plyr58
New member
After a few years out of the hobby due to work and family commitments, I have decided to take the plunge again and have started out with a Biocube 14. It has been up and running for over a month now so I decided it was time to get my own tank thread up and running on the best website on the internet.
I jumped head first into the hobby about 12 years ago while I was in college and law school. During this time, I worked first part time and then full time at an aquarium store, first in retail and then later on doing on site service, design and installation for everything from 30 gallon freshwater tanks to 1000 gallon saltwater reef systems. During this time I also had my own 90 gallon reef tank cobbled together from hand me down parts from the store, friends, and my constant attention to the system. I have really missed the hobby the last few years and have found myself wistfully looking at other’s tsank threads here all the time. I currently have a 210 gallon tank still on the shipping pallet in my garage but once again time commitments, money commitments and two preschoolers have kept me from setting it up. I finally said enough is enough and I went ahead and got a AIO to at least get back in the swing of things before my 210 (hopefully) gets set up in the next year or so.
Wow have things changed in the last 5 years or so! LEDs are a practical thing now. EoTech is making products other than powerheads that have to be constantly serviced all the time. Icecap and NextReef (and probably plenty of others) apparently don’t exist anymore and everyone and their brother now makes cone shaped protein skimmers with bubble plates. Wow! Technology marches ever onward, huh?
Anyway, enough waxing poetic. So I bought this Biocube 14. *** am I going to do with it? Rip everything out of it apparently. I replaced the stock pump in chamber 3 with a Cobalt MJ900 (wait MaxiJet doesn’t make the best MaxiJets anymore, who knew?) and slapped a Hydor flow on the outlet (ugh I know, I know), punched out the divider in chamber 2 and ordered an inTank media basket and a JBJ Nano refugium light, threw in some chaeto and some purigen and chemipure, cut the divider between chamber one and two down, and threw a 50W heater in chamber 1.
Then I bought a Koralia Nano 240 to put opposite the return pump and decided that this thing just wasn't going to cut it. I now have Jebao RW-4 on the way. I put in about 15 pounds of fine aragonite sand (plan on a pistol shrimp and shrimp goby) and about 10 pounds of LR and let ‘er rip.
I used Dr. Tims to cycle with two onyx misbar clowns (don’t judge me, that stuff works) and the tank cycled in about 4 days, then I waited a month to add a hammer coral, a few zoanthids on a piece of rock, a ricordea and a duncan along with a miniature cleanup crew. Seriously, I have 3 of the smallest nassarius snails you have ever seen. 4 of them would fit on a dime. I also threw in 2 cerinths, two scarlet hermits and a couple of astreas.
But wait, this fricken thing has power compact lights in it. Ugh. So I ordered a 16K kit from Steve’s LEDs and installed it along with the Typhon controller a few nights ago. Insert second diatom bloom here.
Things are moving along swimmingly and I picked up a small (1.5”) blue Maxima from a friend who had to tear down his system suddenly yesterday.
On to some questions:
Is this Jebao going to blow the water right out of my tank?
I don’t think Chemipure Elite existed back in the day. Is this just Chemipure with GFO? Anyone use it? Should I? Seems like the carbon would exhaust quicker than the GFO, no?
Two things I still have my list equipment wise, one is a must in my opinion and the other is a want sometime soon kind of deal. First, ATOs. Any recommendations for a tank this small? I was looking at the Autoaqua Smart AtO Micro. Anyone with any experience?
The other is a controller. I had an OG Reef Keeper Elite that apparently won’t work with their new software, or at least I can’t get it to update. Will all the old modules (PC4s, network modules, PH & ORP, etc) still work if I get a v2? Can you even buy just the head unit? Since DA apparently has no human beings answering the phones should I just toss the whole box in the bon fire in the back yard and go for an Apex? Am I nuts for even considering a controller for a !$ gallon tank?
I jumped head first into the hobby about 12 years ago while I was in college and law school. During this time, I worked first part time and then full time at an aquarium store, first in retail and then later on doing on site service, design and installation for everything from 30 gallon freshwater tanks to 1000 gallon saltwater reef systems. During this time I also had my own 90 gallon reef tank cobbled together from hand me down parts from the store, friends, and my constant attention to the system. I have really missed the hobby the last few years and have found myself wistfully looking at other’s tsank threads here all the time. I currently have a 210 gallon tank still on the shipping pallet in my garage but once again time commitments, money commitments and two preschoolers have kept me from setting it up. I finally said enough is enough and I went ahead and got a AIO to at least get back in the swing of things before my 210 (hopefully) gets set up in the next year or so.
Wow have things changed in the last 5 years or so! LEDs are a practical thing now. EoTech is making products other than powerheads that have to be constantly serviced all the time. Icecap and NextReef (and probably plenty of others) apparently don’t exist anymore and everyone and their brother now makes cone shaped protein skimmers with bubble plates. Wow! Technology marches ever onward, huh?
Anyway, enough waxing poetic. So I bought this Biocube 14. *** am I going to do with it? Rip everything out of it apparently. I replaced the stock pump in chamber 3 with a Cobalt MJ900 (wait MaxiJet doesn’t make the best MaxiJets anymore, who knew?) and slapped a Hydor flow on the outlet (ugh I know, I know), punched out the divider in chamber 2 and ordered an inTank media basket and a JBJ Nano refugium light, threw in some chaeto and some purigen and chemipure, cut the divider between chamber one and two down, and threw a 50W heater in chamber 1.
Then I bought a Koralia Nano 240 to put opposite the return pump and decided that this thing just wasn't going to cut it. I now have Jebao RW-4 on the way. I put in about 15 pounds of fine aragonite sand (plan on a pistol shrimp and shrimp goby) and about 10 pounds of LR and let ‘er rip.
I used Dr. Tims to cycle with two onyx misbar clowns (don’t judge me, that stuff works) and the tank cycled in about 4 days, then I waited a month to add a hammer coral, a few zoanthids on a piece of rock, a ricordea and a duncan along with a miniature cleanup crew. Seriously, I have 3 of the smallest nassarius snails you have ever seen. 4 of them would fit on a dime. I also threw in 2 cerinths, two scarlet hermits and a couple of astreas.
But wait, this fricken thing has power compact lights in it. Ugh. So I ordered a 16K kit from Steve’s LEDs and installed it along with the Typhon controller a few nights ago. Insert second diatom bloom here.
Things are moving along swimmingly and I picked up a small (1.5”) blue Maxima from a friend who had to tear down his system suddenly yesterday.
On to some questions:
Is this Jebao going to blow the water right out of my tank?
I don’t think Chemipure Elite existed back in the day. Is this just Chemipure with GFO? Anyone use it? Should I? Seems like the carbon would exhaust quicker than the GFO, no?
Two things I still have my list equipment wise, one is a must in my opinion and the other is a want sometime soon kind of deal. First, ATOs. Any recommendations for a tank this small? I was looking at the Autoaqua Smart AtO Micro. Anyone with any experience?
The other is a controller. I had an OG Reef Keeper Elite that apparently won’t work with their new software, or at least I can’t get it to update. Will all the old modules (PC4s, network modules, PH & ORP, etc) still work if I get a v2? Can you even buy just the head unit? Since DA apparently has no human beings answering the phones should I just toss the whole box in the bon fire in the back yard and go for an Apex? Am I nuts for even considering a controller for a !$ gallon tank?
