Biocube upgrades

[seabass]

You might have an issue with your substrate

 

It's pretty coarse. Consider moving the livestock (your crab and anything else), the water, and the rock into 5 gallon holding buckets. Then replace the sand bed with a 1 inch, fine, aragonite sand bed before returning the water, rock, and livestock. Note, once you disturb the sand bed, the remaining water will be fouled and should be discarded.

[Primeval]

 

It's pretty coarse. Consider moving the livestock (your crab and anything else), the water, and the rock into 5 gallon holding buckets. Then replace the sand bed with a 1 inch, fine, aragonite sand bed before returning the water, rock, and livestock. Note, once you disturb the sand bed, the remaining water will be fouled and should be discarded.

 

 

 

The picture makes the sand look a lot more coarse than it actually is but it is a little bigger than your standard arag-alive.

 

If the sandbed was an issue wouldn't I see some of the algae on the sand? Right now I only have it on a few of the rock pieces.

 

I'll make some notes on an older pic. All of the spots I have circled in red are spots of red algae and almost all of them are bigger than when I took this pic a few weeks ago.

 

 

[seabass]

Hmm...sorry, I thought the 'red algae' you were referring to was Cyano. However, that doesn't appear to be the case. It's hard to see, but is it just red macro algae? If it is, and you want to get rid of it, you might just break off the pieces of rock that it's growing out of. It would be very difficult to get rid of it with water changes.

[Primeval]

Hmm...sorry, I thought the 'red algae' you were referring to was Cyano. However, that doesn't appear to be the case. It's hard to see, but is it just red macro algae? If it is, and you want to get rid of it, you might just break off the pieces of rock that it's growing out of. It would be very difficult to get rid of it with water changes.

 

 

Its hard to see here. I will add a fresh pic this afternoon. It is very soft and furry and resembles cyano that I have had in another tank in the past (both rock and sand). I assumed the red algae in this case was also cyano

[Primeval]

UPDATE:

 

I scraped off most of the red algae with a spoon and its now just floating around the bottom. I will have to syphon it out at the next water change.

 

Also, I finally purchased the neon pseudochromis that I had my eye on.

 

I would upload a pic but he's currently living in my back chamber.

 

I got the parts to build him a jawfish house so maybe he stays out of there in the future.

[RobyRob]

About a month ago I went to Oceanic's website and sent them an email through their web-contact form regarding my crappy stock fans in my Biocube 14 that make tons of noise.

 

I'm pretty sure my Biocube is not still under warranty but they did send me faulty parts since it started sounding like that since its early days.

 

I come home to find a package on my doorstep.

 

 

 

 

I was thinking how weird it was to be getting another package since everything I have recently ordered has already arrived. I see that the return address is All Glass Aquarium. Strange again.

 

 

I opened it up to find goodies from Oceanic!

 

 

Two replacement fans, a replacement 24w ballast and a replacement 10k 24w bulb. Nice.

 

 

Good job Oceanic. Free stuff unexpectedly is sweet.

 

 

Too bad I wouldn't know where to start to use the ballast to retro in another 24w. I was looking at the retro from nanocustoms.com but I didn't commit to the project.

 

I suppose these will just be nice replacements down the road.

 

 

I installed the fans yesterday and they are almost silent.

Oceanic really rocks my socks. they sent me my led power cord that was missing on the BC14 i found in the garbage hah. +1 oceanic employees!

[Primeval]

All day I was thinking how much a pain in the ass it was going to be to pull him out of the back chamber since when I was home from lunch he was in Chamber 2 with my Media Basket.

 

-This means however he got into chamber 1 by either swimming under the Fish Saver or just through the intake slots, he then swam to the top of the water and then rode the current from the flow-director right into my Media Basket. I was looking for him and lunch and couldnt find him anywhere in chamber 1. After shining a flashlight into the back area for ten minutes I saw him at the bottom of chamber 2. To get an idea of how tight it is in there I have posted a pic below for the area after Media Basket installation:

 

 

This is an earlier pic before the flow-director was installed.

 

 

 

So I didn't have time to pull him out then and was dreading the nightmare it was going to be to pull all of that out of Chamber 2.

 

I get home to find him....swimming around the display! This means that he got himself out of chamber 2, swam back up the flow (salmon style?) and back into chamber 1 where he got himself out the same way he got in. Otherwise, I don't see how he would clear the Fish Saver to simply jump back in.

 

 

 

The back chambers with flow director installed.

 

 

 

Welcome back, buddy.

 

 

 

At this point I decided to build him a jawfish house to keep him feeling safe so he wouldnt frequent my back chambers. I got the idea and design from this photo:

 

Thread here

 

 

 

 

 

I grabbed a few parts from Lowes after work and immediately got to work when I got home. The project was very simple and now all I need is to get my hands on a barnacle or two.

 

 

 

The parts. I got a few extra because I wasn't sure how big I wanted it in the store. All of these parts were about $3.

 

 

Here's what it would look like pieced together. This is the smaller version.

 

 

Here is the larger version

 

 

As you can see the larger version is a bit big - especially for just 1 fish and for just a Biocube 14 so I went with the smaller version.

 

 

Glue drying.

 

 

Finished product

 

 

Looking in. I will glue the barnacle on the spout as soon as I get a reply from one of our loyal nano-reefers.

 

 

 

 

And the final step will be moving a bit of rock around and burying it in the sand. My sandbed is not very deep so I am going to mix in some leftover arag-alive that I have stored to make it a little deeper and to get my sand bed a little less coarse (as seabass keeps pointing out). Final pics to come whenever it is finished.

[seabass]

Welcome back, buddy.

Sweet!

 

...to get my sand bed a little less coarse (as seabass keeps pointing out).

 

You could even siphon out some of the larger pieces of substrate, as they sometimes seem to settle to the top.

[Primeval]

Sweet!

 

 

You could even siphon out some of the larger pieces of substrate, as they sometimes seem to settle to the top.

 

 

I still like the look of the larger pieces mixed into my sandbed. The addition of more sand will diffuse it a bit so I dont perceive any issues.

 

The sandbed has always been the cleanest part in this tank.

 

 

I may touch it up a bit when I'm in there adding the jawfish house. I have a few empty snail shells that will probably go.

[Primeval]

I will dub thee Achmed the Arabian Pseudochromis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Primeval]

Update:

 

He hasn't returned to the back chambers since day 2. Probably because he's afraid he will miss feeding time - he eats tons everyday

[bhskicker18]

Update:

 

He hasn't returned to the back chambers since day 2. Probably because he's afraid he will miss feeding time - he eats tons everyday

 

Thats how I got my goby, my cousin Amber's boy friend Nick had a valentine puffer and a yellow watchman goby in his BioCube14. The goby jumped into chamber 3 so Amber bought him a new one. She takes it to his house and his goby is in the display. So he called and I got his older goby! But its funny how he jumped it twice, once to the chambers and once to the display

[Primeval]

It would be extremely difficult to jump it with StevieTs fish saver installed. My guess is he squeezed through the intake slats - although I never caught him doing it.

 

He certainly did swim from chamber 1 to chamber 2, though.

[Primeval]

I went on vacation for 5-6 days and I came back to a film on the water surface. The poly filter was pretty nasty so I replaced it but I don't see much improvement. Next step is manual skimming with a water change.

[KERZMES]

Thats how I got my goby, my cousin Amber's boy friend Nick had a valentine puffer and a yellow watchman goby in his BioCube14. The goby jumped into chamber 3 so Amber bought him a new one. She takes it to his house and his goby is in the display. So he called and I got his older goby! But its funny how he jumped it twice, once to the chambers and once to the display

omg, what? is this real? or was it jyst a jokr? this is crazy lol

[Primeval]

Can't seem to keep the film off of my water surface. Strange

[StevieT]

Lower the water level in your display

 

and or increase surface agitation with your pump

[Primeval]

Lower the water level in your display

 

and or increase surface agitation with your pump

 

 

I don't think it is possible to lower the water level in the display. The water level is lowered from Chamber 3. I have lowered the level as I do water changes and siphon water from the top but it didn't seem to help much. I have also been changing out the poly filter frequently to help but not much luck there.

 

I hate to aim the only powerhead I have towards the surface when I have the Hydor Flo that is supposed to be increasing surface agitation. Maybe an upgrade from the Maxi 900 to 1200 would help - I'm not sure if that would be too much flow or not.

[Primeval]

 

Water test on my jawfish/pseudochromis house. I'm not going to bother planting it until I get a barnacle for it.

[LVReefer]

you can try blocking one or two slots on the lower intake to force more water through the top intake. It can also be due to the plastic feeding chamber 2. Since it increases the height of the water in the main display you will get less suction to the back chambers. Pull the plastic out to test it if you can.

 

Great post!!! Keep the updates coming...

[Primeval]

you can try blocking one or two slots on the lower intake to force more water through the top intake. It can also be due to the plastic feeding chamber 2. Since it increases the height of the water in the main display you will get less suction to the back chambers. Pull the plastic out to test it if you can.

 

Great post!!! Keep the updates coming...

 

 

I'm not sure what plastic you are referring to in chamber 2 but I will try to put some poly filter towards the bottom intake and see what happens.

[SlowGoing]

Great thread, Primeval!

 

I'll certainly continue to follow.

[Primeval]

I did another 20% water change today and pulled most of the water from the top. I also let the system run for a few minutes with the missing water to get some turbulence going and some of the extra water out of the back chambers. I replaced the poly filters again and so far it looks great. Maybe it will stay this way this time.

[Primeval]

Barnacle cluster came in the mail.

 

 

Six-hole cluster

 

 

Pretty good size. The plan is to bore out each individual barnacle about 1/4-1/3" open and then attempt to centralize each "tunnel" into one entrance at the bottom.

 

 

Pretty wide area to attempt to centralize into one spot. I still haven't decided exactly how I'm going to fit it on the pvc.

 

 

Updates to come as I make progress

[Primeval]

I started drilling yesterday and man its about as hard as I expected it would be.

 

Right now I have about 1/3" holes at the bottom of all individual barnacles but one (it has a tough bottom) and I have a 1/2" hole in the center of the base where I hope to get these barnacle "tunnels" to eventually meet.

 

The next step is pushing the holes in the barnacles all the way down to the center of the base - matching up with the base-hole and then widening them with a large drill-bit or dremel.