I'm Finally Doing It!!!!!!!!! :)

[TidePool Daydreamer]

well everybody, i just got married 2 days ago. as a wedding present, my roomate got me a 29 gallon bio-cube!!!! so i'm gonna start setting it up today! (the stand is gonna be a pain in my butt!) so i will keep yall posted on my progress, as this being the first saltwater tank i have setup for my self. i will be asking alot of questions, so be prepared to get annoyed!!!!!

[Phurst]

Congrats on the wedding AND the tank!

Ask away, we're here to help.

[lReef lKeeper]

Congrats on the wedding AND the tank!

Ask away, we're here to help.

+1 ... on both !!

[Skurvey Dog]

Congratulations! What an awesome gift. Funny how you will find that the tank will require more of your time and TLC than your better half.:D J/K Enjoy!!!!!!

[CarmieJo]

Congrats on both!

[TidePool Daydreamer]

haha yeah she keeps saying that i've been thinking more about the tank than her, fortunately though she likes fish almost as much as i do, so it shouldn't be too hard. well i've got the stand built and the tank is almost ready to go, i;ve got to go get a few things from the hardware store and then i get to mix some water and let her run for a few days. then i'll get some pics up! and btw, does anyone know if a skunk clown will bond with a bubbletip anemone?

[Skurvey Dog]

Smart man for marrying a merwoman! Can't go wrong there. I think it's awesome. If you play your cards right and involve her with your marine interest from the start.... you will be a very happy couple. Especially come winter. A piece of tropical paradise! I am going to enjoy following your tank build. :D I am not versed in Skunk Clowns so I'll let those gurus advise you on that one.

[TidePool Daydreamer]

ok, so here it goes, i've been doing my homework, and looking at fish and corals that would do well in my bio-cube. so i figured out that the skunk clown will bond with the long tentacled, and the sebae anemone, but will anemones do wel under the lighting in the cube? my next fish choices would be the randal's goby, purple firefish, and the bar goby. now im guessing that i will have compatibility issues with the fire fish, but how about with the bar and the randal's? i'll ask about some corals after i catch my breath from writing so much. haha

[Phurst]

An anemone will need quite a bit more light than the stock lighting on a Bio-Cube will provide, I'm sorry to say. You could always upgrade the lighting in the future should you decide you just have to have an anemone (and I will say, there's something very striking about a nano with an anemone and a clown), but for now, I'd pass. Anemone's also require very stable conditions (hard to maintain in a nano) and tend to prefer well established and matured tanks.

I'll let someone else chime in on the compatibility of your fish selection. I don't know how they'll get along.

[TidePool Daydreamer]

yeah i'm kinda hopin dick or someone else with a randall's goby will chime in about its compatibility. any ideas on good colorful coral that will do well, of course i know no stonys, but any really pretty softies?

[Phurst]

You can get great color from zoas, palys, ricordias, and mushrooms, all of which will do fine under stock lights. IMO, most of the really vibrantly colored leathers require higher light, and most of the softies like colts, xenia and kenya tree will add nice movement, but don't really offer much in the color department. Certainly though, you can have a very colorful tank with the stock lighting.

[Reef Newb]

also check out hammer coral. The are really pretty and very hardy. I found one at an LFS with green stems and pink head and it grows rather quickly. It should do well under the stock lighting of a biocube. Also look for duncans. Kind of expensive depending on where you get them but they too grow really fast. I bought a 3 headed frag about a month ago and I can see about 6 more smaller heads on it now.

[CarmieJo]

Any of the Euphyllia (hammer, torch, frogspawn) will be fine with the stock lighting.

Also, FWIW my BTA is huge and would almost reach from side to side in my NC24.

[TidePool Daydreamer]

ok, so deff scratch the anemone thoughts for now, and thanks for the advice on the corals, it will be a couple of weeks before anything goes in, but i just got done setting everything up, and i need to get a test kit tonight. but it looks beautiful so far, but my SG is 1.024, and temp is 81, so so far everything is looking up. im gonna throw some live rock in tonight after work, and leth that cycle my tank. how long should it be before i add the live sand after the rock, or should i add it with the rock to aid with cycling?????

[CarmieJo]

Casey,

I'd add the sand and the rock at the same time. Consider making rock stands like Amphibious'. This helps prevents dead spots in the tank. I would commend this article The Building of a Reef (tank) (http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic23945-9-1.aspx) to you. I have been running my nano fishless since the first of March. I'll add fish back in eventually but I am deciding how I want to go with the tank. In the meantime my corals look great and I have gazillions of pods.

[dillan]

not sure if a clown you get would do it but my maroon clown hosts in my hammer coral

[CarmieJo]

not sure if a clown you get would do it but my maroon clown hosts in my hammer coral

In aquariums not all clowns host but it is not uncommon to hear of them hosting Euphyllia, mushrooms, powerheads and various other non-anemone things.

[Reef Newb]

I vaguely remember listening to one of the podcasts about clowns that host in some euphyllia corals can irritate it so much that it could die...I may be mistaken though...just something to look out for.

[CarmieJo]

Actually a rough clown can even irritate an anemone to death.

[TidePool Daydreamer]

ok, so yeah no pics as of now, but as soon as i get a new camera, mine decided to go buh bye on me... :( i'll get some up! but ive now got all my live sand and rock in the tank, and i'm off to wrk. so i'll try to get some pics up after its not so cloudy haha.

[TidePool Daydreamer]

ok, so the tank has been set up a few days now, and i have been debating on taking the bio balls out or not. my tank has about 20 lbs of LR, 20 lbs of live sand, and 15 lbs of regular reef sand. for some reason after being set up with LR and LS for 2 days, all my tests read 0 on all parameters, (don't have a phosphate test yet, but as it is cycling, i'll worry about the phosphate later) is this normal??? and if i were to take the bio-balls out, what would i replace it with other than LR? i'm going to be adding another 15 lbs in about a week, and i dont want the detrius buildup in chamber 2. any ideas???

[CarmieJo]

I recommend taking the bioballs out unless you are planning on a FOWLR tank. You can use that section as a fuge, to hold LR or you can just leave it empty. I use a baster to keep the detritus from building up.

If all your parameters are zero your cycle hasn't started yet. You can drop a raw table shrimp in there until you see an ammonia spike or you can add a pinch of food. Either way you are trying to add something that will give you the ammonia needed to start the cycle.

Whatever you do don't let some old school aquarist tell you that you have to add a fish or other living creature in order for the tank to cycle. This is cruel to the critter and entirely unnecessary.

[TidePool Daydreamer]

even in freshwater i never cycled with a live fish, so im not about to start now. but yeah i figured that since it had been 2 days after live rock had been added that my cycle wouldhave started, cuz i know i had some dieoff. but i guess its time to put patience into effect. :) its just so hard cuz i'm so ready to get started on stocking. :rolleyes:

[CarmieJo]

Double check the readings with another test kit. If they are zero too go ahead and drop some food or a raw shrimp in to give it a bump.

[TidePool Daydreamer]

ok, so as of yesterday, test readings are:

ammonia: .5
nitrites: 0
nitrates: 0
ph: 8.3
temp: 80.8 F

i need a better test kit that shows me more, but there is some limited stuff at petco, so off to aquarium world i go in a couple of days, but if i;m not mistaken, i do believe it's started cycling. it's funny how excited i'm getting over an ammonia spike.

[CarmieJo]

YIPPEE! You are on the way!

[V]

Stop your grin'n & drop your linen, its alive igor! :eek:


i find cracking open a beer about now works for me! Just like a BBQ, whilst everythings cooken, what else you going to do...lol

[TidePool Daydreamer]

:up: that actually sounds like a good idea to me. heck i've got a few beers in the fridge and some ribs in the freezer. it's good to know that i've got friends down under who think like me!!! and now i'm doubly excited cuz i get to go to my not so LFS tomorrow, the closest thing we have to a good one is an hour and a half away, so i can get a decent test kit. It's fun just to window shop too. (and i'm getting a refractometer Super Duper)

Test Readings Today
Ammonia: .50 ppm
PH: 8.3
Nitrates: 0
Nitrites: .10 ppm
Temp: 80.9
SG: 1.024

i think i did my ammonia test wrong, so i'm gonna re-do it. but we'll see. i know it's not the biggest deal in the world, the tank has only been up now for lik 7 or 8 days!

[TidePool Daydreamer]

So i have this hairlike type of algae, yet i'm not sure it is hair algae. It is brown is color, and i thought hair alae was green or red. i'm thinking of Extreme Termination! (take the rocks out and scrub them :) anybody have good suggestions or should i just let it go?

[CarmieJo]

Algae is kind of part of cycling a tank. That being said, there is no reason you can't scrub your rock in a bucket of SW. No need to use new SW just "recycle" the water you siphon out when you do a a water change.

[TidePool Daydreamer]

k so about removing the bioballs. is it gonna be detrimental to my cycle to slowly start removing them now? all i have is LR and live sand, so is this gonna completley screw up my cylce or not?

[CarmieJo]

You can take the bio-balls all out now with no problems.

[V]

yeah as with carmie, you wont even notice the change if you turf em at this point. Tanks get bacterially active somewhere around the 1.5 month mark to the point you can detect swings, Proper tank maturity somewhere between 6 months & 2 years in some cases. Plenty of variables to speak of.

Just remember to Keep your reagents in a dark dry spot, not on the window bench or near your light hood with the bottles open ok. lol

[TidePool Daydreamer]

ok, thanks guys. well i get to spend all day with my tank today! the docotr agitated some hair follicles on my leg, so i get to nurse it all day today so i can work tomorrow. :( and by taking the bio-balls out, the tank comes with a "trickle lid" over the balls, should i just take that off or leave it so the water goes in the chamber all over?

[V]

i suggest adding a pipe extension, do away with your plate altogether & submerge the ext pipe to keep your noise down.

[Lobbys Hobby]

Hello Casey and all... I was creeping through the forum trying to saok up all the info and came across your thread. I am also just starting up my 29g bio cube. I hope you don't mind me hijacking the thread but I would like to ask a question... I am at the same start up level as Casey and I was just wondering why we take out the bioballs? What happens if I leave them in?
Again hope you don't mind and thanks for the advice!
Amy

[Phurst]

Bioballs are very, very good at the first part of the nitrogen cycle. They are very efficient at converting ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate, but because they are non-porus, they lack the ability to host the anaerobic bacteria that converts nitrate to nitrogen gas. In short, they tend to produce high levels of nitrates. They also tend to trap a lot of detritus, which only contributes to the problem. Bio balls are awesome for fish only systems, but are counterproductive for a reef system.

[Lobbys Hobby]

Thanks for the reply... what are your thoughts on putting LR in there inplace of the bios or do you think leaving it empty is better? (I know that I would have to keep the LR free of detritus.)

[Phurst]

If you don't mind cleaning it, you certainly could. I always left mine empty or ran carbon back there.

[rayme07]

Hi Lobbys Hobby Welcome to TR.

[Carty]

Corals that you might like

Zoa's: Armor of God, Lord of the Rings, Eagle Eye, Eye of Jupiter, Hobgoblin, starburst etc etc
Palys
torch, hammer, frogspawn
xenia
Green Star Polyps

Zoa's are the best for color diversity as well as fast growing and look great in colonies