Biocube bubble problem

[Collatos]

Ive had my Biocube for about 6 months now, everything is fine, I used Live rock instead of bioballs to cycle it (bc i heard it was better) and just have the standard stock setup in the back. I had left the middle chamber empty. Everything was going great until a few day ago. I noticed that my middle chamber is overflowing into my pump chamber, and that it takes water out of the pump chamber when it try to siphon out water from the middle chamber. My tank pump has also been spitting tiny bubbles and will not stop, even if the water is above the max line in the pump chamber. Does anyone have any ideas/help? I cleaned out my pump and put it back but that didn't change anything. I'm worried the bubbles can get micro and get stuck in my fishes gills!

I also had a hair algae growth, I bought 2 mexican turbo snails and a emerald crab but the algae still persists. I changed my lights and that has helped a bit

 

[Schism]

Ive had my Biocube for about 6 months now, everything is fine, I used Live rock instead of bioballs to cycle it (bc i heard it was better) and just have the standard stock setup in the back. I had left the middle chamber empty. Everything was going great until a few day ago. I noticed that my middle chamber is overflowing into my pump chamber, and that it takes water out of the pump chamber when it try to siphon out water from the middle chamber. My tank pump has also been spitting tiny bubbles and will not stop, even if the water is above the max line in the pump chamber. Does anyone have any ideas/help? I cleaned out my pump and put it back but that didn't change anything. I'm worried the bubbles can get micro and get stuck in my fishes gills!

I also had a hair algae growth, I bought 2 mexican turbo snails and a emerald crab but the algae still persists. I changed my lights and that has helped a bit

I cant help with the biocube problem as i am unfamiliar with them.

However the algae problem i can. Nothing you put in to eat algae will fix the problem. Algae require nutrients ie. nitrates and phosphate. So you have a nutrient problem. Figure out why and solve it to fix the algae problem.

 

[Jacobsal91]

Try cleaning your return pump. It can be a pain to re assemble but it just
Might need to be
Cleaned. Keep it near the max line or at the max line. Also do u have a skimmer? If you do it might be too close to your return pump

 

[Jacobsal91]

Sorry for double post, but as for the hair algae im having the same
Problem. Get a protein skimmer if you dont own one. Leave the lights off for a few days if possible. The mexican turbo snails will do an amazing job in time trust me. Try scrubbing hair algae off and sucking out the algae with the syphon. Your phosphates will test 0 or low because the algae consumes phosphate. But if you kill the algae and dont remove the decaying algae, The phosphate it consumed will be dispersed back into your tank.

 

[Collatos]

Yeah! Good advice thanks, I've got this trick where I tie the siphon to my scrub brush, kinda works, anyways I suggest a change in lights every 6 months since I changed mine the growth has died down a lot. And haha mine is literally covered in baby snails (apparently theres some snail love in my tank).

 

[Jacobsal91]

Thats good, they will eat the algae! Good luck with everything if you have any questions just post on here!

 

[Luckysfrags]

Hey I have a biocube 29 and I just had that same problem with Micro bubbles comming out of the pump. After a few days of filling and changing the water levels I found out that my UV sterilizer was slightly disconnected from my return tube and it was creating small bubbles when it was breaking the surface. So your problem could be as simple as reconnecting your tubing.

 

[Collatos]

I did that and cleaned out my pump ad nothing has changed. My middle cartridge is still overflowing into my final chamber. Any other ideas?

 

[ORION411]

I did that and cleaned out my pump ad nothing has changed. My middle cartridge is still overflowing into my final chamber. Any other ideas?

Have you cleaned the filter in the 3rd chamber with the return pump in it, if not try that ,that may help with the overflow problem

 

[Luckysfrags]

One thing I did to help keep my hair algae in control while I was getting my water levels back to normal was I bought a fresh water Molly and very slowly acclimated it to my salt water tank. After 10 hours of acclimation I added the mollies in and they started to eat the hair algae after a day or two.

 

[Collatos]

Rly? So they ate the hair algae? Do you suggest just drip acclimating it?

 

[Luckysfrags]

Yea I said I did it for 8-10 hours

 

[Bige]

I have a Molly in my biocube. Not seen it eat too much algae. But you can acclimate in an hour or less. You could just throw it in but seemed cruel to me. I actually acclimated mine in 2 hours.

 

[Luckysfrags]

How long has he been in there? And I got my mollies in a fresh water tank so I made sure they wouldn't die by acclimating for a long time. I wouldn't ever just drop one in a salt tank nor only acclimate for 2 hours. IMO that's way too cruel.

 

[Starchar]

There is a sponge that is in your between your second and third compartment in the back of your BC. You will need to remove that and clean it really good (I recommend doing it with each water change but that may be more than needed).

The hair algae is a sign of excessive nutrients. The Turbo Snails can help but you can also increase your water changes. Make sure you are using RODI water and not tap. Test your water for Phosphates and Nitrates. If you don't have corals you can cut back on lighting to help control the algae as well. To manually remove it off of rock a stiff bristled toothbrush will be helpful.