After more than 20 years keeping fish only tanks, I decided that my life was too comfortable so I started a small reef tank in a BioCube 29.
I'm operating with the standard BioCube hood and standard lighting along with the BioCube mini-skimmer and the BioCube 5 Watt UV Sterilizer. I have removed most of the bio balls from the middle chamber and have replaced them with Chemipure Elite, a phosphate reducing agent and mechanical filter media (with carbon). I added additional water circulation with a Hydor Nano Circulation Powerhead. I have about 35lbs of live rock that has some interesting fauna and flora appearing-- copepods, brittle stars, tiny fan worms, and purple coralline algae.
The tank has been operational for five weeks now and has cycled. It has a lively CUC that includes 12 Astrea Snails, 4 Nassarius Snails, 3 Florida Nerite Snails, 3 Blue Legged Hermit Crabs and 1 small Fighting Conch. I also seeded the tank with additional copepods as I eventually hope to keep a Mandarin.
The first piscene resident (a tank-raised Pseudochromis Fridmani) was introduced about a week ago and has readily adapted. My main issue has been heat (I live in a very warm Manhattan building and sometimes have to run the air conditioning even in winter-- gotta love NYC Steam!)-- the tank runs between 79-82 degrees without a heater.
Yesterday, I introduced my first coral-- a small Daisy Polyp soft coral. Assuming it begins to open up and flourish, I will slowly add additional corals over the next several months.
So, here are my initial questions for commentary:
1) Heat/Light Issues- what are other people's experiences with respect to the temperature in BioCubes? Do they all run so warm? If I wanted to upgrade/increase the lighting to be able to keep acroporas or clams, is that possible without generating excess heat? For space/aesthetic reasons, neither a chiller nor the BioCube HQI hood would work in the space I have. Are there any SPS corals or clam species that can tolerate/thrive under standard BioCube lighting?
2) Dipping and acclimating corals- I used a precautionary iodine dip on my first coral before introduction to remove any potential flatworm infestations. The result was no flatworm carcasses but a bunch of dead copepods. There also was a small feather duster worm hidden among the coral polyps but post-dip I haven't seen it emerge again. Did I kill it? What have been the group's experiences with dipping-- do you kill more stuff you might want than risk introducing stuff you might not? Frankly, in the 24 hours post-dip, the coral hasn't appeared particularly happy either-- how long do they usually take to adjust after the trauma of transport, dipping and introduction? (I used an hour drip method to acclimate the coral to my aquarium conditions before adding the iodine).
I'm operating with the standard BioCube hood and standard lighting along with the BioCube mini-skimmer and the BioCube 5 Watt UV Sterilizer. I have removed most of the bio balls from the middle chamber and have replaced them with Chemipure Elite, a phosphate reducing agent and mechanical filter media (with carbon). I added additional water circulation with a Hydor Nano Circulation Powerhead. I have about 35lbs of live rock that has some interesting fauna and flora appearing-- copepods, brittle stars, tiny fan worms, and purple coralline algae.
The tank has been operational for five weeks now and has cycled. It has a lively CUC that includes 12 Astrea Snails, 4 Nassarius Snails, 3 Florida Nerite Snails, 3 Blue Legged Hermit Crabs and 1 small Fighting Conch. I also seeded the tank with additional copepods as I eventually hope to keep a Mandarin.
The first piscene resident (a tank-raised Pseudochromis Fridmani) was introduced about a week ago and has readily adapted. My main issue has been heat (I live in a very warm Manhattan building and sometimes have to run the air conditioning even in winter-- gotta love NYC Steam!)-- the tank runs between 79-82 degrees without a heater.
Yesterday, I introduced my first coral-- a small Daisy Polyp soft coral. Assuming it begins to open up and flourish, I will slowly add additional corals over the next several months.
So, here are my initial questions for commentary:
1) Heat/Light Issues- what are other people's experiences with respect to the temperature in BioCubes? Do they all run so warm? If I wanted to upgrade/increase the lighting to be able to keep acroporas or clams, is that possible without generating excess heat? For space/aesthetic reasons, neither a chiller nor the BioCube HQI hood would work in the space I have. Are there any SPS corals or clam species that can tolerate/thrive under standard BioCube lighting?
2) Dipping and acclimating corals- I used a precautionary iodine dip on my first coral before introduction to remove any potential flatworm infestations. The result was no flatworm carcasses but a bunch of dead copepods. There also was a small feather duster worm hidden among the coral polyps but post-dip I haven't seen it emerge again. Did I kill it? What have been the group's experiences with dipping-- do you kill more stuff you might want than risk introducing stuff you might not? Frankly, in the 24 hours post-dip, the coral hasn't appeared particularly happy either-- how long do they usually take to adjust after the trauma of transport, dipping and introduction? (I used an hour drip method to acclimate the coral to my aquarium conditions before adding the iodine).
