Just one question,not sure if i speed read past it,but what does your cubes look like in colour once they been established in your tank? iknw you said they clumped up but did they turn brown or blackish or remain in same colour?
No, you misread. What clumped up was the GFH (Phosphaguard), which is what had me contacting the company and receiving awesome support and service. Which is in a manner of speaking, was the starting point in me deciding to do the write up.
To answer your question: The colour varies, dependant on the age of the cubes and as you will see from a pic on the other bio cube thread, cubes can look like little psychadellic feta blocks.
Mine has gone completely black, with a thick biofilm.
Some days, it is actually one thick mat (like my hair:
) and I get concerned about enough water flowing through it. I then shake it off in sump and within a minute, acroporids go massive in terms of polyp expansion. I have not had any ill effect (i.e. no3 rising) if I have not shaken the biomass off for many weeks.
Lately, I am running half of my vubes on a 4hour on - off cycle, which seems to keep them cleaner.
Was having a discussion with the developer about this, with some really interesting points being raised in terms of biomass expulsion / ejection automatically occurring from the media, as well as the "nutritional value" thereof.
No, that is not a pic of my hair.... still a few years to go...