Mine did come with that extra fan. I just did the transformer upgrade since I have them laying around. what are your temps at? I am guessing you have the upgraded hood fans as well, I think all of their newer models came with them preinstalled.

Every other day is quite a schedule for the filter floss! I try and use it every now and then, it messes with my water levels and I have to readust my ATO to compensate, per the reason I don't run it often

Yea..it gets kinda brown after only a couple of days. I just put a small amount in there to catch and particles.so its really pretty easy. The temps run from the mid 79's at night up to around 80.8 at the end of the day. I only keep the air at about 76 and it getting to the 80's outside here in florida already As a test one night I flipped open the lid that gives access to the sump and let a small fan blow across it. With the heater off the temps dropped to 76.5 degrees!! I wont do that again because it will freak out the in habitants, but point is if I could rig some sort of setup that wasnt to intrusive and just ran it during the week while im at work it would probably help.

wow, there is possibly your solution for a chiller. You could cut a hole in that cover and mount a fan! My temps in the summer run 81-82 by the end of the day, that is with the AC controling the room to about 72 ish.

Yea I was shocked it went down so low! I will have to come up with something before the summer

please post pics on your thread if you do! Lots here would love it

Will do. I think my first attempt may just be to rig up a large PC fan and place it where the section is for the chiller hoses but facing downwards, the less intrusive the better as I dont want to ruin the clean look of the hood.

That would be my first spot of choice. I have plumming routed in there from my auto top off, something you may want to invest in down the road. I will never run a tank without one!

Alright so I tried out this mod to the skimmer:




It was fairly straingt foward, yet I cleaned out my skimmer since it was pretty junky inside so there will be a short break in period before I can gauge performance. Right now I am getting exacly the same amount of foam, nothing reaching the neck in the collection cup.

Pics:










New Corals : Thanks Awesome Aquatics!

Birdsnest:



Purple Acro:

Nice looking birds nest!! I will be interested to see if the skimmer mod helps. I still need to drill the holes in mine. Why exactly does that help?

I think it helps direct the air bubbles closer to the top. So they don't have to travel up the entire chamber. It will become more apparent as time passes if it does anything.

Drill the holes in the top? Make sure you stick that air hose in one. the sucking noise is so loud without doing that, it helps out so much.

yea drilling the holes in the lid is what I meant. Wondering why that helps. As far as the sucking sound goes, if I jam it in by where the power strip is its not too loud. But I will try and put it in there.

Jamming it there may work as well, but when i jammed it in a hole it sealed aroudn the hose and didn't allow any sound from "leaking"

There usually is a hole in other skimmer cups. It helps with air pressure inside the skimmer.

I had a hole in my remora skimmer

There is actually a very small pinsized hole in my lid right on th edge near the "handle" of the lid. I didnt notice it in yours. Perhaps another red sea max improvement?

haha, yeah, another RSM improvement as they listen to their users. I do not have a hole there.

Looking good Stevie!

Sweet! Now i think i may have to try my hand at some SPS. But i really dont want to get another pump.

Why not? I like having an extra pump that is not tied into the filtration system. this way I can feed phyto etc and let it dispurse around in the display without getting lost in the filtration.

Well i dont know, it seems like theres enough flow right now. Geeze im just too cheap i guess.

I guess so !!!

How many months did you wait until you added SPS?

I had some in my old tank that I purchased a few weeks before I got this tank. So I cycled for about 3 weeks and added everything into this tank. So..... 3 weeks, but I used established water from my old tank and old rock.

I like the before & after series. pretty cool.

thanks, wish I could have gotten better pictures

Alright.... my first real mod to this tank in a long time. I love projects!!! I will update on performance when there is any, skimmer still nees to break in. So far so good, I am pleased with the looks, the noise is much better.

oooh, i just got a 9002 too. let me know how its performing for you stevie.

Will do. I wonder how long it will take for it to break in, i have never run a Tunze before.

Is it me or are these skimmers WAY overpriced. Once you get inside there is nothing to them. My guess, they cost $25 to make.

First of all steve what a beautiful setup what ever your doing keep doing. Regarding the skimmer would you have any recommendations for 24 g nano cube. I got one problem and thats a covered hood. Your insight will be greatly appreciated.

Ze German Engineering iz vat you pay for StevieT. Seriously when you think about it a manufacturing cost of $25 and a retail cost of $150 means a 6x increase which isn't too bad as far as things go after you factor in R&D, overhead, etc. I see allot more gouging in things like apparel for example. Back in HS/College I dated a few girls who's fathers were in the textile business. One as a manufacturer. As an example he made shorts (here in the US) for $0.18 including materials and labor per piece. It was sold to a wholesaler for $1 and the wholesaler sold it to a retailer for $5 and the retailer sold the shorts for $20!

UH

Ja ist es die deutsche Technik. Du bist intelligent. I know, I know, everyone wants to make their 30% margins. This has to be one of the most simple skimmers I have EVER seen though. Even the plastic is rather thin. Overall, if it works, I am game!




I am not overall familiar with that tank but I would imagine an in sump skimmer would work. Best to post a thread asking this question, i'm sure you'll get good answers. If you could maybe cut or get access to the back of the hood where you could hang on a skimmer that may work as well. But I would look into insump options first.

my thoughts exactly. i know that Tunze is a great name in terms of quality, but when i opened up the box i was like WTF? this thing looks like it would cost 15 bucks. ive heard great things about them though, im sure it will work out great. i think the break-in period was like 3 weeks??

Just snooping ... wow if i ever have a office i must install a nano That looks like a great place to work! you hiring ?

BTW thanks on the time you take to reply to posts and all :-) say, do you have a tank at home?

Thank you and you're welcome!!! I have this entire office to myself so I was able to customize it to my liking. The tank is a must, it is so fun to look at. It is also a nice visual while talking on nano-reef

I do have a tank at home. Just a 55gal freshwater african cichlid aquarium. I spend way more time awake at work so it was a better choice to have the SW at the office.

why not more pics.











2 Days of skimming: Why didn't I do this earlier?

looks like the Tunze is working out for you

Great StevieT ---Its nice to see that someone actually has a nice build up of coraline algae in their Nano. most pics I've seen, peoples LR looks like cement!!! Note to newbies--Coraline algae is KEY

some fun pics:






eating a shrimp molt

Love the African Cichlid setup, I kind of miss mine but the nano reef is more interesting

thanks, I really do enjoy my nano more, but it is nice to come home to a tank that easy to care for.

Yeah, I look back to when I hated tank maintenance on my 29gal planted tank and wonder what I thought was so bad. 10 minutes a week on that compared to all the time I spend on the nano is nothing.

Steve,

The RSM is looking great. I have been debating picking one up, and almost have my wife talked into it.

Have you upgraded the lighting? I scanned through the whole post and could not tell. If you are keeping SPS with the stock lighting I will have to start push harder to buy one.

Thank you!

Nope, the lighting is stock, It is rather bright, I was impressed the first time I saw it. The SPS is middle to top placement and is growing very fast. I just replaced the skimmer but other than that the tank is stock. I added a korilia pump and an ATO system.

Keep pushing! I really like this tank, you will be happy. If you do get one, look into upgrading the skimmer, it will save you a few headaches.

Couple quick questions that I don't remember seeing the answers to anywhere in the thread. About how many pounds of live rock rubble did you use to replace the bioballs? Also, where did you find that large mesh bag to put it in?

Zero. i should really take that picture out of my thread. Bio balls and live rock rubble are pretty much the same thing with the same problems, they raise nitrates. I found the problem first hand with the rubble. The bag came with the tank, for the bio balls. No one that runs reefs recommends balls or rubble, so it is best to remove all of them. Thanks for the heads up, I am going to have to edit that out

Tanks looking great Steve. Funny I thought the same thing as well about the tunze's simplicity but I havnt fired mine up yet. Also Good idea making a magnet for the side I might steal your idea

yeah, go for it! It makes it super easy to put it where ever you want.

StevieT - what did you use to attach the magnet to the Tunze? i see the pix but i cant tell what you are using exactly.

also - did you ahve to do anyhitng to the tank itslef to get the tunze to slide down in the rear compartment where the stock skimmer was? i have never held or even seen a tunze in person to get an idea of how it would fit. i know others said it would stick out of the top and they had to cut a hole in the the hood. i am guessing they used the stock mounting kit that comes with it and not the StevieT german engineered magnet supreme!

I used a two part epoxy that comes in a syringe type tube. The kind you mix together. Says it is Quick Set Super Glue brand. I'm sure you could find anything like this at HD, I got this at Grainger. It set in 5 mins but I let it cure over night. Holds nice and strong.



The Tunze is a much shorter skimmer than the stock RSM unit. Much shorter! So getting it to fit is not much of a problem. There a lot of sace bellow the unit for flow now, unlike with the crap they give you. The problem lies with mounting it. If you use the factory set up of the tunze, and the magnet mounts, you can only get it bellow the surface skimmer grates. Well that would work but you will loose your sponges, which is bad IMO.

Those who can't get their lid closed didn't really look into the problem good enough. My lid closes just fine. There is a water level mark on the skimmer and I think they are scared of that. I lowered the tunze just over that line and the lid closed fine. If it were to raise up just a smidge, yes it would probably hit slightly.

Basically if you keep your water level in the tank at a proper level, 1/4" or so under the black molding, you won't have a problem with the lid closing. If your water level is higher then you will be over the water line mark on the skimmer, possibly hindering performance.

Let me know if that helps or not, I can take more pics if you need. Use my magnet way of mounting and you shouldn't have a problem. I use magnets for just about everything, this came like the best way to mount the skimmer.

Overall performance, IMPRESSIVE!!!! I have empied out the cup three times not and every time is getting better. Thicker and better skimmate.

Hey StevieT, what was the actual model of the Tunze... I went to my LFS today and they had a couple of different types that all kinda looked like the one you had... Also, is it only the one magnet thats holding the unit there??

Thanks
OwNeD

It is the Tunze 9002 model.

Well there is a magnet glued on the unit under the water and another on the outside of the tank at the back. I have about 4 small magnets on the outside.