thanks for the reply but i heard liverock or base rock also will cause a nitrate factory. is this true? as of right now i have my heater in the second chamber.
The majority of the biological filtration in your tank will be coming from water passing through liverock and your sandbed (if you are going to go with a DSB = deep sand bed). Personally I do not employ a DSB but they can be very effective if setup and maintained correctly. Base rock, long ago used to be the name for very low quality liverock. Nowadays it has become the term for rock devoid of life or for liverock that had been sitting out in the sun for weeks, months. Base rock could thus be just about anything! Without seeing what your local LFS/petstore is refering to as base rock I would have no idea - but small white chunks of rocks does sound like pretty "base" and sterile rock. However even base rock will over time become populated will beneficial bacteria and other organisms, encrusted with algae and in turn become live-rock! Using a large quantify of base rock and then a smaller quantify of "live rock" is a good way to reduce the initial cost of setting up your system.
Live/base rock in your sump should be a great source of biological filtration both from the bacteria that reside within and the bacteria and organisms that will eventually live upon the outside. I confess I have not heard of rock in a sump becoming anything other than a benefit to biological filtration given sufficient water volume passing over/through them. As with everything it will take some time for sufficient quantities of these organisms to reproduce in both your tank and your sump on your rock rubble. Thus the mindset of "mature" tanks vs. "immature" tanks. You would want to keep your stocking levels low until the tank has "mature'd" especially with regard to anemone's and corals you may intend keeping.
From a quick search of the web it does look like "Three Striped Damselfish" can be pretty darn aggresive as adults to other fish inhabitants. For example, Three Striped Damselfish (Dascyllus aruanus) is just one resource that notes this.
If you plan on keeping other fish, after the damsel's are introduced, this could be problematic espcially in a tank as small as you are planning. The clownfish certainly should be able to keep the damsels at bay but the potential for their constant harrasment from the damsels would not be desirable.
Perhaps you could look for a slightly less aggresive damsel? there is always a chance that your Striped Damsel's could be perfect little angels, but it's unlikely, they are more apt to become the "terrors" of your tank!
thank you again for so much help.
i do not intend on having a deep bed. possibly a inch and a half at the most of argonite live coral bactira stuff they have. now the second chamber of a biocube is pretty large i just have my heater in there as of right now, how much baserock do i put in there? at a local pet world they have live rock for $9 a pound but its so purple are good looking i was thinking of getting it. but just only a little and i would be buying my other stuff like the ultra premium fiji rock off ebay because its only about $3.50 a pound for sutff thats just as purple.
well then i can look at other fish besides the damsels. i was looking at the damsels because they are great looking a cheap. any other smaller less tempermental fish you can recommend?
$9/pound imho is a wee bit steep for "live rock", but given that the LFS should already have gone through the curing process for you, it's not too bad. If you add it at the same time as your e-bay'd rock, much of the life on it is going to die due to the ammonia spike from the die off from your e-bay'd rock! The premium fiji rock off ebay at $3.5/pound should be ok (don't forget the shipping is going to add quite a few $$$), but you are going to have to go through the curing process first yourself - plenty of water changes, siphoning off the debris, etc, for the first few months. I would personally just go with the rock off e-bay, get a bit more, then take a hammer and break up some bits so they fill your imput chamber on the sump. Taking a hammer to things always seems to add a level of satisfaction !!!
Take the $$$ you would save from the LFS "live rock" and spend that on a good skimmer! You could also save a few more $$$ and abandon the "live sand" and just get some a bag of argonite etc. Again, your "live sand" could be wiped out by the die off & ammonia spikes form the ebay "live rock". Your ebay "live rock" should have enough life remaining to re-seed the base rock, base sand, etc, again over time! You may want to add your sand after, or a few weeks after, the ebay "live rock" has been added, lest you spend your time endlessly siphoning debris and die off from your sand bed.
In my opinion you don't want base rock in the second chamber of your biocube. Base rock is dead and yes it will eventually become live but you want good live rock there. As far as the rock on e-bay , I looked at it and it certainly looks beautiful. BUT, you know that is not the rock you are going to get and the rock you do get you are stuck with. Shopping for LR locally allows you to hand pick pieces that are perfect for your tank. You pay more for that privilege of course. Shop around you can probably find it cheaper locally.
Forget the damsels, get the clowns and do some research on compatible tank mates, there are many. Ask here before you buy anything. We do not have any hidden agenda.
Dick
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
well then i can look at other fish besides the damsels. i was looking at the damsels because they are great looking a cheap. any other smaller less tempermental fish you can recommend?
Alas I have never kept a bio-cube but you may want to consider fish that would be compatible with your clown fish pair. The clown fish are pretty well going to consider a 29g bio as their territory! I am sure there are many others here on these forums that have bio-cube and could suggest other suitable fish inhabitants!
When I first started in the hobby I had a 40g tank which had a pair of percula clownfish, some blue reef chromis, a blue tang (the tank really was too small for him and he bullied and harrassed everything after he had grown!), a sleeper goby, lawnmower blenny. We moved up to a 60g tank and then had in addition a carpet anemone, a few soft corals, zooanthids, cleaner shrimp, peppermint shrimp, serpent star(s), snails, hermit crabs, very few fish too be honest as back then (a decade ago) we had but a cannister filter and a fluid sand filter for filtration.
Thanks, now the ebay rock is already cured they say. its precured. this is what they say ----Pre-Cured
We use a unique curing method on the islands where they spray the rock down as soon as it’s harvested from the ocean on the beach of origin. The rock is sprayed to rid the rock of unwanted mantis shrimps, crabs and the majority of sponge material which dies as soon as it hits the air. The rock comes to us in excellent condition, smells fresh like the ocean and looks great, just as it was collected. The rock is than transported to us via airlines to Los Angeles LAX terminal, the United States hub for live rock imports and then tran shipped immediately from us to you! That’s how fast you receive it!--- thats what they say.
In my opinion you don't want base rock in the second chamber of your biocube
For some strange reason I thought he had am under tank sump, if all there is is a chamber in a bio-cube then yes, i'd pack it with the best LR I could get my hands upon, broken down into pieces that would fit. I also agree that the LR you see on the web, or from online stores, is at best the end-result, after curing and many many months to become overgrown again with coraline algae etc. I have never seen LR arrive in a box look the same as LR advertised on the web! I've even had fiji LR arrive in the post that I would have been considered "base rock" !
now the second chamber of a biocube is pretty large i just have my heater in there as of right now, how much baserock do i put in there?
I went by the statement quoted above.
inthebox,
Cured LR will still have to cure again, albeit not a full blown curing process. Once packed for shipment to you there will be a die off and that will cause an Ammonia spike and then a Nitrite spike. Do you have test kits for testing your water parameters??? Ammonia, Ph, Nitrite, Nitrate, Calcium at the very least???
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
Thanks, now the ebay rock is already cured they say. its precured. this is what they say ----Pre-Cured
We use
You are going to have to re-cure the rock when it arrives. No matter how fast they ship it to you, unless it's totally submerged in water, there is going to be yet more die off. The cost of shipping rock submerged in water is prohibitive so sually the rock will arrive in a box, perhaps wrapped in wet newpaper, or hopefully plastic. You would want to take the LR out of the box, rinse it down in some tank water, shake off as much debris as you can, then place it into the tank (or another container) for curing. I would not recommend scrubbing the LR with a brush though you could remove the worst looking dead spots. The curing process is likely to take week(s) - depending on how much die off occurs during the shipping process.
The process of setting up your tank, even a bio cube, is going to take week(s) - months(s) until the tank is stable enough for you to introduce more life. The fist things you would want to get in there would be a cleaning crew, to deal with the inevitable hair algae and diatoms outbreaks. Once the tank has cycled through that phase, then you could look at introducing your fish, and then later your anemone's etc.
Patience... is a virtue in this hobby, and one that I learned myself the hard way, cannot be rushed!
so is it just more worth it to look around for live rock locally instead? this way its precured and i dont have to worry about it. yes there rock looks good and its cheap but is the spike in nitrates and amonia worth it?
ill get
