8g Bio-Cube

[sstimac]

I am purchasing an 8 gallon Bio-Cube this week. Paying $65 brand new. I searched the forum and came up with this stock list.

2x Nerite, 2x Cerith, 2x Turbo, 2 or 3x red leg hermit, 1x peppermint shrimp, 10 Halocaridina rubra, 1x mithrax crab, and 1x pom pom crab.

I also plan on getting a few polyp frags and a mushroom.

I will not be adding any fish to this display, 8 gallons just does not seem to be enough water.

I will also add about 12 pounds of live rock on top of about 5-7cm of aragonite. How does this sound? Thanks folks.

 

[drty811]

me personally i would only get one of each snail and leave out the turbo's. the tank isnt really big enough to produce enough food for all those snails. but you can get a small goby for that tank. other than that everything sounds good. and welcome to nanotank.

 

[sstimac]

Alright, I can skip the turbos, but I have found with my heavily planted freshwater tanks that having one Nerite for every 5 gallons, or so, is just about ideal. I also think that it would be beneficial to have two ceriths to dig through the aragonite. Instead of using ceriths I could also acclimate Trumpets to marine and use about a dozen of them. Depending on the availability of Halocaridina's I may or may not keep them. I would like to breed them, but they only breed in brackish, off topic sorry.

I also really like Arrow crabs, could I keep one if I did skip the Halocaridina's?

 

[sstimac]

Sorry, another quick question. Is Coralife salt any good?

 

[drty811]

arrow crabs are cool but can get really aggressive. all salts are pretty much the same with the exception of a couple better ones. its mostly all preference.

 

[Jasonanatal]

Sstimac, I would first concentrate on setting up your 8 gallon Bio Cube and allowing time for it to properly cycle before attempting to stock with any Invertebrates or any type of Coral or Livestock for that matter. Nothing good happens fast in the hobby and I don't want to come off sounding like a downer. Your working with an extremely limited overall water volume and you don't want to stress or accidently kill even Invertebrates even if they cost a couple of bucks. I would personally concentrate on getting a good quality Aragonite Substrate and Live Rock. As for Water and Salt Mixtures I have a few questions and comments?

1. Are you using RO/DI Freswater for this Aquarium? If not do you plan on purchasing your RO/DI Freshwater from a store or purchasing a RO/DI Filtration Unit? Or will you be going the route of Tap Water which I would not suggest.
2. As for Salt Mixtures people have their own preferences, I was a user of Instant Ocean for about 2 years and just recently switched to Kent Marine Salt since their were a couple of claims that the company made that I wanted to investigate but that is just my personal opinion.

 

[sstimac]

I have been in the hobby for nearly 15 years. I am just now making the leap into marine tanks. When it comes to timing and patience I am a saint. I have nothing, but patience when it comes to fish and aquarium keeping. I have a three stage R/O DI unit, I keep Discus in a heavily planted tank. I appreciate all of your extra advise, but I was curious to know how my stock list sounded (I plan everything out before I get started so there are fewer surprises) and what salt mixture I should use. I have heard info on several different types of salt mixtures except Coralife's salt. That is why I specifically asked about their salt. Trust me I am not a novice aquarium keeper. My questions are specific because I expect specific answers.

Sorry this is a little strange for me, the other forums that I am a member of have members that do not assume every one else is a moron.

P.S. setting things up without a plan is the quickest way to meet head on with failure.

 

[Jasonanatal]

SStimac, I didn't mean to imply that you were a Moron but from the way the post sounded you seemed as though you wanted it up and running. Just wanted to make sure since you had a limited number of post.

 

[reefman23]

Sorry this is a little strange for me, the other forums that I am a member of have members that do not assume every one else is a moron.

P.S. setting things up without a plan is the quickest way to meet head on with failure.

Nobody was assuming anyone was a moron. In this hobby I think there are several basic topics that are always covered when someone first joins a site because, unless otherwise stated, people tend to assume new members are new to the hobby especially when they are setting up a tank like an all-in-one.

Back on topic though, I agree with Erik about the stocking. As far as salts go, I would suggest RC, Red Sea Coral Pro (I will be using this one on my new tank), Tropic Marin (just because it is more pricey dont assume it is a superior salt), but I cannot suggest Coralife only because I have never heard anything positive about it... it just isnt one of the main salts IMO. But like Erik said, alot of it comes down to opinion in the sense that it just depends what you want your Ca, Alk, pH and all of that to read straight out of the bucket and what your goal is for coral selection and if you have a Ca reactor (for larger systems) and what you do and dont want to dose, etc etc.

Anyways, hope that helps.

Jesse

 

[sstimac]

Being new to reef keeping I plan on keeping things that I have read are easier to keep. Zoa's and mushrooms primarily. Perhaps a sponge (Julian Sprung says that the yellow finger sponges are fairly easy to keep so long as you feed them), assuming I find one that is healthy.

I have the necessary test kits to run a reef. I'll dose as necessary based on the readings I get. I work at an LPS so I have many products available to me at good prices.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Feclar]

I am purchasing an 8 gallon Bio-Cube this week. Paying $65 brand new. I searched the forum and came up with this stock list.

Wish I could have found that deal!

I just bout a new 8g Bio-Cube for 159$

 

[sstimac]

I handle all of the aquatics ordering at the store that I work at. I was dumb founded when I crunched the numbers on this promotion. We got 8 of them at a rock bottom price. I have yet to find anywhere else running a deal like this. Not bad for a mom and pop LPS.

BTW, I get a 10% discount. My customers will have to pay $75, which is still good. Also with the promotion we have some Kent Marine and Oceanic products that are buy one get one free. One of the products is Kent's Nano A+B for $5.99 - that's for two bottles of each! Sweet deals, too bad we're not online.