My New 14Gal Biocube

lbaskball45 · 02-17-2007, 06:59 PM

Hello Everyone!

I thought I let everyone know about my tank that has been up and running for not too long. I seem to be having small problems here and there and I hope those of you with great knowledge can help me out. I previously had a 24gal which I had great luck with but I dont have my 24gal anymore so I had decided to start on a 14gal. Here are the specs:

Tank: 14gal Biocube
The tank has been up and running since November of 2006.

Lighting:
24watt 03 Blue Actinic (On from 8AM to 4PM)
150watts of 10,000K Metal Halides (On from 9AM to 12:30PM)

Filtration:
I have live rock and live sand (maybe close to 18lbs)
Also have algae in the 2nd chamber of the tank and 2 bags of carbon.
EQUIPMENT:

I run an external XP filstar filter as well rated at 280GPH(contains carbon pad, 3 sponges, and phosphate remover pad)

Kent Marine Maxxima 4-stage RO/DI

ReefKeeper 2 digital controller: For automatic control of my chiller, lighting, feeding time, maintaince timer, moonlights, heater (50watt) and the wavemaker.

Pinpoint Ph Probe (Connected to ReefKeeper)
Digital Temperture Probe (Connected to ReefKeeper)

I have put in so much money in for the best equipment I can buy for the money I saved for such a small tank, I hope it pays in the long run.

Chiller:
I have a JBJ chiller

Temp:
79.0 at night
80.0 during day

Livestock:
1 Citron Goby
1 Small golden teardrop clam (not a maxima clam, another type)
3 Turbos
2 Moon snails

Corals:
Frogspawn
Bubble Coral
Sun Coral (I feed this coral every 2 days to keep it looking healthy)
Star polyps
Hammer Coral
Mushrooms

Problems I am having:

I had bought 2 new turbos and they both died. I cant seem to keep my snails. Its as if they got stunned during the day and by night time they die.

I have a huge algae bloom, lots of hair algae. I was thinking about buying a lettuce nudi but I read they dont eat hair algae. I have been using tap water and I thnk this was the reason for the hair algae but I started using phosphate pads to remove any phosphate. I just bought a RO/DI system which I will be using for the FIRST time this weekend.

I cannot seem to keep my Ph stable. At night they go down wayy too much. My Ph seems to go from 8.1 to 7.7 by late at night.

Here are my parameters:

Ph. 8.1
Ammonia: 0
Nitrate:0
Nitrite:0
Phosphate:0
Salinity: 1.024
Alk: High
Calcium 420

Any help is appreciated. I will post pictures as soon as I feel it is worthy to take them because my tank looks more like a algae marine tank then a beautiful marine tank.

iglowce · 02-17-2007, 07:19 PM

got pix of ur tank?

lbaskball45 · 02-17-2007, 07:26 PM

Not yet, I will post some pics for ya soon.

iglowce · 02-17-2007, 07:31 PM

thanx. that'd be nice! i'd love to see ur clam =]

Explosif · 02-19-2007, 08:32 PM

Having the lights on during the day raises the PH, that would be why a lot of reefers keep lights on their macro algae in their refugiums on different cycles than the tank. As for the tap water, That may or may not be the source of your algae problem, it all depends on your water source. As for the RO/DI unit, great move, rather be safe than sorry, hopefully you get a noticeable increase in your water quality! But i have never had turbo snails, so i couldn't tell ya why they are dying. Looking forward to some pictures!!

**CarmieJo** · 02-25-2007, 08:47 PM

Most snails that are sold as turbos are cold water snails and won't live long at the temps we keep our reefs. However they shouldn't die immediately. How are you acclimating them?

TheApprentice · 01-13-2008, 08:03 PM

I lost a few snails to. They kicked the bucket after a week or so. I just keep buying more when one dies. I don't know if they where sick or not but the ones I have now have been around for about three months.

**Phurst** · 01-14-2008, 09:15 AM

I wonder if possibly there's trace amounts of copper in your tap water. That would kill snails in short order.

**CarmieJo** · 01-15-2008, 12:31 AM

Snails are really sensitive to changes in water chemistry. You should drip acclimate them over the course of at least an hour. Here is a good article Reefreaders - Acclimating Fish that should help you with acclimation methods.

poppin_fresh · 01-15-2008, 01:10 AM

I have seen where some people remove the paint from the back of the middle chamber so that they can light the 'fuge on the opposite schedule. This should help with the low PH at night and it shouldn't be much work to accomplish.

lbaskball45 · 01-15-2008, 01:46 AM

i want to officially close this thread as i never had time to update it. I have started a new 28gal JBj tank since I got sicken tired of my 14gal bio, (it was hard to maintain, water quality was off, snails dying) I will be transfering my 14gal bio into my 28 gal soon. Thanks for all the replies.

**CarmieJo** · 01-15-2008, 01:50 PM

I'll go ahead and close this one. Please start a thread about your new tank.