Thinking of Building a Biocube 14G

Tank availability ran low over night so I placed the order on the basics to just get it running. Everything should be here March 29th. I went with the 14g Biocube, should be perfect for what I'm wanting to accomplish.

PS: About water changes. I've read many advanced keeper / discussions where experienced SW keepers don't do any water changes at all. Of course the requires the correct equipment / patience to achieve such a thing. I want to make it interesting and translate this tactic into a small set up, call me crazy. The smallest I've seen is a 30 gallon set up without a single water change. The tank has been going strong for over a year now I believe and just acquired a pair of snowflake clowns. Extremely impressive tank. We will see how it works out with me though.
 
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Your crazy :). Honestly - don't see why you wouldn't do WCs. Your looking at a 2 to 3 gallon change a week. Eventually you will need to dose the tank without WCs which is abit more work than a WC.
 
Water changes are easy on a small tank. Like Greech said, only 2-3 gallons a week. While things are stabilizing and maturing you will want to keep up with water changes. I would say it takes at least 6 months before a tank really settles and becomes stable. That's my opinion of course. As with anything in saltwater patience is the key. With a small tank it's even more so. Nothing good happens fast.

For live rock I can't help too much, I got all my live rock from a local reefer who was tearing down his tank. I think a lot of the common hitchhikers (aiptasia) are pretty difficult to avoid no matter what you do lol. Even starting with dry rock they can come in with frags. Most nuisance algae is the same way. The biggest thing I worry about with some live rock is getting something like a mantis or a crab:nilly:

As far as places to buy from it seems premium aquatics have really nice rock for a decent price. Going by other people's experience I would stay away from tampa bay saltwater's rocks. While it is some very nice live rock, it also seems to have a ton of really bad hitchhikers.
 
For rock I'd buy majority dry rock, I just got some Marco's rock thats real nice, paid about $2 a lb shipped, locally they want $3.99 for dry rock. Then just seed it with a couple pounds of locally procured rock, and live sand. You can avoid most hitchikers that way.
 
It's not that I don't want to do water changes, it's that I want to try creating a self sustaining system early on, which is possible if done correctly. Only thing I would have to do, if successful, would be adding water and supplements. I'm wanting to try something new and go with no water changes and see how it goes, without livestock of course. Thats really why I want a skimmer as it's one item out of many needed for such a process. We will see how I feel about it after a couple weeks or months without live stock. If the water quality is constantly out of control I'll do the normal bit, with caution and constant water quality checks of course.

Finding a Mantis Shrimp in liverock would be fantastic! I always bought mine. My largest mantis I ever kept is actually still alive living in my 30 gallon's refuge. My dad was unfortunate enough to get hit by it while trying to feed it. It cut him really good in the thumb. When he pulled away quickly the Mantis was hooked onto his finger and flew out of the tank on the floor. After that the mantis has been very wimpy, he's not aggressive anymore at all my father says. I guess finding one in this small tank wouldn't be as great, but still, might make an interesting species only if one did hitchhike. If I did get one with live rock I would probably end up doing another tank, hah.

For rock I want / need something extremely porous. Most base rocks aren't that and most high priced rocks are, for that reason. I was looking at the $100 deluxe fiji rock on liveaquaria or their nano rock pack.
 
Premium Aquatics, Tampa Bay Saltwater (crazy rock!) and Live Aquaria for online LR. Marco rocks sells some precured (will still be some die off in shipping) which is their dry rock seeded so they say no hitchhikers will come on their rock. I have heard more and more people having phosphate issues with some dry rock from both marco and BRS. They do provide some great looking dry rock for great prices though.
 
Premium's shipping is absurd... It was nearly double the cost for 18 lbs of LR.

Tampa Bay I would love, I remember reading about them when I first started my 30 gallon but I'm not sure how they can ship it to me. I live in Moro, Oregon which is basically out in the middle of nowhere. Maybe I'll get in contact with them and see what they have to say.

So far the best price is Liveaquaria.

I guess it's difficult to find a decent price as I only need a minimal amount. If I needed a large amount any of these places would be a great a option.
 
Reefcleaners is a good place for dry rock too and their rock is reportedly quite clean.
 
Just ordered 16 lbs of Pukani from BRS for $75 shipped, pretty excited about that. I special noted that it was going in a 14 gallon biocube so I'm hoping they choose rocks accordingly. Also ordered an Ehiem 50w heater just in case. I read that the pumps these systems come with don't flow well so I ordered a Hydor pico pump to upgrade the stock pump. So, I think all of my purchases are complete until it's time for the CUC in a month or two down the road. The tank should be up and running by the end of this week. Woohoo!
 
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