Nubie with a BC 29 with questions!

C

chemistmike

New member
Hi all. I have been reading several threads on this board for awhile now. I have decided to purchase the Oceanic BioCube 29gal. for my first attempt at a nano. I set it up last night. I am including pics after one night of water clearing if I can figure out how to load them.

I have a couple of questions:

1. I am thinking of purchasing a UV, does anyone have any suggestions for this size of a tank?

2. Should I purchase more live rock now, or should I wait to let my live rock build up with the soft corals that I purchase (the last was my original plan)?

3. I am wanting to add more circulation to the tank, since I am going to build up the rock all the way up the back and slope it to the front. Right now I only have a marineland penguin 660. Does anyone have any suggestions to replacements or sizes? I wanted to place one at each end on the back facing opposite directions.

4. I am thinking of purchasing the 144W lighting mod. from nanotuners.com. Does anyone have any experience with them? Is this too much for my anticipated applications?

5. I am thinking of having compatable soft corals with the following fish: Yellow Assessor, Flaming Prawn Goby (if I can get one, if not I will try to get a Helfrichi Firefish), Red Spot Pseudochromis, and one of the flasher wrasses.

Thanks for any advice you could lend in advance.

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I have one and is all stock.I have 30 pounds of live rock and rubble in the middle chamber with filter floss on top.I love mine and will add more flow and also be adding the light upgrade soon.It looks like you might need to add more live rock.I will try to post some pics of mine.Mine is full of corals and I have only 2 clowns right now and will be adding a purple fire fish.Its a great unit and you will be happy with it.Just make sure you keep up with normal water changes.
 
2- I'd get the rock now unless you have a good source for cured rock that you can trust. Adding uncured rock down the road can crash your tank.

3- If you want 1 more pump get a maxijet 1200, if you want 2 pumps get 2 maxijet 900's. Maybe toss the hydor flo on one of them to break up the flow and give you random flow.

4- I have the 108W upgrade for my 24 nanocube from them. Love it, wish I started with it and now is the time to install it since you have no livestock. I think you would be happy with it. They have instructions on their site, read them and see if you can upgrade it yourself, it isn't to hard but I had them build me a new hood, great quality and craftsmanship.

5-Love your stock list. I have a blue assesor and he's a little dark, I always said I wish I got the yellow.
The flaming prawn likes to hide a lot, might not see it much. Don't overpay for the Helfrichi, I know liveaquaria overcharges.
Not familiar with the red spot pseudo but I did read this:
"This little beauty is not as aggressive as most other Pseudochromis, but as with any pseudochromis, be careful in housing it in small tanks with small, mild mannered species, as this is a bold fish. Provide with plenty of suitable hiding places. Will eat very small shrimps (e.g., anemone shrimps)"

I have a blue bar pseudochromis and he is 100% fish friendly. Most pseudochromis will kill small shrimps though (Mine has gone through 7 peppermints). Loves to swim in the rockwork so arrange it so he has cracks.

Here's a picture:
tank10021005-1.jpg


Something like a McKosker Flasher Wrasse that has a lot of red would look great.

I got my Assesor and pseudo at www.marinecenter.com
I want to say they are in TX also but I may be wrong.

They will have a lot of the fish on your list. If you decide to order online I would do it in 2 shipments, cn't add everything at once.
 
Colinadam has some good advice and an awesome, healthy tank. I would not use an UV sterilzer, with a tank that small. Keep up with water changes and you will not need it. Definitely get all the LR now! You will have a cycle everytime you add, which is not good for the livestock. I have done it and it is not a good idea. I would also do the two pumps and add the hydor flo. I have a MJ900 on my ten and will be adding a mini jet and a hydor flo to the 900. Post pics as you progress and ask questions and add observations as you go along. HTH

Tom
 
Thanks for the advice. The point about the live rock and additional cycling is a good point. I have contimplated switching out the bio-balls with live rock and larger pieces of crushed coral, but was afraid of the loss of flow. Anyone else doing this? Texasarrowhead - do you have any flow problems with this? Also, did you keep the stock pre-filter? I noticed this morning that the pre-filter was already clogged, and the water level in the third chamber dropped to the minimal level. I cleaned it off, and the water level came back up. I was thinking of putting in a piece of more course material to prevent it from clogging as fast; OR I was thinking of removing the prefilter and just putting the filter floss on top of the bio-ball screen - as Texasarrowhead has stated he does.

Colinadam - thanks for the marinecentral.com website. That is actually who I was looking at. I have been eyeballing their site for quite some time. When you had your new hood made, did they do the loaner program, or did you just have an entirely new one fabricated.

I'm going to purchase more live rock this week, and will post an updated pic next weekend, and when I get the upgraded light system.
 
I actually used the stock hood for about 8 months then decided to upgrade the lights and had a new one made and shipped.

I do not know if they have a loaner program but I know they have crazy fast service. I ordered my hood around noon and it was being shipped that same day.

I honestly don't know how Biocubes are setup in the back chambers but I'd ditch the bioballs. They can harbor notrates after a while. They are good for fish only systems, not so much for reefs.

Look into chemical media like chemi-pure and purigen (They come in little media bags, you literally just toss them in the back chambers as they are- Chemi-pure is a longer lasting carbon alternative and purigen helps with keeping your nitrates down and improves water clarity) and look into filter floss to catch the debris. All of these can be found at Dr. Foster and Smith.
 
The biocube has three chambers.
The first chamber has a slot housing for the pre-filter with activated carbon (kind of like a traditional HOB power filter has a filter cartridge). This is the overflow area.

The second chamber has water flowing to it from the filtered first section. This chamber has a screen on top, under which are all of the bioballs. There is another screen beneath the bioballs, and this is where the water flows to the third chamber.

The third chamber has a pre-filter screen at the bottom, and then the return pump inside of this chamber.

Would you recommend putting the water purifiers in this second chamber within their bags on their side, or find a way to stand them up vertically?

Also, would you recommend putting the filter floss above the purifiers, or finding a way to stand it up in the first chamber like the current stock filter cartridge is set up?
 
Take out all the bioballs!Put live rubble rock in the middle chamber and where the water flows into the middle chamber on top of the live rubble put the filter floss.I run carbon in the 1 or 3rd. chambers.The only thing I wish I did have more flow but its been fine for now everything is doing great in my tank.My biocube is about 4 months old.I just got over the hair alage.
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This when I got my Aquapod and it leaked and I changed to the bio cube.I am glad I did!


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Ok. I took out all of the bioballs and the filter cartridge, and am now running with a cut out of a fluval filter insert for the top half of the first chamber. In the second chamber, I currently have the other half of the fluval cut out under the spill over to reduce the noise, and under that a chemipure bag.

I have also added a maxijet 900 with a hydor flo on one end, and a maxijet 1200 on the other end with a hydor flo. I have seen my temperature increase to around 86F during the day, and around 84F at night.

I am expecting my ordered light upgrade from nanotuners.com tomorrow. I got the 144W upgrade with the optional increase airflow fan, bulb one a 10k daylight, bulb two is an actinic, variable 3-12v/1200mA AC adapter, and the R2 moonlights. I also purchased the saphire protein skimmer (not sure where this is going to go yet though - probably the first chamber).

Because of the increase in temperature, and given the fact that I am upgrading the total wattage of light output, I am now shopping for a chiller. Does anyone have any suggestions for this size of a tank.

Also, I am concerned about the amount of particulate matter floating around from the die off from the live rock. Has anyone ever used a canister filter to supplement their chambers?
 
I have a nanotuners hood as well, wait until you get it installed to see how the fans do. They are great at keeping the tank cooler but I would shop for a variable transformer to control the noise when you are close to the tank (if noise is a problem).
 
Consider a skimmer for chamber 2. The Tunze nano skimmer is rated pretty highly and Sapphire Aquatics has a skimmer designed specifically to sit there. I've got the sapphire and I'm very happy with it. Can't believe the junk it pulls out of the water. Either way, dump the bio balls or you'll get nitrate build up.

You might try the Nanotuners lights before you decide on the chiller. Due to the larger fans and change in the reflector some run cooler with the upgraded lights. I'm not sure how and can't confirm but I've heard that several times.

I've been running mine stock so far, but plan to upgrade the pump and put one one of the NanoStreams in it. Haven't seen a need for the 144 watts yet, but I'm keeping corals that aren't really light demanding. Also, Sapphire is putting together a hang on back refugium for the BioCube (they're testing now) so that will go on as soon as it's avaiable.

With the fuge you might be able to direct a fan across the water and cool that way - cheaper to run than a chiller.
 
Thanks gkelly. Nanotuners also said that the Saphire skimmer was supposed to go inside the second chamber, but I am curious - does the water level need to be higher for the skimmer to work? Because the water level is only as high as the feed to the third chamber, which is only about 3". How do you get the water level higher if it needs it?
 
The skimmer pump will pick up water with the chamber 3 water level near the MAX line, but I did add water until it's a bit higher in chamber to. This was just to get the powerhead so that it could not get any air at all. You will need to add water (about 3/4 gallon) after firing up the skimmer because it fills with water.

My current water level on the gauge is about 1.5 - 2 inches above the MAX line in 3. I've been told that the MAX\MIN are for use with the wet-dry bio balls, and if you pull them out they no longer apply.

With the stock pump, lights, the skimmer ph, and another rio ph in the tank (not sure of gph at the moment) I run from 80-81.5 in a 24 hour cycle.

One other thing - due to the low water volume a small amount of evaporation can affect salinity more than a bigger tank. You might want to think about an auto top off system. Especially at 86 degrees...

I'm running the JBJ ATO system. Not sure if it's better\worse than any other, but I've had no problems with it.
 
The float switch is in Chamber 3.

The controller itself is in the stand under the tank and turns on an AquaLifter pump. The water is in a 1 gal rubbermaid container.

The water is added into chamber 1.

Took about 30 minutes to set it up and it's been flawless since. I just refill my 1 gal jug with RO 2-3 times a week.
 
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