Biocube's Build Thread, Tank teardown 1/6/14

Its crazy to see how much this tank has changed. From all blue cloves, to blue cloves and some pesky sps. What a transformation... lol

 

Haha, I have a trick up my sleeve to kill those off. I need to do that soon, idk if anyone on 3R has done this method yet.

 

For the past year my Tunze 9002 Skimmer has had a lot of issues where the 90deg bend gets clogged with salt and prevents air from flowing.

I contacted Roger from Tunze and was able to buy the 90deg end for 1.00 each. Very pleased with their customer service!

 

I just did the mod to make the air intake dial on the Tunze 9002, more accessible. The other benefit was that I can now run the intake into my stand because of the long tubing, which makes it much quieter.

2 quick questions- are you running anything in your first chamber other than your heater? Also, do you have any issues with detritus at the bottom of chamber 1?

 

That mod is great, I did that a while back and it's a lot easier to adjust.

I have some LR in chamber 1, all three chambers are detritus traps. I took a turkey baster in there a few days ago and clogged a clean filter sock in 45 seconds. I moved my heaters to chamber 2 along with my skimmer, I have my Apex Temp prob in chamber 1 now.

When doing water changes use a turkey baster and move the water around in the back chambers causing a small dust storm, then suck out the water and replace. Do this every 3-4 water changes and you should be good to go.

 

Good to know...I was really hoping there was a solution other than the ole turkey baster. Thats what I resorted to a few days ago when I did my WC.

Im also considering hooking up my phosban reactor to it. I just haven't decided how I want to go about it. I've also considered running it as a chaeto reactor too, since I'm missing a refugium right now.

 

You could run very small pumps in your back chambers to prevent buildup, but I would rather have it back there than my DT. Also you can shave the back second chamber wall and make that a small area for Cheato to grow with a lite.

 

Yea, I agree, but it would be even better to have it in my filter floss instead.

I've got my intank media basket and Tunze 9002 in the second chamber...I'm running Chemipure Elite and Purigen, but I've still had a bit of algae/ cyano growth in my DT. I've upped my WC's, but its still hanging around, so I think some extra phosphate removal may be in order and I don't really have any space to add chaeto in the tank.

 

Where is your WC water coming from? Have you tested your TDS? Also what food are you putting into your tank and how much?

Each tank is different, I only feed my tank every 3-5 days because the food I use is very high in Phosphates.

 

I use a Spectrapure RODI and I just replaced the filters/ membrane about 2 months ago. TDS should still be at 0, but I will check it when I get back home with my meter.

I had been feeding Omega One with garlic. I think part of my issue is that I was away for a while and had to use an auto feeder, which fed everyday. I've also switched to frozen mysis, rather than flakes for a bit to see if that helps clear it up.