New Biocube 29

Terrys1991 wrote:I guess I have this all confussed at the moment I have two Actinic, two daylight, four moon light leds, and fuge light on way.
I was understanding that you use the blue to simulate dawn & dusk but left them on with the day lights.
moon lights & fuge lights would be in the night plugs, on when day plugs off.
Line me out please.

You are exactly correct the way you have them. Thats the way mine are running.

That's the exact timing cycle you want. Correct.

But the "daylight plugs" aren't individually controllable. Both of the daylight plugs are scheduled together. When daylight is scheduled to come on, both come on. There's no way to make one daylight plug come on before the other. All plugs that are the same color run the same schedule.

That is exactly what I found out Matt, I saw the zilla controller but it look just like the one I got just not digital, will it do what I'm trying to do?

matt_longview wrote:That's the exact timing cycle you want. Correct.

But the "daylight plugs" aren't individually controllable. Both of the daylight plugs are scheduled together. When daylight is scheduled to come on, both come on. There's no way to make one daylight plug come on before the other. All plugs that are the same color run the same schedule.

Well that sux, you would think they would be individually controllable! In that case it wont work. The coralife I have has a timer on each end and it controls everything I need. I think its about the same thing Matt has just different name.
Here's the one I have!

Yeah thats what I thought too Donnie, I,m gonna do like Matt said just get 3 $5.00 timers or Jason and see what home depot has.

yeah, that will work, only problem to keep in mind is if you run a powerbar into your stand to plug the timers into that each timer will cover two or more of the plugs on the powerbar so keep this in mind when picking out your powerbar and timers, sometimes you can waste a full powerbar with two timers unless you plan it out where the timers will fit. I ran into that on my pico and so used three way plugs with Christmas light timers to get all to fit in the beer can size stand.

Thanks Donnie for the heads up

Grab some "Outlet Savers".

Here are google store results.

https://www.google.com/#q=outlet+saver&hl=en&prmd=imvns&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=FDa4TpeOJ8eg2AWN_MGNDA&ved=0CFUQrQQ&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=8a82b5efd836f454&biw=1226&bih=721

Well Thanks to Matt I now have my lights cycling the way I wanted picked up his timer since he got his new controller.
Now I'm not happy with the fine substrate I used it shifts around a lot causing some deep pockets, clouds the water if disturbed & takes forever to settle back, going to go with a coarser shallower bed, hopefully I will get it to my liking this time around. Thanks again Matt.

I don't envy you that task.
I went too course, using crushed shell and have since been diluting it with sand slowly to get down to a substrate that is finer.
The excess is going into the sump, so I don't feel bad.

I hear you Yeti but I'd rather do it now before I go any further I'm sure I will play with my aquascape while I'm at too. New weekend project.

Great to hear. I'm glad the timer worked as you were hoping. :-)

Terrys1991 wrote:
Now I'm not happy with the fine substrate I used it shifts around a lot causing some deep pockets, clouds the water if disturbed & takes forever to settle back, going to go with a coarser shallower bed, hopefully I will get it to my liking this time around.

Got FL. sand? It's "Fine" but heavy, and never clouds the water .. sent you a PM

That FL sand is lovely Jason, what Mrs Y didn't use in her tank is being used in mine.

Well I tore my tank down Thursday evening cleaned everything up & put it back together that night only problem is in my rush to get my tank back up I missed out on Jason white Fla. sand, ended up with Nature's Ocean Aragonite Sand
like Donnie is using. Got my order in from intank (media basket, fuge basket, JBJ fuge light, chemipure elite & purigen) at the moment I am only running with floss in top chamber. Should I wait for my tank to cycle before adding other media or should I have it in now? Sunday everything was settled down so I added some raw shrimp to start the cycle the ammonia was at 0.25 & nitrites 0.0 retested last night and ammonia had climb to 1.0 nitrites 0.0

I wouldn't add the media yet. No point using the media to draw up the ammonia and po4 during the cycle while no livestock is in there.

Still love the rocks. Great scape!

Thanks Matt That is what I was thinking just wasn't sure.

I agree, wait a couple of weeks on the media. I think I would find a good piece of liverock and put in there to get the other rock going, otherwise it will be a long time before you start seeing any life in the rocks. A piece of liverock will get the organisms, coralline, and bacteria started. Once the cycle gets going good you can expect to see the rock and sand turn brown, don't worry its Diatoms and just part of the cycle, really ugly stuff though. The Diatoms will just be kinda powdery, if you see brown slime or any slime growing, thats a different story, let us know about it. You are on your way.

I would wait on the Chemi-pure & purigen at this point. Go ahead and let it cycle.. just a waiting game for now

Thanks for the advice. I knew it was going to take a while just using all dry rock and sand but this gives me time to come up with funds add a led upgrade & I want to get RO/DI unit, plus more reading & learning time.

Well its been about a month since it started the cycle, thought it was about time for an update. Ammonia spiked at 2.0 ppm after two weeks, current parameters are:
Temp. 78º
SG 1.024
Ammonia 0.0 ppm
Nitrites .5 ppm
Nitrates .10 ppm
Starting to see some algae growth and I added a small piece of live rock I picked up a few days ago.



I also received led retro kit from Steves Leds the kit came with one 200w power supply so in order to run a dawn - daylight - dusk I need to get a second power supply the kit comes with 21 3w dimmable royal blue leds and 7- 7,000k 3w dimmable cool whites says to have color temp. range from 6,00k to 22,000k here is a picture of the kit unpacked will update as I progress.

Sounds great. What drivers did you very from steve and how much did it run you? I just finished modding my dads leds on his 29 biocube yesterday!

You could add one single 1 watt blue led to the bar with the others and get a 1 watt driver to power the moon light, believe me a single 1 watt blue is all you need on that tank. If you need a place to order them from let me know, cost for all of it would be around $10.00 but it aint made in America if you have a problem with that. Driver is no bigger than a small match box.

Donnie I do have the separate moonligts on the biocube I'm planning on adding with this upgrade I will see how it all works before adding the second power supply.
Matt the kit came with two of Steves double drivers they run 14 leds each total cost was around 250. plus shipping.

Mounted the two driver circuit boards & fan, wired the fan up to power supply so far so good.