Back in it again

I have been out of the game for a while now but getting back in with a little biocube. My name is Nick and I live in the mill creek area. I feel like I know nothing now haha. Any help or pointers would be appreciated. For everyone that remembers me, hello again, and hello to all the other people I have not met.

Not quite sure what has changed over the last 5 years. Setting up a 14 gallon stock biocube. I plan on using filter floss, chaeto, and live rock in the media portion of the tank and adding an led for that part. Then 3 inches or so of sand and 20lbs or so of live rock on the main portion. Wanting to do a zoa, lps tank with maybr a goby and shrimp for livestock. Any pointers to make this setup better?

Yeah, planning on sumpless with this little guy. Pretty much stock is my plan, except for little upgrades. Thanks for the help! Any cool ideas on upgrading a 14 gallon biocube? I may be interested in doing that

Hey, since you are going sumpless definitely check out In-Tank media baskets for that cube. They are slick little units that make adding media (carbon, chemipure, purigen) and maintaining it way easier and more effective. Also possibly the best thing I ever did that made the hobby much more fun and enjoyable after I first started with a small tank was get a setup to make your own RO water. I can't recommend that enough. Especially on a small tank where evaporation rates dramatically affect your parameters in a short amount of time. If your anything like me.... sometimes the last thing you wanna do is go get water after work and compete with traffic, football practice, kids homework whatever, so you leave it for one more night then boom you end up with a salinity problem or pumps running dry etc...also I'm not sure what they come with these days but the led retrofit kits are sweet but pricey. A diy is a lot cheaper and just as effective if your handy at all. My cube had power compacts and they were never enough plus if you forget the change them out in 6 months then once again massive problems, tiny tank!!!

Oh I almost forgot one more cheap and easy upgrade that made my little tank (14 gal) much happier was when I added one of those hydro-flo deflectors to the supply pump output. Helped a ton with gas exchange and cooling that little tank. Evaporation went up however. They are pretty awesome for a small tank where you don't have many options for creating random flow.