Her's/His BC14's - Suggest a mate for a Mocha Clown - pg 9

That doesn't seem like a bad price seeing has the BC 14 brand new is $269 I believe. It wouldn't hurt my feelings to spend money on. I think it is a good deal.

 

I think we finally going to add some live sand along with a little live rock! I'm so excited!!!

 

Ok, I have some black sand on the bottom of one of the tanks now. My wife still can't decide what she wants to do. Oh well.

My question is, I want to get rid of the bioballs in the back, but what do I replace them with? Also, what is the best way to do this without causing another cycle?

 

bump

 

Bump again. Does anyone know what to replace the bioballs with? I don't really want to put a light back there for macroalgae as I have a really light bioload anyways.

 

I own a 29g Biocube. I replaced all of the bioballs with a nice chunk of LR which weighs about 2lb. I have chaeto algae on top of that, and a desk lamp with a 6500k bulb from Lowes shining through the clear back panel. Not sure if the biocube 14g has that. I also have my Slim Skim from Hydror in there.

So basically you just want to replace the bioballs with LR. Find a piece that will fit back there and you'll be good to go. But I wouldn't put any rubble back there, only a chunk of LR(you do not need macro algae growing back there. i never did for the longest time, only a piece of live rock and a xanthid crab that came hitchhiking when i started my tank)

The big thing about filtration is just having enough LR and good water flow. I get really nice water movement in my tank. 1075gph over all with my 1 powerhead and my water pump.

 

I would think that live rock would be the same as live rock rubble because it will still trap detritus that will be hard to remove. I could be wrong about this though.

The biocube 14 doesn't have a clear back panel either, it is all black. I wish it was clear, I would macro algae in there for sure.

 

The back panel on my biocube 29 is very small. I took a razor and scratched away, sure enough it's clear behind the black paint, maybe try that and you will be able to get light to shine through???

IMO rubble traps detritus a lot more than a piece of LR. I am able to lift and rinse that piece of LR and vacuum around it no problem. If I kept throwing rubble pieces back there every time I found one I didnt want in my DT, they would just sit on the bottom catching more crap. The LR in the back gets good flow around it, and it's a very porous piece. I was picky on the piece I choose for the back of my Biocube because yes, it's hard to clean and get back there.

If you don't want to put LR back there you can put a bag of active carbon and a few sets of long sponges to trap detritus, just make sure to clean them every WC.

I have all of that in the back of my biocube. (chamber 1 - water heater, 12" long 1" thick filter sponge | chamber 2 - skimmer, LR, chaeto, xanthid crab | chamber 3 - another 12" long 1" wide filter sponge, a bag of high grade active carbon, then finally and my upgraded water pump)

 

Just installed LED's over my 29 Biocube -- everything looks soo amazing!

Thanks Ecoxotic sooo much for everything!

 

Ok? I just saw this same post in the Ugly Sweater Contest thread lol. Feel free to post a pic here though or a link to your thread. I would love to see what it looks like. ;D