RCPlain's BioCube Adventure

[Rcplain123]

I am new to the saltwater hobby. I started up in May 2010 with an Eclipse 29G tank I had lying around. That quickly proved to be difficult to work with and I transplanted everything I had into my BC29 in late June. Many re-scapes later, this is what it looks like:

 

June 2011:

 

January 2011:

 

October 2010:

 

In it I have:

2 clowns

1 firefish

1 watchman goby

1 coral banded shrimp

1 skunk cleaner shrimp

1 pistol shrimp

1 peppermint shrimp

1 red green emerald crab

assorted snails(nassarius, cerith, dwarf cerith, astrea, turbo, bumble bee), hermit crabs

1 hammer coral

7 various zoas

1 candy cane

1 red acan

1 frogspawn

1 orange ricordea

1 blue ricordea

1 green ricordea

1 red mushroom

1 purple montipora

1 orange montipora

1 neon green acripora

1 green palythoa

1 red coco worm

 

Equipment:

BC29

Marineland Stealth 150w heater

Jager 100w heater

Vortech MP10es

5.6 LED kit from nanocustoms (3xCW and 2x RB)

inTank media basket, fuge basket and fish guard

MJ1200 return and a loc-line y with 2x flare nozzles

Hydor Seltz L30 return pump loc-line return

2x Koralia nano 240

Simkar LED task light (model 03-14000) for my fuge

Aqualight mini for fuge

Aquatic Life 115 skimmer

Hydor Slim Skim Nano (Chamber 2)

 

I would love to hear some input from you guys!

[redkneecoral]

I really like what you had done so far.

Your rock work looks pretty good. Whats under the shot glass, won't it die under there.

I especially love the LEDs your are using.

 

Great job

[Rcplain123]

I have a mushroom under the shot glass. Trying to get it to attach to a small rock I have there. I'll glue the rock somewhere once he attaches (I've had no luck with standard methods so far). The nanocustoms LEDs rock!

[Deano]

Awesome! Lovin the LED lighting. As for the fuge light. Scrape the black paint of the back side of the tank where the macro algae is. Get you some velcro with self stick adhesive and attach the light to the back of the tank. I don't have a LED fuge light I use a standard 6500 K PC light bulb built into a fixture and stuck to the back of the tank. Works great!

[Rcplain123]

I have one of the BC29s that already has a clear area in the back for a fuge light. Unfortunately, the hole is offset from where my fuge basket is. I've been thinking about scraping the back but have not yet taken the plunge. How bad are the scratches afterwards?

 

On a side note, I have been toying with the idea of modifying the fan vent holes/slits. On a stock biocube they are horizontal Z-shaped (-|_). I was thinking about cutting part of the vents with a Dremel to make the slits carrot (|_) shaped, if that makes sense. Has anyone done this? Effective? Worthwhile? It just seems like a lot of air is blocked by the vent slit design.

[Deano]

I have one of the BC29s that already has a clear area in the back for a fuge light. Unfortunately, the hole is offset from where my fuge basket is. I've been thinking about scraping the back but have not yet taken the plunge. How bad are the scratches afterwards?

 

On a side note, I have been toying with the idea of modifying the fan vent holes/slits. On a stock biocube they are horizontal Z-shaped (-|_). I was thinking about cutting part of the vents with a Dremel to make the slits carrot (|_) shaped, if that makes sense. Has anyone done this? Effective? Worthwhile? It just seems like a lot of air is blocked by the vent slit design.

If you scrap off the paint with a flat razor blade you shouldn't even scratch the glass. I got no scratches in my tanks glass when I did it. Just scrape it of just like you would algae on the glass.

 

I really don't thing cutting the vents will make much difference. Back when I 1st setup my BC29 I modded the top to fit 80mm Silenx fans where the stock ones were. The thought was this would move more air. It help but I have since made a even bigger change in my BC29 hood. The biggest mod done to my hood to remove heat was to put a fan in the back hood blowing out. You can click on my build link at the bottom of this page to see my hood mods. Unfortunately the 1st part of my thread is old and the fan mod pictures are lost forever in siber space.

[Rcplain123]

I scraped off the paint in the back and attached my LED fuge light with some 3M Command strips. Looks good so far. I wish there was a way to scrape the paint off evenly so that you ended up with a large, perfect rectangle

 

As far as the fan vents, I looked at your thread, Deano, and although I like what you've got going on, it feels like a bit too drastic for me. I found Robster's Biocube fan thread and didn't like the results he had with it either. I don't really have temp issues so I'll just leave that alone for now.

 

Lastly, I thought that the mushroom I had finally attached to the rock so I glued the rock. I came home later in the day and the mushroom disappeared! I now presumably have two mushrooms somewhere in my tank...

[Deano]

I scraped off the paint in the back and attached my LED fuge light with some 3M Command strips. Looks good so far. I wish there was a way to scrape the paint off evenly so that you ended up with a large, perfect rectangle

 

As far as the fan vents, I looked at your thread, Deano, and although I like what you've got going on, it feels like a bit too drastic for me. I found Robster's Biocube fan thread and didn't like the results he had with it either. I don't really have temp issues so I'll just leave that alone for now.

 

Lastly, I thought that the mushroom I had finally attached to the rock so I glued the rock. I came home later in the day and the mushroom disappeared! I now presumably have two mushrooms somewhere in my tank...

 

I wouldn't sweat the scraping. Who's going to see it anyway.

 

Agreed no need to cut up your hood if you are not having heat issues or adding additional lights. But if you do change your lighting then you will have no choice unless you do LED's.

 

Sorry to here about the MIA mushrooms. Mushrooms can be tought getting them to attach. I have had some luck super gluing them. But be careful you want the glue only on the base.

[Rcplain123]

Yesterday I added an AquaticLife Internal Mini Skimmer 115 after reading some good reviews from other people. I was able to fit it in chamber one and for now I am just using the suction cups to hold it in place. It is in the break in phase so I have not gotten any skimmate from it yet. My only concern is that it makes a rhythmic noise which sounds a bit like the impeller is bouncing. The foam column is also bouncing in sync with this noise. Anyone know anything about this?

[Rcplain123]

Last night my BTA detached itself and floated around for a bit and has now settled in the upper-left hand corner, just below the return. He has been moving around a lot and I can only attribute it to an issue of flow. He is bleached but is regaining some of his color, finally. Most of the time he is pretty puffed up, so other than the color, he looks healthy. Is there anything I can really do to keep him grounded? I am concerned that he might run into one of my Koralias again (that is how he originally got injured)

[gsmsalty]

Kewl beginnings! That nice coralline growth on your back panel tells me your water chemistry is spot on.

[Rcplain123]

Thanks! I had some pH trouble in the beginning when I was using Oceanic salt but overall I've tried to keep it in check. I do weekly water changes and test the water frequently.

[Rcplain123]

While I was at work today my BTA moved again and got sucked into my Koralia. By the time I came home there was almost nothing left and my tank was a mess. I did a 10G emergency water change with premixed water from the LFS and will probably do another 5-7G change tomorrow with my water. I hate to lose an animal. Sad day.

[Rcplain123]

New pics! These are all done with a P&S so they're not great. I plan on borrowing a DSLR in the near future to get some good pics.

 

[Rcplain123]

I am very pleased with the skimmate that the AL 115 is producing. After less than a week, I have no micro bubbles and good color skimmate. I will dial it down further to get it more brown but so far so good! Pictures later on today.

[msujeff]

Any updates for your bc?

 

How do you like the 5.6? Happy with the 3 w and 2 b? I'm going to order it this week but I'm not sure on the color combo yet. I do like the blueish look but I may do 2 w, 2 b, and 1 mixed.

[Rcplain123]

I really need to update more often. I've changed lots of stuff around.

I like the 5.6 a lot but if i had to do it over again, I would get either 3RB and 2CW or go 50/50 all the way. My current setup doesn't have the "pop" that I'm looking for.

On that note, I was thinking of adding a stunner strip or two. I'm debating adding a 403nm one for coral growth but I understand that 453nm will give more visual "pop" right away. Dunno...

[Rcplain123]

I added the two Ecoxotic Stunner strips; one 403nm and one 453nm. They add a bit of color to my tank and I hope to see improved growth and coloration long-term. I did a re-scape and moved my tank into another room this week as well. FTS to follow.

 

New FTS 1/9/2011:

 

 

No flash:

 

[Rcplain123]

Well this morning I found the Ecoxotic strips I just bought flickering. I unplugged them for now and will deal with it when I get back. Disappointing.

 

On another note, the pictures I post here are really poor representations of what my aquarium actually looks like. That is also disappointing.

[Rcplain123]

I have contacted Ecoxotic and they're sending me a new transformer. I don't think thats the actual problem but their responsiveness is awesome.

[redkneecoral]

trying to get what one's tanks actually looks like on camera is a hard things to do unless you have one of those darn good cameras.

 

I hope you get that problem fixed with ya strips

[Rcplain123]

I did get the replacement driver from Ecoxotic and so far I haven't noticed any flickering.

 

Over the weekend, I installed a 120 mm fan over the Nanocustoms heatsink. Cut a hole in the top of my hood and everything! Looks pretty clean and has helped a great deal with temperatures (fluctuate 76-78.5 now vs 76-82+ before). Pics later.

[redkneecoral]

I'll be looking forward on to them

[Rcplain123]

I left town for a week and my tank survived. I had someone come in one time to feed the fish but they don't know anything about tanks so I didn't have them touch anything else. I came back to a very salty tank. My salinity was 1.030 but nothing seemed to be hurt by that. I slowly lowered the salinity throughout the course of the day and then did a WC. Before I leave again, I intend to get an ATO, possibly Tunze Osmolator.

 

I have also moved my refugium to chamber 1. So far so good. There is very little light spilled back into the tank from the grates. I need to figure out what's wrong with my AL115 so that I can put that into chamber 2. Right now it is barely producing any bubbles and I can't figure out why. Although I want a Hydor skimmer, I don't really have the funds for it now.

 

Oh, and I switched salts to Seachem Reef Salt. I'll let you know how that goes. I've been using Reef Crystals and I used Oceanic before that.

[jack1978]

I left town for a week and my tank survived. I had someone come in one time to feed the fish but they don't know anything about tanks so I didn't have them touch anything else. I came back to a very salty tank. My salinity was 1.030 but nothing seemed to be hurt by that. I slowly lowered the salinity throughout the course of the day and then did a WC. Before I leave again, I intend to get an ATO, possibly Tunze Osmolator.

 

I have also moved my refugium to chamber 1. So far so good. There is very little light spilled back into the tank from the grates. I need to figure out what's wrong with my AL115 so that I can put that into chamber 2. Right now it is barely producing any bubbles and I can't figure out why. Although I want a Hydor skimmer, I don't really have the funds for it now.

 

Oh, and I switched salts to Seachem Reef Salt. I'll let you know how that goes. I've been using Reef Crystals and I used Oceanic before that.

 

Rcplain123,

Love the mods to your tank, looks great! Trying to put some funds together for the lights as well. I did go with the Hydor Slim Skim Nano about 3 weeks ago and it's been working great!