Cycling a new Biocube 32

brandon429 · Mar 28, 2020

How would you rate his tank based on current coral health, fish activity, algae balance, feeding and water change dedication, light cycle control, clean up crew balance, order of animals added, future predictions of how algae will manifest + planned actions for it

It seems we're well past any cycling concerns?

Did u read the first eight pages here am curious

Is your feedback based on another thread this tank was linked to, or this actual post

Daniel266jz · Mar 28, 2020

brandon429 said:
How would you rate his tank based on current coral health, fish activity, algae balance, feeding and water change dedication, light cycle control, clean up crew balance, order of animals added, future predictions of how algae will manifest + planned actions for it

It seems we're well past any cycling concerns?

Did u read the first eight pages here am curious

Is your feedback based on another thread this tank was linked to, or this actual post

Correct I did not mention any types of water tests or nor did I mention waiting for a cycle to end as the cycle is over

brandon429 · Mar 28, 2020

have posted this on so many threads I truly think responses based on flow in those threads is getting posted here as answers, but not based on the flow you are demonstrating here. Which is still great, even a passing glance plants a seed another reader will pick up to apply in their tank and feed back here

Defff21 · Mar 29, 2020

Quick update guys put my coral frags in yesterday and there nice and happy and open!

Daniel266jz · Mar 29, 2020

Defff21 said:
Quick update guys put my coral frags in yesterday and there nice and happy and open!

Hey,
Not to be mean but you think you can make your own build thread or thread for your tank? I’ve been updating this thread for a while and don’t want it to become overrun by another tank build, because I will be posting updates here

thanks for understanding.

Daniel266jz · Apr 6, 2020

Update- Finally bought a cleaner shrimp and I am waiting the arrival of my Steve’s led upgrade. Everything is doing well , so is my mandarin dragonet. I see two more heads growing on my blasto and 2 on my frogspawn. My Sunkist bounce is much bigger and so is my Neptune bounce. All the fish are looking good and chunky. I did notice a growth of spirobid worms around the tank. I still have the green algea covering my rocks I will see if I can scrub off or not so far I think it’s coralline. I also have brown sand again. Is this another diatom or Dino’s? I only see it on my sand. I plan on moving my corals at the bottom temporarily and using my si phone to clean the sand. Will this cause an ammonia spike? I don’t see the need to RIP clean just yet. I also have a weird growth on my blasto frag, think it’s also a spirobid worm.

Jenuvio · Apr 6, 2020

Looks good. How many months has it been up for now?
I would siphon the sand and keep a stable schedule, with a 10% water change weekly or biweekly depending on your numbers to keep everything consistent. That is one of the best things you can do in this hobby with out a doubt.

Just a tip on the mandarin, they need a stable amount of copepods which requires an established tank for that.
Try to take it slow. We all learn from our mistakes but it's just some reefer to reefer advise, wouldn't want you to loose any corals.

Thanks for the update

Enzodog · Apr 6, 2020

Just be careful with Steve’s lights, move all corals to sand, I have a biocube and upgraded with Steve’s a couple weeks ago and didn’t lower my corals, fried frogspawn, and burnt a couple of others in one day and that was at the 30% acclimation point. Restarted at 20% and have been moving up since. Surprising how much more light than stock.

Daniel266jz · Apr 6, 2020

Jenuvio said:
Looks good. How many months has it been up for now?
I would siphon the sand and keep a stable schedule, with a 10% water change weekly or biweekly depending on your numbers to keep everything consistent. That is one of the best things you can do in this hobby with out a doubt.

Just a tip on the mandarin, they need a stable amount of copepods which requires an established tank for that.
Try to take it slow. We all learn from our mistakes but it's just some reefer to reefer advise, wouldn't want you to loose any corals.

Thanks for the update

My tank is now 4.5 Months old. I cultivate my own Tisbe pods and add them weekly to my DT. I also threw in about (2) bottles of Tisbe Pods and (2) bottle of tigger pods in before i started cultivating, that and my mandarin picks up frozen brine from the sand that my other fish dont get. My dragonet is small but very active and always hunting and picking. Thank you for the tips! I do weekly 5 gallon water changes, i think thats more then the 10% of 28 gallons which is what i have in the tank lol.

Daniel266jz · Apr 6, 2020

Enzodog said:
Just be careful with Steve’s lights, move all corals to sand, I have a biocube and upgraded with Steve’s a couple weeks ago and didn’t lower my corals, fried frogspawn, and burnt a couple of others in one day and that was at the 30% acclimation point. Restarted at 20% and have been moving up since. Surprising how much more light than stock.

Thank you very much for the tip! I will move all of my corals down during the acclimation period. I do have some middle to low of the tank such as a rainbow bubble tip and a couple of rock anemones. Since i cannot move these down i trust they will move if it is too bright at 30%?

Daniel266jz · Apr 6, 2020

Update- Scraped the green algea on my rocks with my finger nail as hard as you can go with a finger nail so im pretty darn sure its coralline in its green stage, although i have a lot of pink spots around.

Daniel266jz · Apr 6, 2020

Daniel266jz said:
Update- Scraped the green algea on my rocks with my finger nail as hard as you can go with a finger nail so im pretty darn sure its coralline in its green stage, although i have a lot of pink spots around.

Sorry but update to that the algae did NOT come off lol

g_acosta_02 · Apr 6, 2020

John3 said:
Great advice coming from Brandon.

When you get to the sweet spot where your system is balanced it almost becomes easy. Then you’ll start wanting a bigger tank and you get to do the whole thing over again.

My 29g biocube, celebrating 4 years now.

Beautiful tank

brandon429 · Apr 6, 2020

great progress! 4K views n counting/nice

agreed spot removal of the light growths is fine, tank is cruising along perfectly.

Daniel266jz · Apr 10, 2020

Update- Just fed the corals and fish along with a 5 gallon water change and a good sand siphoning to get that algea out. Added more pods from my cultivation and you can actually see the new heads on my blasto now. Mandarin dragonet is doing good and getting chunky. I also saw two spots of Cyano ( slimy red algea on rocks with some air bubbles, this was also taken care of before I started my water change siphon. What I did is take my turkey Baster and blew off the Cyano as I was siphoning along with scraping it off the rock. Everyone is back in and happy! Steve’s LED upgrade should get here next week hopefully thanks to the set backs in shipping. I agin tested my green algea and it does not scrub off and hasn’t grown where my rock anemones are sitting on the rock so I’m pretty darn sure it’s coralline. I’ll post some update pics on the post below this one.

Daniel266jz · Apr 10, 2020

Pics

brandon429 · Apr 10, 2020

Yes excellent

those colors are deep healthy blue pics

coral flesh does not pull back from the edges

they flow over the edges of the skeletal area that holds the polyp this is positive nitrogen tissue mass building.
the closeup details of sandbed and corners of the tank do not show accumulations from letting waste sit there.

the fish should now be adapted to water changes as norm, not as insult, if you’ve kept up slightly more feed/exchange than the average joe

the corals growing seem to indicate this has occurred

glass doesnt have algae growth in the lower corners i could see. Not that it’s bad to have some, I do, it just means your circulating water isn’t chock full of waste or they’d be depositing there and darkening a little in the pics, that’s all laser clear. One hundred percent ideal maturation shown.

brandon429 · Apr 10, 2020

The light intensity is something new tankers often get wrong and blast the lights on, we like a bright looking reef

-grows algae very well even when params are good...your rock detail pics would have fuzzy algae if you were running too much white with intensity,

your rock details tell us about the lighting approach taken here. They’re extremely free of green hair algae

*if you have been linked to this thread to read about guiding new tank uglies take note on his light balance, how it looks in pics. Intensity levels, the hue

do you see how algae doesn’t line the rocks or the sand near the rocks

that was directly caused, he didn’t stumble upon the condition he made his tank accessible in case direct work was needed. Algae can be tuned by lighting control in amazing ways in dry start setups. Start with low intensity however you can attain it

work up slow, work back if algae fuzz forms.

heavy on the blues low on the whites has produced low algae work for you, and snails in place can actually do good as preventers, not removers of algae.