A true noob

Hi everybody! ive learned a ton from reading through 3reef. Thanks for posting all this info. Ive never had an aquarium but have wanted one forever. I got a Coralife Biocube 29 as a gift from my fiance with the stipulation that it had to be saltwater. I was really leaning towards freshwater at first but i am so glad i went with saltwater after learning more about it.

Anyways, the cube's been running for about 2 months now. I have 2 four-striped damsels, 7 blue legged hermits, and a massive cuc of snails from Jim at reefcleaners. I used some old rock from my soon-to-be father in law's old reef tank and bought a few pieces of lr from the lfs. There are some cool polyps and feather dusters and other things growing out of the lr. I also recently bought some jasmine polyps from the lfs which are doing well.

I have different types of green algae growing on a lot of surface area. The snails are working on it but i was wondering what i could do to knock it out. My cube is completely stock with bioballs. The only additions ive made are my heater, circulation pump, which is behind my pile of rock, and a bag of carbon under the filter. Im hoping for some suggestions for a good next addition. Replace bioballs with live rock rubble? Start a separate sump and/or refugium? an ATO? a Protein Skimmer?

Im plan on trading out my damsels for a couple ocellaris clowns and a lawnmower blenny soon. Then start adding more coral as i go. Im trying my best to go slow.. I appreciate any suggestions. Thanks!

 

welcome to 3reef Nemo18!!

just a heads up we like pics around here....so get posting!! j/k

but seriously if you have pictures of your tank we'd love to see them

there are plenty of forums around here that you can post your various questions and someone I'm sure would be more than happy to help you out

oh and welcome to the addiction

 

Your tank is still very young, and young tanks are far from stable, so it will need to mature a bit.

If you're running the sponges on the intake side of the "sump" area, be sure to clean them in used tankwater at least bi-weekly.

Also, how long do you leave your lights on? You may need to reduce your photoperiod, at least for now.

Just a heads-up about the fish...if you want anything other than the clowns and the LMB, I suggest adding the others first, as clowns and LMBs tend to get territorial and nasty.

 

Hello Nemo18 and Welcome (even though I am just as new as you LOL).

I also have a Biocube 29 started on Jan 1.
I took out the bioballs and added rubble rock and plants in the center compartment in the back to make a refugium, added a coralife light on the outside of back for lighting for it. So far so good!! Many more additions to come!

 

Hi Nemo, I am new here also but not new to the hobby. I started with a similar setup (Aquapod 24gal). While I most certainly don't want to discourage you, there are most certainly some disadvantages to running a small all-in-one system.

First the salinity (on mine anyways) was a pain to keep in check to evaporation. I hear that the newer nano type tanks have cut down on evaporation loss quite a bit so that's good. When you top off make sure that you are using RO/DI water with as close to 0 TDS as possible. You may be getting your water from a LFS (which is fine), and if so just ask them what their TDS is running on the RO/DI system (the absolute max I would use would be 15, and that is pretty high), they should know this, if not you can test it yourself with a handheld TDS meter. TDS stands for Total Dissolved Solids, so in other words, how clean the water is.

Water purity is important because anything introduced into a nano (including food) will remain until it is removed via water change, skimmer, or it is used by the inhabitants of the tank. In this case the excess nutrients in the water are being used by algae as food. This isn't a totally bad thing though as the nutrients become too built up they can become toxic (ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate). Think of algae this way. It is natures response to a problem in the biotope. It sees pollution, and makes something that uses/stores the pollution (algae). You can manually remove the algae and thereby dispose of those excess nutrients. However if this is a problem due to over feeding, poor source water, or minimal nutrient export (no skimmer/no water changes); you will continue to have algae problems. Remember the solution to pollution is dilution, so do some small (3-4 gallon) water changes at least once a week. Sorry for the novel there, and good luck.

 

Thanks! I am trying to shrink my phone pics down to under 200kb so i can upload some.... Cant seem to get it to work just yet. Ill get some up as soon as i cal though lol.

 

Thanks for the tip! I have not been cleaning that sponge. I will first thing tonight. I have my white lights on a timer set for 8 hours, my actinic lights come on a half hour before and stay on a half hour after. So total pc lighting is on 10 hour cycle. I leave my blue LEDs on all constantly. Ill try reducing the lighting times. Thank you ill think about the fish some more. didnt know clowns were so feisty!

 

Sweet thanks! I might do this too. Did you put the rubble and plants in the center chamber and put the filter back on top? So the rocks and plants basically replaced your bioballs?

 

No worries Spongie, thank you for the info. I have been getting RO water to top off and salt water for water changes from my lfs. I believe my tank has 'cycled' as my ammonia & nitrites are reading 0 and my nitrates are at around 10ppm. the Alk of the salt water at the lfs is 1.024. My salinity was a little high the last time my lfs ran a water test but i think that was bc i didn't top off evenly with RO water.

"the solution to pollution is dilution" I love the school house rock-like rhyme there! I will try lowering lights, more water changes, and feeding a little less and see what happens to the algae. Thanks!

 

http://i1284.photobucket.com/albums/a575/Biocube18/20130212_215621_zps3b5754b0.jpg