New salty 29g biocube

[Bleigh]

Captive bred clowns should never have "Brook". Either it was something else, or they got infected by the holding sytem at the LFS. Maybe find a new LFS or QT the fish if you have to buy from them. But yeah, captive bred saltwater fish *should* be disease free. If you order captive bred ORA clown fish online from live aquaria, they will be shipped directly from the ORA breeding facility and free of disease and not needing a QT at all.

I got both from different stores. I suspect the smaller store was the issue. My son really liked the fish though, cause it looked like it had bullet holes. I should have trusted my instinct and just bought from the more helpful store. They were a little pricier, but sometimes quality costs more. Lesson learned.

 

[Bleigh]

Welcome to R2R fellow Carolinian!

Your tank looks great.

Thank you! I am enjoying it a lot!

 

[TexasTodd]

Yes, probably better to upgrade tanks than upgrade lights in a BC.
Someone on here may know. I don't know the PAR between old PC and new LED BioCube with stock lights, but my old PC version did fine and grew a Derasa very well. Had it center mid way up rocks. Eventually transferred to a larger system and grew it to about 16". Good easy clam to start with but to get fairly large.

 

[Bleigh]

Not sure what the acronyms mean. I have not been able to wrap my head around all the light info yet. I've started to read a few articles, but then they start throwing out a ton of info that I have no idea what they mean and it makes it hard to follow. I need to go and just look at lights so I can have some concept of what the articles are talking about. When I get a chance later tonight, I'll go open up all the light stuff I have on the BC.

 

[Hemmdog]

Not sure what the acronyms mean. I have not been able to wrap my head around all the light info yet. I've started to read a few articles, but then they start throwing out a ton of info that I have no idea what they mean and it makes it hard to follow. I need to go and just look at lights so I can have some concept of what the articles are talking about. When I get a chance later tonight, I'll go open up all the light stuff I have on the BC.

I put a kessil 360we on mine before I upgraded. Night and day how well the coral did compared to stock lights. On my 90 now I transferred that kessil 360, and got an additional one. It didn’t hurt as bad already having half the lights for my upgrade.
Clams need a fair amount of light..., if they die in your tank, it’s bad news lol.
PAR and PUR are acronyms for how well the light penetrates water and how bright it is. Pur is photosyntheticly usable radiation. Meaning some cheap lights might be brighter(more PAR),but it’s not actually a fully usable spectrum for corals zoo’s to do photosynthesis. Like sometimes you will see tank pics with white looking light and very brown coral, that’s because it’s not the proper spectrum. Aka cheap lights. Save money for the long haul by getting a quality and transferable light that will also be useful on future builds. The better lights also have warranties so there’s that to.

 

[Bleigh]

I put a kessil 360we on mine before I upgraded. Night and day how well the coral did compared to stock lights. On my 90 now I transferred that kessil 360, and got an additional one. It didn’t hurt as bad already having half the lights for my upgrade.
Clams need a fair amount of light..., if they die in your tank, it’s bad news lol.
PAR and PUR are acronyms for how well the light penetrates water and how bright it is. Pur is photosyntheticly usable radiation. Meaning some cheap lights might be brighter(more PAR),but it’s not actually a fully usable spectrum for corals zoo’s to do photosynthesis. Like sometimes you will see tank pics with white looking light and very brown coral, that’s because it’s not the proper spectrum. Aka cheap lights. Save money for the long haul by getting a quality and transferable light that will also be useful on future builds. The better lights also have warranties so there’s that to.

I looked that up. Do you have to take the lid off to use a light like that? Right now I have the 3 stock lights that come with the BC. The blue led moonlights, the Acetic blue 33 watt (maybe, can't read the number well) and the 10k 36 watt white light. I do have a new white light to replace it, but some of my coral were bleaching, so I thought a new, brighter light would just make it worse. I have reduced the number of hours it was on, but maybe part of the problem is that it's not throwing the full spectrum anymore. I'll change it out in a bit.

 

[Hemmdog]

Yea and the gooseneck mount attaches easily to the back. Not sure on your current lights, is that a t5 bulb? Or are they all leds? My biocube came with only leds, they were awful lol.

I looked that up. Do you have to take the lid off to use a light like that? Right now I have the 3 stock lights that come with the BC. The blue led moonlights, the Acetic blue 33 watt (maybe, can't read the number well) and the 10k 36 watt white light. I do have a new white light to replace it, but some of my coral were bleaching, so I thought a new, brighter light would just make it worse. I have reduced the number of hours it was on, but maybe part of the problem is that it's not throwing the full spectrum anymore. I'll change it out in a bit.

 

[Bleigh]

Yea and the gooseneck mount attaches easily to the back. Not sure on your current lights, is that a t5 bulb? Or are they all leds? My biocube came with only leds, they were awful lol.

Not exactly sure what you're asking me. Hopefully this picture helps.

 

[Hemmdog]

Not exactly sure what you're asking me. Hopefully this picture helps.

Ohhhh I see. Yes that is helpful lol. You should be good with that for awhile actually.

 

[Bleigh]

Ohhhh I see. Yes that is helpful lol. You should be good with that for awhile actually.

Are they t5 bulbs, led's or something else?

 

[Hemmdog]

Are they t5 bulbs, led's or something else?

It’s a straight pin compact fluorescent. Think like office building bulbs. Electricity ignites the gas in the vacuum tube and depending on the element of gas being ignited it makes a different color. They fade and burn out after 6-10 months and you have to replace them.
LED is a light emitting diode, it’s just electricity going through a semiconductor with super super small holes. Photons of light shoot out these holes when electricity passes through, it’s called electroluminescence. The amount of electricity going through the semiconductor gives it different colors. It’s just a diode, not a bulb, and they last much much longer and you don’t replace them.

 

[Hermie]

Hi, congrats on starting your tank

I got both from different stores. I suspect the smaller store was the issue. My son really liked the fish though, cause it looked like it had bullet holes. I should have trusted my instinct and just bought from the more helpful store. They were a little pricier, but sometimes quality costs more. Lesson learned.

One thing... in sincerity, that's not the lesson I'd take away. Because it's so easy for pathogens to transfer between co-inhabitants of any largely populated system. (Sick fish can come from helpful stores and healthy fish can come from "big box" stores). That said, ordering direct from captive breeders is definitely more of a "guarantee" of pathogen-free specimens, but I just don't like doing that since I can't generally "see" the fish before I buy it. Basically, wherever you get a fish, if you quarantine it for the recommended timeframe or if it's introduced first into a healthy/cycled/mature system, you can ensure the fish's own immune system can fight off most "illness" it may have gotten from LFS water. Believe me I did not learn this lesson easily, and now after many losses I can say that two of my most successful fish were bought from a small chain "big box" store. I picked those two fish out because they appeared very healthy at the store especially compared to all the other fish I had been seeing come through, that just comes with time and a lot of trips to the store lol. Anyways, good luck, it sounds like you are on a path to success by setting up the QT and going fallow with your main tank.

 

[Bleigh]

Hi, congrats on starting your tank



One thing... in sincerity, that's not the lesson I'd take away. Because it's so easy for pathogens to transfer between co-inhabitants of any largely populated system. (Sick fish can come from helpful stores and healthy fish can come from "big box" stores). That said, ordering direct from captive breeders is definitely more of a "guarantee" of pathogen-free specimens, but I just don't like doing that since I can't generally "see" the fish before I buy it. Basically, wherever you get a fish, if you quarantine it for the recommended timeframe or if it's introduced first into a healthy/cycled/mature system, you can ensure the fish's own immune system can fight off most "illness" it may have gotten from LFS water. Believe me I did not learn this lesson easily, and now after many losses I can say that two of my most successful fish were bought from a small chain "big box" store. I picked those two fish out because they appeared very healthy at the store especially compared to all the other fish I had been seeing come through, that just comes with time and a lot of trips to the store lol. Anyways, good luck, it sounds like you are on a path to success by setting up the QT and going fallow with your main tank.

Good point. I guess more context helps in understanding why I think one store is better than the other.

Both stores I've been to are not "big box" stores. I've spent a ton of time at one of the stores (the more helpful one) and have gotten to know some of the employees and the owner. The facility is huge and, from what I understand, they get their livestock from a breeder who does QT. Although, I still do not plan on trusting that. (I'm a bit of a control freak.) Which is why I decided to set up my own QT tank. Then I know FOR SURE that everything is safe. No questions asked, because I did it myself.

The store really is an amazing operation. He has several very large and impressive tanks (shark tanks, ray tanks, multiple discus tanks, etc.). I joke about them being able to charge admission. I think I am quite lucky to have a resource like this right down the street. Of course, I am sure plenty of people in the area have had the opposite reaction than I have had to the stores, otherwise I doubt both would be sustainable.

 

[Bleigh]

It’s a straight pin compact fluorescent. Think like office building bulbs. Electricity ignites the gas in the vacuum tube and depending on the element of gas being ignited it makes a different color. They fade and burn out after 6-10 months and you have to replace them.
LED is a light emitting diode, it’s just electricity going through a semiconductor with super super small holes. Photons of light shoot out these holes when electricity passes through, it’s called electroluminescence. The amount of electricity going through the semiconductor gives it different colors. It’s just a diode, not a bulb, and they last much much longer and you don’t replace them.

So I googled t5. It looks like they have 2 pins, and mine has 4. So they are two different types of light bulb. Is the kessil an LED?

 

[Hemmdog]

So I googled t5. It looks like they have 2 pins, and mine has 4. So they are two different types of light bulb. Is the kessil an LED?

Yea kessil is led.
Yours looks like 2 t5’s stuck together with 4 pins. I had to google yours too lol, it took some searching haha.
For your tank and a good light that you could now and use in the future would be either a. Kessil 360X, Kessil 360we Tuna Blue, Aqua Illumination hydra 26, Radion XR15 or 30 g4 Pro.
All these are super good lights. Most of them have phone app’s so you can control all your lights from that, you can download light programs and spectrums from well known people in the reefing community if you like the way their corals look. There’s all kinds of sweet percs with getting good lights.
Just like everything there is pros and cons. Leds are a single point light source, so shadowing corals on the bottom of the tank is a issue over time, t5’s are a long bulb so there’s less shadowing, but also less vividness and pop compared to LED’s

 

[Bleigh]

Yea kessil is led.
Yours looks like 2 t5’s stuck together with 4 pins. I had to google yours too lol, it took some searching haha.
For your tank and a good light that you could now and use in the future would be either a. Kessil 360X, Kessil 360we Tuna Blue, Aqua Illumination hydra 26, Radion XR15 or 30 g4 Pro.
All these are super good lights. Most of them have phone app’s so you can control all your lights from that, you can download light programs and spectrums from well known people in the reefing community if you like the way their corals look. There’s all kinds of sweet percs with getting good lights.
Just like everything there is pros and cons. Leds are a single point light source, so shadowing corals on the bottom of the tank is a issue over time, t5’s are a long bulb so there’s less shadowing, but also less vividness and pop compared to LED’s

LOL!! I think I have some research to do before my next pay check. The only real issue is, I like having a top on the tank for now. I'd be worried my 5 year old would drop things in there. I keep telling him, no throwing things in the house, but it doesn't seem to have made an impression on him yet.

 

[TexasTodd]

Those are compact flourescent bulbs with supplemental LED (blue moon lights).
They're fine for that tank. That is what I had in my old BioCube.

 

[NS Mike D]

LOL!! I think I have some research to do before my next pay check. The only real issue is, I like having a top on the tank for now. I'd be worried my 5 year old would drop things in there. I keep telling him, no throwing things in the house, but it doesn't seem to have made an impression on him yet.

many years ago I had an iguana, and with life getting hectic back then, I would fall behind on cleaning the tank. My 4 year old back then wold drop new diapers into the tank. Took me a while to figure out why. I chuckle every so often thinking back to those days.

welcome 29gal owner here. stop by the nano forum as well

 

[Katrina71]

Try Steve's LEDs if you want to keep your hood! My son's sps LOVE it.

 

[samnaz]

Hello. If I were you I’d hold off on upgrading your lighting system. I know it’s superrr exciting fun but don’t rush because trust me, the reward is a hundred times better when I take the time to learn everything I can about a product or creature before purchasing it. I learned this the hard way though, my closet is full of “upgrades” I wasted money on when I started out.

There is a truly overwhelming incredible amount of reefing knowledge out there, soak it up... Sit back and enjoy the ride!

Oh and, you’re def going to need a lid unless you want your fish to carpet surf and die slowly ;-)

Anyway, good luck and full steam ahead! Following along for the ride.