Green Machine: A Biocube Journal

[Basil]

My wife picked up a Biocube 14 for an awesome price and I decided to set it up as a freshwater planted tank. Here are the pics! Enjoy!

Specs:
Tank: Biocube 14
Lighting: Stock 24 watt 10,000K and 24 watt 6500K bulbs.
Filtration: InTank Media Rack with Filter Pad and purigen
Substrate: MGOPM with gravel cap
Heater: 50 watt
Dosing: Excel Daily

Flora:
Corkscrew Val (Vallisneria asiatica var. biwaensis)

Java Fern (Microsorum pteropus)

Banana Plant (Nymphoides aquatica)

Lesser duckweed (Lemna minor)

Amazon Frogbit (limnobium laevigatum)


Carolina Fanwort (Cabomba caroliniana)

Crinum calamistratum (Crinum calamistratum)

Red Temple (Labeled that at fish store) that is all green...

Fauna:
4 Cory Cats,
1 Serpae Tetra who thinks he's a cory,
7 Neon Tetras

Filling the Tank


Filled with stock lighting


Filled and planted


Banana Plant


My Floaters


Full top shot


12-12-11 FTS

[diwu13]

Hm... I feel like you need a nice piece of diagonal driftwood going across the back of the tank. It looks really flat ._. Also, maybe confine all the floaters to one side? Looks like you're blocking a ton of light from the bottom plants.

And a quick question. How did you get water to flow from that jug into your aquarium when they're on the same level? Normally I have to make sure the container I'm filling in from is higher up, so it has more pressure so the water flows out o.O

[Basil]

D,

For the filing I just used a spare 40gph pump I had lying around and it fit perfectly into the opening of the jug so I just plugged it in and boom, I've got easy filling! As for the floaters how would you confine them? I can easily just scoop some out. And yeah, I'm no good at scapin, I realize this after I planted and I'm like, this doesn't look very cool...

[Basil]

Small update: I was able to replace the stock Actinic bulb with a 6500K JBJ bulb. It's about 10mm longer than the Biocube bulbs but it still fit. Now I've got the full 48 watts of light going putting me at 3.4 watts per gallon. My duck weed is pretty out of control now and the cabomba is really showing some nice color at the tip. I'll snag some pics later today.
So, I would say CO2 is the next step in my set up as well as a way to confine the duckweed.

[Sd760]

this tankstill up and going

[Basil]

Oh yeah, it's sill going. I need to get some new shots of it.

[Basil]

Algae update. I've done battle with Green Water in my green machine and so far I've got it under control. Would a c02 system have prevented this? Maybe. I should get more plants and plant more heavily and maybe set up c02. Any good suggestions for a c02 set up on a biocube?

[GMYukonon24s]

Yes you should add more plants.

[Basil]

Very true. I want a nice fast growning background plant since the red temple plant I've got now is a pretty slow grower without c02.

[Sd760]

Update please. I would love to hear what u think about my 14g bio cube.

[Basil]

Not much of an update but plants are growing wildly, need to add on c02 and need to do settle on a water change regime. No new photos until this tank looks proper again.

[second]

I think this tank needs some dwarf sag!!!

[Basil]

Originally Posted by second

I think this tank needs some dwarf sag!!!

I 'second' that lol!