Wyatt45 Biocube 16

[Wyatt45]

Question: why would I have 1PPM ammonia in my tank when I’ll I have is live rock and live sand??

 

also, Jackal how is your tank doing now?  FTS 🙂.  What are you currently running in chamber 3 guys?

[banasophia]

6 minutes ago, Wyatt45 said:

Question: why would I have 1PPM ammonia in my tank when I’ll I have is live rock and live sand??

 

also, Jackal how is your tank doing now?  FTS 🙂.  What are you currently running in chamber 3 guys?

I dunno about the ammonia, but personally I’d add some BioSpira in there to speed up the cycling process. 

 

I have my heater, that little sponge between the chambers, my regular pump, my chiller pump, and some purigen in the third chamber.

[Ladytank]

The ammonia is probably due to something on the live rock dying. Add some beneficial bacteria. Dr. Tim's is great. I used fluval, and was able to add fish in 9 days. 

[Jackal227]

1 hour ago, Wyatt45 said:

Question: why would I have 1PPM ammonia in my tank when I’ll I have is live rock and live sand??

 

also, Jackal how is your tank doing now?  FTS 🙂.  What are you currently running in chamber 3 guys?

There are different types of live rock and some will cycle faster than others.  They will normally have some decaying matter on them causing the ammonia.  As the bacteria builds up it'll process the ammonia.   Do you have a picture of the rock used or know where it came from? 

 

In chamber 3 I have my return pump, temperature probe, and matrix media. 

 

I'll try to do a full update on my tank tomorrow, I've been busy lately. 

[Wyatt45]

Got the live rock from a rather high volume aquarium that was tropical and saltwater.  The young man helping me wasn’t all that confident. The live rock was in a tub curing for unknown time. He gave it to me in a box with some wet paper towels.  I honestly was not happy with my aquascape which is entirely my fault.   After seeing other’s beautiful tanks I decided that I was going to change it.  Today I went to a local, reef only store.  The owner was really cool.  He and I made a live rock aquascape.  He said the rock had been curing for two months.  I’ll include a picture of what we created.  Keep in mind the tank isn’t lit because I’m still waiting in my led power cord the original shop failed to include. They said it’ll be here this week. Annoying but c’est la vie. 

 

So anyway, I now have 12 pounds of live rock. The shop owner put it in a 5 gallon bucket for me and filled it up with water from one of his huge frag display tanks. 

[Wyatt45]

[Wyatt45]

I’ll test water again for ammonia tomorrow and see where my tank is. Hopefully it’s at zero!

[Ladytank]

Looks awesome

[Wyatt45]

Thanks Ladytank!   I tried to create some overhangs, hiding places and a swim through cave.  Hard to tell from pic but there is a good amount of open space for fish to swim and critters to play in the sand.  Besides Jackal, anyone reading this have any experience with a fighting conch?  I’d like to put one in there eventually. 

[Ladytank]

The fighting conch is a great sand sifter. They can't right themselves if they flip over. They can topple things over when they get bigger. That's my experience.

[MSunkin23]

Nice. If it was live rock, likely some die-off on the rock due to transport, and also might be releasing some nutrients into the water from its previous life.

 

 

 

 

[banasophia]

2 hours ago, Wyatt45 said:

Thanks Ladytank!   I tried to create some overhangs, hiding places and a swim through cave.  Hard to tell from pic but there is a good amount of open space for fish to swim and critters to play in the sand.  Besides Jackal, anyone reading this have any experience with a fighting conch?  I’d like to put one in there eventually. 

I have a conch in each of my tanks, though I think they are tiger conchs... I like them! 

 

Though my favorite CUC members are ninja star snails... they never have them locally, so you have to order them. 

[Wyatt45]

Still have ammonia today. 😞.  Oh well, patience!

 

Question: stock Biocube 16 lights vs aftermarket like Steve’s or Nanobox.  Why do ppl do that?  Is to be able to keep certain coral or livestock that you otherwise can’t with the stock lights?  

[Ladytank]

The stock lighting is okay for soft corals. The other lights grow corals faster and are better for lps sps coral growth. I'm using stock lights. My corals are growing great, but I just have softies. I'm looking to upgrade when its time to replace my bulbs. I'm looking at the current marine lights for my 29gl. Not sure about my 14gl , as current doesn't make one small enough. One more thing watch you tube videos. I learned a lot from them.

[Wyatt45]

Hey Jackal, do you need to replenish your copepods or are they breeding on your refugium?

[Jackal227]

2 hours ago, Wyatt45 said:

Still have ammonia today. 😞.  Oh well, patience!

 

Question: stock Biocube 16 lights vs aftermarket like Steve’s or Nanobox.  Why do ppl do that?  Is to be able to keep certain coral or livestock that you otherwise can’t with the stock lights?  

Looking at the picture of your rock it looks like it's covered in coraline so it appears to be real live rock.  What test kit are you using for the ammonia?  Any nitrite or nitrates showing up? 

 

The reason there are a lot of light upgrades available is because the older version of the biocubes used compact florescent lights that were fairly weak.  The newer biocubes using leds have pretty good lights built in (plus a programmable timer) .  They will grow the majority of corals without issue. 

 

The upgrades may grow the corals faster or offer more controlability but certainly not required.

 

5 minutes ago, Wyatt45 said:

Hey Jackal, do you need to replenish your copepods or are they breeding on your refugium?

They tend to breed based on available food.  So the populations tend to grow or shrink based on their environment and/or predators that eat them.  Some people will dose phytoplankton regularly to promote their growth. 

[Wyatt45]

This is going to sound bad, but I’m using my API freshwater kit. I’ve only tested for ammonia and checked the color against an image I found on Google. But it’s always some shade of green and not yellow. Do you think I should test for nitrate? Can I use my freshwater API I wonder? I’ll check it out

[Wyatt45]

Ok,, so the test kit shouldn’t matter, just the color chart. After looking at the saltwater color chart, it appears that nitrite is zero and I do in fact have some nitrate.  So I wonder if my 44 year old man eyes are looking at the ammonia color chart wrong. Looked like green and not yellow to me though!

[Jackal227]

From what I've read the test kits for saltwater and freshwater are the same except for the color cards.  It looks like you do have some nitrate so there is definitely bacteria present.  My api kit for ammonia always shows .25, but it's definitely more yellow than it is green. 

[Wyatt45]

Did anyone come up with a usable plan for hidinjng the LED light strip from the rear of the cube?  Mine is in the bedroom.  Amazon delivered my strip today. 

[Jackal227]

2 hours ago, Wyatt45 said:

Did anyone come up with a usable plan for hidinjng the LED light strip from the rear of the cube?  Mine is in the bedroom.  Amazon delivered my strip today. 

I haven't covered mine, but maybe a curved piece of aluminum fit around it would contain the light spillage. Think of reflectors on the sides of bulb fixtures.

[banasophia]

3 hours ago, Wyatt45 said:

Did anyone come up with a usable plan for hidinjng the LED light strip from the rear of the cube?  Mine is in the bedroom.  Amazon delivered my strip today. 

No, mine’s in the living room, so I never needed a deflector... wonder if the guy setting his up in his bedroom came up with something... let me see if I can figure out who it was...

 

Edit: @Brandon0921, did you ever figure out a way to set up the lighting for a refugium in the back of your tank, but blocking out the light so it wouldn’t be too bright in your bedroom at night?

[Jackal227]

 Also, you don't have to run your refugium light at night.  Many people run it during the day along with the main lights.  That may be a better option for a bedroom tank. 

[Wyatt45]

I officially hate the nitrogen cycle. ??????

[Jackal227]

 That outside picture of the ammonia looks pretty close to what I normally see.  It definitely looks darker in front of the screen.  However it looks like there is still some nitrite.