Originally Posted by SigmaChris
Thanks for sharing your wealth of knowledge. I just browsed over all 9 pages of this thread. Congrats on your success with the change over.
I also have a 14g Biocube that is a couple of weeks old, everything is stock. I have heard nothing but good things about LR instead of bio balls. Should I swipe out the bio balls now our wait until the tank settles more? All I have in the tank is LR, LS, and 6 snails for a starter crew. The nitrites and nitrates seem to have settled at 20 and 0 respectively for 5 days now.
Also when you refer to not using the cartridge are you referring to the tall / thin filter behind the intakes?
Your help is appreciated and thank you in advance!
-Chris
I would slowly replace the bio balls with live rock since you already have a clean up crew. Do you mean your nitrates are at 20 or your nitrites are at 20? If your nitrates are at 20, your ready for a water change to get them down. If your nitrites are at 20 your cycle isn't done.
Yes I'm referring to the tall / thin filter behind the intakes. I found that it really slowed down flow to the back and the water level was too high in the display. So instead of the cartridge I just added a small strip of filter floss that I change every few days. Its a lot cheaper than the cartridge.
To increase the flow I also made the the spill over from chamber 1 to chamber 2 wider using a dremel.
As of right now I am using the stock lighting. I'm most likely going to upgrade my lighting to metal halides by the end of the month. If you want to upgrade your lights but want to keep the hood you can get a DIY kit to add another 24w pc to the hood.