Biocube - Day One

Okay....took the plunge.  Went to Aquatic Specialties in New Orleans yesterday and came home with a twenty-nine gallon Biocube aquarium.  I had a saltwater tank years ago, and all was well until the heater malfunctioned and killed everything.  The hobby has changed quite a lot over the years, and people are even keeping corals in tiny three or five gallon tanks.

The Biocube is an "all-in-one" tank.  The filtration and lighting are all built into the unit.  I did switch out the bio-balls for a protein skimmer built for the Biocube.  It fits nicely into the middle chamber in the back.  I hope to add a sump/refugium in the cabinet below the display tank eventually.  It would allow me to add water "space" to the system, and it would boost the filtration capacity quite a bit.

I got forty pounds of live sand and twenty-seven pounds of Fiji live rock and set the tank up yesterday with saltwater I got from the shop.  I think the initial cycling is going to go really quickly, as everything was 'established' from the get-go.  I also brought home hermit crabs and a few snails, and with the exception of one snail, everybody's creeping around the tank doing their thing.  There seems to be a few hitchhikers in the live rock....I've seen a few tiny featherdusters, some great coraline algae, and other tiny critters.  I do think I've spotted an aiptasia or glass anemone, and I'm looking into how best to get rid of him.

Tested the water today, and these were the results:

Ammonia - 0 ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Nitrate - 0 ppm
pH - 8.2
Salinity - 33
Specific gravity - 1.024-1.025

Enough for now....I'll take photos tomorrow (my camera's at the museum at the moment) and post them then.