kinetic
Finnex 8 Gallon Tahitian Moon Sand Gumdrop Scorpion SPS Tank

Description This is my entry into this year's Nano-Reef.com contest. I started reefkeeping a year ago, and quickly learned by way of research and the hard way of what would be a good and easy to maintain system. Now the contest is up, I've started investing in a large tank system, so unfortunately this won't be as spectacular as I was hoping. I'm not sure if this setup will last long, especially without a sump, but heck I'll try my best.

Tank Finnex 8 Gallon 15.75" x 10.25" x 11.80" Glass tank with curved front corners bought from PremiumAquatics.

Lighting JBJ 70watt HQI Viper (which sucks btw, but left over from my old pico tank) with 14K JBJ Lamp and a new AROMAT 70watt Electronic Ballast from illuming.com. The old JBJ Ballast sucked, broke, and is now in the trash (it was there 3 weeks after purchasing). The aromat should be fantastic, and make the tank glow. I will soon upgrade to a 14K Astralux bulb, or even a 20K bulb that JBJ sent me as a replacement for the 6 defective bulbs they sent me prior.

Flow MaxiJet 900. That's all, nothing fancy =P 460+gph total flow ~57x turnover rate.

Filtration AquaC Nano Remora w/ Maxijet 900. TLF Phosphate Reactor (not sure if I want to put another powerhead in here for this guy...).

Temperature THEO 50watt Heater, no fans yet.

Stock Red spotted Gumdrop Scorpionfish, a few scarlet hermits, cerith snails, trochus snails, and a ton of SPS.

LR/LS Tahitian Black Moon Sand (caribsea) and LR from established tank.


Entry photo:

Finnex 8g Tank w/ Tahitian Moon Sand, back painted black (Krylon Black Gloss spray paint), and Beringer Vinyards Spragia Limited Release Chardonnay.

wow. A tank thats actually going to happen!!! j/k

Nice tank and nice booze. I'm looking forward to this!

lol seriously... I was contemplating about not putting this tank together, but what the heck.

Nothing fancy, hopefully it'll do well. I'll need a place to house some corals while my 32g becomes a 70g =) But I don't know how 40lbs of LR will look in this 8g tank!

I was planning a 11 gallon socalcreations tank, braceless, external overflow, matching sump and stand w/ 250watt hqi aquamedic, but that's too expensive right now since I'm putting together a super secret 70g

can't wait to see your entry!

btw: That bottle is fantastic, I've never had chardonnay so good before in my life! It's worth the trip up to Napa Valley, goto their Victorian House for the limited release tastings, you'll buy a couple bottles of these guys for sure When the contest is done, I'm popping this one open to celebrate (win or lose).

After seeing your other tanks, this is going to be awesome. I will be following along for sure!



GL in the contest!
texx

nice tank to dyou have the picture of the tank and the stand. that look like a file cabnite from ikea.

speaking of larger tanks, sorry bud. leemar isnt as responsive if you dont call them. you might have to wait another week or so if you so choose to. sorry for the trouble, nips

yup, filing cabinet from Ikea, somehow it fits perfectly =) I'll post more pix later.

somone else is going with black sand also....cool.

sweet tank btw, i cant wait to see it up and running.

problem with black sand is it doesn't reflect very well, so the undersides of corals tend to lose some color =/

Threw in some of the equipment:
Nano Remora
MaxiJet 900
THEO 50watt Heater
JBJ 70watt HQI Viper (no ballast yet)
Finnex 18watt 50/50 PC fixture (temporary)




Then I got some Harbor Bay NSW that I had for my other tank (brand new water I guess) and added it in. Filled it to about half a centimeter off the top and let 'er rip! First thing I noticed, the nano remora sucked up a bunch of water and now sounds like a truck running with tons of microbubbles! This thing SUCKS BUTT! I am thinking of getting rid of it if the sound doesn't die down and the microbubbles don't go away.



I'm thinking of bringing the viper down in front of the finnex fixture and angling it towards the middle of the tank, might add to the look of it all. Top down



all the showing equipment sucks! I miss my all-in-one setup I had before, so much cleaner. But this must be a cheap setup, or else it'll take away from my larger tank setup fund =/

Or maybe I should screw the larger setup fund and go all out with this tank or a custom tank...


edit:
some more problems. the THEO heater, no matter what setting it's at, will push the tank past 82 degrees and then stop. I have a Eheim Jager 50watt as well so I will switch to that one tomorrow.

Very Nice start Kinetic

Man I have to think not type Koden...lol

Ill be following...Good Luck
Izzue

you'd better bring that tiki idol back to hawaii, greg brady. bad mojo!

bad mojo? this thing has given me the best mojo ever? or maybe it could be better? who's greg brady?

ROFLMAO...I loved the episode

Izzue

So did some research on the Remora to see how in heavens I could quiet it down and reduce bubbles, and came up with solutions to both (temporary I guess).



1. To quiet down the skimmer, I removed the collection cup, exposing the three chambers below.



2. I took two paper towels, and folded them up into a square to perfectly fit over the first chamber on the left.



3. Replaced everything, and walla, sound is gone. I don't even know why that chamber is open, other than the fact that you may want to clean the injector. Otherwise I'd say make a small plastic piece with a gasket that fits right over that so that it'll block out any sound, and be removable.



walla, much quieter!!!



Then for the microbubbles, went and got a little soap dish thing, put it under th eoutlet of the remora, and made it into a small fuge.



Problem is, now my 70watt viper sits way to the left side of the tank, and isn't centered =/ Any suggestions?

Update:
I've also gotten rid of the THEO heater and replaced it with a Eheim Jager 50 watt, and now my temp stays at 80 degrees without fluctuating more than .5* !! Sweet =)

Tank looks great, but it kinda all went downhill about...



Best movie EVAR!

Well, except Gidget Goes Hawaiian. And Beach Blanket Bingo.

maybe cut a piece of the dish soap thing? strating to look a bit like my tank! ghetto-ly rigged

you could put the viper on the left or right side of the tank and have it centerd in the middle.................

You should get the remora's surface skimmer. It would blend in better, get rid of micro bubbles, and surface skim.

isn't the surface skimmer only for the REmora's, not the remora nanos?

nanoclown: and yes, it is ghettoly rigged =) my time / effort is going into my new big tank system

i've been reading your 32mtank thread a lot because i just got one. goo dluck with the new tank. The black sand is pretty sleek.

glad you like the 32g mtank!

btw your avatar gave me an idea... maybe a nano anemone tank with a bunch of those anemone shrimp and a few porcelin crabs...

not sure if the anem would dirty the tank up though... the skimmer might not be strong enough.

like my contest tank lol.. i cant wait to see this tank up.. all your other tanks are stunning... BTW.. no offense but that remora REALLY makes the tank look crappy... the tank itself is such a nice tank.. to be junked up with all that equipment. the 2 MJ's REALLY takes away from the tank.. and then the fudge :X
this is just my opinion..also i dont think its really needed .. the Coral Croucher goby isnt really going to be that big of a bio-load

I will admit that the equipment is really takin away from that awesome looking tank....... but hey man, whatever works. Im excited to see the gumdrop goby in there! keep the pics coming!

ditto!! be careful with him! ouchie.

yeah doesn't the tank look so getto?

I was going to drill and put a sump in, but I'm focusing all my funds into my next project. This one will be to purely keep some nice coral and that fish in one tank successfully, regardless of how ugly the surrounding looks, lol =) After the competition is done, I'll have some nice corals, and then I'll empty out the tank and drill it and plumb it with the large tank system =)

i'm kind of frustrated! I ordered the 70watt elec ballast from Illuming.com, and the payment went through, yet they shipped nothing.

I go through all my spam and find that jorge got a payment, but said no order was put through!?!?!?!? It's been a week, and he just left it at that. not even a phone call!

Geeze. I hope this thing gets shipped overnight, because the whole pay before it's shipped thing with paypal on his site has problems.

That sux, I haven't delt with Illuming.com but that doesn't sound right! My setup is like yours only on roids I was having trouble centering my 150watt HQI over my 10 because of my remora but after looking at the tank I didn't notice any difference in spread so whatever. Good luck man.

I've dealt with illuming.com/ Jorge several times and have always had great customer service. I would try to contact him by email at his website if you haven't already.

yeah, I've dealt with him before, cool guy, just some craziness going on with my order =/ I'm sure it'll turn out well. I guess it'll give my tank some more time to mature (even though I"m using 5 year old Live Rock)

sweet set up cant wait to see it finished

I'm investigating on adding a CPR AquaFuge to hide my remora. In fact, if my tunze nano skimmer fits I'm going to switch to that instead.

Then two tunze nano streams when they come out to add about 300x turnover rate in the tank =) Enough? Too much? Who cares =) Let's see what crazy SPS i can keep in that kind of flow.

Good luck keeping your sand a bed! 300X i think your gonna have to go BB,just my opinion.im sure 1 nano tunze would be enough.

yeah I'll probably lose all my sand.

=)

what SPS coral is known to need insane amounts of flow?

sand=a necessity for a winning contest tank

for pictures I"ll turn off the powerheads for a couple hours to let the sand settle black tahitian moon sand storm all day for this tank otherwise!!

good news!!!!! I'm getting a custom made hang over the back sump, basically it hangs and sits a tad higher than my tank and drains back in. It will house my tunze nano skimmer, tunze nano filter (carbon/phosban), and heater. I'll stuff some chaeto in there somewhere too for kicks and a little light.

That means my tank interior will be completly free of equipment soon except for a maxijet 900.

The hang on will also allow for my jbj viper to clip onto it as well, so it won't be off center.

I'm going to ask First Class Aquatics to build it for me.

I'll keep you updated on the build!

Skimmer Update: My Remora Nano skimmer hasn't skimmed anything yet, and is still loud. I did that quiet down mod, but it's still very loud. I'm definately going to put this on my frag tank in the basement since it doesn't matter how loud that gets. The frag tank will be getting a tunze nano skimmer as well, so dual skimming, sweet =)

pic updates when you get a chance please!

I'm going to do a quick waterchange tonight, and then I'll take a picture

we want pics! lol

nothing special happening here. I'm afraid to put my hand in because of the scorpion. that guy is fast.

lol

i have a Question about this contest. if i have an empty tank on the 20th can i still enter>? or does it need to already have my lr and other things?

good idea... i snapped a picture of that guy diving in bonaire. hopefully someday my tank will sustain an anemone

all you need is an empty tank with your favorite beverage in it to enter the contest. you also can't add any corals after January something. That's about it =) So it can be very empty by the 20th =)



I'll see what happens! I'll let my tank cycle for a few months, and then see if I can sustain an anemone.

hopefully i get this 13-14 gallonish tank by the deadline! tank a look at it on the thread i posted. i want to join! this would be my first contest

any pics? lol, i wanted to enter this contest so bad but i didnt have any room for a 10g.

picture coming in november

ok, lol. i didnt realize you were trying to keep things a secret until each consecutive photo. did you ever get the aquafuge?

KINETIC...
Get to work on your big tank man!

lol! the work on the big tank has already started.