# 29gal Biocube



## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

So I just picked up a 29gal biocube by Oceanic from a fellow off craigslist. Its an established tank and is around 2 years old. I got it home yesterday, kept the corals and whatnot in a seperate bucket, filled the biocube up with all 30gal of water that I took from his tank in Oshawa and let the sand and cloud settle/dissipate.

Today I came home and started popping the LR/corals into the tank and gluing pieces of loose corals onto some rock and popping those in too. While I was moving things around outside of the tank, a piece of fairly large coral fell off one of the rocks and smashed into pieces. I tried gluing some of the bigger pieces back onto some rock and putting it back into the tank but I don't know how well it will do.

I haven't gotten around to taking close up pictures but here are some quick shots I took.


































Apparently its stocked with:

Candy cane corals
Frogspawn
Green star polyps
Mushrooms
A little bit of zoos

And I don't know the name of the coral I smashed


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

Its the stuff on the left side of the tank from the front view. The peachy coloured one with the little bits of green on it. I have it close to the mushrooms.


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## Grafix Ink. (Mar 12, 2009)

nice... how much did it set you back?


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Nice. Those are big colonies of GSP (the purple mat), frogspawn (the larger branchy thing at the back), and I'm guessing the thing you smashed is the candycane.


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## conix67 (Jul 27, 2008)

I thought the ones in the middle-front /w green tips are candy canes, but the ones broke off look like candy canes too.


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

Yeah, I realized the smashed coral is candy cane, its just paler from before... I guess the previous owner wasn't doing too well with it either.

The tank looks better today, the water is crystal clear and the GSP and the candy cane are just starting to open up. The frogspawn is doing well and has been changing the intensity of its colours.

I picked up 5 nessarious snails today and am looking forward to adding some different zoas and maybe a couple other corals and what not. Eventually, an anemone and some clownfish and a cleaner shrimp (of course)

Anyone able to suggest some pretty while easy to care for corals to add to the tank?

The setup so far cost me 350$ with the tank and the stock. I went out and bought a koralia 1 pump and a bucket of h2ocean today along with the snails.


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## conix67 (Jul 27, 2008)

My picks - 
* Pulsing Xenia - nice pulsing action, does not sting others, spreads quickly
* Montipora Capricornis - looks nice but much less demanding than other SPS
* Zoanthids - there are tons of different kinds of zoas available, and frags. many have very nice color and they spread easily
* Various Palys - some have polyps with nice color combination, very much like Zoas but larger

Bubble Tip Anemone can be a pain, and many recommends adding an Anemone before adding Corals, since it is a lot easier to manage once the Anemone settles into its favorite spot.

Corals don't like Anemone brushing its tentacles against theirs


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

Brian, you lucky dog, what a great deal you got!!! I hope you enjoy it!

Any thoughts on fish?

\\


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

Hey Tabatha,

I picked up a couple True Percs from Aquatic Kingdom last night and a GBTA while I was at it. I did some rearranging of corals and such in the tank. I'm thinking I might frag the frogspawn and sell most of it off as I want to add some other corals later on down the line but the frogspawn is so big that it limits my placement.

I am going to take conix's recommendations and add some frags of zoas, palys, montis and a clam or two later on down the line.

The clowns were fighting over the GBTA earlier this morning before I moved it to a spot I liked better and it seems to have settled in well for now. The clowns are aggressive to one another as I think they are still fighting over dominance but they chill out in a corner of the tank a lot where the flow is not so high for some reason... I thought they would be out and about swimming as they were in the tanks at AK...

Here are some pictures of the updated tank and one of my room, lol. I'm still not happy with either but I'll take it slowly. I definitely need to add some more LR in my opinion.


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Hmmm, that BTA looks bleached out. does it have any colour? I hope you didn't pay too much for it.

Also, if you have a cover for the koralia, I'd recommend it. Anemones like to move around the tank til they find a favoured spot - that being said you shouldn't really move it once it gets established.


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

My GBTA was bleached out like that when I first got it. With a lot of TLC, it made a come back with a lot of TLC (silversides) and it wasn't until we swapped the Maroon Clowns for Ocellaris that it's really come to life! 

Good lighting and good food should bring the colour back.


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

It had a little bit colour while at the LFS. It might also be because the angle of the lighting on my tank and me not knowing how to use the camera properly that makes it look less green because in real life it has more green on it. I paid 30$ for it but I'm not sure how much they usually cost.

When I moved the GBTA, it didn't have its foot attached to anything yet so I thought it would be alright.

When would I start feeding the GBTA? Are you guys feeding yours silversides and shrimp? And what are y'all feeding your clowns?

Are you guys feeding your corals cyclo-peeze or phytoplankton or anything also?


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

Brian said:


> It had a little bit colour while at the LFS. It might also be because the angle of the lighting on my tank and me not knowing how to use the camera properly that makes it look less green because in real life it has more green on it. I paid 30$ for it but I'm not sure how much they usually cost.
> 
> When I moved the GBTA, it didn't have its foot attached to anything yet so I thought it would be alright.
> 
> ...


$30 is a good price, GBTA's usually go for $40 - $45, RBTA's anywhere from $60 - $100 depending on colour. I feed all frozen foods, the only dry food the fish get is spiritula (sp?). I've got cultures of rotifers and enriched brine shrimp for treats.

We just started the Zeovit system (zeovit.com), feed phyto and frozen cylopeeze to the corals.

I feed my BTA's silversides and shrimp twice a week, make sure you rinse them in RO water before feeding so you don't add extra phosphates to the tank.

Do you have a skimmer?


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

No skimmer and I don't use RO water either :S

I'm using tap water in a 20gallon bucket with a powerhead, heater, prime and h2ocean.

For the cyclop-eeze and phyto, are you squirting it into the mouths or just dropping it into the water?


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

If you experience algae you can't get rid of, you can blame it on the tap water.

We turn off the skimmer and put the MP40's in feed mode then dump in the coral foods. Some corals, like the candycanes, we target feed.


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

My candycanes don't look like the candycanes I've seen online. They only extend a little of their fleshy stuff and its white, they haven't opened up all the way yet to look all fleshy and what not.


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

Moved some more stuff around, fed the GBTA which both clowns have hosted in and the candy canes have extended a bit more. Not sure what to feed them as of yet, I've read a few articles but haven't decided what the best route is.

Opinions?


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

I love your candycanes! If you're going to frag them, I'll buy some!


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

Thanks Tab, when I frag it I'll be sure to let you know - we can probably trade or something 

I'm going to be picking up 11 more lbs. of LR to add to the tank but right now I'm deciding what else I can add in terms of live stock.

So far:

1 cleaner shrimp, lol.

My girlfriend really likes the royal gramma basslets but I'm not too fond of them. I'm thinking a jawfish or two... anyone have any recommendations? Or should I not be adding anything at all?

BTW - the percs are still fighting each other a lot


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Jawfish are fun, but be prepared to add abit more substrate for them and some rubble too (marble sized) - they need it to build their dens and cover their entrances. 

The clowns should sort themselves out soon enough - they'll fight till one becomes dominant (female) and the other a male.

Lucky you with your clowns hosting right away - mine are still cozying up to the idea.


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

What are you feeding your clowns? I assume some sort of frozen food? Do you just pop it into the tank and turn off the pumps?


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

When I'm considering fish to add, I go to http://liveaquaria.com/product/aquarium-fish-supplies.cfm?c=15

Cross reference information and if you get too many conflicts, ask the forums for first hand experience. (Don't believe everything you read!) I have so many favorites...

Banggai Cardinalfish
Green Clown Goby, (all the clown gobies!)
Midas Blennie (always has a smile on his face, what a character!)
Firefish (a real cutie)
Rainford's Goby (stunning colour and pattern)
Orange Spotted Filefish (we lucked out, she eats frozen!)
Fish still on my wish list are:

Two Spot Goby
Green Mandarin
Yellow Clown Goby
Banded Pipefish
Have fun!!!


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Yeah, when contemplating stocking, always see compatibility, but also check with others. Obviously when you stock conspecifics together there will be problems, as well as housing niche feeders (ie mandarins and scooter dragonets together in small systems).

I feed all my fish the same thing at the same time, with all pumps on. In the ocean, the waves never stop for them to eat 

Dry prepared foods:
Ocean Nutrition Formula one (carnivore diet)
Ocean Nutrition Formula two (herbivore diet)
NLS Thera A small pellet
NLS Marine small pellet
Golden pearls (300 - 500 micron)
I'm also trying out the Fauna Marin Base Colour and Energy pellets - so far they're a real hit, but a tad on the big side for my little guys.

Frozen I feed two types of mysis:
Piscine Energetics
Hikari

I've been meaning to pick up some frozen cyclopeeze, but I've gotten lazy. 5 types of prepared and frozen is good for now.


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

Are you target feeding your corals or do you throw the mysis in there and let them take care of themselves also?

Edit: I've been looking through the nano recommended fish and I like the different varieties of clown gobies. My question is whether or not it is safe to keep more than one type of clown goby in the 29g nano and what the capacity of fish would be in a tank this size?


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Brian said:


> Are you target feeding your corals or do you throw the mysis in there and let them take care of themselves also?
> 
> Edit: I've been looking through the nano recommended fish and I like the different varieties of clown gobies. My question is whether or not it is safe to keep more than one type of clown goby in the 29g nano and what the capacity of fish would be in a tank this size?


Probably not good to keep multiple types of clown gobies together, but I don't know for sure. I do know though that you could have multiple of one species in there, as they live in groups in nature.

I only target feed my non-photosynthetic LPS corals (dendro, suncoral). Sometimes I feed the duncans too if I'm feeling generous, and there's some mysis left. They will grow faster though if you feed them.


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

ameekplec. said:


> Probably not good to keep multiple types of clown gobies together, but I don't know for sure. I do know though that you could have multiple of one species in there, as they live in groups in nature.
> 
> I only target feed my non-photosynthetic LPS corals (dendro, suncoral). Sometimes I feed the duncans too if I'm feeling generous, and there's some mysis left. They will grow faster though if you feed them.


Good question but I agree with Ameekplec, I don't think you can keep multiple species in one tank, especially a nano. They are very comical looking, I really enjoy them!


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

So if I had a watchman goby and a green clown goby in the same tank together, that's a no no? Or do you mean a green clown goby and a yellow clown goby would be a no no?


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

Brian said:


> So if I had a watchman goby and a green clown goby in the same tank together, that's a no no? Or do you mean a green clown goby and a yellow clown goby would be a no no?


The latter -- Green Clown Goby and Yellow Clown Goby -- would probably fight but I can't say for certain as I've never tried it.


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

Alright, thanks Tab.

So do you have your Rainford's Goby in the same tank with your Green Clown Goby?


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

The latter as they both occupy the same ecological niches (SPS colonies). Generally fish that occupy similar niches on the reef will quarrel for food and shelter/territory, so choose wisely.

I myself chose my fish so that they occupy a certain niche: jawfish are burrowers who generally stay in and around the confines of their burrows (bottom dwellers); clownfish, once a host is chosen, will often stick to within a few inches of their hosting organism - thus tending to stay in a small area; and the sixline, well she's just all over the tank


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

Brian said:


> Alright, thanks Tab.
> 
> So do you have your Rainford's Goby in the same tank with your Green Clown Goby?


As a matter of fact, I do. However, a while ago, I tried a Hector's goby with the Rainford's goby and the did not get along. The Hector's goby disappeared, s/he was the last in the tank.


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

Oh I see.

If I don't have SPS corals then I shouldn't be getting any clown gobies then, I assume?

I'm hoping to be able to pick up some leathers or monti caps tonight at the MAST auction.


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## ruffyruff (Dec 28, 2008)

NONO brian.. you got it the other way around...

YCG (Yellow Clown Goby) are notorious for nipping or resting on SPS corals (hard corals - hard to keep in our 29G since we do not have the water flow, and lighting for it)

You actually CAN have a YCG.. but many people with SPS own YCG's

They are fun to watch.. never know what they are doing... you could also consider a jawfish... they are lively and different to gobies...

I find typical watchman gobys very boring... they really do nothing but sit there


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

I was leaning more towards the yellow clown goby or the green clown goby. I was also thinking about getting a jawfish and a cardinal also later on?

I want to get the goby first though, it adds some colour to my tank which is predominantly green right now.


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

ruffyruff said:


> (hard corals - hard to keep in our 29G since we do not have the water flow, and lighting for it)


You aren't trying hard enough


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

Brian said:


> I was leaning more towards the yellow clown goby or the green clown goby. I was also thinking about getting a jawfish and a cardinal also later on?
> 
> I want to get the goby first though, it adds some colour to my tank which is predominantly green right now.


Get a few yellow clown gobies, they're bright yellow and flit around the tank, swimming from perch to perch. Don't get them from BA's though, they all look too skinny! Also, they need tiny food like rotifers or ocean pearls (Chris from Under the C carries them).


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## Tigercga (Mar 26, 2006)

I got my 2 yellow clown gobies from BA last month. They are very heathly and eat like pigs in my tank. I just feed them with flakes.


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

When you get any fish from the LFS, ask them to feed them - get the ones that respond well to being fed non-live foods.


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

Tigercga said:


> I got my 2 yellow clown gobies from BA last month. They are very heathly and eat like pigs in my tank. I just feed them with flakes.


Then you got very lucky! Most are wafer thin, that I've seen, especially at BA's in Scarborough.


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

So here are some quick shots of the tank. The flash had to be on as the lights are all off now and my camera doesn't do well with night pics.

Also, can anyone give me an ID on the two thingys? I thought the star thing was a brittle star but this one has 6 legs.

I picked up an open brain coral, goniopora and a container of reef roids from a fellow downtown today who also threw in a frag of zoas. I'll try and snap better pics tomorrow. The open brain coral has its feeder tentacles extended right now, I put a piece of shrimp on it and it was moving the shrimp towards its mouth when a nassarious snail came and took it from the brain. I put on another piece and it started moving it to its mouth when I took the flash picture and it stopped


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

Here are some quick shots I took this morning at lights on.


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

Where did you get the goniporia? I want a red one!


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

fragtory.blogspot.com

A fellow named Andrew Goodridge.

He's at Queen/Roncesvailles. I got theh goniopora, open brain, zoa and reef roids for 100$


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## Tigercga (Mar 26, 2006)

Tabatha said:


> Then you got very lucky! Most are wafer thin, that I've seen, especially at BA's in Scarborough.


I guess I am lucky. I bought a bicolor angel after the LFS showed me that the fish grabbed the food. But when I put it into my tank, it has stopped eating until last week that it starts eating seaweed, and a little bit of flakes.


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

Added some new rock, 2 yellow clown gobies, 2 cleaner shrimp, 5 zoa frags from UTC and rearranged rock work.

1 of the zoa frags hasn't opened up yet and its been a couple days, not sure what's wrong but I hope it opens up soon. I want to see what colour it is, lol.

Sorry about the cloudy water, I spent a few hours with my hand in the tank stirring up the sand bed while moving stuff around.


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## Sunstar (Jul 29, 2008)

wow, that thing in th elast pic looks like a deranged cow's udder with an iverted teat....


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## lloydj (Apr 10, 2009)

Looks great Brian.

IMO I would put the goni back on the SB. They are fragile and if it falls over it will get flesh damage and chance of die on you.

Love the Biocubes!


Cheers, LJ

Hope you got the temp issue figured out


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## ruffyruff (Dec 28, 2008)

make sure you create a crevase for your BTA... or it'll go find its own... and you wont like it 80% =)


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## hojimoe (Mar 7, 2008)

I wouldn't worry too much about a zoa frag not opening... I had one frag plug that UTC gave me as a freebie when I got a bunch of stuff, the freebie had like 3-4 heads on it...it never opened  but I left the plug in there, all the heads fell off/rotted off...now about 2 weeks ago, one opened...from no where, then spread, there's now about 10-12 heads, kind cool


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

Here are a couple quick shots of the tank at night with lights off. My camera sucks 

I picked up two milleporas and a paly frag from LJ and he threw in a frag of green zoas for free. I did some slight rearranging. The goni got pissed off by the clowns in this shot and so aren't extending.

I have a diatom outbreak and some hair algae in certain spots.

Also started dosing kent 2 part dose calcium/alkalinity but I'm probably going to switch over to the calcium chloride/epsom salts after I the kent bottles are gone.

I'm hoping my lights will be sufficient for the milleporas to grow  I placed them as close to the lights as possible without looking too ugly.

The clown gobies started picking at the milleporas, not sure what they're doing but I hope it doesn't have a negative effect.

I also had a hitch hiker on one of the milleporas, not sure if its good or bad, I couldn't take a proper shot of it. Its about half the size of a penny. Looks like a crab, solid white colour with a black band around its equatorial belt and some blueish spots on each of its legs if I remember correctly.

EDIT: Ahh, I found the crab, apparently its good  http://www.chucksaddiction.com/coral_crabs-5.html


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

OMG, that crab is so cute! Your tank is filling up so fast, looks great!


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## lloydj (Apr 10, 2009)

Glad things worked out for you.

That crab is probably a common acro crab. they host acropora and SPS.

Hope those SPS do ok.

Green zoas should do good for you too,

Pleasure meeting you and the wife last night!


CHeers, lloydj


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## Abner (Apr 7, 2009)

*nice tank*

Hey Brian tank looks great....i got my kenya tree and my zoas from andrew, nice guy with some great stuff in his tanks helpful to beginners like me.i've tried posting pic of my tanks in my gallery but doesn't allow me so i figure i'll wait till i put some new corals in there and it looks half as nice as yours post them. but yeah good job man.


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

Thanks 

I'm not sure how to use the gallery either, lol. I just upload my images on photobucket and link them to my posts. If you want some nice frags of things you can try some other members on the board like ameekplec or lloydj.

I just spent another 3 hours rearranging everything in my tank because I wasn't happy with how it looked. I'll post some new pics in a bit when everything settles... my fish and corals are angry at me.


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## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

Looking great brian!


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

Thanks, Jess.

Here are some updated shots, I'm pretty much happy with how the rock work is now... I might add in 1 or 2 more pieces but this is pretty much how I'll be keeping it.

Before:









After:









With flash:









Left:









Right:









I'm not sure about the placement of corals yet though.


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

And I'm also having problems with microbubbles collecting on my LR... not sure where tehy came from or how to gete rid of them. My pump just started shooting in them recently and I'm not sure why since I hadn't added or changed anything to the chambers.


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

Brian said:


> And I'm also having problems with microbubbles collecting on my LR... not sure where tehy came from or how to gete rid of them. My pump just started shooting in them recently and I'm not sure why since I hadn't added or changed anything to the chambers.


You may not have enough water in your tank, that used to happen to me with the BC8 (disregard the minimum/maximum levels). Check your SG, if too high, add RO/DI water. If SG is okay, just add more sw.

Tank is looking great!


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

The biocube is filled to the brim with water and the salinity is at 1.025 checked with refractometer so I'm still stumped as to the microbubbles


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

Brian said:


> The biocube is filled to the brim with water and the salinity is at 1.025 checked with refractometer so I'm still stumped as to the microbubbles


If the bubbles aren't coming out of your return pump, but simply all over your substrate, it could be the result of a diatom. Although everything in your tank is cycled, things still get stirred up when you moved it from the sellers house to yours causing a mini cycle. Let us know if you get a cyanobacteria bloom.


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## conix67 (Jul 27, 2008)

I like the new look!

Are the microbubbles a continuous stream of massive bubbles? If so, there must be some obvious source. If not, could be just some air trapped in some rock that are escaping after rescaping... just my guess..


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

No, the microbubbles aren't an obvious stream. In fact, I only see the pump shoot out 1 or 2 bubbles every few minutes or so and it seems now that I rearranged the rockwork, the bubbles are only collecting on the top flat pieece of live rock...

In other news, I picked up 3 chromis and a yellow angel from lloyd today and also a bubble coral. My last addition in terms of fish will probably be a fuzzy dwarf lionfish but then I'd have to get rid of my cleaner shrimps 

I am hoping the yellow angel will eat the hair algae from my tank as you can see I have a lot of it but so far its only been eating pellets... lol


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## ruffyruff (Dec 28, 2008)

One would guess, somewhere along the hose where the pump meets the elbow, having a leak...

do you have that blue sponge in the 3rd chamber brian?


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

Nope. I have ceramic things, foam pads and some other things that I had in my eheim. 

I'll be smashing up some LR and putting the rubble into that chamber and throwing in some chaeto and modding the chamber to turn it into a fuge in a couple weeks.


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## ruffyruff (Dec 28, 2008)

you are running a eheim on your biocube?? is that necessary??

it does already have 3 chambers for you... 

chamber one - cheapo biocube skimmer - apparently works well for me... just wet skims like crazy

chamber two - floss filter at top, carbon filter, diy acrylic plate for the filters to sit properly, bioballs

chamber three - blue sponge, large bag of carbon and gfo


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

When I bought the biocube it didnt have any media in it. I took the media out of my eheim and stuck it in the middle chamber and I stuffed the right chamber with filter floss. The left chamber only has the pump in it. I guess I should be changing stuff around?


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## ruffyruff (Dec 28, 2008)

most ppl do it this way

chamber 1 - purigen/phosgard and skimmer (optional)
chamber 2 - LR Rubble, chaeto, carbon, anything you can fit in there, some ppl buy the tunze skimmer or a small skimmer and throw it in there...
chamber 3 - return pump, any chemical media you can fit in there

wanna take a picture from the top and post it here?


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## lloydj (Apr 10, 2009)

Looks Great Brian!

Cheers! L J


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