4 outlets are full, since I have it controlling both lights, the heater, and the LED moonlights. That'll change once I finish my LED lighting, since the power for those can just be plugged into the surge protector and I'll use the dimming function to turn them on and off.
 
So today I checked, and my readings were:

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
Salinity - 1.025

Also, to go along with my garden of random algea growing everywhere suddenly, I saw my first non-pod life in the tank!

An aiptasia... [smilie=swear.gif]

So time to order a cleanup crew and get rid of the pest...
 
My Reefcleaners order came in last Friday. I ordered the 10g "quick crew" which is supposed to come with the following:

10 Dwarf Ceriths
3 Nassarius
6 Florida Ceriths
2 Large & 2 Small to Medium Nerites

I can't even count the number of dwarf ceriths that came in the order. Probably 30 if I had to guess. And at least 6 Nerites. In addition, there were probably 5 or 6 small hermits that snuck into the order with snails.

So far it looks like all of them survived the trip, and they're busy cruising around and doing their job eating algea.

I also decided to include some "1 Penny Macro Algea" with the order. I was hoping for some chaeto, but it looks like I got gracilaria. For a penny, I can't complain. [smilie=smile.gif] It's in the fuge area in chamber 2 now (along with some Chemi-Pure), with the LED fuge lighting running from 10:00PM to 6:00AM.
 
@quakerroatmeal wrote:
Any updates Grant or new pictures? said:
Nothing really new yet. The cleanup crew has pretty much finished off all the algea (to the point that I actually put a little flake food in for the hermits and the Nassarius snails). I'm thinking that I may actually need to give away some dwarf ceriths and most of the hermits. In a 14g tank, I'd think that 1 or 2 hermits would be plenty.

Today I was messing with the outlet for the pump, and when I turned it back on there were a bunch of small white stringy things floating all over the tank. It took me a little bit to figure out that it was the remains of the gracilaria that had been in the fuge section of the media basket. Apparently it just didn't do well without being planted in the sand? No idea. There was another piece of it that I missed when I was putting it in the fuge, and I took that piece and just stuck it in the sand behind a rock in the main tank area, and it's doing great. Just not very pretty. Kind of looks like a brown twig sticking out of the sand. For now, as long as it stays small, I'll just leave it there and get some cheato for the fuge.

I bought a Hydro-Flo from the LFS because I'd heard good things about it on nano-reef.com, but it loses too much pressure with the little stock pump in the BC14 so I took it back off. It would probably work fine with an upgraded pump.

By the end of this week, I should have some clowns in the tank and will get some pictures. I need something to eat all those pods first to get them out of the way for the pictures! Next step after that will be some zoas or a frogspawn, possibly from the frag swap next month unless I find something in the for sale section before then. Once I finish the LED swap then I'll have more options, but I'm in no rush and just starting with the basics. [smilie=smile.gif]
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Looks like we are moving at the same pace. Everything looks good so far. I might pick up a clownfish this weekend as well depending on how everything looks.
 
Added in a small clownfish (thanks Lance!) and a very tiny frag of purple death zoas. It's just two heads, and they're very small, but I'll try to get a picture of them and the fish tomorrow to update this with. The frag plug is just partially stuck into a hole in my rock right now, and doesn't fit anywhere close to flush with the rock. I need to decide where it's permanent home is going to be and then break off the bottom of the frag plug and epoxy it in place. I figured I'd give it a little time in the tank to recover after transporting it across town before I messed with it.
 
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