Biocube 32 Tank Journal

Chevyguy8893 · Dec 17, 2017

I picked up this Biocube 32 last month as a slight upgrade over my previous 20 long. Life got in the way and the 20 long fell to the wayside. It was turned over to a FOWLR tank and someone else took care of the tank after I moved into my first house. Between the new job and being a first time home buyer, there was not any spare time. Fast forward to last month when I came across a nice black Friday deal on the tank and stand that would work well at the new place.

So, I got everything setup with new substrate and all new water before tearing down the other tank and moving the rock and inhabitants. Since then everything has transitioned well into the new tank. More will come with time, but it is nice to enjoy as is since I haven't had an aquarium at home for a while.

Equipment:
- Biocube 32 LED (stock lighting and pump will remain for a little while)
- Hydor Koralia Nano 240 and 425 (the 425 will likely be switched to a Aqamai KPS)
- Innovative Marine Spin Stream
- Eheim Jager 125W heater
- Innovative Marine ChaetoMax

Filtration:
- Thick blue bonded filter floss
- ChemiPure Elite
- Seachem Purigen
- Chaetomorpha spp.

Other:
- CaribSea reef sand (natural or special grade, can't remember off-hand)
- Approximately 30 lbs. of well established live rock from my old tank
- Fritz R.P.M. salt

Biocube 32 Tank and Stand by Adam B., on Flickr

The tank from today after a water change

12/17/2017 FTS by Adam B., on Flickr

Yellow assessor basslet (Assessor flavissimus) by Adam B., on Flickr

Clownfish by Adam B., on Flickr

Pincushion Urchin by Adam B., on Flickr

During today's water change, I pulled this eunicid worm from the tank that has gone unnoticed for a long time. Moved some rock around and this was just hanging out underneath. It is approximately 6" long.

Eunicid worm by Adam B., on Flickr

jsker · Dec 17, 2017

Following along for the Ride

Krzydmnd · Dec 17, 2017

Sweet setup!

I've been running a 32 biocube for about 5 months now and have done a ton of research on best ways to run it. Feel free PM me if you have any questions! Be happy to tell you what has worked and not worked for me.

Chevyguy8893 · Dec 18, 2017

jsker said:
Following along for the Ride

Hopefully there will be something interesting with this tank at some point!

Krzydmnd said:
Sweet setup!

I've been running a 32 biocube for about 5 months now and have done a ton of research on best ways to run it. Feel free PM me if you have any questions! Be happy to tell you what has worked and not worked for me.

Thanks! I've been researching a lot too, and many tank threads to get where I am now and plan for the future. I appreciate the offer. Is there anything that stands out that you would change based on your experience with the tank? By the way, your tank looks great!

Krzydmnd · Dec 18, 2017

Chevyguy8893 said:
Hopefully there will be something interesting with this tank at some point!

Thanks! I've been researching a lot too, and many tank threads to get where I am now and plan for the future. I appreciate the offer. Is there anything that stands out that you would change based on your experience with the tank? By the way, your tank looks great!

The best thing by far I've done for the tank is Steve's led upgrade. Expensive, I know, but we'll worth it if you want to go the sps route let alone how much better it makes the tank look over stock. Power head or two are also pretty much necessary for corals but those can be had inexpensive. I do have the mp10 which is awesome and I noticed a healthy difference with my livestock with it, but it's not as important IMO as a lighting upgrade.

I have a new media rack and higher flow pump but those are just nice upgrades, not what I would consider essential.

Chevyguy8893 · Dec 18, 2017

Krzydmnd said:
The best thing by far I've done for the tank is Steve's led upgrade. Expensive, I know, but we'll worth it if you want to go the sps route let alone how much better it makes the tank look over stock. Power head or two are also pretty much necessary for corals but those can be had inexpensive. I do have the mp10 which is awesome and I noticed a healthy difference with my livestock with it, but it's not as important IMO as a lighting upgrade.

I have a new media rack and higher flow pump but those are just nice upgrades, not what I would consider essential.

That's what I've been considering as the next major upgrade, but I have more to consider between Steve's and Nanobox. That won't be happening anytime soon anyway. At some point I do want to give SPS a try though.

After seeing that the standard media rack is a bit inefficient in direct the water through the media, it will be getting switched over to the inTank media rack. It seems like the tank is pretty decent for getting started, and it is nice there is a decent amount of upgrades for the tank as it progresses.

Chevyguy8893 · Dec 23, 2017

There's not much to update other than the algae growth has been slowly subsiding each week. I have been manually removing as much algae as possible prior to each water change so it is removed from the system. Much to my surprise, I still seem to have possible snapping shrimp in the same rock that I got a few years ago. I've never seen it, but can clearly hear it.

As well, a number of other hitchhikers from when I started my previous tank still exist. It seems that the previous unintended tank neglect didn't get rid of the purple clove polyps, which are beginning to reappear. The soft coral I added a couple weeks ago (Nepthea or Sinularia) seems to be getting accustomed to the tank. It snapped at the base and partway up at some point after buying it and getting it home, so that couldn't have helped much.

I am also playing with a light schedule that runs the moonlights for 14 hours, 10 hours for the beauty max LED's, and 8 hours for the daylight LED's. All LED's are on for the 8 hours.

I've played with the camera settings a bit to try to make the colors a bit more realistic, but that didn't work for the coral (which is a bit greener than the photo makes it out to be).

12/23/17 FTS by Adam B., on Flickr

DSC_1056 by Adam B., on Flickr

Purple Clove Polyps by Adam B., on Flickr

DSC_1104 by Adam B., on Flickr

DSC_1107 by Adam B., on Flickr

Chevyguy8893 · Jan 4, 2018

I ended up removing the Koralia 425 since the flow was a bit too much. I'm now thinking of adding a Tunze nanostream 6040. It seems like a pretty good option for the tank size.

A few other changes are the addition of a Hector's goby (Koumansetta hectori), and a rock flower anemone (Phymanthus crucifer). As well, I added another rock to the upper right to complete what I was going for in terms of the layout. Overall, it seems to work from the angles the tank is normally viewed from. I was finally able to get some trochus snails locally, so I added a few of them and some hermit crabs.

There's been one downfall so far. The Chaetomorpha grew for the first couple of weeks (even thinned it once, and normally rotated it weekly), then it went into decline. I removed the dead material and was left with a golfball sized amount that I am hoping will grow. Some of the other less than healthy remains were placed in a clear container and put under artificial grow lights with my carnivorous plants. Hopefully something will work so I can keep it going.

1/4/2018 FTS by Adam B., on Flickr

This is close to how the tank is normally viewed.

DSC_1359 by Adam B., on Flickr

Hector's goby (Koumansetta hectori) by Adam B., on Flickr

Photo taken with all LED channels on

Rock flower anemone (Phymanthus crucifer) by Adam B., on Flickr

The following two photos are with the moonlight and color enhancing channels only.

Rock flower anemone (Phymanthus crucifer) by Adam B., on Flickr

Chevyguy8893 · Dec 31, 2019

It has been quite a while since I updated this, and a lot has changed in more recent times. To make things short, the tank is topless (switched over to a top from octo aquatics), lighting was changed out, protein skimmer added, the filtration was switched to an InTank media basket, a gyre replace the old powerheads, and the entire layout changed and then changed again (yesterday). There were problems that caused me to change things to get everything back on track. I've only since started adding more corals while making sure nothing gets out of hand. I will certainly be doing more as I am able to. The layout in the photo isn't entirely complete since I need some epoxy to keep the rocks from being knocked over by the pincushin urchin bulldozer.