Whats going on forum. Ive had my biocube 29 up and running for about 16 months now. With the help of the plethora of good info on this site, Ive had pretty good luck with it. I never did start a build thread, I should have just for record keeping but owell better late than never!
Started off stock during the initial cycle. After that added the intank media basket and used chemipure elite and polyfilter pad. About month 6 I gutted out the hood and installed Steve's LED SPS led light kit. That went well, fairly easy to do. Shortly after that I added the cheato basket from intank with a LED light on the back. At about the year mark, I added the Aquatic Life 115 skimmer and was using it in the first chamber. Its the first skimmer I ever used, so as far as I knew, it worked ok. It would produce very green tea looking water, wasnt too thick though. But since adding the fuge basket, I never had a nitrate problem and always did weekly 5 gal water changes. A couple times when we had our babies, I'd go 4-5 weeks with out a water change and the system still was ok. Before adding the skimmer during one of those periods, after about 4 weeks I did start seeing cyano building up but only in the fuge basket. Had to throw out the cheato a couple times as it was just covered in thick cyano. For the first month or 2 I did run the fuge light 24x7 and I think that is what caused the cyano. I replaced the chemipure after replacing the chaeto ball and ran the light on 10 hour cycles and every week or so I would leave the light off for a few days. That seemed to do the trick and got rid of the cyano. Fast forward, added the skimmer and had another baby and went 5 weeks w/o a water change. But this time there wasnt any problems. Every week I would still test nitrates and they were never above 5 using API kit. Finally about week 6 nitrates up to 10 and noticed a spot of cyano on a rock so I finally did a water change and was back to normal.
As of now, the tank has a mix of SPS and LPS with a large toadstool and a bunch of zoas along with a now large rose bubble tip nem. All corals are growing well, SPS a little slow and my acros and mille browned out after a few weeks. I was tthinking high phosphates so I bought a hanna checker (accidently got the phosphates marine one) but always tested 0.0. Thought that couldnt be right. I had no nuisance micro algae though. Nitrates stay below 5 or so. I dose 2 part daily, Alk about 5ml and cal about 2-3 ml every other day. Parameters stay fairly consistent with Alk @ 8.5-9.2, Cal @ 400-440, Mag @ 1200-1300.
Ive got a pair of occy clowns, yellow watchman goby and his buddy the pistol shrimp, a valentini puffer, and a helfriechi firefish. Also have a cleaner shrimp and a coral banded shrimp along with a conch and sand sifting star (who I have had for about 6-7 months now) and about 5-6 nassarious snalls and 4-5 small hermit crabs. The sand stays white as its constantly moved around by the CUC and pistol.
About 2 weeks ago I did some heavy mods to the hood and rear chambers of the cube and added a CPR overflow as well as the eshopps nano cube refugium sump. That was a little imtimidating since there is very little on the web regarding adding a sump to a biocube but its working nicely. I moved the skimmer to it, as well as the chemipure elite and the chaeto ball. I put a small powerhead in the fuge compartment to keep the ball moving tumbling. So far doing a good job.
So enough rambling, we all just want to see pics! So here are a couple, came out really blue since I took these with my iPhone 7. Will have to bust out the Nikon DSLR at some point.
More/Better pics to come if anyone wants to see! Otherwise comments welcome! Thanks for looking!
Started off stock during the initial cycle. After that added the intank media basket and used chemipure elite and polyfilter pad. About month 6 I gutted out the hood and installed Steve's LED SPS led light kit. That went well, fairly easy to do. Shortly after that I added the cheato basket from intank with a LED light on the back. At about the year mark, I added the Aquatic Life 115 skimmer and was using it in the first chamber. Its the first skimmer I ever used, so as far as I knew, it worked ok. It would produce very green tea looking water, wasnt too thick though. But since adding the fuge basket, I never had a nitrate problem and always did weekly 5 gal water changes. A couple times when we had our babies, I'd go 4-5 weeks with out a water change and the system still was ok. Before adding the skimmer during one of those periods, after about 4 weeks I did start seeing cyano building up but only in the fuge basket. Had to throw out the cheato a couple times as it was just covered in thick cyano. For the first month or 2 I did run the fuge light 24x7 and I think that is what caused the cyano. I replaced the chemipure after replacing the chaeto ball and ran the light on 10 hour cycles and every week or so I would leave the light off for a few days. That seemed to do the trick and got rid of the cyano. Fast forward, added the skimmer and had another baby and went 5 weeks w/o a water change. But this time there wasnt any problems. Every week I would still test nitrates and they were never above 5 using API kit. Finally about week 6 nitrates up to 10 and noticed a spot of cyano on a rock so I finally did a water change and was back to normal.
As of now, the tank has a mix of SPS and LPS with a large toadstool and a bunch of zoas along with a now large rose bubble tip nem. All corals are growing well, SPS a little slow and my acros and mille browned out after a few weeks. I was tthinking high phosphates so I bought a hanna checker (accidently got the phosphates marine one) but always tested 0.0. Thought that couldnt be right. I had no nuisance micro algae though. Nitrates stay below 5 or so. I dose 2 part daily, Alk about 5ml and cal about 2-3 ml every other day. Parameters stay fairly consistent with Alk @ 8.5-9.2, Cal @ 400-440, Mag @ 1200-1300.
Ive got a pair of occy clowns, yellow watchman goby and his buddy the pistol shrimp, a valentini puffer, and a helfriechi firefish. Also have a cleaner shrimp and a coral banded shrimp along with a conch and sand sifting star (who I have had for about 6-7 months now) and about 5-6 nassarious snalls and 4-5 small hermit crabs. The sand stays white as its constantly moved around by the CUC and pistol.
About 2 weeks ago I did some heavy mods to the hood and rear chambers of the cube and added a CPR overflow as well as the eshopps nano cube refugium sump. That was a little imtimidating since there is very little on the web regarding adding a sump to a biocube but its working nicely. I moved the skimmer to it, as well as the chemipure elite and the chaeto ball. I put a small powerhead in the fuge compartment to keep the ball moving tumbling. So far doing a good job.
So enough rambling, we all just want to see pics! So here are a couple, came out really blue since I took these with my iPhone 7. Will have to bust out the Nikon DSLR at some point.
More/Better pics to come if anyone wants to see! Otherwise comments welcome! Thanks for looking!
