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Nina's Biocube 16 LED


Nina.Wes

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Hello everyone,

 

So this is my first Nano tank. I got into the hobby in 2013 with my first 30 gallon + Eheim canister filter which quickly became a 50 gallon + 30 gallon sump which became a 100 gallon + 50 gallon sump in 2015 which is still going strong. I decided to take the plunge into a nano tank because I'll be marrying and moving in December and I wanted to get something "simpler", more cost effective going so I could keep a piece of my reef with me when I move. 

 

Anyways, I bought a Biocube 16 LED because I really like the way it looks and it seems to be a good fit for me so far. 

I'm using 10 lbs of Arag-Alive Fiji Pink sand and 2 lbs of live sand from my 100 gallon tank. Also 10 lbs of dry rock and 1 lb of live rock from my 100 gallon tank. 

 

I removed the false bottom on the first chamber and plan to use the Coralife Protein skimmer there. In chamber two right now I'm just running carbon and filter floss but I plan to run purigen and phosguard as well. In chamber three I have about 1 liter of seachem matrix that I had in my 100 gallon (so hopefully it's nicely seeded since that tank has been running for 3 years nice and stable.) 

 

After reading up on cycling because it had been a while since I cycled a tank, I decided to go with the table shrimp method but I used a bottle of Bio-Spira as well. I started the tank on September 29. The first four days of testing from day two onwards was as follows:

 

PH: 8.2/8.0/8.0/7.8 (PH decreased over the first week and then bounced back up after ammonia hit 0)

Ammonia: 0.25

Nitrite: 0.25

Nitrate: (highest possible reading) 160+

On day 5, Ammonia and Nitrites dropped to 0 and Nitrates remained really high. 

Today PH is 8, Ammonia is 0, Nitrite is 0 and Nitrates are 40.

 

For livestock I'm going to be introducing a cuc with stomatella and trochus snails and a nassarius snail. I'd also like a cleaner shrimp somewhere down the line because my fiance thinks they're cute. I'm planning on keeping my Black Ocellaris, my Picasso Clown and possibly my Purple Dottyback (though he's become somewhat of a jerk but only to the Sixline Wrasse). 

 

For corals, I'm gonna keep one of my Duncan coral colonies and a frag from my purple hammer (who recently suffered: It hadn't been looking too cool for a few months and I took it out and found a nasty fireworm embedded in a dead area of the skeleton I couldn't see cuz it was facing backwards) its doing well now though, after I dipped and fragged and dipped it again. I'm also going to keep a single zoa polyp that survived their crazy, for no reason meltdown (I love zoas but despite being a "hardy" good beginner coral mine were doing great for a year until one day they just decided it was enough and they closed up and died. I had a neat little garden going too, I cried when that happened). I have a large colony of red mushrooms (one of these is huge, almost three inches across) and green striped mushrooms and I will keep a frag of each. And finally a leather coral I was told was a toadstool but after 3 years I'm sure it's a cabbage (?) or something...

 

I'd love to have a zoa garden mixed in again but after spending close to $400 on different specimens and having them all melt after a year I'm pretty wary...

 

Here are some pictures of the rockscape I made. I designed the rockscape outside the tank before even having the biocube so I admit it's a bit of a tight fit length wise but the mag float fits through all sides so I'll keep it that way. 

 

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Christopher Marks

Welcome to the community @Nina.Wes! 👋

 

That is such a cool aquascape for your nano reef, very unique! Is there more of it buried in the sand to help with the balance? I love how it floats.

 

That's great you can seed it from your larger reefs, that should save some time on your cycle! Even better you can keep your favorite parts of your old systems with you when you move, good plan! Looking forward to seeing yours grow!

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Thank you @Christopher Marks! I used two zip ties on the bottom of the structure anchoring the rockscape to a rectangular piece of egg crate which is buried under the sand. The egg crate doesn't take up the whole bottom, only about 3x4 inches and it helps stabilize it.

It's a real advantage to be able to seed it from my existing tank and I do think it's been quicker than my last cycle which was when I set up my 100 gallon in 2015, at least so far. The bacteria is already processing 1 frozen cube of food daily without any ammonia or nitrite spikes but since Nitrate has gotten so high and Nitrate-processing bacteria takes longer to colonize, I stopped adding frozen food to let it go down. I do wonder whether I should already add purigen to my filtration system and whether that would help lower nitrates. I never did any water changes with my last cycle until everything was all down to 0 and I started adding fish and corals but I've read mixed opinions on that this time around 🤔

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The floating arm is really cool!  I like how you'll be able to take your favorite pieces with you, makes it a little extra-special.  You don't have to do water changes till the cycle ends, once the system is processing appropriately you can do a big water change and start adding things.

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I have decided to purchase a different testing kit and I went with the Red Sea kit. I think something was wrong with my API Nitrate set because I decided to test my 100 gallon and got sky high nitrates there also which is weird because that tank is really stable, the corals and fish are happy and I have no problem algae. Maybe the API kit is off. It's a year old and though it's not expired, I feel like maybe it's not testing correctly. I receive the Red Sea kit next week so we'll see..

 

Tomorrow I'm taking a trip to Ocoa Bay and I'll see how the API kit does with the (pristine) offshore natural sea water for reference. 

Edited by Nina.Wes
Adding pertinent information
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So I've confirmed that the Nitrate bottles 1 and 2 from my API kit are giving high Nitrate readings. I took samples about 30 meters into the bay, away from the shore, and got high readings. Ammonia is also giving a false positive at 0.25 but I've always ignored that. PH and Nitrite seem to be working. I receive the Red Sea testing kit by Wednesday or Thursday so I'll continue testing when I get it. 

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4 hours ago, vlangel said:

Good catch on the test kit and that was a clever way of verifying it.

Thank you 😊 I'm glad I noticed something was off.

I've also got an update to report which is the beginning of the inevitable diatom algae bloom. 

I know the shots I've taken of the tank have been with the lights on but that's just been for viewing benefit. The entire cycle has been lights off so far. I'm thinking of doing a water change and introducing a CUC by the weekend depending on the readings I get from the Red Sea testing kit. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello everyone, I haven't updated in a while because I've been wrapped up in Halloween decorations and my fiance's birthday but I can finally say that nitrates are testing at 5-10 with the new Red Sea kit. The diatom bloom is gone. I'm getting a bit of filament algae on the walls but it isn't really taking hold since I clean the inside walls of the tank with my nano mag float. I added 3 hermit crabs from my 100 gallon tank because I couldn't help myself, but I know I'll have a hermit war soon even though I added a load of empty shells for them. I haven't added snails yet, I'll do so later today. Maybe this weekend I'll add the clownfish pair if nitrates have continued down onto 0. I'll add more photos later today. Have a great day everyone! 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi everyone! So, it's been a while... Anyone who said planning a wedding is a thing to be enjoyed needs to reevaluate their sanity 😅

Anyways, updates! I've added my clowns and some of my hardier, dirty-water loving corals (Duncan, mushrooms and my fake toadstool which I think is a cabbage leather coral?) and they're really nice and open with polyps extending. The clowns seem to be working on establishing hierarchy again which worries me, they used to sleep in the same area in my 100g and went everywhere together but now the female (black ocellaris) bullies the Picasso. It isn't ongoing and fins are doing well, no wear and tear, but it bothers me. The tank is holding well and all parameters are normal: PH 8.2, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0; except for Nitrate which is around 5-10. I'm having one helluva diatom algae bloom and I see slime.. I don't think I've ever dealt with this level of diatom algae before. Maybe I should lessen the daylight cycle? I'm even getting hair algae on my powerhead. Despite the algae bloom, everyone seems happy. I've spotted a couple of aiptasia hitchhikers but I need to wait for them to grow a bit before I can inject them with lemon juice (which has worked for me in the past). 

I have a refugium in back with chaeto and a small submersible led and I'm running the coralife nano protein skimmer, it's not pulling out a load of gunk but it's doing something. I have alot of floating particles, maybe I should run some filter floss in the back? I currently have some blue/white sponge like I use in my bigger tank but it doesn't seem to be doing the trick on the biocube. Also I think I'm going to order the InTank media basket because this Biocube one is really annoying. Here are some photos of my ongoing diatom bloom and all the tank dwellers. 

I think I'm going to add the green mushrooms tk the back wall of the scape to get some color there. I sort of just plopped everything on the hanging "arm". 

 

 

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  • 4 months later...

Soo... It's been 5 months, I got married and moved, still unpacking boxes. I left my nano tank at my parents house until late February because there was so much to deal with moving and unpacking and whatnot. I finally got my nano tank set up at my apartment and I gave it two weeks with only the mushrooms attached to the rock and my clown. Two weeks ago I brought my Duncan coral, hammer coral and leather coral (all fragments from the 100 gallon tank I left at my parents house). Everyone thrived, except the hammer... My hammer coral never fully opened after acclimation, I gave it a week and it still wasn't doing well so I took it back to the 100 gallon and it's doing better over there. I brought a different small colony fragment that was in a higher flow area of the 100 gallon tank thinking that maybe the other piece was in a lower flow area in the 100g and that's why it didn't like the nano's higher flow. I drip acclimated, put him in there and the next day Brown Jelly Disease 😫 everything else was fine. Since I moved I've been testing parameters religiously like every freaking day because I was afraid the move might destabilize the system but everything has been stable at 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, ~10ppm nitrates, 8.0 PH, 80° F. I haven't tested the 100g in a while to see what might have freaked my hammer out 😞 I only know the 100g is 1° cooler than the nano. I do weekly water changes (2g) on the nano even though my bioload isn't high at all yet. I'll add some pictures of everything. Unfortunately I did change the aquascape everyone seemed so psyched about, I have the typical "island" thing going on now. The aquascape I had was leaching phosphates into the tank, I guess I cured it improperly. So I borrowed an island rock I had in my 100g. The nano doesn't look great or amazing, it's in its "naked" stage atm. I'm so depressed about my hammer coral, no one ships much variety to my country anymore and I was really looking forward to having my purple/pink hammer in there. It's probably my favorite coral and has its own backstory. It's not all gone, I have colonies in my 100g but I don't see that one every day 😞

The first pic is an overall tank pic and you can see the Duncan in the front left corner and the hammer behind it. 

Second pic you can see how happy the Duncan is 😊👌

Third pic, the not so happy baby hammer coral. This one is back at my parents house in the 100g.

 

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This is a photo of the second small colony I added to replace the one not doing too well, (the one I returned to the 100g), thinking of the "flow" possibility. My husband sent me this picture before lights out and the following morning there was a mass of brown jelly coming out of every head. It didn't make it. After the brown jelly incident, the red mushrooms shrunk, as can be seen in the second picture. Sorry about all the blue light in these. I've tested parameters again today and nothing has changed. I don't have the magnesium/alk or "pro" test kits, I was looking at them today $22 for API or $50 for the Red Sea version. Maybe the problem lies there? Maybe those parameters are off? I dunno... It's been a sad two weeks with the hammer incident. 

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My Hammer Coral Backstory

 

In 2014, a fellow reefer asked me to foster his corals because his tank had crashed. Amongst those corals was a hair algae filled tiny one head frag that was oozing its guts out. He said "I was fragging it and I cut it wrong. It's dying but if you save it you can keep it, it's a purple hammer." I enjoy a challenge and I love hammer corals so I was like ok sure, I'll save the little guy. I superglued the wall that was oozing out hammer guts and put it on a frag rack in a low light/low flow area. The pictures are in order of progression. I wish I had a picture of the mother colony before I fragged her. 

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Has anyone ever had issues introducing new corals into their established tanks with current corals doing fine and new corals not liking it and going downhill? What do you guys think is the cause of my Hammer dilemma? 

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