\Clownfish/ 29 Gallon BioCube Tank

[Tin Man]

I want one!

 

[Kyle461]

Subscribed! Hopefully I can follow in your footsteps. Right now I have ammonia showing in the tank but nothing else is happening. Waiting on nitrites to show. If not I may have to kick start with bottle bacteria.

 

[\Clownfish/]

Thank you Kyle

So this morning I woke up to my Xenia splitting on one side.

I am now thinking I am either going to sell each piece that tries splitting or trade it for other corals HEHEHE

I also found this piece of coral attached to the Xenia (not sure on what type)

 

[\Clownfish/]

Will be posting parameters later today

 

[jbenefield13]

saw that you wanted to see some of the fellow central members biocubes and thought I would share mine. It's been running about a year and I absolutely love my tank!

 

[\Clownfish/]

Day #23

Parameters Today :celeb2:

Salinity - 1.025
PH - 8.0
Ammonia - 0 ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Nitrate - 5.0 ppm
Phosphate - 0 ppm

Did a small 5 gal water change this morning. I noticed my Xenia's polyps fully extended, pulsing, and splitting on one of the edges it attached it self to is own rock so no worries (YET) still want to get nitrates to 0 so might be doing another water change on Sunday. I also noticed some diatom on my sand bed today eww! Hopefully that water change helps a bit. I also added seaChems Phosguard. My plans for this week are to do another small water change, buy more RO water, and maybe get a nice colorful frag that I don't have to feed :fun4:

 

[soulpatch]

I am having a nitrate spike myself so I need to do a few small water changes this week starting tomorrow night.

 

[audax fidelis]

so ive been setting up my tank for 3 days already with live rock, all levels are 0 and pH is good except amonia is 0.25? so when should i introduce a clean up crew and little fish , my tanks a 30 gallon

 

[soulpatch]

you have a couple weeks audax. Your levels are all zero since your cycle has nto even started. Add in a shrimp or dose with ammonia to get it going.

 

[Kyle461]

Audax, I didn't start seeing a rise in my nitrites until today which is Day #9 for my cycle.

On that note, I didn't know I could get so excited to see the test start to show signs of change!!

 

[Kyle461]

so ive been setting up my tank for 3 days already with live rock, all levels are 0 and pH is good except amonia is 0.25? so when should i introduce a clean up crew and little fish , my tanks a 30 gallon

Do you have anything in the tank to help boost the ammonia level? (shrimp.....pure ammonia?)

 

[rjkrejci]

Audax,

Assuming you have cycled LR, the Ammonia may be stuff on/in the rock that died on transport and transition to your aquarium. You may not even see nitrites spike if the cultures in the LR are strong. Monitor your levels and if ammonia goes to 0 quickly and nitrites stay 0 and nitrates bump up a little, you may be about ready to go.

For my IM 10g, I bought LR and sand from a local reefer and transported it all submerged in his water and used about half his water in my tank. I never saw a cycle.

 

[soulpatch]

he would have to dose ammonia and ensure it went away within 24 hours to even know that.

And unless someone states it I always assume that they bought the rock and sand from LFS which even while they are "live"without fish and many other things in the tank the bacteria levels are low which is why we have to cycle them up to be stable.

You were lucky in that you got highly infused rock from a full system. The totes with the rock LFS use dont quite match up to the biodiversity of a running ecosystem

 

[\Clownfish/]

Day # 24

Parameters Today

Salinity - 1.025
PH - 8.0
Ammonia - 0 ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Nitrate - 5.0 ppm
Phosphate - 0 ppm

Decided I will probably get some green star polyps for next coral this week :bdaysmile: Also I noticed that my coralline is finally starting to spread and darken to nice vibrant ruby red which is really exciting!! I don't know what my Calcium, Alk, Mag level are since I don't have test for them yet but by the look of this I'm sure they are OK for now.

 

[audax fidelis]

thanks for the tips everyone, will be testing the waters again today to see where the levels are at!

 

[audax fidelis]

everything is reading zero with amonia at 1ppm now......, temperature is at 29C degrees? is that a bit high? sorry to hijack your thread clownfish

 

[\Clownfish/]

So I bought the Green Star Polyp online today and will be here on Tuesday. This will probably be my last coral for now. I plan on waiting three weeks to let the Xenia and the GSP to mature and after the three weeks I will be adding Rasta Polyps or a Torch coral. Question, What kind of sea stars would you guys recommend. I am looking for a nice colorful star that stays small and is reef safe (if any.)

 

[soulpatch]

everything is reading zero with amonia at 1ppm now......, temperature is at 29C degrees? is that a bit high? sorry to hijack your thread clownfish

yes that is too high. You want to be down around 78F or 26C.

Your ammonia will spike then the others will as well. Read from the start of clowns thread as we have covered this in this thread.




Clown - There are reef safe star fish but not really colorful. I am personally avoiding them since I didnt glue all my rocks and there is limited space. I plan on having a ton of corals...

As for waiting 3 weeks. HA HA good luck. I have been buying a frag a week it seems. Though I also have an awesome shop few minutes from the house.

 

[\Clownfish/]

Oh believe me! It's going to be hard waiting! When I was looking for the GSP I saw so many other corals I wanted to purchase hahaha. I didn't want to use all the money on corals (but I wanted too) I still need to pay some bills.

 

[amandaxl3]

I am a about to start the same tank as you and it is AMAZING that you have been tracking your progress as I can learn so much from this! Very awesome and great job.