Bedside Biocube tank log

[BelieveInBlue]

So interesting news: according to this video and this this forum thread the new biocube's LEDs are actually pretty good. 200+ par ~6 inches from the top, assuming the numbers are correct, should be good enough for SPS. I ordered a couple Tunze magnetic frag rocks through my LFS, and got a frag rack in the mean time. I picked up a monti cap frag and a baby BIOTA mandarin, and have a bunch more beginner SPS coming tomorrow:

rainbow monti
forest fire monti digitata
teal birdsnest
birds of paradise birdsnest
pink rainbow pocillopora
purple stylo
branching cyphastrea
bali green slimer

Hopefully the biocube light is good enough for them. If not, I can always upgrade to Steve's LEDs.

She just went into the tank today and is already massacring my pod population, which I've spent the last month and a half cultivating. There's a massive number in there, and my LFS has bags of them if she murders the population too quickly. Plan is to let her fatten up and grow a bit before transitioning her to frozen/dried foods. Monti cap is ticked from handling/dipping. Oh well, it'll get over it. Probably. Hopefully.

Also glued a couple frags onto large rocks so that they have room to expand: an acan lord, a favia and a favites. Added another piece of marco rock as well to prepare for the cyphastrea. Will take a FTS tmr once everything's in.

 

[BelieveInBlue]

SPS arrived and were added to the tank yesterday. Most of them have already opened up, and look like they're doing well. The teal birdsnest is quite pale, but I knew that ahead of time and it was thrown in for free so why not.
FTS:

Couple of montis:

Branching cyphastrea:

The rest of the frags (monti digitata, bali green slimer,pink stylo, birds of paradise, teal birdsnest, pink pocillopora):

 

[BelieveInBlue]

SPS rack in blue light. Ordered another 1 off amazon so they aren't as crowded. Should arrive at the end of the week.

 

[BelieveInBlue]

Water change last night. Added another frag rack, moved some of the SPS and replaced the carbon cartridge. No growth so far, but the frags look like they're doing well. Also added a curtain to help block out sunlight. Some of the coral appear to be protesting.

Something I'm starting to notice though is that while the stock LEDs are strong enough to grow coral, the colour of the coral isn't nearly as vibrant as they are at the store, because the white light is overpowering and the blue light is severely underpowered. In fact, the only time I get to see the corals with good fluorescence is at night as the tank is winding down and the white lights turn off. However, after the white lights go out the corals start to retract because the blue light is very subdued and the coral take it as a signal to retract until morning.

I hate to admit it, but @TheRealAFISHionado was right. I do want my corals to pop. So with that said, I placed an order for Steve's LED lights. It's on sale so I figured if I was going to get it at some point anyways, I may as well get it now. The conversion rate hurts, but at least it's better than before...

New full tank shot, featuring a second frag rack:

 

[Brady4000]

Water change last night. Added another frag rack, moved some of the SPS and replaced the carbon cartridge. No growth so far, but the frags look like they're doing well. Also added a curtain to help block out sunlight. Some of the coral appear to be protesting.

Something I'm starting to notice though is that while the stock LEDs are strong enough to grow coral, the colour of the coral isn't nearly as vibrant as they are at the store, because the white light is overpowering and the blue light is severely underpowered. In fact, the only time I get to see the corals with good fluorescence is at night as the tank is winding down and the white lights turn off. However, after the white lights go out the corals start to retract because the blue light is very subdued and the coral take it as a signal to retract until morning.

I hate to admit it, but @TheRealAFISHionado was right. I do want my corals to pop. So with that said, I placed an order for Steve's LED lights. It's on sale so I figured if I was going to get it at some point anyways, I may as well get it now. The conversion rate hurts, but at least it's better than before...

New full tank shot, featuring a second frag rack:

Let me know how to like the Steve’s!!! It what I would do if I upgraded. What’s the sale? I’ll go look after this post.

 

[BelieveInBlue]

Let me know how to like the Steve’s!!! It what I would do if I upgraded. What’s the sale? I’ll go look after this post.

it's $50 off for the Biocube 32s. Pretty good, esp if you're in the US.

 

[BelieveInBlue]

update!

Steve's LEDs were shipped out yesterday, and should be arriving some time either this weekend or next week. Hoping for before Saturday so I can add it during my waterchange, but I doubt it.

Royal gramma finally arrived and was added to the tank yesterday. It was quarantined by the store which is why it took so long to arrive. Looks to be a female that's in the process of transitioning to male. It ate a bit of mysis last night and this morning. Here's a blurry picture from far away, because it still hides fairly often and runs away whenever i pull the phone out for a close picture. I soaked some pellets in mysis juice and will be trying to get it to eat flakes/pellets.

Also funnily enough, I noticed something under the zoas last night as the light was winding down; gave me a heart attack because I thought it might've been zoa eating spiders. Turns out they were munnid isopods: found a couple on the glass today. Harmless herbivores.

 

[BelieveInBlue]

New lights are officially in Canada! Should arrive monday or tuesday, hopefully. I ordered some heat absorbing blackout curtains to block out the sun, since my blinds do absolutely nothing for it atm. The corals are not happy about the sudden drop in light. The duncan has retreated into its skeleton in protest and the euphyllia are following suit. They should chill out once the new lights are installed.

Tested the water just in case, but nothing seems far out of the ordinary:
nitrates ~1-1.5
phosphates 0.12
Mg 1700 (always been high)
Ca 530
kH 9.5
salinity 1.0264

The gramma is doing well. Saw it eat some flakes yesterday. Also saw it bully the damsel just a bit for the best caves. How the turntables.

 

[BelieveInBlue]

Found a little flat worm on my glass today. People seem to agree that they're harmless, so I'll leave it be for now. I also have a springer's damsel and they're supposed to eat flatworms, so hopefully the little guy develops a taste for them.

Picture of the culprit just for reference:

Also found some stringy thing sticking out of one of my cowrie snails... Looks like parasitic round worms? Not sure if I should remove it. I know some worms use snails as an intermediate host before infecting their primary host, but my university courses didn't go THAT far into specifics so I've no idea which worms these are. In any case, the fish don't seem bothered at all so I'll leave it be for now.

Anybody able to ID this thing?

 

[BelieveInBlue]

update: LEDs have finally cleared customs after being held up for the last 3 days... Now I just need it to be shipped all the way from Toronto to the west coast. Hopefully it'll be here before the weekend.

 

[BelieveInBlue]

Still no lights... booooo.

Did a water change today after testing the water. nitrates are going down pretty steadily, currently sitting at around 0.25. Phosphates about 0.1. I might go from weekly water changes to every other week, if the nitrates continue to drop. I'm also going to start feeding more, which sounds weird to me because I was already feeding 3-5 times per day, but sure why not.

Also, I don't know why I thought it'd be any different, but I added 2 nerite snails last week, and now I've got eggs everywhere. Somehow I got the idea in my head that maybe the saltwater nerites wouldn't do that, or maybe the eggs would actually hatch or something... In any case, the nerites have been banished to the shadow realm, AKA the refugium. They can cover that area with all the eggs they want. And I see enough detritus that they shouldn't starve. I also feed the back compartments with algae wafers a couple times a week for the pods, so they can eat some of that as well.

 

[BelieveInBlue]

ok well they've finally arrived! Just finished installing them. Here's what it looks like under the hood.

Honestly, I'm extremely disappointed. It's probably because I'm in Canada, but I paid for priority 3-5 day shipping, and the lights took almost 2 weeks to arrive. Not their fault the courier was slow, but I blame them for using USPS; I've never had good experiences with them that I can remember.

Also, these fans are LOUD. Holy I hope it gets better because sleeping next to this thing is going to SUCK. Also even though the controller has the option to control the fans I can't seem to set it below 50%? And even when I do change the numbers I can't hear a difference. The instruction did note that this feature doesn't apply to all fans, so maybe I needed upgraded fans or something for it to work...?

Oh and the installation. The instructions say to drill a hole to accomodate a grommet that then needs to be sealed. Mine didn't have a grommet...

The wires were wrapped with black casing, and I tried to feel around to see if I could find one, but no such luck. Luckily, I found a way to put the wires through the old opening where the old fans used to be, since the instructions said that it wouldn't be needed.

It works, and the other side is still water tight since I didn't end up drilled anything, so no harm no foul I guess. I just wish I'd known ahead of time since I pestered my boss for a drill for a couple days. They also sent me the wrong screws it seems, since the instructions mentioned two different sizes of screws, but I received 6 screws that were all the same. Maybe they meant the old screws the biocube came with, because that's what I ended up having to use? Who knows. Not a big deal I guess.

I don't know if it's supposed to, but the fixture doesn't sit flush against the hood. The fixture is also pretty thick, which causes the two mounting brackets to not rest on the sockets where the screws go into. The brackets seem to be flexible though, so it wasn't an issue in the end; hopefully the shape doesn't cause the hood to warp or crack or something.

I'll have to see how the coral/fish do in a month or so. The controller is pretty easy to set up and use so that's nice, and the lights seem powerful enough. I set the white to about 20% and the blues to about 40%, since my corals did receive direct sunlight until I added the curtains.

Time will tell if this was worth it in the long run, but if you ask me, you should NOT buy this if you're CANADIAN. If you live in the US I'd say this is probably worth purchasing, since it'll arrive sooner, shipping won't cost so bloody much, and any missing parts should be pretty simple to fix.

Oh I almost forgot: here's a breakdown of what this whole thing cost me, in CAD:
Lights: $441 CAD
Shipping (USPS priority 3-5 day): $102 CAD
Taxes, Duties, Customs, etc: $62.94 CAD
TOTAL: $605.94CAD

Honestly if you're ok popping off the hood I'd just go with an AI Hydra or something + a DIY mesh lid and a tunze osmolator. Hell if budget is an issue get a Viparspectra or some other blackbox. Maybe photon v2s. It'd be much less of a hassle and probably about the same performance. Blergh.

Also dang IT I FINALLY GOT THE SICCE PUMP TO BE PRETTY MUCH SILENT AND NOW I HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE FAN. Good thing I'm a heavy sleeper. Funnily enough the fan bothers me more during the day than at night. Guess I'll just have to remember to have music on... End rant :mad:

 

[jskoms]

My fan is loud as well. I ended up plugging the lights into a smart plug witch cuts the power after the ramp down period and turns on rim the morning right before ramp up.

 

[BelieveInBlue]

My fan is loud as well. I ended up plugging the lights into a smart plug witch cuts the power after the ramp down period and turns on rim the morning right before ramp up.

Yea I'm thinking of getting a timer for it too. I'm going to give it a week or so and see if I can adjust to it. If not, then I'll go grab something to shut it off at night.

 

[BelieveInBlue]

Update!

Corals are responding positively to the new lights, so that's good. Even though set up and what not was a PITA I guess it was worth it in the end, though if I were to do it over I'd probably just remove the lid entirely.

I've decided to swap to a water change every 2 weeks for the time being, since I'm having difficulty keeping nitrates up for some reason, and there hasn't been any real need to do weekly water changes yet. I will still continue to test the water weekly, and adjust as needed.

 

[BelieveInBlue]

Nitrates STILL on the decline even though I have 6 fish and feed 5-6 times a day... Guess the answer is MORE food. Noticed my clowns hunting isopods today. Neat, but even with them picking off pods left and right there's still a massive amount of them everywhere. Mandarin's nice and fat.

Finally starting to consume calcium it seems. Makes sense since there's coralline everywhere and the SPS seem to be doing well. Will do a water change tomorrow instead of Saturday, since I plan to set up a new tank over the weekend.

Oh and candy cane finally split a new head. Nice

 

[BelieveInBlue]

Water change and algae scraping day! So much green coralline on the glass... Also somehow didn't notice this, but the sunset monti was bleaching under the upgraded LEDs, so I moved it to the back to let it recover. Also rearranged a few SPS frags as well.

Updated full tank shot:

Still need to raise the intensity a bit over the next month or so to get the looks I want. Specifically, I need that gold hammer colony to look gold and not green. Funny enough, that's the one colony that had better colours under the stock LEDs than they do currently, but I'm sure that'll change soon enough.

 

[BelieveInBlue]

Got hit with a pretty major bacterial bloom a few days ago... Haven't seen the royal gramma in a while either. I think he must have died somewhere, but I wasn't able to find it last night. I'm guessing that + the monti bleaching is the cause. Not sure if I want to grab a UV or just let it burn itself out. I'll see next week. Corals and fish don't seem to be affected so far, so I'll just stand pat for now.

 

[BelieveInBlue]

Well the bloom still hasn't cleared up, so I ordered a biocube UV sterilizer. Just finished installing it. Hopefully it clears up the water soon.

 

[BelieveInBlue]

Well the little UV sterilizer did the trick. Water is crystal clear now. Unfortunately, I think I waited too long to get it, and as a result ended up losing the damsel, the gramma, and the mandarin goby. Ugh. Costly lesson, in more ways than one. Going to let the tank rest and stabilize for a couple weeks and then figure out what to do with it.