Treenk’s 29g Biocube

[Treenk]

Hi everyone I’m Tyler (Go by Treenk). I’m super excited about the setup I bought. Although still clueless, on what half of it does. Let’s start with some pictures!

The tank is currently cycling vinegar water to help clean it out.

I have no idea what this light upgrade will support. I really like zoanthids, frogspawn/ anchor corals, and mushrooms I hope it supports it.

This is the sump it came with which after research it seems horribly designed. I plan to take out dividers and change it”I have another thread going with people trying to help me make a good one”. I also plan to drill the back out for the sump.

Yeah it came with a whole lot of extra mods. I’m not even sure what half of them are or if I’m going to use half of them.

 

[Peace River]

Tyler - thanks for starting a build thread! It is a good place to document your progress for others to see as well as for you to look back on as you put your tank together and then watch it mature. Good stuff!

 

[Colinadam80]

If it's not already drilled I would consider running it without the sump. Plenty of people have plenty of great results using the rear chambers for filtration, myself included. I've had these kind of tanks for the last 10 years and never used a sump

 

[Treenk]

If it's not already drilled I would consider running it without the sump. Plenty of people have plenty of great results using the rear chambers for filtration, myself included. I've had these kind of tanks for the last 10 years and never used a sump

What kind of upkeep do you have to do water change/filter cleaning and what do you keep on backside and is there a slimmer involved? Bc no way mine fits back there lol

 

[Colinadam80]

Yeah, no skimmer.
The first thing you want the water to hit is filter floss, you can buy it in sheets and cut to size. After that pouches of Chemipure and Purigen are common choices and need to be swapped out monthly. Those are the only 3 things I have ever used.

The quantity of live rock will also help and provides biological filtration, get as much in there as you can while also being happy with the look of the aquascape.

Weekly water changes, amount of your stocking can dictate how much water to change (more fish = more gallons per week) but changing 5g a week is reasonable.
Any ideas on livestock? You have lots of options.

Not sure what those lights can do but they are good enough to start with. Once you get hooked on this hobby you might get into other corals that need more light and you could always pop the top off and put another light over your tank, but then you have to worry about more evaporation and fish that may jump out and carpet surf so an acrylic top or mesh would be needed. Could DIY a top easily.

Here are some pictures of what I have done with the filtration method above.

My current 16g Biocube (which is going to be taken down and transferred to a new tank I am setting up soon).

Then is an older tank I had, this is when I popped the top and put a Metal Halide fixture over it, was a 28g Nanocube.

Then the oldest picture I could find, my old 32g Nanocube with the old compact fluorescent lights. You can see what the hobby does, I had that sucker loaded haha.

With all 3 the filtration methods above are the same. Filter floss, chemipure, purigen, water changes.

The only real advice I would give is that there is more than one way to prosper in this hobby. Hope that helps you a bit.

 

[Treenk]

Took me a couple months to get to setting it up but I'm finally cycling here is my process.

 

[Treenk]

First I decided to rebuild the sump I got, It was a poor design. This is the design I made.

This is after I got the old one and resealed

This is an old aquarium I bought for $10 to cut the glass to use for rebuild.

This is the cardboard version I made to make sure everything fit.

Halfway through the process of building it.

This is the final version it's not pretty but its effective.

 

[Treenk]

The next thing I did was drilled the back of the aquarium and plumbed it.

 

[Treenk]

After I got that all out of the way I bought 40 pounds of dry rock online. Which i really had clean it had so much dust in it from shipping I had to use an air compressor. Bought 30 pounds of sand washed really well and put it all in. Around a week later I bought an rodi system and finally got to fill my tank. I went to my LFS and they gave me a sheet of coraline algae and some chatea for the sump, they also gave me piece if one I'd their filters to help seed the tank. About 3 and a half months after starting and this is what it looks like now mid cycle.. sorry it's a little dirty.

 

[Treenk]

A little catch up.. I was putting fish food in to up the amonia but it wasnt working, so I bought straight ammonia.

I got the ammonia to 2ppm and nothing was lowering so I went to the lfs and bought this start up and they told me get a fish as well.

I had the one clown in for about 5 days and everything was cycling really fast so I went back to lfs and bought another clown and a duncan just to see how it did.

I ordered this live corraline online to see which would seed first the big purple piece I got or the pink from the bottle.

I started having problems with crabs dying off for a few weeks like one every few days but I believe they stopped at this point. The cause is still unknown to me. Almost 2 months in now and this green algae just keeps growing more and more and now I'm starting to see what I believe is a little pink corraline. Also a few dark brown looking spots.

Also I've been finding baby snails all over the place and some micro stars that must have hitchhiked as well.

 

[Treenk]

Mystery pink/red stuff in sump not sure if I should just take out sump and clean it's only 13g shouldn't be hard

There was a little in the skimmer cup and my 8 year old has been wanting to use his 30 dollar microscope so good time I figured. Turns out it's not good enough we had fun though and actually I also did a piece of chaeto and found a tiny pod to show him. Anyway here is a pick of that though it's not helpful

 

[Treenk]

Yay my SS was awesome merry christmas everyone!

40lbs base rock I'm going to try and chisel the big one to make a castle. A bottle of the purple coralline algae, reef roids, hold fast bonding, an electric ground for the water, a box of arm lenth gloves, coral plugs with a propagation kit, and a salifert test kit. I will be doing readings soon to see where I am. Yes that's a lot of stuff very generous thank you SS!

 

[Treenk]

One of my crabs kept aggravating my duncan frag so I made a little frag wrack for him

 

[Treenk]

I added this to the tank the other day forgot to add it here.

 

[Treenk]

New recruits, I believe a watermelon, purple monster, and fire and ice zoanthids.

 

[Treenk]

A few more recruits. A good size hammer coral head, a goniopora (which I didnt ask for or like), a frag of utter chaos zoa, what's suppose to he god of war (pretty sure it's a gobstopper), a what I think is vampire on drag( also suppose to be a different one), and plain looking blue colony ( which I dont like they were suppose to be rainbow incinerators) . Kind of got the old bait and switch but I still like a couple and only spent $100 not the end of the world.

 

[Treenk]

Yay just got in new lights right before new years. I did quite a bit of DIY first off I had a orbit marine in the hood which I took out along with everything else side from the fans.

Agger wards I cut 2.25" hole in the top of the slide and a small hole for the cord behind it.

I then put the cord of the ai prime in the small hole and ran it through the hood and out the back light the original cords.

And then I replaced the lid.

After that I used velcro to secure the the top the top of the lid and put it back on.

After that I had the current orbit with no use so why not make it in to refugium light the old one wasnt growing the chaeto, might as well give it a try.

I took the legs off of the old refugium light and super glued them into the right place on the orbit to fit my sump. Then I put the metal reflector on the top with some velcro to try and keep the light from spreading to the back chambers.

After that all I had to do was move the remote to the sump mount it on the door and put the light in place.

 

[Treenk]

After doing some research I decided on the david saxby preset for the ai prime. It isnt quite as good of colors as the high uv and violet one i chose first but i would rather my frags grow right now. I started the light at 5p% to acclimate for 21 days. All are doing well side from the vamp in drag, and the hammer. I'll watch them a few days they dont seem to be dieing or anything just a little unhappy with the change.
This is before the new light

This is with the new light

A huge difference

 

[Treenk]

So I've had every snail in my display and a star fish killed.

I tried this off and on for a few weeks.

Then I made this last night I just melted the bottom and pushed a small screw driver through it 4x each made kind of a funnel hole. Easy to get in harsh to get out.

And this morning I finally got him

 

[Treenk]

I may have a zoa frag problem.. just spent $70 on one head >< must stop..

1. Purple Monster
2. Utter Chaos
3. Vampires in Drag
4. Whammin Watermelon
5. Fire and ice
6. Tyree Space Monster
7. CB White Zombie
8. Fruit Loops
9. Rainbow Incenerator
10. CB God of War
11. Rhastas
12. CB Bowser
13. TGC Beauty and the Beast
I also have the nameless one to the left of the wrack. Sadly I also have a gobstopper that hasn't been open in a week too.