Newbie with Biocube 29 needing SOLID advice

J

joannbrian

New member
Started a 29 biocube 4 weeks ago. Added a hydor 750gph and a heater otherwise all stock. Bought RO water from LFS already mixed w salt and added23 lbs live rock. Ran for two weeks prior to adding anything. Day 14 added a bluedevil damsel and two zoa frags as the LFS said with the live rock my tank was CYCLED needless to say i now am learning perhaps not to trust that lfs .Day 21 bought a nitrate kit and found nitrates at 25 mg/l per tetratest. Also DKH showing 7-8 per api carbonate hardness.

I did a 2 gal water chg on day 21 and a 5 gal change today (day 26). Still reading same no3 and dkh. No other tests or interventions done. About the dkh test., it says count drops til bright yellow. Ok so at 7 drops the tube turns green. At eight yellow. At nine brighter yellow. Is my DKH 8 OR 9?

AND i was curious about skimmers and in sump refugiums. Advice there as well please.

My goal is a reef with softies duncans ( what else with stock lights)? And fish to go with my bluedevil ????
 
Nitrates are removed with larger water changes or adding chaeto and a grow light to the back chamber of the bio cube. As long as your dkh is above 7 and below 10 it is acceptable range for a reef. It doesn't sound like anything is out of the ordinary, other than the elevated nitrates which could be explained off if you are overfeeding the tank and the uneaten food is breaking down. With one single fish you should literally be feeding one pellet at a time and feeding the fish until full or for only a few short minutes as to not overfeed the tank.

Part of being new is worrying about every little thing that happens, the best advice is to not let everything worry you, we all started knowing very little and learned from experiences and advice from others. As long as you pay attention to your tank and follow a few basic maintenance schedules, you will likely never deal with any catastrophic disasters with your tank.

One bit of advice thou, is that damsels tend to get aggressive and don't make very good tank mates, you might do well to research some smaller peaceful fish that will be happy in a large nano tank like the bio cubes. There are plenty of great choices available to you, both colorful and very personable fish that will be fun to watch from day to day.
 
Skimmer Aquaticlife 115 (most will argue whether you need it or not)

Media basket if your handy you could make one of your own or go to http://shop.mediabaskets.com/

I have both the media basket and the skimmer. Skimmer works well and the media basket is nice also. The 10w light for the cheato/ fuge area is not "enough" light from my experience.
 
Fish Beard nailed it. I have a 29 biocube myself and water changes have handled most of my water quality problems. Funny, i just made my batch before writing this post. The damsel on the other hand would not be a good choice for me, keeping it is up to you, but ive seen damsels get nasty in my years so i try to avoid them especially in my small cube. My cube has the stevieT media basket and tunze 9002 skimmer. Wiz.
 
I have a Biocube with plenty of mods. The best piece of advice I could give has already been touched on...
I got rid of my Bioballs, pulled the grate out of the bottom of the 2nd chamber (it's really tough to get it out of there), added a few pounds of life rock rubble and some chaeto in there. Then I scraped off the appropriate amount of plastic covering the back of the tank (you need a scraping razor) to allow me to attach a light with some velcro. Personally, I used a 6500k CFL bulb I picked up at Walmart. Mine looks like this.

View attachment 3258

Yes, a bit of light bleeds out of the holes and lights up the wall behind the tank in an interesting pattern, but it's in the family room and doesn't disturb anyone at night.

I do 5 gallon water changes weekly. If you want to save some money in the long run, pickup an RODI filter and make your own water. I have the Mighty Mite from www.AirWaterIce.com. It's around $100 and does 5 gallons in a little over 2 hours - exactly what I need.

Oh, and get rid of the damsel - too aggressive. I know they're pretty, but not worth the hassle in the long run. See if someone will pay/trade for it or if a LFS will give you some credit for it.
 
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