thanx for the info
so what exactly are the sleeves and how would i remove them can you clarify what the benefit of removing them is? and the alge goes in chamber 2 with the heater instead of the bio balls if i understood correctly lol now my tank is only a week old when its time to take make the switch from bio ball to alge do i do it slowly or all at once?
iam using a viper 150w
would that be enough light for the alge
thanx iam learning
I'm not exactly sure what you are referring to as "sleeves". I think you are talking about the shelves. The benefit is to promote flow in the rear chambers which is an attempt to discourage detritus and other junk from settling to the bottom. Another benefit is to give you as much room as possible for modifications that people want to do on the tank. To remove the shelves I took a hammer and a long wooden kitchen spoon and put the handle end of the spoon in all the corners and gently hit it with a hammer to pop the silicone. I also used a knife in some spots to score the silicone to make it easier to bang down. Once you bang them all down and remove them, shine a flashlight down in all the chambers to make sure you removed everything you want because if I remember correctly there are multiple levels of shelves in the first chamber. In the future I'd recommend to shine a flashlight down to see how much junk is at the bottom of the chambers and siphon it out as necessary.
If you go by my orientation, (chamber 1- skimmer, chamber 2- chaeto, heater, powerhead, chamber 3- return) you are correct about removing the bioballs and putting the heater/chaeto in there. I also put a piece of egg crate in chamber 2 in an attempt to stop the chaeto from coming in contact with the heater. Here is a thread with some pics of my setup. Some mods have been made. I removed the blue floss and put my purigen there and also changed my light from that ghetto DIY home depot fixture to the JBJ fuge light. I spent like $30 on that POS that was a serious fire hazard and it eventually burned out and I replaced it with the JBJ which IMO was worth the extra money for a solid light.
http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/general-discussion/76686-best-skimmer-bio-cube-2.html
There are other people that have set up there tank differently, I think chamber 1- heater, chamber 2- Stevie T media rack (houses chaeto and chemipure I think) Tunze 9002 skimmer, chamber 3 return is an example. I put some links at the bottom with a ton of info...
If you don't mind, I think taking the bioballs out may cause the tank to recycle, but if you do I'd say to remove them slowly.
This is the "Biocube Resource Guide". It is pretty long, but it has all the modifications that people have done to their cubes:
http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=180788&hl=
Here is the link to the Stevie T media/fuge racks. I think they have added more since I last looked so the fuge racks are new. You put that right against the wall between chamber 1 and 2 so the water flows into the basket and through the media or fuge and then down through the bottom.
http://shop.mediabaskets.com/BioCube-29_c16.htm
(If you went Tunze skimmer you need the custom skimmer cup if you want the top to close correctly)
Good Luck with the tank!
