Looking to start new

[Jimjam35]

hi everyone, i have been very curious about setting up a salt water tank. i have seen the BioCubes in stores. they would work very well for me in my room and think small is easier then starting with a 100 gallon tank. i am currently looking at the 14 gallon BioCube, and looking for some guidance. any ideas or tricks would be greatly appreciated along with if anyone has set up a biocube, what else did you have to buy right away to get on your feet and get the tank started.

 

[Henry405]

actually in SW, the bigger the better is considered when starting. The larger volume would give you a larger margin of error. I know carey has been using biocubes a lot so maybe send her a PM for some good information

 

[iDream]

Own one myself, been up for a year.

Had to buy a heater, sand, test kits, and LR.

But I advise against buying all LR, buy majority dry rock. Much cheaper.

Any other questions about it I can hopefully answer, I've taken the majority of it apart several times

 

[Flake]

I own a 14g biocube and I LOVE it. while normally smaller tanks are harder to maintain, these all-in-one tanks are SO easy. I have no problems with it. Because of the top I have almost no evaporation which a lot of the small tank issues come from.

You'll need the tank, sand, rock (live or base rock), a teeny heater and a test kit. I also bought the skimmer, not needed but it helps.

 

[Jimjam35]

What type of rock does one recomend?? And whats the time frame to set the tank up and have it ready for fish? And also how many animals would a 14gallon tank be able to handle??

 

[iDream]

IMO depending on the fish you could do 2, very very big maybe when I say 3. That's no including corals or your CUC or other inverts

What do you mean what kind of rock?

As for setup you're looking at around 2 months or so before you add fish to be safe IMO

 

[Jimjam35]

Live rock or dry rock?

 

[iDream]

Get a mix of both, 25% live to 75% dry is a good ratio.

 

[Jimjam35]

So the biocube comes with all pumps and filters needed to start a sw tank correct? Sorry just trying to price everything out before i dive into this.

 

[iDream]

Yep, lights for a reef also are included as well. Though they aren't the best lights you could have, they still are pretty good at what they can keep

 

[Flake]

you won't be able to keep hard corals in the biocube, but i've had pretty good luck with everything else.