SOB (Save Our Biocube)

[Reef Ruler]

BEFORE YOU READ---Its long, so overview. Bubbles coming out of return pump after a month of working, for no apparent reason. Water levels are good. except in third chamber.


You guys have no idea how angry I am at oceanic right now. I come home today with a new frag and put it in along wityh a new shrimp. The tanks back chambers are making a trickling noice, so i went to adjust the carbon bag in it, fixed. An hour later the tank starts spewing bubbles from the return pump. Okay, It was my fault. I worked for 2 huors figuring it out, and nothing. Every 5 seconds or so more bubbles come out.

I did do some mods, but its been running for a month since. The tank got all nice and cloudy, and after about 45 minutes its looking OK. The bubbles are still coming out, and if it werent for all the money invested in this thing I would break it down and smash it to pieces. I honestly cant get any angrier.

Ok...so that was me venting. I wish i could say things on here and express how I truly feel :eek1: :eek2: lol.

So what I had done for mods was take out the filter they give, put a bag of pura complete in that chamber. 2nd chamber, I got filter floss and put it over the black cover thing. I got some LR rubble under there, no bioballs. Bag of carbon ontop or LR. nothing at all in the third chamber besides the pump obviously. I removed all the rubble and carbon and the water level was holding steady, but ever so slightly dropping. could it be the pump? Please help me, or atleast if anybody knows, give me the number for their support. Couldnt find it on the website. Could maybe a small piece of LR rubble be stuck inbetween one of the chambers? I dont know how this suddenly would have happend...I have all the grates in place. If it is the case, How would I go about taking it out?

I just want to :blown: it. If ANYBODY has experienced anything, please, help me. I have done so much to the darned thing, I feel bad because I dont want to push stressing out what I got in there. Nothing too fragile (blood shrimp, new frag of 5 red zoos, green star polyp, frogspawn, and 2 ocellaris) in there, but still. Im a newbie :)

Another thing OT, I have a frag of zoos on the bottom in the sand, would they be OK with the stock lighting?

Ok, sorry for such a long post, and if anybody has any idea, just throw them out there. Nothing is too little.

Thanks
Brian

[noobwithatank]

one thing i would suggest is check the pump for the rock rubble as you had thought and widen the flow between chamber 1/2 this should help out

[Reef Ruler]

Thanks. What should I use to open the opening inbetween 1 and 2? How much wider should I make it? I figured I could use a small saw on my leatherman, but I think It may be too big to get in there. Maybe a butterknife, but that is even bigger.

Do you guys think it would make a difference if I switched out the stock return for a MJ900? Probably not, I would assume, if something is obstructing the flow from the 2nd chamber into the 3rd. I took the blue sponge out, and the problem still is there. I just put it back in. Every 10 seconds, give or take a couple, 5 or 10 bubbles bubbles shooot out. The problem obviously is its taking in a bit of air because the water level is too low, but what would cause it to be every few seconds instead of being a constand supply of bubbles?

[melanotaenia]

I keep the water in the third chamber very high (with the help of an ATO) and sometimes get some microbubbles when the skimmer has been cleaned, but they usually settle down rather quickly; how long has the tank been setup? Only a month or longer?

Try taking out the pump, cleaning the impeller, checking for any loose debris clogged in the pump, then hook it back up, ensuring all hoses are firmly connected with no air getting in from anywhere. This may help the bubble problem.

You can always replace the pump as well; some have installed a Rio 6HF in the third chamber to replace the stock pump with good results (although it should be noted the Rio pumps are a little louder than the stock pump)

You can contact Oceanic (925) 948-4000

[noobwithatank]

just use a pair of side cutters and open it the whole width and the same depth as the stock side.

[mksalt]

Your moving more water out of chamber three than your putting in. A stronger pump will make it worse.

If you take the bag out of chamber one does the water level rises in chamber three?

If not, you have something blocking the outlet in chamber two before the blue sponge.

[dball711]

The filter floss can restrict flow if it becomes clogged. If chamber 2 is not overflowing to chamber 3 then it’s not blocked. Maybe you just need more water.

[Reef Ruler]

Thanks for the number.

The problem is, when I fill up the water in the third chamber, the pump just pumps it all back out untill nothing left. If there was something in the pump, it would have slowed it down, not sped it up enough to pump out the water so fast it doesnt have time to fill back up in time, right?

Plus, I couldnt figure it out how to open up the pump itself lol.

The bubble problem isnt from any leaks in the pumps, i dont think. I will double check, but I am postitive the water leave being so low (below the blue sponge) is the cause of it.

Thanks
Brian

[Reef Ruler]

Changed the filter floss a couple times throughout the day, nothing. I even stretched it out a bit so it wasnt so thick. It seemed to help the teeniest bit.

I will check to see what happens when I remove the bag in chamber one. Thanks for the advice.

I would think it would over flow into chamber 3 from two, but only if the whole passage is blocked. if its only part way blocked, enough water would get through so it doesnt get backed up and over flow.

Thanks you guys for the help. gotta try and figure out how to check to make sure the passage is clear inbetween two and three

[mksalt]

dball may be right. Add more water.

[Reef Ruler]

After reading that, I think he is right. I took out a small amount of water because the surface water wasnt getting skimmed and as a result the water had a slightly grimy surface, which was broken uip by the return pointing upwards.

It would make sense because not enough its flowing into the chambers to start with so it cant get there fast enough. If this is the case, and I got this worked up because I dissasembled the whole thing, took 3 lbs of LR out of the back chamber, put maybe 1.5 back in, pretty much undid and redid all the mods, I am going to kick my own behind and then be mad at dball for suggestion such an obvious answer and making myself appear like a total idiot and jerk, but deep down inside I know that it was a good thing he came along!

Thanks
Brian

I am really hoping its just a shortage of water...Im an idiot.

[dball711]

Hey don’t worry it happens to all of us. Sometimes the most obvious is easy to overlook. You were on the right track following the flow and looking for a blockage. The forums are great for alternate points of view and sometimes when stuck it really helps to hear what others have to say.

Happy reefing!

[Reef Ruler]

Haha, I am going to have to kill you know :D Added water, and now I feel like an idiot right now lol. Works fine.

God....All this messing around in the back before adding water made the rockwork extremely unstable in my hast I wasnt carefull...came home today to find a hefty rock on my green stary poylp...the polyps are coming back out now but they look like junk. re aranged the LR and its OK...should hold for a while before caving in again.

Thanks to all for the help and suggestions, and to dball for pointing out the obvious ;)

[Reef Ruler]

Double Post