dimanche 29 novembre 2015

New 29g Biocube (8 week cycle) I have some questions!

Hello everyone,
I've been a reefer for about 5 years but had to take a 4 year break from the hobby since I was moving around a lot for work. I finally decided to jump back in, so i got the 29g biocube. I am currently still in the cycle stage (on week 4) and I've decided to let my tank cycle for 8 weeks since I only used 16lbs live rock and ~20 lbs of base rock.

This is the first time I've only used partial live rock so I'm unsure if 8 weeks is enough. Any feedback about this would be appreciated. Also I only used 10lbs of live sand, which I laid down first, then the rest of the sand was dry. (if this makes a difference )

Here's a recent picture of my aquarium

I ran the lights 9 hours a day for the first 2 weeks of the cycle untill a huge bloom of hair algae covered my tank so I kept the lights off for 4 days (because I read somewhere lights should be off during a cycle). I then decided to give my aquarium 4 hours of light a day so I don't kill off what little coraline algae I have. The hair algae has died down a lot but It's starting to cover the back wall of my aquarium and I'm a bit worried this problem will only get worse. Is there anything I can do now to prevent the spread of hair algae without keeping the lights off?
I knew to expect an algae bloom, but I just didn't expect the hair algae. I thought there would be the brown film diatom algae and maybe some green algae on the glass here and there.
pictures of hair algae:
- on some rock
- on the back of tank

Also I found a little starfish that I've never seen before and want to find out if he is reef safe or not. So if anyone can ID this little guy id be very grateful.
pictures of lil starfish guy:
- Blurry taken from above looking into water
- Still blurry, better angle


I've built a little cave with the rock I bought for my aquarium and some build up of blackish gray particles has gathered on the sand under the cave. Is this detritus? I have just the return pump now (which is a POS, need to get a stronger one) and a 245gph power head, which I use to help water flow completely around the rock structure, right now. Do you think a small power head aimed towards the cave would clear it up?
Picture of build up: Icky



Lastly I saw a little snowflake eel at my LFS and I wanted to ask the community here if this is something that would do well in a 29g reef aquarium. Would he/her eat my other fish? and how big do they get? If they stay around 8 inches I think he'd be perfect. Will he produce too much bioload for my little aquarium?
SNOWFLAKE EEL (soo cute! I don't have one yet I just wanted everyone to see a picture of one): Edgar Snow of Flake Isle


Oh one more thing. what are these bubbles in my sand is this normal? Weird bubbles n stuff



Thank you for reading this huge wall of all my nonsense and questions. If you've made it down to this last bit I appreciate you very much for being of service.


I Love my new aquarium


Aucun commentaire:

Enregistrer un commentaire