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29 Gallon Oceanic Bio cube


Sammaredsox

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hello all, New guy here. Quick questions, I recently purchased a used 29 gallon Oceanic biocube that the previous owner "modded" badly. It now has no lights or fans. I am trying to find a new lid but it appears they are not made any more (for the Oceanic series). Has anyone seen any? also, the tank has been setup for about a week with 25 lbs of live rock from another saltwater tank that has been running great for about 4 months. I also added 25 lbs of Caribesea live sand. I am running bioballs, Filter pad, and filter floss in chamber 2 and the normal filter in chamber 1. Anyone have a suggestion on size of cleaning crew and when I can add them? TIA

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You could attempt to find a top for the tank online, it will be used of course. Otherwise you can simply leave the tank open top and decide on what light will work for your needs. Make sure that you are cleaning out the filter media on a regular basis to ensure that you remove any debris that may be trapped within the media. Have you been testing your water parameters, if so what are the numbers? Even though you have live rock from an established tank there may still be a mini cycle that occurs in your tank, to be sure if your system is ready for inhabitants it would be best to introduce some form of ammonia to your tank to see how it handles it. Testing the water parameters to ensure it does sufficiently.

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Thanks for the info! I am using API Saltwater kit. Here are my parameters:

 

Salinity - 1.025

Temp - 78

PH - 7.8

Nitrites - 0

Ammonia - 0

Nitrates - 0

 

Since i am using Live rock from my established tank and more live rock from my LFS, not sure what I should be seeing? Should I treat with Prime? My other established tank is a 10 gallon and I will not move the inhabitants till I know the Bio cube is ready. In the other tank, I have 2 very small domino damsels, 1 very small golden clown goby, 1 small royal dottyback. For CUC, i have a sand sifting star, 3 narcissus snails, 1 turbo snail, and 2 camel shrimp. So how will I know when to move these guys to their new bigger home?

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How bad is the lid? If the exterior of the hood is intact, then there's no reason that you wouldn't be able to salvage it. I've gutted my lid and put in a Nanobox LED retrofit. Rapid LED sells a nice LED retrofit kit as well. I've also built my own splash guard as well. See the DIY splash guard link below. As far as fans go, RapidLED sells 60mm fans that fit perfectly into the Oceanic BC29 hood.

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/324456-diy-bc29-or-any-aio-splash-guard-replacement/

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Here is a picture of the hood. It is gutted on the backside. No fans or lights. Was thinking about finding a light a little bigger than the holes already cut and cut the hood to fit the new lights. Any suggestions on good lights for this?

post-93031-0-97224300-1484007835_thumb.jpg

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Here is a picture of the hood. It is gutted on the backside. No fans or lights. Was thinking about finding a light a little bigger than the holes already cut and cut the hood to fit the new lights. Any suggestions on good lights for this?

Haven't seen those type of cutouts yet! You could go rimless or like you said cut it out and fit a light, I would highly recommend nano-box reef. Dave will have something to fit that. Post that pic in his sponsor thread on here and he will help you out.

 

I would also recommend loosing the bio balls and going with a Intank media basket. I run one and have great luck with it

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Thanks! Will post in Dave's sponsor thread. I have an in tank media basket that came with the tank but the guy also hacked the divider between chamber 1 and 2 so the media basket basket is taller and water will not flow into it.

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Thanks! Will post in Dave's sponsor thread. I have an in tank media basket that came with the tank but the guy also hacked the divider between chamber 1 and 2 so the media basket basket is taller and water will not flow into it.

Do u have a pic of chamber?? Curious what he cut?!

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Thanks for the info! I am using API Saltwater kit. Here are my parameters:

 

Salinity - 1.025

Temp - 78

PH - 7.8

Nitrites - 0

Ammonia - 0

Nitrates - 0

 

Since i am using Live rock from my established tank and more live rock from my LFS, not sure what I should be seeing? Should I treat with Prime? My other established tank is a 10 gallon and I will not move the inhabitants till I know the Bio cube is ready. In the other tank, I have 2 very small domino damsels, 1 very small golden clown goby, 1 small royal dottyback. For CUC, i have a sand sifting star, 3 narcissus snails, 1 turbo snail, and 2 camel shrimp. So how will I know when to move these guys to their new bigger home?

 

 

I would just add some source of ammonia to the tank to ensure that the system can handle levels of ammonia, just to be on the safe side. You just want to see an increase in your nitrate levels, ammonia and nitrite should stay relatively constant at zero, this means your biological filter is working properly and processing the ammonia in your system properly. Once the Nitrate levels rise you can easily lower them with a water change and then you can introduce inhabitants.

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If you are using established(cured liverock) you may not see a cycle or a very quick one. If adding liverock from the lfs and its not cured, it will cause a cycle.

 

I personally wouldn't add ammonia to a tank with liverock. Pure ammonia may actually kill off beneficial bacteria. If it was sry rock then for sure dose ammonia.

 

You could ghost feed lightly.

 

As for the hood, i'd ditch the hood, go open top or make a mesh lid and use a light like Ai Prime or Nanobox. Better gas exchange and temp control that way.

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Ok so update, I dropped a little frozen mysis cube in the tank last night and found out that one of the live rock from lfs had bristle worms as they were all over the food. I checked parameters this morning and all is still zero except for ammonia which is now showing 0.25 ppm. So I should let it go and keep checking daily till I see nitrates go up,correct?

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Right - you should next see nitrites go up, then nitrates. Once ammonia and nitrites go down to 0 24 hours after a rise, you can do a water change or two to bring nitrates down.

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Ok so new issue, I saw ammonia rose from 0.25 to 0.50 ppmfrom yesterday to today. I am still at 0 for nitrites but saw a spike in nitrates. Nitrates was 0 yesterday but today they were like 20 ppm. Should I see nitrates spike before nitrites?

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hello all, New guy here. Quick questions, I recently purchased a used 29 gallon Oceanic biocube that the previous owner "modded" badly. It now has no lights or fans. I am trying to find a new lid but it appears they are not made any more (for the Oceanic series). Has anyone seen any? also, the tank has been setup for about a week with 25 lbs of live rock from another saltwater tank that has been running great for about 4 months. I also added 25 lbs of Caribesea live sand. I am running bioballs, Filter pad, and filter floss in chamber 2 and the normal filter in chamber 1. Anyone have a suggestion on size of cleaning crew and when I can add them? TIA

HI! I pulled my Biocube 29 hood off to add the LED 32. Are they compatible? If so I had planned to sell it cheap. It was only 8 months old when I pulled it off and I added the additional LED strips to it. Also I would get rid of the Bioballs. They are such a mess because you can't see the sludge they are keeping. I would pull a few each day and get the Intank media basket with the floss and the Chemipure. It completely changed my tank and I wish I would have started with it. The whole setup will cost you about $70. After 8 months of running my tank I couldn't get rid of the pump shooting out debris. When I finally pulled out the bioballs there was about a centimeter of waste sitting there. GROSS.

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Thanks! Will post in Dave's sponsor thread. I have an in tank media basket that came with the tank but the guy also hacked the divider between chamber 1 and 2 so the media basket basket is taller and water will not flow into it.

Did you pull out the false floor? I had the same problem not realizing that at least in my 29 there is a pull of the floor to make it the correct height.

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Did you pull out the false floor? I had the same problem not realizing that at least in my 29 there is a pull of the floor to make it the correct height.

Yeah, false floor is out. Guy just hacked the top inch of the divider between chamber 1 and 2. Will try to add a piece of acrylic with some silicone this weekend.

HI! I pulled my Biocube 29 hood off to add the LED 32. Are they compatible? If so I had planned to sell it cheap. It was only 8 months old when I pulled it off and I added the additional LED strips to it. Also I would get rid of the Bioballs. They are such a mess because you can't see the sludge they are keeping. I would pull a few each day and get the Intank media basket with the floss and the Chemipure. It completely changed my tank and I wish I would have started with it. The whole setup will cost you about $70. After 8 months of running my tank I couldn't get rid of the pump shooting out debris. When I finally pulled out the bioballs there was about a centimeter of waste sitting there. GROSS.

Thanks but ending up buying a Coralife t5 and just kept it top off. It really helps with the heat issue as well.

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