New to the hobby Biocube 32

[Joshua Huff]

I am new to the hobby and decided to start small with the Coralife Biocube 32. I did jump into the hobby without really doing the research i normally do on a large purchase, but i sure have enjoyed the experience so far. I have made a few upgrades to the tank like a UV-filter and protein skimmer, I have more LED lights coming in this week to add. Check out my tank progression and let me know what you think, i am up for suggestions as well.

Fish:
2x Clown fish
1x diamond Goby
1x Coral Beauty Angelfish

1 Cleaner shrimp
6 turbo snails
2 blue leg hermits
1 Tiger Conk
1 Emerald Crab

First Week

 

[KJ]

Welcome to R2R!!! Looking good.

 

[Palyzoa]

Welcome to the hobby! I started with a biocube myself, great all in one tanks. Looks like a good start so far, whats that plastic object in your tank?

 

[Mikedawg]

I am new to the hobby and decided to start small with the Coralife Biocube 32. I did jump into the hobby without really doing the research i normally do on a large purchase, but i sure have enjoyed the experience so far. I have made a few upgrades to the tank like a UV-filter and protein skimmer, I have more LED lights coming in this week to add. Check out my tank progression and let me know what you think, i am up for suggestions as well.

Fish:
2x Clown fish
1x diamond Goby
1x Coral Beauty Angelfish

1 Cleaner shrimp
6 turbo snails
2 blue leg hermits
1 Tiger Conk
1 Emerald Crab

First Week

Welcome, you've got a good start and there are many very knowledgeable people her to help; btw, is that a pineapple sponge sitting in the sand in the lower left corner of your tank? lol

 

[Joshua Huff]

Welcome to the hobby! I started with a biocube myself, great all in one tanks. Looks like a good start so far, whats that plastic object in your tank?

That was my attempt at a DIY algae scrubber, but the bubbles caused to much water to splash onto the hood. The water would build up on the rim and leave salt build up on the outside, So i ditched that idea for now.

 

[Joshua Huff]

Welcome, you've got a good start and there are many very knowledgeable people her to help; btw, is that a pineapple sponge sitting in the sand in the lower left corner of your tank? lol

Thank you! Yea thats the Spongebob house, the fiance thought it was cute. lol

 

[Mikedawg]

Part of the fun is trying new things and revisiting old ones to get your tank just right for you.

 

[Joshua Huff]

Part of the fun is trying new things and revisiting old ones to get your tank just right for you.

I believe that, everything has been fun so far! I see how an addiction could start. I have a couple other projects planned like adding LEDs, building a better water change system, and installing a Reactor.

 

[Katrina71]

You are going to have a lot of fun!

 

[GatorScott]

First week? Did you cycle the tank and Test parameters?

 

[Joshua Huff]

First week? Did you cycle the tank and Test parameters?

No, like i said i got into the hobby without doing the proper research and had to learn the hard way. The guy at the LFS i first went to convinced me if i bought the water from his tank and used media from an established tank i would skip the cycle. I know that is not the correct way to do it now. I went about a month doing water changes almost daily to maintain the proper levels before my tank levels started to level off.

 

[Mombo]

Congrats on the new tank! I just started a new 29g Biocube

Will a new started tank like this be able to support 6 turbo snails? Maybe someone more experienced can comment on it but it might be worth keeping an eye on them. Ive read that if they die they can cause a large ammonia spike really since your tank is likely still cycling.

Also that Angel fish might get nippy with your coral. I dont think they are very reef safe.

Did you add any type of bottled bacteria to help with your cycle like BioSpira? Or just the LFS rock and water?

 

[Joshua Huff]

Congrats on the new tank! I just started a new 29g Biocube

Will a new started tank like this be able to support 6 turbo snails? Maybe someone more experienced can comment on it but it might be worth keeping an eye on them. Ive read that if they die they can cause a large ammonia spike really since your tank is likely still cycling.

Also that Angel fish might get nippy with your coral. I dont think they are very reef safe.

Did you add any type of bottled bacteria to help with your cycle like BioSpira? Or just the LFS rock and water?

The snails i have are not the large mexican turbo snails, mine are pretty small and seem to have plenty to eat. I believe my tank has finished its cycle at least as far as i know, I find many different opinions on the topic. My parameters have been stable for the past 2 months. My hermit crabs produced a lot of waste that built up on the sand bed."i don't recommend them" I added the Goby to keep the sand looking nice and clean and that seems to be working well.

I did use BioSpira, actually a whole bottle when i first setup the tank and i used 2 more over the month or 2 after by dosing with water changes.

I also read that the angelfish may or may not be reef safe however it was a fish i really looked forward to getting. So hopefully my corals and angelfish will have some kind of balanced relationship.

 

[Joshua Huff]

I should have added in my first post that my tank has been going for about 4 months now, I added my Coral Beauty Yesterday.

 

[Mombo]

Nice! Sorry I thought you were a month along. At 4 months I'm sure you are correct about your cycle being done. Atleast the beginning phase where the nitrifying bacteria are concerned. You're much further along then me! I'm almost at 1 month.

I saw one of the snails in your pic! I forgot that Astrea snails are turbo snails. Too many different names for everything in this hobby haha.

I decided to go the snail route as well. I read that hermits can be a pain with randomly going on killing sprees etc so I'm going to try it without them for now. Didn't think about the increased waste though. Yet another reason haha.

You could look into getting a couple nassarious snails. They will help stir your sand around as well as eat extra food when you have a bit too much in there. They have separate diets when compared to the turbos.

 

[Joshua Huff]

Nice! Sorry I thought you were a month along. At 4 months I'm sure you are correct about your cycle being done. Atleast the beginning phase where the nitrifying bacteria are concerned. You're much further along then me! I'm almost at 1 month.

I saw one of the snails in your pic! I forgot that Astrea snails are turbo snails. Too many different names for everything in this hobby haha.

I decided to go the snail route as well. I read that hermits can be a pain with randomly going on killing sprees etc so I'm going to try it without them for now. Didn't think about the increased waste though. Yet another reason haha.

You could look into getting a couple nassarious snails. They will help stir your sand around as well as eat extra food when you have a bit too much in there. They have separate diets when compared to the turbos.

Your right about the names, I still have so much to learn! I am trying to learn about coral also, I am not even 100% sure on the exact type of coral frags i have. I know i have a hammer coral, zoa, and some polips but i dont know about a couple of the others.

I have had one of the hermit crabs kill a snail and take his larger shell. The shrimp and fish ate the snail.

Right now my Diamond Goby does very well with keeping the sand stirred, he has also made a little pile of tiny rocks/coral pieces he likes in the corner.

 

[Mombo]

Ive seen them online but I bet a LFS would have them as well. You can get empty hermit shells of all sizes and add them to the tank. Everyone recommends that as it will keep them happy and they can change between them as they grow or get bored of the current one. Might save your astrea's as well.

 

[Joshua Huff]

Ive seen them online but I bet a LFS would have them as well. You can get empty hermit shells of all sizes and add them to the tank. Everyone recommends that as it will keep them happy and they can change between them as they grow or get bored of the current one. Might save your astrea's as well.

Good point I may look into that!

 

[Joshua Huff]

I have algae taking over!!

 

[Joshua Huff]

The algae take over posted above took place while i was traveling for work last week. My fiance sent me the photos to let me know something was happening. When i returned yesterday my tank was looking pretty nasty, but the coral and fish seemed to be perfectly fine. first thing i did was check all my parameters expecting my nitrates or phosphates to be way out, but nope everything looked great. So i went to researching algae control, and created a plan of attack. To start with i ran to the lfs to grab 5 more snails and 2 hermits. Then i adjusted my light timers to be on 7 hours less a day then they had been set to before. Next i re-adjusted protein skimmer (cheap coralife skimmer) to hopefully improve performance. Then i pulled the media basket and all of the media/carbon, I bagged the media into 3 separate mesh bags and rinsed it with fresh water. I placed the 3 bags at the bottom then i placed a bag of carbon and a bag of purigen on the next tray above. I cut 2 rectangular pieces of this sponge filter for the next tray above the carbon, and on top of that put the blue and white poly filter pads right at the beginning of the water flow. With all of these "improvements" the only new things i added were the purigen and the larger black sponge filters. Moving around the Matrix while pulling out all the stones by hand really stirred up a mess inside my tank (nasty grey water). Since the water was already so cloudy i went ahead and scrubbed the rocks with a stiff tooth brush, this removed a lot. The algae was pretty tough to get off, I read that you could just pull GHA off by hand, this algae i could not do that way.

If anyone has suggestions on better ways for me to do any of this please let me know!

I will try to get photos of my setup tonight when the lights are on.

Thanks for taking the time to read this!