29G BioCube Planning... Is this fish list doable?

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carnifexia

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Jan 4, 2016
Messages
4
Howdy,

I am new to the site, and new to salt water aquariums in general. I am planning to start with a 29G biocube and was wondering if this fish list in the end was agreeable for this sized tank?

1xRoyal Gramma
1xOcellaris Clownfish,
1xExquisite Firefish / Firefish, Purple
1xClown Goby, Citrinis

I really wanted a dwarf angel of some kind in the tank, but it seems 29G is kinda small. If there is a way to sneak a Bicolor Angelfish or Blue Fin Angelfish.

Also, I was planning on 40-50lb of live rock. Is that sufficient?

Thanks for taking the time to read.
 
You might be able to get away with that stock list, to be safe I would get rid of either the clown, the royal gramma, or both of the other fish. You could certainly do this with heavy filtration and somewhat frequent water changes but if you're a beginner that's not recommended. If you want to try that stock list, make sure to add fish slowly, and you absolutely need a lid with the purple firefish.
 
Many thanks ...

Many thanks for the reply.

I have always been a fan of heavy filtration in freshwater tanks. I have kept tanks from 5 gallons to 265 gallons freshwater style.

When you say heavy filtration for a salt water, would you recommend a sump or canister filter on top of the live rock? I always over filtered in a freshwater, but wasn't sure the best way to do it in a saltwater tank.

Any advice you could give me would be great.
 
Yeah, no problem!

With the BioCubes (and things like them) for saltwater you generally want to upgrade some of the things, adding a heater and replacing the filtration and lighting usually comes first and then you can do whatever else your budget allows afterwards.

Since you want to keep a purple firefish, you will need to keep your lid on. Generally building them for a curved tank is very hard so you don't want any lights that have to be outside of the tank. A DIY retrofit kit is the easiest way to do this. If you're not going to keep corals, then upgrading lighting is useless but you can only keep softies/polyps, and anemones with the stock lighting. They also sell cheap little LED strips on marine depot that work pretty well and you can better choose your layout. Retrofit kits are usually a little over 200 bucks and the strips are pretty small but like 20-25 each.

To upgrade the filtration, I'd rip out the bioballs and buy a media basket and fuge from InTank (like 90 for both) and set those up with whatever media you like best - purigen is a good one to have. You can add in a protein skimmer to hang on the back too, I definitely recommend this. Those are usually around 100 bucks.

Cobalt MJ1200 makes a nice return pump. Not sure of the price but under 100 bucks, maybe even under 50. If you want to keep SPS it's necessary. You can also add powerheads - Hydor Koralia Nanos are good and there's no need for anything super expensive/big like the MP40 because that's a TON of flow.

Cobalt makes a nice heater, I think it's the neo-therm. Go with a 75 watt or very close to that.

You could go with an auto top off system but that's pretty expensive and unnecessary.

With the bio cubes you get a built-in sump with a volume of around 5 gallons so just upgrade that, add a skimmer, some live rock ,and you'll be fine. Oh, and a clean up crew too. I don't recommend a canister filter because they cause water to go really bad if you don't thoroughly clean it every day or so. Buy base rock and seed it with some live rock rubble, it'll be WAY cheaper than buying 40-50 pounds of live rock. I would buy the rock in person so you can see how big the rocks are because 50 pounds of one type of rock is enough to fill a 125 gallon, whereas 50 pounds of another is good for the biocube or similar.
 
Thanks so much for the advice. While I won't say budget isn't an issue, I am willing to spend a decent amount to get it setup right. With all the upgrades, I may just buy a 37 or 40 gallon tank, and then add the stuff myself.

I will see about a hand made rig then.
 
The JBJ rimless is a really nice tank, I'd say a better option than the biocube if you want to keep an angel. But if you keep it topless you may have an issue with jumpers like firefish or wrasses.
It's always a good idea to start with decent equipment rather than cheap out at the beginning since you will eventually just get the good equipment one day anyway. If you have to piece it together over a few months that's ok, get used to doing nothing quickly in saltwater. When things get rushed is when problems arise.
 
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