Coralife Biocube, Size 29

I'm an experienced hobbyist whom used to have a 120 gallon reef tank, but had to purchase a small 29gallon due to moving into a downtown condo. This is a great all-in-one compact saltwater aquarium. I have friends whom have JBJ 28-gallon Nanocube which is a good product, but lacks rear compartment cover which leads to increased water evaporation of rear chamber and no refugium. The Biocube is well-designed with 3 rear chambers. Chamber one can hold a heater and filter bag of phoslock, second middle chamber (largest) is a terrific refugium which has visible glass rear wall perfect for attaching JBJ Nano-refugium LED light from exterior using suction cups. I recommend JBJ LED refugium light for $60. I bought 26lbs live rock and decided to keep only 18lbs in main display. I put the rest of LR in middle chamber. I am growing cheato and copepods in the middle refugium chamber. The third left chamber holds water pump. I see no issues with pump which came with Biocube, but also purchased Cobalt Aquatics MJ1200 $34 which is former design of Maxijet 1200 made in Italy as a backup. The Biocube's filter system is quiet and cooling fans do not make much noise. Note that Oceanic makes Biocube protein skimmer AND small UV sterilizer (check Ebay too). I bought a Biocube UV sterilizer which attaches to existing water pump. I change 5 gallons of water weekly and decided against skimmer for space reasons.

The Biocube's lighting system can run hot despite cooling fans. The aquarium was pushing 79 degrees in late March which worried me. It is very difficult to install additional cooling fans into the hood. Thankfully, there are several great companies making retro kit LED light systems for nano reefers. I bought a soldered 95% fully assembled retro LED kit specifically for the Biocube from StevesLeds.com for $294. Since is fully assembled, you simply remove the hood and existing light & cooling systems to screw in the new LED kit. You are removing entire guts of interior hood. Takes less than 1 hr and a Phillips screwdriver. LED kit is equipped with pressurized cooling fan which is used in Sony WEGA TV's. LED kit is dimmable and has 2 controls. RapidLed also makes a similar $245 dimmable kit for the Biocube. The main difference is that Steve's model includes cooling fan. RapidLED does not include fan (you would keep existing cooling fans) and one must purchase a reef controller to dim lights and purchase two separate dimmer controls. Both make great LED lighting retro kit systems so is tough decision. After making my LED lighting system upgrade, I'm very satisfied with my aquarium.

I purchased the Biocube for my husband for his birthday. He had been wanting to start an aquarium, and this was the best aquarium to get started. It was so simple to set up and it's thriving with aquatic life after just a few weeks. We've spoken with a local aquarium expert/salt water fish guru, and he even said that we had made a good choice in getting this aquarium. We are loving it and would recommend it for anyone starting out!

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I purchased this through petsolutions and set it up instantly as an upgrade from the original biocube upon arrival. It's been running now for a week and I love it! My fish are happy as well as the corals I had. The colors in my fish, corals and inverts show better with the lighting on the system. It runs very quietly and is so easy set up, take care of and get to the cambers when needed for your mods or add ons. I found the add ons like my sterilizer and skimmer to be more complicated to set up in the tank then the tank was. I get many compliments on my system and am even considering buying another if I find space to set it up for seahorses or something! I'd recommend if you have looked at this system to stop looking and purchase. Petsolutions through amazon is the cheapest I had seen it online and shipping is included!!

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I tried starting up a saltwater aquarium using my freshwater tank, hang-on filter, etc... While it worked fine for a FOWLR tank, I was unsuccessful when adding corals. After wasting a ton of money and time, I caved and bought this coralife tank. What a life saver! I did a few minor mods like cutting out the tab separating the intake from the second chamber to allow greater flow. Got rid of all those bio balls and added a carbon bag, nodes I already had, purigen, and a protein skimmer. Life is good now. This is worth the money, just do your research on biocube modifications to make this worth the price.

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While the biocube has always been a well-made product, it is not well suited to freshwater environments as the advertising says. My mother had the oceanic 8gal for a lone kribensis and loved the smooth look. I have made more freshwater-friendly alterations to mine (including a new pump with half the gph and a ball valve, different lights, different filter media, etc. etc.) which make it much more suited to freshwater, but it does cost quite a chunk of change. I am very pleased with the final product, it is likely I would not choose to do it again -especially with a product that advertises as being freshwater-compatible.

For anyone who owns this product already and doesn't want to put in the effort of modding the hood and light fixtures, Coralife DOES make a 16" 36w 6700k compact light. There is hope!

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