Back with a Bio Cube 8

[Reddog170]

Like the tittle says I am back into salt with a little bio cube 8 gallon. Now it is moving along a LOT faster than I expected. It is 6 days old and is already in the middle of an ammonia spike with nitrites spiking as well. This has a few people stumped, one to the point that he stopped by with his test kits to see for himself. It is a tank that I used as a QT when I had my other tanks going. I have removed the hood on it and built a LED light for it. I over did the light as I have to have it almost 2 feet above the tank, at 10 inches I have a par reading of almost 300 on the bottom of the tank. My LR has been sitting in a bucket for the last two years, yes with some water but not much.
My plan is to keep it simple. I plan to just keep softies and one little fish. Nothing to elaborate, right now. In five years my house will be paid off so I can go bigger then. I do have one question for anyone, should I run a skimmer? I have a skimmer on it now but with larger weekly water changes do I need it?
I will try to post some pics soon, just have to get them from my phone to my computer.
Well more to come, Shaun

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

Hi Shaun - great to see you back in the game & posting again on RS ! Look forward to seeing your new tank !

a skimmer is always nice, but on an 8 gallon, I think you will be fine with just weekly water changes, if you wanted to go that way... see what others think...

 

[Reddog170]

Thank You. I was put to a rather small budget for this one. The tank I had as a leftover, the same with the rock. A friend gave me a bag of salt. I had everything for the light as I was going to build it as a frag light for a project that fizzled out. So right not I have about 4 hours and $0.13 (for a shrimp) into this. I am very surprised at how fast this thing is cycling. My goal was to have it ready by November 15th, the clubs fall fest. I have heard, read and said, nothing happens fast in a reef tank. This tank did not read that part. However on the other hand with the rock and pumps it only has about 5.5 gallons of water in it so the small volume may be playing a part in the rate of the cycle. My daughter is still just as mesmerized by the tank as she was before. She is old enough now to help out with it.
Still trying to get my phone to agree with me and let me get the pics. Once that happens I will post them. Shaun

 

[Reddog170]

Here it is. 2 days old. Shaun

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

Nice swim through !

 

[Reddog170]

Well I just got some new test kits and did the entire set. The readings are as follows; Ammonia 2.0 ppm ; Nitrite 2.0 ppm; nitrate 40+ ppm. Now I still have some little bits of the shrimp I put in as it disentagraded when I tried to remove it. That may be what is keeping the ammonia and nitrites up a bit. Will say I have never seen this fast a cycle, but I am not going to jump in and add any livestock for a bit. Want it to all level out and hold before I do that. Shaun

 

[Reddog170]

Well the ammonia is at zero now. The nitrites are dropping every day and the nitrates are off the chart. Cycle is moving along well. One of the guys wants my to take some blue star polyps from him, says they are getting a little out of hand. More to come, along with another pic on Sunday. Shaun

 

[sirrealism]

Hey Reddog. I have an 8 bio cube to. I love that little tank. I still use the PC bulbs and the hood. Its crazy how stable this little tank is. Right now its way over crowded and yet no issues. I have 3 tailless sea horses in it. Yes I said tailless. I have a thread about them here on RS as to how they lost there tails but the point I am making is rock and all like you I prob have 5-6g of water and 3 seahorses that are pigs and eat constantly and have been in there over a month and still my N03 is never over 5. I do about 30% water changes ever 10 or so days. The other thing is I have never had a tank that grew coralline algae like the 8g. I scrape it off and 2 days latter its back. I dont mind the coralline algae. I can tell when its time to do a water change because I start to get just a tiny bit of red slime. Quick pic of one of my tailless seahorses in the 8g

 

[Reddog170]

That is one really cool Sea Horse. Like the little tank. Looking forward to seeing mine grow in. Shaun

 

[Reddog170]

Wooo Hoooo!!!!!!! I am finally getting the uglies. I know it is weird, but I see it as a sign that the cycle is moving along right. Now I am not in any rush with this little tank so I will just let the algae run its course. Right now the tank is looking kinda brown at the moment. If I just sit back and wait it will clear up on its own.
Now I will say on my first couple tanks I did take action to clear it up faster, but it is a learning process. Once the uglies have cleared up and the parameters are stable I will start to add livestock. Well as usual more to come. Thank You for following along, Shaun

 

[Reddog170]

Well I need some help here. How do you maintain the temp? I am having HUGE swings. Mid-day it will be 80.3 and when I get up in the morning it will be as low as 69.0. I did not have trouble keeping the temp in the larger tanks I had before but this little nano is an entire new adventure.
Ohh almost forgot, My nephew bought me a Blue Velvet Damsel. His intention was good so I said nothing except thank you. I will be doing large water changes every few days for a while until I get the nitrates down to 0 or as close as I can get. right now ammonia is 0, nitrite is 0, and I have the nitrates to <10 ppm.
However I do need to get the temp problem figured out, Thank You, Shaun

 

[Oxylebius]

Never had a tank that small so can't recommend temp recommendations other than keeping the room it is in a consistent temp, any swings in temp in the room will affect the tank temp. And keep the tank away from direct sunlight, it will warm the tank.

Looking good. The little blue damsel's color should pop in that tank, perfect for it. The fish gets about 3 inches or so, it might get too large for it in about a year. Any idea's on what else you would like in there? Corals, inverts, algae?

 

[Reddog170]

I was thinking zoo's and mushrooms to start. Basic and simple with lots of color. A small cleanup crew, some snails, and hermit crabs. Nothing exotic or anything. Just having some fun with this tank. Shaun

 

[SantaMonicaHelp]

Looking forward to seeing your progress Reddog170

 

[sirrealism]

Temp swings. First I am going to guess you keep your home pretty cold for it to get down to 69. So your going to have to use a heater but then you will be worried about it getting to hot. Your running an open top. i would suspect your running your lights a bit high after looking at the pics but since your running open top I think a heater and maybe a small clip on fan would do the job just fine. I know a 50w heater would do the job and I dont know if they make a smaller then 50w heaters but if they do you might get away with even smaller.

 

[Reddog170]

Hopefully I will get some pics up this weekend. So far the temp has been stable with about a 1 degree shift. Yea I had to put a small heater in and use a small fan. Not to much else has been going on with it. The fish is doing good, eating like a horse. The only thing is that all the blue LEDs have burned out, no idea why. Everything is various shades of brown right now. More to come, Shaun

 

[Reddog170]

Just a quick update. Everything is stable and the diatom bloom is fading away. Getting some coraline growing now. Added a clown but it only lived on week. I believe that it was not in good health from the start, Petland fish. The Damsel however is doing great. The damsel did not show much aggression towards the clown. The clown from the start never really left the top corner of the tank and did not chase down food just let it come to him. Only ate a couple times at first but not at all the last few days. Was hoping to add some softies this coming weekend but looks like I will have to work. Not in a rush, just "Going with the flow". Sorry about the lack of pics, will work on that. Shaun

 

[Reddog170]

I have the temps stabilized and the Damsel is doing great. My wife picked me up a hermit crab and a chalice frag. They are doing good right now and being unable to get the blue led's going and being worried about the white lights I have a new light on order.
In the past I have pushed the stocking of my tanks a bit. Now with this one I have gone very slow and selective. The difference is night and day. I am not having odd spikes of ammonia or nitrates. All parameters are stable with weekly 3 gallon water changes. Now with a total water volume of 5.5 gallons this may seem like a huge weekly change however I am not running a skimmer and only minimal mechanical filtration. I am rather enjoying this little tank and look forward to what else I can do with it.
I am looking at a zoo pack that a LFS has at a good price. but adding 12 corals at one time in a small tank may be a bit much. Also I do still have algae growing like mad, I do believe that can be attributed to a cuc that is undersized. Well as usual, more to come. Shaun

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

more... pics pics pics glad to hear all doing well

 

[Reddog170]

Well I have hit a snag. It seems that there is a leak somewhere in the back of the tank. The table is always wet and I am going through a little over a half gallon of water a day. at first it was only about 15 oz or so. It is getting worse so I figure I better do something about it. Not sure how to fix it right now so I picked up a 30 long tank and will be making a tank swap as soon as I get the rest of the rock and sand that I need for it. Will stay with HOB stuff and still just the basics, nothing special. Shaun