29 gallon biocube

Hey everyone, I currently am setting up a 90 gallon, to be ready for fish in 4 months. Right now i have a 30 gallon biocube thats been set up for about 3 months. Its a 19 gallon oceanic biocube, and Im wondering if a refugium for the biocube would be necessary or even beneficial for the next 4 months.

 

I'm confused by your post. Did you mean to say 29G Oceanic Biocube and not 19G?
Being that the Biocube has only been running for 3 months, it's not too far past the cycling phase as it is. You can get a fuge started to be ahead of the curve when you get your 90G completed, but it really won't do much for the 29G at this point since you shouldn't have much of a bioload in it yet, but it wouldn't hurt your system.

 

yea sorry, its a 29 gallon. The nitrates are quite high in the aquarium even despite my constant PWC. Is this part of the cycling phase. How long does the cycling phase usually take, and how do the parameters change?

thanks btw

 

Typical cycling process will take about 2 months to stabilize for one fish to be introduced. Depending on how much water you change, it will only reduce your nitrates a small amount. Example, let's say you have 40ppm nitrates, and do a 10% WC, you will only remove 10% of your nitrates. So you still have 36ppm nitrates afterwards, and that is assuming your system doesn't produce more nitrates.
Anyhow...Towards the end of the cycle, you will most likely get some diatom and algae buildup, that is due to the nitrates. Once the nitrates naturally zero out, the algae and diatoms will die off.
What are you measuring on your nitrates? What are the rest of your water parameters?