I'm in. Here's a picture of my newly aquired 6 gallon nano cube with my lunch in it.

Before I get too far into this thread let me say a couple of things:

1) If you're a beginner - don't look at this thread as a good example of how to set up a nano-cube. I'm doing some things here that are outside of the norm. This is NOT how I set up my 12. This is NOT how I would generally recommend that one start a nano-reef.

I have very good reasons for my deviations that will become clear in due time. Well, that or I'm being an idiot and I'll have to start all over .

2) I'm making a couple of minor changes that I believe should be allowed under the rules. If enough people take issue with them, I will either undo them or move to the open category. I'd prefer to be in the stock category because everything I'm doing is in the spirit of the stock category. I'm not making any physical modifications to the cube, jacking up the lighting, adding skimmers, adding a sump, etc.

(Note: Changes were too much - I am now in the open category)

Here's the mini-jet 404 that I've replaced the stock pump with. It's a bit of a tight squeeze because the nozzle comes off the top of the stock pump whereas it comes off of the side of the mini-jet. If I were in the open competition, I would have trimmed an inch or so off of the green tube. It seems to work fine without any trimming though.



The mini-jet 404 is rated at 18-108 GPH. I'm running it on the second SLOWEST setting so I'm probably running at about 30 GPH.

The last thing I've done that hopefully is not an issue is add an airstone to the middle compartment. No drilling was required. I just fed the tube through the same opening as the powercord for the pump.



If you'll notice. I'm using the bioballs and ceramic noodles that came with the cube. I even tossed in a couple of the ones that I never used from my 12 gallon cube just for fun. However, I did remove the carbon.

I can hear the screams of horror coming already .

Well, that's about it for today. I've got it filled with tap water for leak testing.



Now I can eat my lunch.



(Live sand and live rock may be added tomorrow but Wednesday is more likely)

BTW, can everybody see the pictures? They're being hosted from my mac mini in my living room - wanna make sure it's set up correctly. I can obviously see them .

I love peas.

Thanks for submitting the entry photo... GOOD LUCK!

(please upload your photo as an attachment to a post in this thread: http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/showthread...&threadid=58764 )

what does the air stone do?

also... not a fan of the peas and macaroni:P

It puts air bubbles into the water of course.

I'm actually not a big fan either but after what I've spent on aquarium stuff this week, I think I'm going to be eating a lot of it . I think I'll be price shopping for ramen soon.

I have sand and a little live rock now.



If you live in Central Ohio, Byerly's was selling live rock for $4.99 per pound tonight though they said it was going to be going up soon. There were mostly larger than nano pieces (could be broken up I suppose) in the tub but I picked up the rubble you see in the picture.

ramen sale, 10 for a $1, gotta love that

It's amazing they can make any money off of ramen at those prices isn't it? I couldn't package air at that and make a cent.

It's actually only been recently that I've been able to enjoy ramen again. I once ate it for two weeks straight in college. If you've ever eaten anything exclusively for two weeks, you'll know what I'm talking about. It takes a long time before you can look at it again without gagging.

wouldn't the air stone cause micro air bubbles. Micro air bubbles irritate coral when they get trapped or latch onto the coral itself. I dunno. perhaps im not understanding your plan.

GOOD LUCK tho.

PS if you now in the OPEN category u might as well mod the lights so you can keep a broader variety of coral.

All things in good time grasshopper

I actually have ordered a couple of things from nanocustoms now that I'm in the open category. I ordered the moonlight fix and the JBJ ATO. I'm not sure if the ATO is worth the money. I could have done it a quite a bit cheaper DIY. I'll give my opinion of it after I've installed it.

I haven't decided on whether or not to do a lighting upgrade yet. My livestock plan was developed for the stock category. I don't intend to change it - especially being as most of it has already been ordered. I guess if I think more lighting will have a significant impact on the health of my selections, I will do it. If not, I'll leave it stock.

The air stone causes bubbles, not micro bubbles. Microbubbles are much smaller than anything a normal airstone puts out (although a limewood airstone can put out microbubbles). Microbubbles generally come from skimmers. On the other hand, if some bubbles get sucked through the return pump, it would create microbubbles, but I don't think Joe has to worry about that running 30 GPH...I think all the bubbles will make it safely to the surface.

Technically, the term "microbubbles" would refer to bubbles to small to be seen by the naked eye.

I got my JBJ ATO and moonlight fix from nanotuners.com (Thanks Chris).



The install fix was a piece of cake. I got it to work with nothing but a screwdriver - no soldering, drilling, or dremelling required.



I don't have the pump that I ordered for the JBJ ATO yet so I haven't installed it but I've begun playing with it. I actually think I've formed my opinion of it from the experimentation I've done but I'm going to hold off on writing anything until I have it installed and running.

oh, I know what you're gonna stock this tank with! :

Shhhhh....

The 15 yellow tangs I ordered won't be here 'till wednesday. I want it to be a surprise.

Only yellow tangs? I would have gone with Naso Tang juveniles

Actually, I saw cute little baby barracuda at the LFS the other day. Think they're reef-safe? Would they work in a 6 gallon?

Heh, I wish all the stuff I've ordered would hurry up and come in. This is worse than waiting for a cycle to complete.

i saw a litle 'cuda at a lfs the other day too...what store did you see it at?

I saw em at Jack's. Isn't buying a baby barracuda kind of like buying a baby alligator?

Grrr... my first shipment of livestock is coming in today but I missed the FedEx guy. I've gotta go pick the package up after 5pm. I'll post pics later tonight.

I installed the JBJ ATO last night. I used the TOM aqualifter as the pump. It's nice because it pumps water through airline tubing so I've once again escaped any drilling or cutting . Surprisingly enough, the aqualifter turned out to be really quiet - that or it's just overpowered by the ATO alarm (more to come on that). It has super low flow but it's more than adequate for topping off evaporation on a 6 gallon tank. I'm very happy with it.

Here are my thoughts on the ATO:

I'm not sure what a typical auto-topoff system costs but I know what I estimated the cost of a DIY system to be. At $85 without a pump, I really expected the ATO to be a premium system. I may have set my expectations too high.

The first problem I ran into was mounting the floatswitch. With the combination of connectors supplied, there's no way to really fine-tune the height of the switch. You can get it within an inch of where you want it but that's about it. In a larger tank this would have been no big deal but in my nano cube, I was unable to mount it at the right height without modification to the clips. Even after a little DIY action, I am still not able to keep the water height above the top frame due to the splashguard hitting the top of the switch. As a result, the waterline is just visible when viewing the cube. I may get into cutting the spashguard and adjusting the mount further to avoid this.

The second problem I was confronted with is the audible alarm. Whenever it turns on the pump it makes a loud tone so you know that it is working. This may be fine for a livingroom tank but mine is in my bedroom. I don't need an alarm going off while I'm trying to sleep. Why they don't have a switch to cut the audible alert I have no clue. My workaround was to put the ATO on the timer with my lights so that it only operates during the day. I may pop the sucker open and disconnect the speaker.

My third complaint is that I'm not 100% sure the snailguard is adequate. Being in the sump area of my cube it's fine for me. However, there is definitely room for foreign objects to get through it.

I do like the fact that it's a simple system to set up and includes a second float for protecting your pump or preventing an overflow a stuck float. I would recommend the system to people that are setting up a large tank or an AGA nano. For anybody else, I'd recommend a DIY setup or a californiareefs setup.

Suggestions for ATO v2:
1) Put a freaking switch on it to turn off the audible alarm.
2) Provide a way to fine-tune float height.
3) Improve the snail guard - there's lots of room for stuff to get in there.

I don't know how much makeup water your going to be dealing with,
but I have almost no evaporation in my nc6.
I hope it wasn’t wasted money

Well, it was definitely wasted money in the sense that I could have done it just as easily for far less. I'm not bent out of shape over it though. I'm sure I'll move the ATO to a bigger tank someday where it will start to have more value.

I like to run my temps higher than most people (82-83) so I imagine I'll see a decent amount of evaporation. Even if it's not a ton, at least the ATO will keep the salinity more constant than sporadic hand topoffs. Plus I've got a 2 week trip to Belize coming up and that's one less thing that my aquarium-sitter will have to do.

Hey Joe,
I saw your thread on RC, cool idea for the contest.
Good Luck

PS - No smuggling from Belize, I think it’s against the contest rules.

You could always open it up and cut the wires to the speaker

Thanks Rick. I'm going out a bit on a limb but I'm excited about trying it

Brian - Agreed, the first time the thing wakes me up or ticks me off, the speaker's getting disconnected. What an absurd oversight not putting a switch on the thing to turn it off...

Anyhow, I got my first "livestock" into the tank last night.

Here's a pic:

I tested my water params yesterday for the first time:

pH 7.8 (Old test kit, may not be very accurate)
Ammonia 1ppm
Nitrite .5ppm
Nitrate ~= 10ppm
Calcium 400ppm

It will be interesting to see how quickly the macro algae sucks up the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate. I bet it happens fairly fast providing it doesn't die back a bit while adjusting to the new surroundings.

Very cool. You dont often see a tank dedicated to marine algaes. If you decide to leave it, it would be a great tank for dwarf seahorses.

Where'd you get the tank at?

I picked it up at my LFS. I was in a hurry, otherwise I would have ordered it from nanocustoms.com and saved $20.

The raging diatom bloom I had going before adding the macro algae virtually disappeared the night before last. I tested my params again today. As expected, the macro algae went to town:

Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate <5ppm

It's not as bleak as it looks though. Luckily I have this:



1 pound of Potassium Nitrate

I also have 1 pound of Potassium Phosphate (it looks the same so there's no point in posting a pic).

Hmm.... potassium nitrate.... activated charcoal... If I only had some sulphur my tank could celebrate the 4th of July

Just a quick update...

I'm seeing significant growth from my Halimeda, Prolifera, and Penicillus. My Graciliaria and Paspaliodes don't look happy though. If they don't turn around soon, I'll have to either investigate further or just pull them and replace them with something else.



Having finally reached a point where I'm confident that my ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate have all bottomed out, I just dosed my tank to 20ppm of Nitrate. I'm going to watch it over the next couple of weeks to see how fast it gets sucked back out so I can have some rough idea of the macro's uptake. I would have just dosed to 5ppm but it's too hard to tell the difference between 5 and 0 with my test kit.



I am curious to see whether these Nitrate levels will produce a bloom of micro algae and if so, what type. I still have some diatoms visible on the sand and rock so perhaps they'll go through another bloom. Of course, it's very possible that my micro algae will continue to recede... we'll see.

Also, my calcium levels seem to be slowly dropping due to the Halimeda and Penicillus growth. I'm going to have to start dosing calcium soon in one form or another. Water changes would probably be enough now but I don't think they're going to be enough long-term. I have an aipstasia on one of my pieces of rock so maybe I'll go with the kalk approach and kill two birds with one stone...

good thread. very original idea for this contest!

are you sure thats not coke?

BelowH2O, thanks much!

lgoins, while I haven't taken it to a lab for independent verification or anything, it was $2.17 per pound so I think it's safe to say that it is NOT cocaine.

I went ahead and dosed a little calcium today. I have an unopened bottle of Kent Tech CB part A lying around from when I first set up my reef tank and didn't know what to buy. I don't intend to use it for dosing calcium long term but it'll get me by until I figure out what I intend to do. The halimeda and penicillus had dropped the calcium from around 400ppm to around 320ppm prior to dosing.

Also, as of yet, there has been no undesirable algae bloom from dosing the Nitrate. In 48 hours, test kit color has visibly lightened also. I'd have to guess an uptake of 2-3ppm daily so far. I'll revise that figure as time goes on though.

Oh, another thing I've noticed. I have a new Penicillus growing already - it's about 2" tall now. You can just see it starting to pop up out of the sand in my last picture. Pretty cool.

Just got back from Belize... lots of changes over the two weeks I was gone... I'm swamped catching up with work right now but hopefully I'll be able to post an update this weekend.

whats the algae in the back right?

Nice Halimeda (I think its Opuntia, right?)

Just and FYI you can cut (pinching works better IMO) the little circles off and put them in the sand, or glue it to a rock, and it will grow a new one. I have a 12" cube filled with it(acually, this is the tank holding all my stuff for my NC, as it isnt here yet)

I like the idea of an all algea tank.

If this where my tank I would take the mag float out (to big) and also put the therm. in the back)

Coming along very nicely, but I want an update! Shoot me a PM about how the algae is evolving (microalgae too) and your phosphate and nitrate levels. I still have shoal grass for you.. I'm glad to see the overall idea is working well.

You still in it?