Starting my first 29 Gallon Cube

[Braedenk]

Hello everyone, I am new to R2R and im going to be starting my first ever saltwater reef aquarium

Ive read tons of the forums, seen all sorts of different builds (some being very expensive)
I want to start a 29 gallon cube, and was wondering what kind of equipment you would suggest for my first ever tank(not looking for top of the line, I can always upgrade later) I am looking for your basic starter kit, What kind of protein skimmer would you suggest? Which powerheads? Filter? etc

thank you very much, getting excited about starting my first tank.

 

[brandon429]

Hi Braedenk!
welcome to R2R so glad to have you

I'm not good with hardware because my reefs are bare bones units but I wanted to offer my best software advise lol

When you make a stack of rocks, build them in a way you won't mind accessing or taking apart to clean under, every few mos. also, when you get algae on them, lift out that section and kill it using any method you can find on google vs leaving the algae on that rock to take over the whole tank. These are opposite methods to never cleaning under our rock scapes, and allowing algae to take over. Hope that helps. Its the biggest secret to why my tanks are so old.

b

 

[UABsleeper]

Hey welcome to r2r I also have a biocube 29! And I love it equipment I have aquaticlife internal mini 115 in the first chamber took a little moving to get it how it want it but works great! For power head I have jebao rw4 and love it has more than enough flow for my tank! I got a refractometer off amazon for ~ 25 bucks and it works great.. I would highly recommend it over a hydrometer(trusting mine about caused a tank crash) I have tunze nano ato and would highly recommend it to help keep stability

 

[brandon429]

Nice excellent hardware offers

 

[UABsleeper]

As far as filter goes Intank filter basket is supposed to be amazing but a little pricy! I haven't been able to pull together enough change for one ha def remove the bio balls and I currently have to large eshop sponges in chamber two next to chamber 1 with purigen and and filter floss sitting on top of those
Also next to that I run seachem matrix media for an extra biological filtration boost and chemipure elite in the bubble trap! Ato is in the last chamber!

FYI.. Some will say to fill your tank all the way up in the back chambers when running but I like to keep my water level just below the emergency overflow knotch between chamber 2 and 3 of you don't have the Intank media basket because it insures water flows through the filter floss plus it also prevents micro bubbles if any from the aquatic life skimmer from being sent back into the tank