First Tank - 16gal BioCube!

[Jedi1199]

Thank you, I really appreciate you telling me that! I had no idea lol. That’s part of the reason I didn’t wanna pull them out, is to preserve any good bacteria I have. Also, to prevent causing more issues than I already have. I have a lot of pests, my nitrates are high, and I don’t have a secondary tank. A LFS told me to nuke my tank but I don’t know if I trust that, since he also told me to KILL EVERYTHING in my tank, and to sell my fish & urchin. He literally told me to kill my GOOD animals… like the snails, hermits, coral, and to only save my fish and urchins life so I can sell them. Doesn’t sound right to me and is messed up to just kill them like they’re not living. They’re not hurting anything. The pests are a different story, though.

Shel,

I would never give you advice that I wasn't sure I could trust. The Rip-clean I did on my 32g worked flawlessly and eliminated ALL of the issues I had with that tank in one fell swoop. The bacterial bloom I had later was my own fault due to a situation I could not avoid.

Be aware, this is a process that will take a few hours. I advise that you clear your schedule for at least half a day for this.

You have been handed quite a challenge. Reef aquariums are the top level of aquarium keeping. Remember we are trying to replicate the OCEAN in a small glass box. As such, you have a small tank. Swings in water quality happen FAST in a small tank. For example, do you know how much your salinity will increase with evaporation of 1/2 gallon of water? (the water goes, the salt stays)... This is why the saying "Bigger is better and biggest is not enough" came to be. The larger the tank, the more stable it will be.

You can run your nano tank just fine if you do your homework, Just be aware that to keep it alive and successful will either take a lot of money or a lot of time.

If you decide to go with the rip-clean, (and I DO recommend this to get out all the garbage from the sandbed).. Simply get a new 5 gallon bucket, siphon off enough water to fill it. Be careful not to disturb the sand. Net out the fish and put them in the bucket with a wavemaker and your heater while you finish the project.

Snails are nearly unkillable. They will survive almost anything we throw at them. Just put them all in the bucket with the fish and urchin.. they will be just fine.\

When you are done with your rip-clean, treat your fish as new additions, bag them up in the old water, float and acclimate them as normal. and turn them loose. Snails and crabs, you can just dump in, no acclimation necessary.

 

[SaltyShel]

Thank you! I would love to get another clown but I have a white stripe maroon and they’re pretty territorial and aggressive so I think I’m going to have to get something else that won’t make him angry lol. I would like to get a wrasse or something a bit bigger than him. I did read with a maroon clown, you can add a clown for a pair but there has to be a significant size difference. I don’t have a spare tank so if there was a conflict I would be stuck having no where to move it to. I’m gonna get a second tank in the future with less aggressive fish lol

welcome! I used to have this tank. What kind of filtration are you running in the back? there are a few good modifications you can make. Personally, I would go ahead and do a water change to get those nitrates down and slowly bring that salinity up. As for fish, I wouldn't do more than 3. Maybe a clown pair and something that likes to hang at the bottom. keep us updated!

 

[SaltyShel]

Nice to meet you. I have the same tank and a biocube 32 running currently. If the dottyback you are missing was small there’s a good chance it’s hiding in your rocks if you haven’t taken them out or moved them to look. My 4” damsel gets lost sometimes in my 16. If you didn’t move the tank to look into the rear chambers from the back it’s possible he’s in the bottom of chamber 1. That stupid false floor keeps you from seeing all the way down if lookin from the top down.

That maroon clown is going to turn into a monster if it hasn’t already. They get really large as clownfish go and are one of the more agressive types. We had to give my dads away when it reached the size of a small bluegill and started harassing everything that came near its anemone. If you’re going to do more fish you’re going to have to get another clown and make it a small one. Like half the size of this one. If you stick with the maroons I would not do any other fish. The big females are the devil.

that urchin is super cool. For the aptasi, peppermint shrimp will eat them if all else fails. There’s also a nudibranch called a bergia nudibranch that only eats them if you can get any locally.

Thank you so much, I’ve been really stressed about this fish lol. I may end up getting a tank for JUST him and an anemone maybe? I don’t know how to tell if it’s a male or female, but I just call him a he. I thought about getting a peppermint shrimp, but I haven’t yet. Also, I didn’t know about the false floor in the chambers!!! I didn’t look under it. How do I move it???

 

[SaltyShel]

Your Rock looks great to me. Coralline starting. You could remove that very top rock, it has the most Aiptaisia on it. Also looks like it’s about to fall unless it’s glued?
That’s a good looking urchin too!
I highly doubt you have any strange gasses building up anywhere since your tank has been moved recently!

Maroon clowns can get aggressive, I agree!

Thank you, I have been worried about this rock. It definitely is not stable lol but it’s kind of leaning against the back wall. I am definitely not against taking it out, but there’s aiptasia on the big bottom rock too :/
As far as the gasses go, I didn’t think about that. However, I noticed these bubble looking things under my sand, maybe you or someone else can identify it!!

 

[SaltyShel]

The preferred method in the Rip-clean is to do it in clean salt water, if I understand correctly. Perhaps @brandon429 can chime in here if I am mistaken. When I started that process, I had not intended a project of that scope, so I did not worry about some lost bacteria. That said, The rocks were cleaned and scrubbed under HOT running tap water, and were not put into the "soak" for at least a couple hours. If you see the link to the thread to Amalee's Rip clean, She did a LOT worse to her rocks than a good scrub under tap water, or a soak in RO.

My point is, established bacterial colonies are a LOT harder to kill off than most people believe. Part of what Brandon is trying to teach us all is that very fact. He is a far more experienced reefer than I and is basically the forum expert on all things "Cycle". If he says: "pour 7 cups of bleach, 2 cups of gasoline and do the hokey pokey and turn yourself around" I would believe him.. lol





Thank you for the compliment. The reason I had to repeat the process is a combination of 1. I didn't get the rocks as clean as I should have. And, 2. I had a major event in the family that took me out of my normal maintenance routine. If you refer back to my thread and the picture of the bucket where the rocks were soaked you can see how cloudy and dirty that water is.. That is exactly the stuff that a rip-clean is supposed to eliminate. The very fact that THAT much dust and dirt came off while just sitting in a bucket tells me that I didn't get them as clean as I thought or SHOULD have gotten them.

For the record, the rocks on the 2nd go around got an even rougher treatment. I dropped them all in a bucket, sorted out the pieces I wanted to keep, cleaned them and left them dry on the counter until I drained and cleaned the tank and finished rinsing the sand (which had sat in a bucket of hose water for 2 weeks) and replacing it.

Thank you for the response, it makes sense that the bacteria aren’t easily removed. i actually have a bigger issue than the aiptasia. So I’ll go ahead and give you the run down lol since I’ve already explained the background on my tank and the lack of cleanliness.
So, I went to my LFS today and talked to the guy there about all my pests. He told me to sell my fish & urchin then nuke the tank. He wants me to literally KILL everything in my tank - my turbo snails, red hermit crabs, and mushroom coral. Obviously I said no!! After my decline, he said to put the fish, urchin, snails, and hermits in a new tank that I would have to buy, and to not worry about the heater because they don’t need it. Mind you, my apartment is pretty cold so they would be going from a warm tank (idk the temp) into a tank of roughly 72 °F water. Not to mention, my tanks salinity is 1.019, the new water would be 1.025 so there’s that. The LFS told me once I pull everything from my tank, to rinse everything off with RO DI water and then just put them basically into the new tank (but he said I could put my clownfish in a ziploc bag and shake it up, which sounds pretty damaging to the fish). He said after moving everything, to nuke the tank and put like 5-6 cups of bleach in it, let it run, and then add vinegar to the tank, let it run, then dump it and start over all new after cleaning it. Now to be honest, that sounds pretty rough. I’m gonna have to literally start over and I don’t know how. I also feel like nuking it may not be the best idea because at some point, I’m gonna have pests or other unwanted issues no matter what I do. I have to learn to handle it. I can’t nuke my tank every time I have a problem.
I showed the guy at my LFS pics and videos of all the weird things in my tank, and as far as what he said, I have aiptasia (confirmed), flat worms, pyramid snails, Vermited (?) snails, mantis shrimp, and spaghetti worms. This combined is why he said nuke it…
I was on a Facebook reef group page today and saw a video of these long things in the water and someone identified it as spaghetti worms. But, they DO NOT look anywhere close to the “spaghetti worms” I have in my tank. So I’m not sure what they really are. Anyway, if you Or anyone else who read this has an idea or suggestion, advice, anything - it’s welcome!!!

 

[SaltyShel]

It doesn’t seem harmful when white rock setups use the method Ive seen it used more than once.


certainly wouldn’t run it on cured rocks or ocean cultured ones like kp aquatics

typically on normal live rock it’s better to use a knife tip to precision remove unwanteds as the rock sits on the counter

rinse off in tap water

Hey thanks so much. I actually don’t know where the rocks come from, but I think they may have come from the beach. I think the lady who previously owned this tank took a bunch of beach sand, rock, maybe even water, and just threw it in the tank. But Im not positive. If I just rinse the rock in tap water, will it kill everything? Or just the bad stuff?

 

[SaltyShel]

Shel,

I would never give you advice that I wasn't sure I could trust. The Rip-clean I did on my 32g worked flawlessly and eliminated ALL of the issues I had with that tank in one fell swoop. The bacterial bloom I had later was my own fault due to a situation I could not avoid.

Be aware, this is a process that will take a few hours. I advise that you clear your schedule for at least half a day for this.

You have been handed quite a challenge. Reef aquariums are the top level of aquarium keeping. Remember we are trying to replicate the OCEAN in a small glass box. As such, you have a small tank. Swings in water quality happen FAST in a small tank. For example, do you know how much your salinity will increase with evaporation of 1/2 gallon of water? (the water goes, the salt stays)... This is why the saying "Bigger is better and biggest is not enough" came to be. The larger the tank, the more stable it will be.

You can run your nano tank just fine if you do your homework, Just be aware that to keep it alive and successful will either take a lot of money or a lot of time.

If you decide to go with the rip-clean, (and I DO recommend this to get out all the garbage from the sandbed).. Simply get a new 5 gallon bucket, siphon off enough water to fill it. Be careful not to disturb the sand. Net out the fish and put them in the bucket with a wavemaker and your heater while you finish the project.

Snails are nearly unkillable. They will survive almost anything we throw at them. Just put them all in the bucket with the fish and urchin.. they will be just fine.\

When you are done with your rip-clean, treat your fish as new additions, bag them up in the old water, float and acclimate them as normal. and turn them loose. Snails and crabs, you can just dump in, no acclimation necessary.

Wow THANK YOU!! This is exactly what I needed. If I don’t disturb the sand, how will I get all the bad stuff out? The worms, mantis shrimp, and pyramid snails? Everything else is on the rocks (aiptasia) and the glass (flat worms). I’m wondering if maybe I hadn’t mentioned the snails, shrimp, and worms yet when you wrote this, or maybe I did. But Im starting to consider just getting a new tank all together and selling this one… but then again I don’t know if that would cost more or be harder to do. I’m really stuck, I’m really conflicted, and I wish I had a friend nearby that could come help me. I can’t ask anyone in person because I either get brushed off, told nothing is wrong with the tank (which there is), or I’m told to literally kill everything in there which to me is extremely unreasonable and mean. :/

 

[Jedi1199]

Thank you for the response, it makes sense that the bacteria aren’t easily removed. i actually have a bigger issue than the aiptasia. So I’ll go ahead and give you the run down lol since I’ve already explained the background on my tank and the lack of cleanliness.
So, I went to my LFS today and talked to the guy there about all my pests. He told me to sell my fish & urchin then nuke the tank. He wants me to literally KILL everything in my tank - my turbo snails, red hermit crabs, and mushroom coral. Obviously I said no!! After my decline, he said to put the fish, urchin, snails, and hermits in a new tank that I would have to buy, and to not worry about the heater because they don’t need it. Mind you, my apartment is pretty cold so they would be going from a warm tank (idk the temp) into a tank of roughly 72 °F water. Not to mention, my tanks salinity is 1.019, the new water would be 1.025 so there’s that. The LFS told me once I pull everything from my tank, to rinse everything off with RO DI water and then just put them basically into the new tank (but he said I could put my clownfish in a ziploc bag and shake it up, which sounds pretty damaging to the fish). He said after moving everything, to nuke the tank and put like 5-6 cups of bleach in it, let it run, and then add vinegar to the tank, let it run, then dump it and start over all new after cleaning it. Now to be honest, that sounds pretty rough. I’m gonna have to literally start over and I don’t know how. I also feel like nuking it may not be the best idea because at some point, I’m gonna have pests or other unwanted issues no matter what I do. I have to learn to handle it. I can’t nuke my tank every time I have a problem.
I showed the guy at my LFS pics and videos of all the weird things in my tank, and as far as what he said, I have aiptasia (confirmed), flat worms, pyramid snails, Vermited (?) snails, mantis shrimp, and spaghetti worms. This combined is why he said nuke it…
I was on a Facebook reef group page today and saw a video of these long things in the water and someone identified it as spaghetti worms. But, they DO NOT look anywhere close to the “spaghetti worms” I have in my tank. So I’m not sure what they really are. Anyway, if you Or anyone else who read this has an idea or suggestion, advice, anything - it’s welcome!!!

Tell your LFS guy to go suck a reef. He has no clue what he's talking about!

Follow my advice in my last post. put all the living things you want to keep in a clean bucket along with heater, a powerhead or wavemaker or whatever you have and then tear that tank down to bare glass. Do NOT use bleach or any other harsh chemicals (or mild ones).. elbow grease and time is all you need. Scrub those rocks as clean as you can get them and then pop them in a bucket of fresh made salt water. Rinse that sand with a hose till you think its clean, then rinse it 100 times more. Give it an extra 20 or so rinses with CLEAN RODI water. Once you have the entire tank cleaned out. And I mean the ENTIRE tank.. every single crevice.. anywhere that bad stuff can hide, put it al back together. Sand, rocks, pumps, NEW CLEAN water and as I said, treat the fish as new purchases, acclimate them as you would any new addition.

You tank will skip-cycle and you will have a beautiful pest free tank in a few hours.

Please keep us posted and document every step if you do this. The information will be invaluable to future members with similar issues.

Edit: By treat the fish as new purchases, I mean this: put them in a bag (I save the bags I get when I buy fish from the LFS) and float them in the clean tank with the water from the holding bucket. I use a turkey baster and drop in about 1/4 cup or so of tank water every 5 or 6 minutes. Never had acclimation problems with this. Make sure no old water goes into the cleaned out tank and you should be golden.

 

[SaltyShel]

Tell your LFS guy to go suck a reef. He has no clue what he's talking about!

Follow my advice in my last post. put all the living things you want to keep in a clean bucket along with heater, a powerhead or wavemaker or whatever you have and then tear that tank down to bare glass. Do NOT use bleach or any other harsh chemicals (or mild ones).. elbow grease and time is all you need. Scrub those rocks as clean as you can get them and then pop them in a bucket of fresh made salt water. Rinse that sand with a hose till you think its clean, then rinse it 100 times more. Give it an extra 20 or so rinses with CLEAN RODI water. Once you have the entire tank cleaned out. And I mean the ENTIRE tank.. every single crevice.. anywhere that bad stuff can hide, put it al back together. Sand, rocks, pumps, NEW CLEAN water and as I said, treat the fish as new purchases, acclimate them as you would any new addition.

You tank will skip-cycle and you will have a beautiful pest free tank in a few hours.

Please keep us posted and document every step if you do this. The information will be invaluable to future members with similar issues.

Edit: By treat the fish as new purchases, I mean this: put them in a bag (I save the bags I get when I buy fish from the LFS) and float them in the clean tank with the water from the holding bucket. I use a turkey baster and drop in about 1/4 cup or so of tank water every 5 or 6 minutes. Never had acclimation problems with this. Make sure no old water goes into the cleaned out tank and you should be golden.

Oh my goodness thank you. I can’t even describe how grateful I am that you just told me all this. I knew I shouldn’t have listened to him lol. When he said to kill everything and bleach it, I was like “uh okay, I’ll get right on that. see you later, bye” and got back in my car and thought “I need a second opinion” lol. That just didn’t sound right. He has a fish store but hates fish, doesn’t have any at home, and told me there’s no difference in “one life over another”. In my opinion, that’s like saying “my dog has fleas, let me euthanize it and get a new one” like WHAT. So I’m going to definitely start on this project as soon as I get off work tomorrow, as long as I can get the rip-clean stuff tomorrow.
But, if I may ask, why would the tank “skip-cycle”? What does that even mean? Would I not have to run it to get the ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate, bacteria, etc. back in a normal range?

 

[Jedi1199]

Oh my goodness thank you. I can’t even describe how grateful I am that you just told me all this. I knew I shouldn’t have listened to him lol. When he said to kill everything and bleach it, I was like “uh okay, I’ll get right on that. see you later, bye” and got back in my car and thought “I need a second. opinion” lol. That just didn’t sound right. He has a fish store but hates fish, doesn’t have any at home, and told me there’s no difference in “one life over another”. In my opinion, that’s like saying “my dog has fleas, let me euthanize it and get a new one” like WHAT. So I’m going to definitely start on this project as soon as I get off work tomorrow, as long as I can get the rip-clean stuff tomorrow.
But, if I may ask, why would the tank “skip-cycle”? What does that even mean? Would I not have to run it to get the ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate, bacteria, etc. back in a normal range?

The tank will skip-cycle, because all of your cycling bacteria are held in the microscopic pores of the rocks themselves. A good scrub will not remove them. In fact, and this is again, firsthand experience, open up more of that surface area to allow those bacterial colonies to do their job.

This is more Brandon's field than mine. Cycling science is his gig. I've read enough of his posts to trust him.

As I understand the science, The sandbed has very little benefit to the cycle overall. The water column hold some free floating bacteria, but not much. It is the ROCKS that are the golden ring!! As I said before.. A good scrub with a hard bristle brush.. clean off all the algae you can and any other beasties like your aptasia and then drop them in a bucket of SW. Rip-clean that tank and put it all back together.

 

[Jedi1199]

Shel,

I have a "Skunk cleaner shrimp" in that 32g tank.. He is the canary in the mine. he is the most delicate species in that tank. He has survived not just one, but TWO rip-cleans inside of 3 weeks. No added anything.. I did exactly what I described to you (only I used a 20g trash can instead of a 5g bucket) No bottles of bacteria, no nothing.. old water and new water.. I didn't even bother to acclimate him.. simply pulled him out of the holding can and dropped directly into the display tank or DT (you will see that acronym commonly here.. DT= display tank)

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

Thank you so much, I’ve been really stressed about this fish lol. I may end up getting a tank for JUST him and an anemone maybe? I don’t know how to tell if it’s a male or female, but I just call him a he. I thought about getting a peppermint shrimp, but I haven’t yet. Also, I didn’t know about the false floor in the chambers!!! I didn’t look under it. How do I move it???

Do you won’t be able to look “under” the false floor in chamber 1. You have to remove it first. I’d rip the thing out if it were me. I stopped using biocube brand filters and the false floor is only there for them. It’s in the first chamber of the back of the tank. I got mine out by bending a clothes hanger and pulling it upwards. If he fits in the slots for the filter it’s likely he could be trapped down there if you can’t find him

 

[SaltyShel]

The tank will skip-cycle, because all of your cycling bacteria are held in the microscopic pores of the rocks themselves. A good scrub will not remove them. In fact, and this is again, firsthand experience, open up more of that surface area to allow those bacterial colonies to do their job.

This is more Brandon's field than mine. Cycling science is his gig. I've read enough of his posts to trust him.

As I understand the science, The sandbed has very little benefit to the cycle overall. The water column hold some free floating bacteria, but not much. It is the ROCKS that are the golden ring!! As I said before.. A good scrub with a hard bristle brush.. clean off all the algae you can and any other beasties like your aptasia and then drop them in a bucket of SW. Rip-clean that tank and put it all back together.

This is much easier of a process than what that LFS guy said. He literally made me question people who own fish stores lol. That does make sense though, and I’ll read through some of Brandon’s posts. I saw you tagged him earlier. I will certainly do what you suggested and post my process! Is there a special rip clean I need, or how much should I buy?

 

[SaltyShel]

Shel,

I have a "Skunk cleaner shrimp" in that 32g tank.. He is the canary in the mine. he is the most delicate species in that tank. He has survived not just one, but TWO rip-cleans inside of 3 weeks. No added anything.. I did exactly what I described to you (only I used a 20g trash can instead of a 5g bucket) No bottles of bacteria, no nothing.. old water and new water.. I didn't even bother to acclimate him.. simply pulled him out of the holding can and dropped directly into the display tank or DT (you will see that acronym commonly here.. DT= display tank)

Oh wow I had no idea shrimp and other inverts were so hardy. That’s awesome because I would be super sad if I killed my animals while learning how to keep a tank lol. I know it’s bound to happen, but I would prefer it not to lol. Thank you so much for all your help, I’m really happy you found my post and that so many others found my post and have given me such great info.

 

[SaltyShel]

Do you won’t be able to look “under” the false floor in chamber 1. You have to remove it first. I’d rip the thing out if it were me. I stopped using biocube brand filters and the false floor is only there for them. It’s in the first chamber of the back of the tank. I got mine out by bending a clothes hanger and pulling it upwards. If he fits in the slots for the filter it’s likely he could be trapped down there if you can’t find him

Oh okay, gotcha. I didn’t know it was there until you said something. Is it possible it’s not there, if I have a heater in the chamber? And which one is the “first chamber”? I have one on the same side as that return spout, the middle for my filters, and the other side of it where it’s just an empty hole but my heater is in that one.

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

Oh wow I had no idea shrimp and other inverts were so hardy. That’s awesome because I would be super sad if I killed my animals while learning how to keep a tank lol. I know it’s bound to happen, but I would prefer it not to lol. Thank you so much for all your help, I’m really happy you found my post and that so many others found my post and have given me such great info.

I bought my biocube 16 used. It had been sitting in my LFS for a month no power no lights. I found a zebra hermit in the back that was still alive and now he lives in my 32 gallon biocube. He’s my favorite crab

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

Oh okay, gotcha. I didn’t know it was there until you said something. Is it possible it’s not there, if I have a heater in the chamber? And which one is the “first chamber”? I have one on the same side as that return spout, the middle for my filters, and the other side of it where it’s just an empty hole but my heater is in that one.

The empty hole where your heater is is chamber 1. It has a false floor. It feels much more shallow than it really is. It goes all the way down to the bottom of the tank. It’s possible it’s not there anymore if your tank was used. To my knowledge all the new ones come with it. My heater is in the chamber with my pump.

 

[SaltyShel]

I bought my biocube 16 used. It had been sitting in my LFS for a month no power no lights. I found a zebra hermit in the back that was still alive and now he lives in my 32 gallon biocube. He’s my favorite crab

Oh dang, how did he live in there with nothing? I guess they’re more hardy than I thought!!

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

Oh dang, how did he live in there with nothing? I guess they’re more hardy than I thought!!

I guess there was junk back there he could snack on. No idea how he lived without heat but he was just fine.

 

[SaltyShel]

The empty hole where your heater is is chamber 1. It has a false floor. It feels much more shallow than it really is. It goes all the way down to the bottom of the tank. It’s possible it’s not there anymore if your tank was used. To my knowledge all the new ones come with it. My heater is in the chamber with my pump.

Oh I got it, I looked and I do see the false floor. I kind of shined my flashlight in there but didn’t see anyone swimming around. Just some sand, I guess. It looks more grey than sand though