After my first attempt a couple of years ago I am trying again. I will admit the first go round I got in a hurry and since I was coming over from fresh water had the false impression that I knew what I was doing. I had just taken a stock Biocube and throw stuff in it thinking it would be easy......NOT

This time I have done lots of reading, looking and shopping around. I am taking it one step at a time and listening to those that have been down the path before.

At this point I have covered the bottom vents using a dvd cover to help with surface skimming which was a problem with the first time. Opened the slot up between 2 and 3 to get better flow, still undecided on 2 but leaning towards a small cheato ball, replaced the stock pump with the 900 and added a Koralia 1 (gotta admit I thought it would be stronger) to help with water flow and turn over. Have one 7 lbs piece of live rock in there I got from the LFS. Not much life to it but I like the looks.

Will be using stock lights at the moment and thanks to a fellow user here should be getting replacement ballast since I had one die.

Future plans are to get another 7-8 lbs of rock from sea life inc. and take it step by step.

Water is clearing up fast. Just got a quote back for sea life inc on 8 more lbs of live rock. Hard to swallow 56 dollars to ship 28 dollars worth of rock. think I may just go with the 2 day instead of overnight

thanks for the update, Jay...I'm tagging along because i just leak tested my biocube yesterday and will be starting it soon. explain to me if you can the reasoning behind covering up the bottom intake slots...i don't want to cut or dstroy anything because tank is brand new and don't want to void any warranty...

By covering up the bottom it forces the water over the top grate helping with surface skimming. I had read a few people on here had done it so thought I would give it a shot. It is not a permanent mod so I could easily take it out if need be later on.

So I get home yesterday and notice the power in the area where the tank is is not on. I go reset the breaker and everything starts back up. A check of the water temp shows that it is down to 73. Luckily all I have in there is water and one rock that I can not see any life on. Worse case is some bacteria may have been killed off. About 30 minutes later the breaker trips again. There is a plug located on that circuit that had become a little lose and was not holding plug very well. I quickly gather up some tools and a replacement plug. While holding a flashlight in my mouth I get the plugged changed in record time. Felt like I was on a pit crew somewhere. Not only was I worried about keeping the temp up in the tank, now my mind has went into panic mode and I am trying to save my house from burning down due to an electrical short. I turn the breaker back on and everything appears to be working fine.

We sit down for dinner and the wife comments about a rotten egg smell. I look over and the lab is laying there with that look on his face and I tell her not to worry it was just the dog. Half way through dinner the breaker pops again. At this point I am just mad, for the life of me I can’t figure it out. I start thinking about what new equipment I have added to this tank and the only thing I can come up with is the koralia 1 and the maxijet 900. No way is this too much for the circuit so I continue to scratch my head. I have also noticed that the dog has moved into another part of the house but I still smell the rotten eggs. I stick my nose down to the tank and can really smell it now. I open the lid thinking maybe one of them new pumps was bad and to my surprise I find that my stealth heater has separated. The top and internals had popped straight up and boy did it stink. I remove the heater and toss it. Luckily none of the internals came into contact with the water from what I can see.

By this time it is almost 9 PM, I have no back up heater laying around and the LFS is closed. My only option is to go to Wal-Mart which is half an hour away. All they had was a tetra heater for 15-30 gallons which is plenty big for my needs but does not have adjustable temp. It just keeps it at 78 degrees which will have to do for now. Things are running normally again. The breaker is not tripping and the rotten egg smell is no longer in the house.

Lesson learned- When something goes wrong STOP and find out what is wrong before springing into action and remember it is not always the dogs fault.

the smell could be from the live rock curing in the tank too. if it had any die off it may have a nasty smell to it.

Added some more Live rock and everysince I changed out the heater I have not had any power problems or funky smells.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment