new to reefs but cycling a biocube 29 HQI

[mtnstreesndogs4me]

Hello,
I am new to salt water tanks but my wife had one before.
We have a new Biocube 29 HQI that we picked up Sunday and we have just started cycling. We have living rock and living sand and we have added a second 50 gph power head, a heater and a moon light.
We have heard the skimmer is not very good but I was hoping to hear from others that have a set up that is close to ours.
What have you had success with and what were some of the starting issues you ran into?
We will test our water next weekend and see where we are. Currently we are not running the skimmer and we have nice purple algae on the rocks.
I think we will start off slow and see how it builds but I was just hoping to get a good idea of what we are dealing with before we start buying fish and corrals.
Thanks in advance,
Robert

 

[Ted]

Looks great. Slow is the best thing you can do in this hobby.

 

[mtnstreesndogs4me]

Thanks,
Is anyone else out there running a biocube 29 HQI ?

 

[salt_for_brains]

I ran a 29g biocube when I first started out in the hobby----I know their skimmer was pretty bad back then. I put live rock rubble in the second chamber back then to give it more biological filtration and reduce the waterfall sound the tank was making. The HQI will certainly be better than PC lighting I had. You should be able to make an awesome little reef.
Looking good so far!!

 

[tp1011]

I have a 29 HQI also but Im a little behind you, getting my live rock soon, how many lbs. of live rock is in yours?

Keep posting love to other 29 HQI's