Yesterday morning, when I came down stairs to take my first look of the day at my tank, I was concerned that my clownfish was nowhere to be seen. After some searching and growing panic, I remembered a common problem with the BioCube that I had read about on other forums. Sure enough, this is where I found him...
There is about an inch space between the canopy and the top of the back sump wall. He apparently dove overboard and into my return pump area. Luckily, the water level was sufficient to keep him happy until I could rescue him.
After some fumbling around with a fish net and a plastic serving spoon, I found that just scooping him out with my hand was the most effective way of getting him out. I need to figure out some kind of barrier to keep him from a repeat performance. Any suggestions.
"Human subtelty will never devise an invention more beautiful,
more simple or more direct than does nature"
- Leonardo Da Vinci
"I am made of the dust of the stars, and the oceans flow in my veins"
-Neil Peart
"The strenuous and dogmatic are the moral enemy of the good. They demand that we believe the impossible and practice the unfeasible" - Christopher Hitchens
Placed Poly Filter in the sump area. I've heard that this is good stuff. An aquaintence swears by it. As you may have read earlier, I've had high phosphates in my tank. Not from the water source, but likely from the live rock, and the general cycling of everything.
(an aside, I read an article by Eric Borneman where he described both a nitrogen cycle as well as an algae cycle in a new tank. This is where the blooming and receding of different types of algae serves the purpose of removing NO3PO4 and a thousand other chemicals/compounds etc that we don't test for)
Anyway, i used PhosBan w/ some success, but it turned my water brown and lowered my alkalinity. When I removed it, my PO4 almost immediately went from 0.5ppm to 1.0ppm
"Human subtelty will never devise an invention more beautiful,
more simple or more direct than does nature"
- Leonardo Da Vinci
"I am made of the dust of the stars, and the oceans flow in my veins"
-Neil Peart
"The strenuous and dogmatic are the moral enemy of the good. They demand that we believe the impossible and practice the unfeasible" - Christopher Hitchens
"Human subtelty will never devise an invention more beautiful,
more simple or more direct than does nature"
- Leonardo Da Vinci
"I am made of the dust of the stars, and the oceans flow in my veins"
-Neil Peart
"The strenuous and dogmatic are the moral enemy of the good. They demand that we believe the impossible and practice the unfeasible" - Christopher Hitchens
Borneman is always great. Although I would have not described it as an "algae cycle" experienced hobbyists know that algae blooms, led by diatoms, are a part of every new tank.
Thanks for your insights Carmie. It's great to have an experienced hobbyist like your self as a resource for upstarts like myself.
"algae cycle" was my term, not Bornemans. After re-reading the article and thinking further about it, there really are not "cycle's" per say with anything in our tanks. If the nitrogen cycle were truly a cycle, then instead of nitrogen gas being released, we would have flakes of fish food being released, if you follow me.
It's really more of pendulum, or a series of shifting equilibriums. All these different life forms (bacteria, micro & macroalgae, copepods, amphipods etc. etc. etc.) go through phases of feast or famine in our tanks, with corresponding periods of flouishing and decomposing.
The thing that struck me about the Borneman article was that this back & forth goes on well after our test kits show "normal" readings. A true equilibrium is not established for quite a long time.
This is all very profound to me, but I'm sure very obvious to all the experienced hobbyists out there.
"Human subtelty will never devise an invention more beautiful,
more simple or more direct than does nature"
- Leonardo Da Vinci
"I am made of the dust of the stars, and the oceans flow in my veins"
-Neil Peart
"The strenuous and dogmatic are the moral enemy of the good. They demand that we believe the impossible and practice the unfeasible" - Christopher Hitchens
Actually James, I think that there are a lot of experienced hobbyists who have never thought of this. They may have received good advice when starting out and have never experienced a problem and just haven't taken the time to teally learn the chemistry an biology behind their tank. They may even know that certain critters belong in a mature tank without realizing the importance of that.
I really like Eric's tank stocking progression. That is what Mark My 50 Gallon Reef has done. He has several corals but has just gotten his first fish and is about 6 months into his tank. He is a great example to everyone here.
After Nemo's repeat performance of exploring the back sump area of my tank, I came up with a solution. I got the plastic strip from a 10 gallon glass canopy and cut it to fit the back of my tank.
My tank has been going for 71/2 weeks, and I was wondering when to expect growth of coralline algae. I noticed these spots on the back wall, but they are white. Is this coralline beginning to grow or is this something else? (BTW...I've finally begun to see a drop off of the diatoms)
When I was doing my water change tonight i picked up one of my rocks and saw what looks like bubble algae. I took this rock out and flicked them off, being careful not to break them. (I heard that this was bad because they'll release spores into the water column) I'm sure there are more somewhere in my tank, even though I can't see them. Any suggestions on how to get rid of them? Will an emerald crab be helpful and friendly with my other critters?
"Human subtelty will never devise an invention more beautiful,
more simple or more direct than does nature"
- Leonardo Da Vinci
"I am made of the dust of the stars, and the oceans flow in my veins"
-Neil Peart
"The strenuous and dogmatic are the moral enemy of the good. They demand that we believe the impossible and practice the unfeasible" - Christopher Hitchens
James. good idea on the plastic strip.
I don't think that the white spots in the photo are coralline. IME it will show up first as a purple pinpoint size spot and you will be scraping it off of the glass in short order. If you want to turbocharge it get some scrapings from a fellow reefer or get a chunk of rock in that already has got corallin, and it will migrate pretty quickly.
Things seem to be going well with the CUBE. Water params have been good. The Diatom bloom is over (nice to hane white sand again) There is some nice growth of Coralline.
My second, and likely last fish addition is a Yasha Hase Goby. I passed on the pistol shrimp because I was afraid he would go after my hermit crabs and peppermint shrimp. ( I saw a cool video online of a pistol shrimp snapping his claw and stunning a cleaner shrimp
P.S. I saw the link to the pistol shrimp video a while back on a marine aquarium forum, and I don't remember if it was TR or not. If so and the person who first posted it reads this, sorry to steal your thunder
"Human subtelty will never devise an invention more beautiful,
more simple or more direct than does nature"
- Leonardo Da Vinci
"I am made of the dust of the stars, and the oceans flow in my veins"
-Neil Peart
"The strenuous and dogmatic are the moral enemy of the good. They demand that we believe the impossible and practice the unfeasible" - Christopher Hitchens
Greetings Reef Enthusiasts. Welcome to Biocube 14 Theater
(No time to post pics now, but hopefully will soon.)
Act 1: Greener Pastures
Since I last posted, I've generally just let the cube run with weekly water changes. My hair algae problems have persisted, to the point where I had a nice flowing meadow of green on some rocks. One day I just got aggressive, and took a toothbrush to some of my rocks (in a separate bucket of tank water, of course). This worked quite nicely actually. I also got more aggressive with the phosphate issue and added seachem phosphate remover. (PO4 still 0.3 ). I'm planning on doing the three day lights off routine over the Labor Day weekend (Going to Philly for a wedding). We'll see how that works.
Act 2: We Just Didn't Have the Right Chemistry
I was getting a bit lax in checking my water params, and was horrified when I found my pH had dropped from 8.2 to 7.8, Ca from 405 to 370 and Alk from 8.4 to 7.8. I thought I was geting by on just water changes since the only stony coral I have is my trumpet coral (the one in my signature). I've since been dosing Kent Marine 2 part solution, and after a week, they are back to normal. (Note to self:keep checking water parameters!)
Act 3: The Pitter-Patter of New Little Feet
Since I am now dosing Ca & Alk, I have gained the confidence I need to get more corals. Thanks to the LFS gift card I recieved for my birthday, I purchased a Trachyphillia (aka: open brain coral) very pretty green and red colors. Also I got some xenia - I've always thought they were cool, hope they don't spread and become a nuisance! On the rock that the Xenias came with were some bright blue green zoa polyps...Bonus! I also got an emerald crab to help mow down the algae.
"Human subtelty will never devise an invention more beautiful,
more simple or more direct than does nature"
- Leonardo Da Vinci
"I am made of the dust of the stars, and the oceans flow in my veins"
-Neil Peart
"The strenuous and dogmatic are the moral enemy of the good. They demand that we believe the impossible and practice the unfeasible" - Christopher Hitchens
hey guys, i just found this talkingreef website and i wanted to try it out,
ive had a freshwater tank for a few years and ive decided to look into a saltwater tank. i'm really interested in the 14 gallon bio cube, yet is it truly worth the price for such a small tank? ive been told that smaller tanks for saltwater are harder to maintain. is this true in the case of the bio cube? also, the biocube 14 tank is about 200 dollars. For this price, does anyone reccomend a better saltwater tank that would be easier to maintain? thanks alot,
aaron
icon under their name to add to their reputation. 
)
). I'm planning on doing the three day lights off routine over the Labor Day weekend (Going to Philly for a wedding). We'll see how that works. 
