dbartkow Posted October 22, 2006 Share Posted October 22, 2006 Well after taking about 10 years off from the hobby, I am back and amazed at how much has changed. I decided to start things back up again with one of these all-in-one units. After spending a ton of time reading these forums, I decided to go ahead with the 29 gallon Biocube. So two weeks ago I went to the lfs and picked one up. Here it is all put together ...not water yet. I have made some similar modifications to others on this forum. I will have pictures of those shortly. Dave Link to comment
TEALCOBRA Posted October 22, 2006 Share Posted October 22, 2006 Make sure to test it with water before you start cutting it up.... it would suck to have it leak after starting your mods... Link to comment
dbartkow Posted October 22, 2006 Author Share Posted October 22, 2006 I am still trying to decide what to do with all the chambers on the back, but like others, I did decide to go with the Tunze Nano DOC 9002 skimmer in chamber 2. I made the modifications similar to TEALCOBRA. I used a Dremel tool with a drum sander bit and a cutoff bit. I used the drum sander bit to carve out a nice curve for the skimmer top. Here is another view where you can also see widening the flow from chamber 1 to chamber 2. I used the cutoff bit and little bending and then the drum sander to make everything nice and smooth. Here you can see that the skimmer top fits very nicely now. That is pretty much where I am at now. I have my RO/DI water filter coming on Monday and also 30lbs of sand. So I plan to put the sand in and get some water in it early next week. Make sure to test it with water before you start cutting it up.... it would suck to have it leak after starting your mods... Yes, good point! I did actually do this last week. Had it running with fresh water for a couple of days before I made any modifications. Everything looked good, so I worked on the mod today. Link to comment
TEALCOBRA Posted October 22, 2006 Share Posted October 22, 2006 Ive seen those mods done somewhere else just like that.... Looking good dbartkow, I like the setup, Ive just decided to slow down and do all my aquascaping outside the tank with dry rock so I can make it look just like I keep thinking it should.... Keep us informed on your progress..... Link to comment
dbartkow Posted October 30, 2006 Author Share Posted October 30, 2006 Well, had a crazy busy week last week, but am finally getting back to this. I did get my new RO/DI unit last week. So I was able to start adding some water to the new tank. I also got my shipment from Premium Aquatics of 30lbs of Tropic Eden Argonite snowflake sand. It is a really nice sand - very fine, white and nice and clean. I put about half of it in a bucket and put in a couple of gallons of RO/DI water to rinse it out. Mixed it up a little bit and just poured out the water. I did this twice and the water wasn't too cloudy. So then I just scooped about 15lbs of the wet sand into the tank. I then tried a cool trick I read about somewhere to try and minimize the amount of sand that is kicked up when adding water. I cut up a plastic garbage bag and put it on top of the sand. I put 4 glass cups and filled them with water on each of the corners. Then I put a bowl in the middle and basically poured the water into the tank. I pretty much just poured the water into the bowl and the sand was hardly even disturbed. Here it is almost fully filled When it was almost filled up, I removed the bowl and the 4 glasses and the plastic garbage bag just floated to the top of the tank - pretty cool! Here it is completely filled just waiting for something living to go in it. So that is what I will be doing this week. I plan to place an order with Premium Aquatics for some cured Premium Marshall Island Rock. I am still debating how many pounds to get but will definitely get at least 30lbs. Dave Link to comment
TEALCOBRA Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 Looking great so far dave.... be sure to keep us posted on the progress.... Link to comment
aquakevem Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 looking good tropic eden's sand is very nice Link to comment
RP Beesh Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 good way to stop a sand storm. Link to comment
Izzue Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 Awesome on the water addition... Nice start...keep us updated Izzue Link to comment
dbartkow Posted November 1, 2006 Author Share Posted November 1, 2006 I ordered 35 lbs of cured Premium Marshall Island rock from Premium Aquatics today. It is scheduled to arrive by 10:30AM tomorrow (Wednesday) via UPS. So hopefully there won't be too much die off....we will see. I will be taking and posting lots of pictures tomorrow. Dave Link to comment
dbartkow Posted November 1, 2006 Author Share Posted November 1, 2006 Guess what showed up on my doorstep this morning! This is the order of 35 lbs of Marshall Island live rock I received from Premium Aquatics. I was very impressed with the packaging. I quickly took it all out and got it in my tank. I will keep you in suspense a little longer before I can get pictures of it up here. But I will make a couple of comments. I am very impressed with the rock. I looked over everything before putting it in and smelled everything too and every rock smelled real good. I didn't pick up any rotting smells at all. It is a lot more rock than I anticipated and pretty much takes up a huge portion of my tank. Tonight I will be breaking some of the pieces up a little and doing some aquascaping. Dave Link to comment
dbartkow Posted November 2, 2006 Author Share Posted November 2, 2006 Here are some pictures of the Marshall Island live rock I just got. I was pretty happy with the batch. Some nice colors, a bunch of clams or things like that. Keep in mind there isn't any real aquascaping here. I was just trying to get the rock in water as quick as possible. You can see that there is still some nice coraline algae on them. This one has a whole bunch of tubes all over it. I almost ripped them off before putting it in the tank thinking it was probably just some dead stuff. But, after about 5 minutes a whole bunch of little feather dusters came out. full tank shot: side view: I am planning to break up some of the larger pieces to give me some flexiblity in aquascaping. Hopefully will have more pictures soon. Dave Link to comment
TEALCOBRA Posted November 2, 2006 Share Posted November 2, 2006 Looking great dave... keep us posted.. Link to comment
dbartkow Posted November 2, 2006 Author Share Posted November 2, 2006 Okay, here is my first attempt at aquascaping. It was really hard trying to come up with a good layout. Two of the pieces are pretty large about 10"-12". In a Biocube, that takes up a lot of space real quick. So I ended of breaking a bunch of pieces up. I still have about 5 pounds of rock and rubble I haven't used. I think the tank will be too crowded if I put it in. Anyway, this is what I have so far...It is a little cloudy since I stirred things up a lot while trying to figure all this out. I am open for suggestions... Front View: Right Side View: Left Side View: Like I said, all suggestions and comments are welcomed. Link to comment
aquakevem Posted November 2, 2006 Share Posted November 2, 2006 what look are you going for? Link to comment
dangeroo2 Posted November 2, 2006 Share Posted November 2, 2006 Love your aquascaping! Also, you could use your rubble in one of the chambers if you decide to mod into a fuge. or you could email it to me, i need about 5 #s! Seriously, nice work with the scape and good luck. Link to comment
dbartkow Posted November 2, 2006 Author Share Posted November 2, 2006 what look are you going for? I was trying to do a gradual buildup from the front to the back. It was a little hard to do with such limited space. But this is my best attempt so far. Another thing I wanted was some type of tunnel. I created that on the right hand side. It is not a real big one, but it seems to work. Dave Link to comment
aquakevem Posted November 2, 2006 Share Posted November 2, 2006 I was trying to do a gradual buildup from the front to the back. It was a little hard to do with such limited space. But this is my best attempt so far. Another thing I wanted was some type of tunnel. I created that on the right hand side. It is not a real big one, but it seems to work. Dave you could brake that basketball sized rock into two or three pieces. it would have been easier if each piece that you received was 3-4 pounds each. Link to comment
dbartkow Posted November 2, 2006 Author Share Posted November 2, 2006 dangeroo2, Thanks for the compliment. I already have a skimmer in chamber 2 and heater in chamber 1. I don't know if I can pile the rubble on top of the pump in chamber 3. Is anyone doing anything with chamber 3? Dave Link to comment
aquakevem Posted November 2, 2006 Share Posted November 2, 2006 if you like how it looks now, leave it alone. i'm just not a fan of bulky round pieces of rock. good luck Link to comment
basser1 Posted November 2, 2006 Share Posted November 2, 2006 Just a quick question, are you using the filter cartridge that comes with it in chamber 3? Also, did you widen the opening Between chambers 2 &3? Link to comment
dbartkow Posted November 2, 2006 Author Share Posted November 2, 2006 Just a quick question, are you using the filter cartridge that comes with it in chamber 3? Also, did you widen the opening Between chambers 2 &3? basser1, I think you are getting the chambers mixed up - or I am. The first chamber (water intake) has the filter cartridge. I am using this for now. Just becuase I don't have any filter floss or anything else in there yet. I need to get this. So in the meantime. I am just using the cartridge that came with it to catch all the stuff floating around. I do plan to remove this eventually. I did widen the opening between chambers 1 and 2. You can go back to the beginning of this thread and it shows how I did that. Dave Link to comment
dbartkow Posted November 3, 2006 Author Share Posted November 3, 2006 Just made some changes. I couldn't stand all the live rock rubble just going to waste. So I moved the heater from chamber 1 and put it in chamber 3 and removed the filter cartridge from chamber 1. So now chamber 1 is filled with rubble. Chamber 2 has the Tunze Nano DOC 9002 skimmer and chamber 3 has the a heater. It did mess up my water flow as all the chambers became totally filled with water. I ended off putting some filter pads between chamber 1 and 2 and with a little tinkering I was able to slow the flow down going into chamber 2 so that the skimmer wasn't flooded. Well it has been a little over a day since I added all the live rock. I tested the water today and here is the current state: pH: 8.2 Ammonia: 0.25 Nitrite: 0.05 Nitrate: 5 I am looking forward to seeing how this will change over the next couple of days/weeks. I was wondering if anyone else who has the Tunze Nano DOC 9002 skimmer can help me out. What is the ideal water level for this to function the best? Right now I have it set so the water level is about 1 inch below the top of the black shell. Does that sound about right? Thanks, Dave Link to comment
baz Posted November 3, 2006 Share Posted November 3, 2006 So you made the water level above the max line? What is the point of that point anywho? Link to comment
dbartkow Posted November 3, 2006 Author Share Posted November 3, 2006 So you made the water level above the max line? What is the point of that point anywho? The min and max lines were set fine if you didn't make any modifications. But with the mod to widen the opening between chamber 1 and 2 the max/min lines serve no purpose. Chamber 1 will be the same level as the tank and chamber 2 and 3 should be an inch or more lower than that. Dave Link to comment
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