My light is the stock Fluval Evo Marine light suitable for corals.
I do feed that whole cube but I have started to feel it's a bit much, but I tend to thaw it all and not use it all.
I vacuum my sand and some times I stir it up before siphoning.
I got dry rock from Amazon in bulk and then let it cycle in my tank before adding anything.
I use the stock in tank filter (over flow/sump/unsure of what to call it) and it has coarse sponge, ceramic media, and carbon all tucked away into its own compartment. I have a power head with two separate heads, one pointed into the tank, one agitating the surface for good o2 exchange.
I think I'll maybe turn my lights off a hour or two earlier and possibly feed every other day? If not just feeding less than typical, I use about 70-80% of the cube unless it's a small cube.
What nobody mentioned is it would've been much better to leave your lights off during the cycling period. You shouldn't have added livestock until it was complete.
You should maybe also think about getting the inTank media basket for this tank. It forces the water through the media. You can get it at Marinedepot.com or from inTank themselves.
I have have 2 of the Evo 13.5 tanks that I use as quarantine tanks and have those baskets. They're even developing something for chamber 2 of the filter.
You definitely need a small powerhead in there, like the Koralia nano. It's cheap. You also want to use aragonite sand so it will keep your Ph up high enough. Maybe a 20 pound THOROUGHLY RINSED bag.
If you're doing a reset, it may be wise to scrub the rock clean, get a bottle of Microbacter-7 bacteria and put the rock in 5 gallons of heated saltwater in a bucket for a day to seed the rock with bacteria. Just do very small amounts of bacteria because it's a very small tank. Stir the bucket around every few hours if you don't have a small powerhead to do it.
That stock sponge is a piece of garbage imo. You will constantly have to rinse it because it'll trap detritus deep in it. You also don't need to razor the glass, you can just use a foam pad made for glass or cut up the sponge and use that if you get the inTank media basket. Then you can put filter floss in the 1st 2 chambers of the basket, carbon in the bottom and in the filters 2nd chamber add some Seachem Matrix for biological in a very porous bag.
I talked to the owner of inTank that makes the media baskets (I have one for both of my tanks and set one up in my niece's Fluval Spec-V tank I got her) and he said Fluvals stock filters are such crap in the all in one tanks that they keep him in business. Plus they make baskets for Biocubes and other tanks. They're not cheap, like $55 a basket, but worth it. Also with the stock sponge, there is no way for water to flow through any media. The stock system is just junk in the back, besides the return pump.
And the cyano will suck rite up off the sand, so you don't need to stir it. Just syphon it well.
There's many ways to accomplish getting the tank in order. Just remember that being you're using such a small tank, your parameters can change drastically in hours until it stabilizes. Even then, it's more work than a bigger tank because everything is so much more concentrated and you're dealing with species that are significantly more sensitive to those changes than freshwater. Honestly, it would be best if someone like a fish store or friend could hold your livestock while you reset your tank. Because they're adding more nutrients and waste than the good bacteria can handle.
so I just ditched it and put a book in it LOL
