want2bsleepy
Active Member
Our poor, sad biocube has struggled it's whole life of 2 years. It has gone through every thing, including a crash, but has never looked good. It currently is a hair algae haven. I feel like we have slightly given up on it; it looks the worst it ever has. We are really good with larger tanks, our current 125 reef is doing fabulous!
The biocube consists of two large picani rocks, live sand, two clowns, three red BTA's (they keep splitting!), a 6 line wrasse, a royal grama, a sand sifter starfish, a serpent starfish, pulsing xenia, green star polyps, a sad zoanthid colony, a small spinney oyster, and an assortment of snails and small hermits. Everything is super happy in there and growing, except for the zoanthids who live on the shell of the oyster because the are getting overshadowed and covered with hair algae. Lots of coralline algae as well.
We've tried adding a blenny to help, but he was bullied to death by the 6 line and royal grama. We've also started vodka dosing, but having seen a change yet. We'd like to add a protein skimmer, but the biocube is too small in the back for one. We don't use the lid and light that came with the tank, we use a Kessil LED.
After some plotting and planning we are going to try to re-boot the biocube without a total take down. Our plans are to remove one of the two main rocks, both are covered in hair algae, and put in some new tonga rock. After a few weeks we will remove the second algae covered rock and replace it with more new tonga. We'll clean up any other hair algae to try to start with none in the tank.
If anyone out there has had any luck turning a yucky biocube around I would love to hear your thoughts! The project starts tonight. Here are some awful pics of the current state of the tank.
The biocube consists of two large picani rocks, live sand, two clowns, three red BTA's (they keep splitting!), a 6 line wrasse, a royal grama, a sand sifter starfish, a serpent starfish, pulsing xenia, green star polyps, a sad zoanthid colony, a small spinney oyster, and an assortment of snails and small hermits. Everything is super happy in there and growing, except for the zoanthids who live on the shell of the oyster because the are getting overshadowed and covered with hair algae. Lots of coralline algae as well.
We've tried adding a blenny to help, but he was bullied to death by the 6 line and royal grama. We've also started vodka dosing, but having seen a change yet. We'd like to add a protein skimmer, but the biocube is too small in the back for one. We don't use the lid and light that came with the tank, we use a Kessil LED.
After some plotting and planning we are going to try to re-boot the biocube without a total take down. Our plans are to remove one of the two main rocks, both are covered in hair algae, and put in some new tonga rock. After a few weeks we will remove the second algae covered rock and replace it with more new tonga. We'll clean up any other hair algae to try to start with none in the tank.
If anyone out there has had any luck turning a yucky biocube around I would love to hear your thoughts! The project starts tonight. Here are some awful pics of the current state of the tank.
