My BioCube 14g

[lilmatty5dimes]

Well, here's my first saltwater tank. Friend was selling it for $100 and decided it was to good to pass up so the wife agreed to let me buy it. It came with all the rock and sand already established for 4-5 months. I've had it now for three months and made sure it was cycled with the help from the ppl on the forum. I have the following livestock: 1 emerald crab, 5 hermit crabs, 5 nassarius snails. And a pair of clownfish. Haven't done any mods to the cube just yet still review and deciding on what to do. Here's some pics before.

 

[lilmatty5dimes]

Here is 3 week later.

 

[Waddi]

Looks good!

 

[little_fish]

Youre off to a great start!

 

[Smitty]

Looking good so far.

 

[lilmatty5dimes]

Well, it's been about a week time for some more pics of the tank. The one pic with the crab is funny due to it staring at the fish like they are for dinner.

 

[lilmatty5dimes]

Well, did some upgrading a lil bit today. Got the BioCube skimmer installed and hopefully working today. Took the media filter and some more bioballs out of the two chambers and did a water change after. Also got my package from BRS today. Bought two heaters one for tank and one to put into a rubbermaid bucket to start mixing water. A koralia 750 to stsrt mixing my own water. A TDS meter and refractometer. Tested the already mixed water i buy from a LFS and the refractometer said it was 1.026 which is good but the TDS meter was reading 870ppm and it had a x10. :shocking: So, i tested some distilled water thinking it was wrong and the distilled water was reading around 35ppm my filter from the fridge is around 235ppm. Could this be true??? tomorrow i'm going to try the water in the front of grocery stores and see what that reads. Now here are some pics. I need a new and better camera. it sad when your Iphone takes better looking pics. anyways here ya go http://www.flickr.com/photos/17642407@N05/6422074485/ thanks lil matty

 

[little_fish]

Looks good, and it would be expect that saltwater has a very high TDS reading. You want your water source for making saltwater to be close to zero. However considering you did get a reading for the distilled water, which should be pure water, it sounds like you need to re-calibrate your TDS meter

 

[lilmatty5dimes]

Well, I think it's about time I post some pictures of the tank it's been about a month since my last update.

 

[lilmatty5dimes]

Some1 was selling or just finished fragging some kenya tree coral. After some research here (thanks) i decided to give it a try and go with a couple. I got to his house and he just decided to let me have 5 frags for free. :bounce: Happy New Year to me. :bounce: He's got a frogspawn he needs to frag soon so if the kenya tree do good I'll be able to get a frag of that too. (fingers crossed) Here are some pictures. Thanks lil matty

 

[little_fish]

Looks good, pretty soon you are going to have forest in there

 

[lilmatty5dimes]

Well, def. a bad start. The ballast blow on both cords for the cube and just got some new coral from some1 moving a 450g tank. I let him borrow a trailer and in return got some frags from him. But with the help of sarahsmile(thanks again) got two new ballast and bulb for the cube. Now time for the pictures of the new coral.
New FTS

Coral

Coral

More

 

[lilmatty5dimes]

Local reefer had this for sale for $20. Didn't think I could pass this up.

 

[lilmatty5dimes]

Well, def. a bad start. The ballast blow on both cords for the cube and just got some new coral from some1 moving a 450g tank. I let him borrow a trailer and in return got some frags from him. But with the help of sarahsmile(thanks again) got two new ballast and bulb for the cube. Now time for the pictures of the new coral.
New FTS

Coral

Coral

More

 

[lilmatty5dimes]

*****UPDATE******
Everything is doing pretty good. Here's some new picture of the tank.
This is how they were sleeping one night.

Believe a candy cane

 

[Samhain]

The pic of the clowns cuddling their nem is too stinkin' cute! Glad it seems to be doing well for you. You know the dangers of nems in new tanks.....

 

[lilmatty5dimes]

I know that the waters has to be perfect and stable. If it were to die in the tank it would send off a toxin that would kill everything. Some1 had it for sale for $20 and I couldn't pass it up. So, far it's been good. Had one scare when it shrank and got all stringy. Took the whole rock out peeled it off and ran to the lfs. He said it was normal and gave me some advice. But he's eating and looks pretty good.

 

[Samhain]

Excellent. It's looking pretty healthy right now, from what I can see. And your clowns seem to LOVE it!