My Build Thread- Biocube 32

[Jobu183]

Hey All-
Excited to join this forum and showcase my reef adventure.




Received a BioCube 32 for Christmas and very much looking forward to getting my reef tank started.
What I've Done So Far:
12/28 - Tank / Stand Set up Wednesday
12/29- Tank Filled yesterday (10 Gallons Distilled, ~15 with RoDI)
12/29- Sand / Live Rock added

Currently working on:
1.) Excessive Water Changes to account for cloudiness of Bahama Oolite sand.
- Would love any recommendations here on how to get cloudiness to go away
2.) Patience


While I was running all mechanical filtration trying to clear cloudiness

As soon as I took it out and all the sand got back into the tank

Mistakes So Far-
1. Rushed buying Live Rock / Live Sand before my tank was ready with water / had RoDi Set Up
2. Bahama Oolite

Fish Plan:
2 Clownfish
1 Banggai Cardinal
1 Royal Gamma
1 or 2 others still TBD

Inverts:
Delbius Reef Lobster
Sexy Shrimp
Fire Shrimp
Cleaner Shrimp
some sort of crab
Hermits / Snails-> Not really sure what to do here yet

Corals- no idea, i'll get there when I get there

Salt- Red Sea Coral Pro

Substrate- Bahama Oolite (rough so far)

16 pounds of live rock current purchased, have another 10-15 from an old tank that I'll start the curing process on soon.

 

[nuxx]

About to get fun

 

[Crofty]

Also recently started up a biocube 32 here. Since I'm a few months ahead of you I can share some of my findings.

CUC: I think I over did it with 10 hermit crabs and half a dozen trochus snails to get past the ugly stage. Maybe it worked as I never really had much of a ugly stage but now I'm stuck with a hermit army marching over all my new corals.

Shrimp: if you get small ones they can get sucked into the biocube return grate. RIP peppermint shrimp...

Pajama Cardinals: I got 2 of these as my starter fish and regret it. They dont come out much during the day and now just take up a nich I could have used for more visible and friendly fish.

Upgrades: I read too many forums and watched too many BRS videos and started upgrading stock biocube components right away. Wish I had paced myself on that because now I have way to many things I'm still trying to tweak into optimal performance. The only upgrade I'm super happy with is adding a couple of diy actinic blue LEDs under the hood. This very much woke up the display along with the stock biocube white LEDs.

Overall the biocube has been a pretty easy go, knock on wood. At the 3 month point now I have about 10 easy corals (soft, LPS, and SPS) all doing pretty well and growing. Only thing I've been struggling with is phosphates, which got away from me for a while because my test kit was junk. A couple of the corals let me know something was up when their polyps weren't fully inflating.

Good luck with your new cube!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Good luck with your tank!!!

 

[Jobu183]

Also recently started up a biocube 32 here. Since I'm a few months ahead of you I can share some of my findings.

CUC: I think I over did it with 10 hermit crabs and half a dozen trochus snails to get past the ugly stage. Maybe it worked as I never really had much of a ugly stage but now I'm stuck with a hermit army marching over all my new corals.

Shrimp: if you get small ones they can get sucked into the biocube return grate. RIP peppermint shrimp...

Pajama Cardinals: I got 2 of these as my starter fish and regret it. They dont come out much during the day and now just take up a nich I could have used for more visible and friendly fish.

Upgrades: I read too many forums and watched too many BRS videos and started upgrading stock biocube components right away. Wish I had paced myself on that because now I have way to many things I'm still trying to tweak into optimal performance. The only upgrade I'm super happy with is adding a couple of diy actinic blue LEDs under the hood. This very much woke up the display along with the stock biocube white LEDs.

Overall the biocube has been a pretty easy go, knock on wood. At the 3 month point now I have about 10 easy corals (soft, LPS, and SPS) all doing pretty well and growing. Only thing I've been struggling with is phosphates, which got away from me for a while because my test kit was junk. A couple of the corals let me know something was up when their polyps weren't fully inflating.

Good luck with your new cube!

Thank you for the info! Luckily I relied pretty heavily on my LFS for the CuC recommendations, so at the moment I only have 6 hermit crabs. Seem to be doing the job so far. I can't wait to get some corals in my tank. Hoping in about a month or so I'll feel comfortable enough with water parameters to give some a go.