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Cultivated Reef

Lostmindedv's Biocube HQI!


lostmindedv

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lostmindedv

Tank Specs

  1. Display: Biocube 29 HQI
  2. Biological Filtration: 3 Inch Sand (Tropic Eden), 5 Pounds Live Rock, 25 Pounds Dry Rock
  3. Lighting: Stock Light (150W)
  4. Heater: Aqueon ProHeater (100W)
  5. Flow: MP10, MJ 1200 Return Pump
  6. Filter Media: Intank Media Basket, Intank Fuge Basket
  7. ATO: JBJ ATO

 

Mods

  • Cut tab between chambers 1 & 2
  • Removed false floors in chambers 1 & 2
  • AquaticLife Internal Mini Protein Skimmer 115 in chamber 1

 

Livestock

  • Clownfish
  • Firefish Goby
  • Yellow Watchman Goby
  • Cleaner Shrimp

 

Maintenance

  • Feed Ocean Nutrition Formula 1-Morning
  • Feed Ocean Nutrition Formula 2-Night
  • 5 Gallon Water Change-Weekly
  • Clean Skimmer Cup-As Needed
  • Clean Aquarium Glass-As Needed

 

Day 1:

 

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I would raise your salinity to 1.025 - 1.026. Most run with that level and it matches the ocean closer. 1.023 is what people usually run with for a fish only tank. Looks goods so far!

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lostmindedv
I would raise your salinity to 1.025 - 1.026. Most run with that level and it matches the ocean closer. 1.023 is what people usually run with for a fish only tank. Looks goods so far!

 

I'm going to raise it up to there. I ran out of salt in the beginning, my rookie mistake, so I was happy with it making it a least 1.023. I just don't want to raise it during the cycle so i dont mess anything up.

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lostmindedv

Day 9:

 

 

 

Look like:

 

Ammonia- .25-.50ppm

Nitrate- 5-10ppm

Nitrite- 1ppm

 

It wont mess up the cycle by raising the salinity now. Doing a water change now would however,

 

Should I add some salt directly to the tank? I've heard to never do that so I'm thinking of just waiting until after the cycle to do a big water change and then raise the salinity that way.

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Do you already have the fish and shrimp in there? If you do the shrimp may not survive the cycle. The fish may but may not. If you want to raise the salinity now I would add maybe a 1/4 cup of your salt in the back chamber that has the highest amount of flow (prob chamber 1). Add a 1/4 and wait 1 hour and take a reading and see where you are at. If you need to add more just do it in small amounts and wait and then read again. If you go over your target take out some water and relace with fresh RO water. If you wait till the cycle ends thats fine also. WHen you cycle is done get ready for your nice clean tank to start to look ugly. This is when your algea blooms will start. Diatoms, green hair algae will seem like they are taking over your tank. Dont freak out just be patient and get on your regular water change schedule. On your tank size I would do a 4 to 5 gal a week change. Get a couple 5 gal buckets from Home Depot with lids and you could store up 2 or 3 weeks worth of water. If you have your own RODI filter even better and at 5 gal a week it may be a worth while investment. The diatoms will more or less go away all on their own but the green hair will require a good clean up crew and some time. It may take a couple months for this phase to go away but just stay the course. I have an all snail CUC that I purchased from Reef Cleaners. If you buy their CUC by your tank volume they will send you a BOAT LOAD of snails way more than you expect. I would get a emerald crab as well to knock down the hair algae. Keep us posted.

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One word of advice buy a refractometer those cheap salinity thingys can be veryt inacurate,if you have micro bubbles on it or it just gets stuck from not rinsing it well after use. Check Ebay you can get one cheap and once you calibrate it your good.

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lostmindedv
Do you already have the fish and shrimp in there? If you do the shrimp may not survive the cycle. The fish may but may not. If you want to raise the salinity now I would add maybe a 1/4 cup of your salt in the back chamber that has the highest amount of flow (prob chamber 1). Add a 1/4 and wait 1 hour and take a reading and see where you are at. If you need to add more just do it in small amounts and wait and then read again. If you go over your target take out some water and relace with fresh RO water. If you wait till the cycle ends thats fine also. WHen you cycle is done get ready for your nice clean tank to start to look ugly. This is when your algea blooms will start. Diatoms, green hair algae will seem like they are taking over your tank. Dont freak out just be patient and get on your regular water change schedule. On your tank size I would do a 4 to 5 gal a week change. Get a couple 5 gal buckets from Home Depot with lids and you could store up 2 or 3 weeks worth of water. If you have your own RODI filter even better and at 5 gal a week it may be a worth while investment. The diatoms will more or less go away all on their own but the green hair will require a good clean up crew and some time. It may take a couple months for this phase to go away but just stay the course. I have an all snail CUC that I purchased from Reef Cleaners. If you buy their CUC by your tank volume they will send you a BOAT LOAD of snails way more than you expect. I would get a emerald crab as well to knock down the hair algae. Keep us posted.

 

Nothing is in the tank, the livestock in my sig is from my old tank which cracked. Right now the cleaner shrimp and Goby are in a ten gallon until this tank is ready for live stock, sorry for the confusion.

 

I have 3 five gallon buckets. 1 for my ATO, 1 for making new salt water and finally 1 for removing tank water during the water change.

 

Before this tank I had the Biocube 29 Non-HQI model so I have some experience with salt water, I am no noob :) haha.

 

John is the best, his clean-up crew lasted my last Biocube until it cracked -__-

 

 

One word of advice buy a refractometer those cheap salinity thingys can be veryt inacurate,if you have micro bubbles on it or it just gets stuck from not rinsing it well after use. Check Ebay you can get one cheap and once you calibrate it your good.

 

I'm going to buy one from BRS soon.

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lostmindedv

Finally set up my JBJ ATO!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just a quick overview of how it is set up:

 

I have 4 gallons of distilled water in a Petco 5 gallon bucket. I cut a hole in the center of the lid so the PVC tubing can go through. Also, I cut out a section of lid so I can fully close the lid without damaging the wires of the JBJ ATO or the Biocube pump. I'm using the stock pump of the Biocube HQI to pump the water through .5" clear PVC tubing into the 3rd chamber where the float switch is.

 

It's been set up for two days and have had no problems so far.

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lostmindedv

Day 11:

 

 

 

Looks like:

Ammonia- 0ppm

Nitrites- .25ppm

Nitrates- 0ppm

 

Looks like my cycle is almost done! My Nitrites are getting closer to 0!

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lostmindedv

Day 12:

 

 

 

Looks Like:

 

Ammonia- 0ppm

Nitrate- 0ppm

Nitrite- .25 ppm

 

Sorry for the bad pics guys, they are coming from my Iphone and the colors look off. For instance the Nitrate in the pic look like it is actually 5ppm but if I hold the test tube to the color card you can't even see the 0ppm in person.

 

Anyways this is the second day the tests have shown the same results. If tomorrow the same results show up you think I can do a 5-10 gallon water change and then order a clean up crew from Reefcleaners.com to get some live stock in this tank or should I wait until the Nitrites get to 0 ppm?

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I would wait until your registering zero across the board. Last thing you want to do is place an order and have something go crazy and have no place to put your animals or worse drop em in anyways and have em all die and be worse than when you started.

 

I do think your fine to do a water change though. There is so little removed by doing water changes as far as bacteria goes its not going to hurt anything.

 

After the water change test every couple days.. 4 or so days of good tests at that point I would order the crew if you have sufficient algae growth to support them. If you don't then I would look at my stocking list and maybe grab the first fishie instead.. crew to come soon after.

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lostmindedv
I would wait until your registering zero across the board. Last thing you want to do is place an order and have something go crazy and have no place to put your animals or worse drop em in anyways and have em all die and be worse than when you started.

 

I do think your fine to do a water change though. There is so little removed by doing water changes as far as bacteria goes its not going to hurt anything.

 

After the water change test every couple days.. 4 or so days of good tests at that point I would order the crew if you have sufficient algae growth to support them. If you don't then I would look at my stocking list and maybe grab the first fishie instead.. crew to come soon after.

 

That's true, I wouldn't want that to happen. I'll continue waiting then. I have a SMALL amount of algae building in the front right corner of my tank on the sand. Hopefully it doesn't get to bad.

 

I'll wait on the water change for a couple more days then to see if I can get 0's all across. If nothing changes by then I'll do the water change to see if I can get improvements.

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lostmindedv

I've been thinking about what to get as livestock for this tank. Right now I have a clownfish, a firefish goby and a cleaner shrimp in a 10 gallon tank waiting to be put into this tank as soon as the cycle is finished. They are from my previous BC 29 that started leaking from the seams :/ so they are definitely making the trip to my new HQI. I was thinking of going with a light bioload and came up with this:

 

  1. Clownfish (have)
  2. Firefish Goby (have)
  3. Yellow Watchman Goby and Pistol Shrimp Pair
  4. Cleaner Shrimp (have)
  5. Peppermint Shrimp

 

This gives me a total of 3 fish and 3 inverts in my HQI. I think that is a light bioload or am I mistaken? After I have added these to my tank I will move my focus on to some corals. I was thinking of starting with some GSP and some Zoas until I get some more experience with handling/caring for coral.

 

Let me know what you guys think my plan so far.

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altolamprologus
I've been thinking about what to get as livestock for this tank. Right now I have a clownfish, a firefish goby and a cleaner shrimp in a 10 gallon tank waiting to be put into this tank as soon as the cycle is finished. They are from my previous BC 29 that started leaking from the seams :/ so they are definitely making the trip to my new HQI. I was thinking of going with a light bioload and came up with this:

 

  1. Clownfish (have)
  2. Firefish Goby (have)
  3. Yellow Watchman Goby and Pistol Shrimp Pair
  4. Cleaner Shrimp (have)
  5. Peppermint Shrimp

 

This gives me a total of 3 fish and 3 inverts in my HQI. I think that is a light bioload or am I mistaken? After I have added these to my tank I will move my focus on to some corals. I was thinking of starting with some GSP and some Zoas until I get some more experience with handling/caring for coral.

 

Let me know what you guys think my plan so far.

You could even add one more small fish and still have a light bioload. A clown goby or trimma goby would be cool.

 

With GSP, make sure you isolate it on it's own little island or it will take over the whole tank. You could do many more corals than that, even as your first corals. Just about any soft coral with forgive you for any mistakes.

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lostmindedv
You could even add one more small fish and still have a light bioload. A clown goby or trimma goby would be cool.

 

With GSP, make sure you isolate it on it's own little island or it will take over the whole tank. You could do many more corals than that, even as your first corals. Just about any soft coral with forgive you for any mistakes.

 

I'll look into another small fish then. I like the clown goby :)

 

Yeah, I'll be sure to do that. I've seen a lot of threads where the GSP takes over everything it touches. I gotta work with my scape a little more to get some nice islands.

 

I want to do more corals than that, but this tank is at home while I'm at college so my parents look after it for me so I want to keep it nice and simple for them until I get home for summer. Then I'll hopefully go coral happy :)

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lostmindedv

Day 13:

 

 

 

My tests finally all hit 0ppm! I'm going to do a 5-10 gallon water change sometime today and then retest again tomorrow. If everything is in check I'll order a CUC and cheato from reefcleaners.org.

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lostmindedv

Anyone have the aquatic life internal mini skimmer 115 protein skimmer in the first chamber of their BC HQI/29? I had it running in my 10 gallon before and was able to easily dial it in to produce good skimmate, but I can't find the sweet spot for it on my BC. No matter where I turn the dial the foam is always 3/4ths of the way up the neck and just sucks out clear water.

 

Anyone have this problem or know how to possibly fix?

 

Thanks

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lostmindedv
I dont run a skimmer but maybe its too early to get a skim....???

 

I'm not running it right now. I finally got it dialed in but the skimm its pulling is pretty much drinkable, so I think you are right. I'm going to wait a few weeks before I turn it back on.

 

 

 

Took some tests after the tank has been running for a full day.

 

Results:

Calcium- 400ppm

Ammonia- 0ppm

Nitrites- 0ppm

Nitrates- 0ppm

 

So far everything is fine. Below is a picture of the tank :)

 

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lostmindedv
Nice set up, i like that bridge and the big open space for the fish to swim.

 

Thank you, I might add a piece to the right side because I feel like it is unbalanced.

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lostmindedv

Just placed my custom order from Reefcleaners.org! Should be here Friday-Saturday!

 

Ordered:

 

  • 30 Dwarf Ceriths
  • 11 Nassarius
  • 14 Florida Ceriths
  • 6 Large Nerites
  • 7 Small to Medium Nerites
  • Chaeto

 

I've ordered from John before and I'll probably be getting twice what I ordered :P haha.

 

Everyone order from John! Awesome guy and GREAT customer service! Best I've ever seen!!

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lostmindedv

Everything came in today! Once again John continues to impress!

 

Below is the package with everything I ordered:

 

 

 

 

Everything getting temperature acclimated:

 

 

 

 

The tank after 30mins of everything being introduced:

 

 

 

 

30 Dwarf Ceriths- Most of them are wiggling/moving. Will update later.

11 Nassarius- Most moving. Will update later.

14 Florida Ceriths- I see three of them moving. Will update later.

6 Large Nerites- All moving

7 Small to Medium Nerites- All moving

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