Cycling a 14g Bio Cube with live rock and live sand

greech said:
Sounds like you got it. pH is a little low but I wouldn't try and tweak it at this point. Might want to try and cool the tank off a couple degrees as well. The bioballs just wouldn't have provided much benefit over the LR and could eventually trap more detritus. Siphoning out those back chambers once in a while is a very good idea. When I had my cube, I was changing the floss pretty much every other day. I ended up using pillow stuffing (non-flame resistant polyester) from the fabric store. You can get a huge bag for a fraction of the price of aquarium filter floss. May also want to good inTank and checkout their media baskets and other cube accessories. Congrats again on the startup!
Click to expand...

Are you spying on me.....because I visited InTank last night and checked out thier media basket. And I have been using pillow poly for years also. LOL

Working on the cooling issue. Think I have a hinky heater. Will swap it out with a spare if I have to. Although, I cannot hear a fan running....maybe I have a bad fan also. I also removed the small plastic tab between chamber1 and 2 and saw an immediate increase in flow to my drip basket. Much easier now to control the water level in chamber3.

I agree with your first thought that the LR may not be so live or certainly not so mature as first thought. I've yet to spot anything alive! (just some small patches of coraline algae).

I'm prepared to use all of my patience on this tank....... I'm not in any hurry to add livestock.

I think I like the refugium idea in Chamber 2.
I will be working on that DIY aspect.

Way down the road, I will eventually setup my 36" wide with a ten gallon refugium/sump.
 
I moved my established sand bed across the room and had a fairly large spike that lasted nearly 2 weeks, just keep a close eye on your levels :)


If it were my tank, I'd take the sand out and rinse it very very well to remove and trapped debris or just buy completely new sand. Also grabbing a few pieces of cured rock from your LFS will help seed the pieces you already have.

Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
 
Well, Just discovered the root cause of the 'heat' issue...... Both my cooling fans are dead as well as my LEDs. The power adapter is warm and getting power. I will be bringing the hood to an electrician friend to have him investigate. In the meantime, hood is jacked up to allow for some dissapation of heat. Going to try a similar rated transformer and see if that works.
 
Glad you got the heat issue figured out anyway. Hope it's a simple fix.

Oh and yes, I'm watching...always watching :)
 
No luck on the fans yet...... noticable difference in evaporation with the hood up for cooling.... don't have RO/DI water for topping up so not keen on putting more well water in as I am aware of the pitfalls of using well water as opposed to RO/DI. Good news on that front..... LFS for marine will let me fill my bucket with RO/DI for free!
The Biocube seems tempermental when water levels drop a bit..... for instance, the drip tray had to be tinkered with to allow better flow, for the 3rd chamber kept running low and producing micro bubbles. Keeping the water level high helps with this.
Noticing a little more red on my rock now..... up on top, closest to light is a spot of very dark red with specs of white. hard angle to get a good snap.
Patience is a virtue....... I keep telling myself.
 
That's about all you can do with the heat issue until you fix the fans. Power compacts and a smaller, covered tank is gonna get hot. When you do get the fans working they will be fairly loud (stock fans always are). If you can swing it, may want to look into some computer fans that will run quieter. I'm sure you could google that and find the correct size.

Is the return pump acting up at all? Is the pumps chamber fairly full or is the water level in that chamber alway run low?

Good that you are using RO/DI.
 
The pump seems to be ok..... clears the chamber quickly, sometimes too quick and doesn't allow the chamber to refill adequately, especially if the tank water level is down slightly. Is there an adjustment to the internal pump for flowrate?
Also, does the drip tray face 'like a cup' upwards or downwards? (not sure if its right side up or not) I didn't feel the drip tray was dripping evenly...... just feeding the bioballs closest to chamber 1. With it's present placement (cup upward), seems to be even distribution now as well as making the tray easier to pick up. I think it was backwards.
Is the "Biocube" powerhead for the 14g a good buy for 50 bucks?

I have been reading up on the noise issue with the stock fans...... will probably upgrade!
 
100_3585.JPG
Starting to see some red coraline algae at 2 weeks maybe?

100_3585.JPG
 
Entirely possible. PCs are good for grwoing coraline for whatever reason. If it's hard, its coraline, if not, it's cyano.
 
Today, I added a clean-up-crew to the BC to take care of the diatom algae consisting of 1 emerald crab, 5 small hermit crab, and 4 snails. They went right to work immediately. Love it!

:clap:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom