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doubled's JBJ 28gl Advanced LED nano-cube


Incubus_doubled

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Incubus_doubled

Hello guys n gals...

 

I had a JBJ 12 gallon nano which did pretty good for over 2 years, I ended up also getting a custom frag tank but unfortunately I just recently moved(more like 2 months ago) and had to get rid of all my livestock. So now i have to start from scratch. I recently started a new job and I am fortunate to have such great co-workers and bosses. They have giving me the best tools and advise for this hobby and they are truly great mentors. Their training program is intense and what I thought about the hobby was not even a fraction of what they taught me. Everyday is a learning experience and picking up something new. I was fortunate to receive a new JBJ 28 gallon tank from my work. So pretty much this blog will be my experience on putting this nano together.

:D

 

 

update 11-5-12

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Incubus_doubled

So getting the JBJ 28 gallon tank I thought I was going to be disappointed due to the fact that I owned a 12 gallon before. I had to do several modifications in order to get the 12 gallon to where I wanted it to be. To my surprise JBJ 28 has done a great job on this updated model.

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This offers:

 

 

Tank Dimensions 18 x 22 x 22

 

Daylight - 25 x 3 Watt - 14k

 

Dawn/Dusk - 4 x 3 Watt - Actinic/466nm

 

Monn - 2 x 1 Watt - Nite-Vu/456nm

 

3 Stage Filter Mediabasket

 

Heater Column

 

Auxillary Column(for a protein skimmer)

 

The Ocean Pulse Duo-Wavemaker

 

4 3000 rpm Cooling Fans

 

Easier access to feeding/maintenance lid

 

 

 

 

So, as you can see i'm excited to get this started.

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So getting the JBJ 28 gallon tank I thought I was going to be disappointed due to the fact that I owned a 12 gallon before. I had to do several modifications in order to get the 12 gallon to where I wanted it to be. To my surprise JBJ 28 has done a great job on this updated model.

This offers:

Tank Dimensions 18 x 22 x 22

Daylight - 25 x 3 Watt - 14k

Dawn/Dusk - 4 x 3 Watt - Actinic/466nm

Monn - 2 x 1 Watt - Nite-Vu/456nm

3 Stage Filter Mediabasket

Heater Column

Auxillary Column(for a protein skimmer)

The Ocean Pulse Duo-Wavemaker

4 3000 rpm Cooling Fans

Easier access to feeding/maintenance lid

So, as you can see i'm excited to get this started.

 

Wow. Great start. I am looking forward to following your progress. I currently have the JBJ 12G. I was thinking of going up to the larger size so it will be interesting to see how you like your tank.

 

Thanks for sharing! :)

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Incubus_doubled

Thanks eitallent, I actually enjoyed the 12gl but like I said I had to do several mods before I could get it where I wanted it to be. How old is your tank, any pics.. that be awesome.

 

So the next thing is where am i going to place this thing. I originally had a place on the little hall that connects to all rooms but I figure somebody can easily knock it over if not careful. So it went back to the living room.

 

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I actually like the stand. I wanted to build one that was going to be more sturdy and have room to play with in case I needed to add a chiller or a sump, but working my butt off at the Reef-A-Palooza i ended up with a free stand. Thank you Ben!

 

 

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The stand is not too bad, it is made of particle board so i had to use L clamps on each corner to reinforce it. The height is a little bit more than I expected but it does give a really clean setup.

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Incubus_doubled

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So i got my live rock and now it's time for some aquascaping. Before I added them in the tank I had them in a 5 gal Home Depot bucket dip in water, a powerhead to give it some flow, and a heater. So now it's the fun part. Here's where I get to be a kid and use my imagination.

 

 

 

 

Picture%20280.jpgSo I place them together to make several designs until i came up with this one. I feel comfortable about this layout. I made sure they are nice and stable so they won't collapse. Once i add water if I start seeing movement I'll use some epoxy to keep them together.

 

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Incubus_doubled

Ok seriously... what's that noise... hahaha well as you can tell, placing the tank right on the wooden platform of the stand created all humming and rattle when I tested the tank. So this was the perfect moment to isolate the noise nuisance. My other hobby involves music and recording so I hate noisy, humming or any type of feedback. Then there was that bright lighted bulb on top of my head. I got the idea from my buddy at work. He used a yoga mat to place it between the tank and stand.

 

check out it here :)http://www.remsreef.com/2011/03/yoga-mat-i...ad-of-foam.html

 

So my destiny for the end of the day was to get a yoga mat. Since I'm in a budget I figured I tried yard sales... no luck :( next stop was the dollar stores, I figure i can substitute them with drawer liners... awww to thin and it only comes in 12"...

 

So I had to suck it up and ended going to Sport Authority... let me tell you, yoga mats are not cheap. The more cushion the more expensive it is. The color I was looking for was black so it can match with the tank and stand, all black mat where like over $27-$56. No way i was going to drop some cash on some mat that i was going to just end up tearing up. To my surprise i found the $9 section, NO BLACK!... u got to be kidding me. I ended up with a dark blue/green color, I folded up 3 times, slid it in there. The next thing was to get my hobby knife and just cut around the tank to get a nice even patten. Overall the color wasn't an eye sore since it's dark and blends it really well. The mat is pretty thick and it absorbs the vibrations and acoustics. So I'm pretty pleased with the results.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Incubus_doubled

I drove all the way to LFS to get some water. I like their quality water, the livestock, and not to mention their customer service :) I ended up with 6 5 gallons and tempted to get other stuff I had to refrained myself from doing it.

 

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Time to go back home to set it up.

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Incubus_doubled
Following along, sounds like you're off to a great start!

 

thanks, I'm taking my time on this one.. and don't want to do the same mistakes again. :happy:

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Incubus_doubled

There was so many different options on going with this tank. The 1st option was going BB, but I'm a sucker to the nice sandy color. I know that BB are quite nice if set up correctly and are easier to maintain. Well, as you can see I ended up going with the sand. I wanted live sand instead of dry to speed up my cycling.

My 1st choice was the Caribsea Ocean Direct Live Sand Oolite, I had this on my 12gl JBJ, I like the true white that stands out, my concern was that it's fine sugar grain and it would blow all over my corals and rocks. So my next choice was the Caribsea Arag-Alive Fiji Pink, now this one I love how it has the pink specs. But like I mentioned I'm a sucker for the whitest sand. So my third and final choice was the Caribsea Arag-Alive Special Grade Reef Sand. All three products are great with 4 1/2 stars reviews, but the special grade was just the perfect size I needed. Special Grade Reef Sand - Grain Size 1.0 - 2.0 mm. This coarse sand is 100aragonite and has excellent diffusive properties.

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Looking great! Following along as well :) I like the yoga mat idea very much, and your rock has a nice cave look. I was weary about rock on glass, but it seems to be a non issue. I like that idea, that way the sand doesn't shift with diggers and you have a aquascape earthquake mid cycle!

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Incubus_doubled

Hey Thanx Wixx.. love the avatar pic.... lol yeah sometimes you have to get creative. I messed around for a while until I got the shape that I wanted. :D

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Incubus_doubled

Fill er Up! and I don't mean this high gas prices. OK, so I got my water, the problem is that I didn't want to just add it directly into the tank. Past experience I end up knocking my rocks over and not to mention I got sand all over. Going through my aquarium spare parts box I found a MJ pump.. sweet! the problem is that it doesn't fit in the mouth of the container. I got the 5 gal bucket I had my rocks in, rinsed it, got some tubing, drain the water inside... and off we go! post-73681-1351621346_thumb.jpg



I started in center of the tank with a low flow over the rocks to wash away sand that fell on top when i was adding it. Water started getting cloudy, after half ways of the tank post-73681-1351621381.jpg

I placed the hose in the back chambers. as water started to rise, the cloudinest was fading.

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Incubus_doubled

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Flare nozzles are awesome if you want direct flow but i'm looking into something more random. Since i want a great variety flow and my water to be more oxygenated I'll be swapping out the flare nozzles. I'm deciding between the Innovative Marine Spin Stream and the Hydor Flo Rotating Deflector.

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So the Innovative Marine has Pretty slick design, It comes with 3 adapters and it's packaged like a BOSS!

It costs $30.00 and it's rated for 52-600 GPH.

 

 

 

 

 

The Hydor Flo has the bullet shape and it comes with 4 adapters. It's packaged just in a simple box it goes for $10.99. It is rated for 80-310 GPH.

 

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Both nozzles are pretty much plug and play straight out of the box. Since they both come with standard size fittings it's pretty much easy as 1-2-3. The drawback on the IM Spin Stream is the cost, like others i'm a hobbyist in a budget.

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The Hydor Flo is more bulky and takes more space, kind of disappointed that it only pushes up to 310 GPH,

 

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Looks like a great start! I just got a Bc29 as a gift, but I'm jealous of your lighting and wavemaker on the JBJ. Sems like you just have a few sweet upgrades that the BC doesn't have. There are slots to add some led's, which I plan to do once I start adding corals. Anyway, nice look so far. Following along for inspiration on my 29.

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Incubus_doubled

thanks Pjanssen, sweet yeah i would like to check out your tank, do you have a thread? or any pics

yeah i love the LEDs, that it came with and the wavemaker, i'm planning on getting a protein skimmer next week. and upgrading couple of things here in there as it goes along, trying to take my time and not rush it. :)

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Incubus_doubled

OK, looks like we need some hair detangler spray here.

If you hate excessive wire cords all over the place your like me. I like to keep everything nice and neat and go for that clean set-up. Even though this is on the back of the tank and you'll never see it, it's going to be on my mind. Ok so the 1st thing I did was to separate my cords. I place zip ties on the end of the cords going in the cabinet.

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I had some leftover wireloom cord cover from my desk set-up, so I measure what i needed and started wrapping it over the cords.. next thing you know... Walla!

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thanks Pjanssen, sweet yeah i would like to check out your tank, do you have a thread? or any pics

yeah i love the LEDs, that it came with and the wavemaker, i'm planning on getting a protein skimmer next week. and upgrading couple of things here in there as it goes along, trying to take my time and not rush it. :)

Haven't started a thread yet. Soon. But I did post some pics in general called "The obsession continues...BC29 Aqua-scape". Haven't put a recent pic up of the final scape, but its close to whats there. just added another rock to the front right. Working all weekend, so hopefully Monday I'll get around to building a thread.

 

PJ

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Incubus_doubled
Haven't started a thread yet. Soon. But I did post some pics in general called "The obsession continues...BC29 Aqua-scape". Haven't put a recent pic up of the final scape, but its close to whats there. just added another rock to the front right. Working all weekend, so hopefully Monday I'll get around to building a thread.

 

PJ

 

thats awesome, can't wait for some updates.. :)

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Incubus_doubled

Okay so I figure I speed up my cycle by adding some micro-bacteria. I seen several out in the market and I tried a few in the past. So this time I wanted to try the Continuum Aquatics Bacter Gen-M Marine Microbe Culture. It's hasn't been out in the market for that long. Continuum has a wide range of selections of different additives to add to your tank.

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The BacterGen-M will generate effective bacterial populations and will rapidly establish nitrifying biological filtration in the tank. So this will reduce the time it will take my tank to cycle through the system. So no more need of adding a shrimp/prawn to decay or so I heard peeing in your aquarium... really?.. who does that!

The BacterGen-M is also useful to digest leftover food, decaying organic material and detritus in a established tank. It will increase the existing bacterial population and generate new populations causing ammonia and nitrites to lower and as well as phophastes, nitrates, and organic pollutants.

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Oooo I'm looking forward to how this turns out. I wish I would have gotten the Professional LED jbj, but I was on a budget and the Intermediate LED was $300 cheaper! My thread is below, we pretty much have exactly the same tank minus the lights :lol:

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Incubus_doubled
Oooo I'm looking forward to how this turns out. I wish I would have gotten the Professional LED jbj, but I was on a budget and the Intermediate LED was $300 cheaper! My thread is below, we pretty much have exactly the same tank minus the lights :lol:

Thanks, I actually like the advance model especially the LEDs there so awesome. WOW! I just saw your thread and..... IT'S FREAKING AWESOME... so jelly here.. :bowdown: that's a nice variety of corals you have there. So no protein skimmer huh? ... interesting.......... :unsure: i notice you live in LA what part since i notice you have a chiller does it get really hot... i'm by fullerton so I'm not seeing on getting a chiller any time soon... so I wonder if we bump to each other at reefapalooza... lol

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Thanks, I actually like the advance model especially the LEDs there so awesome. WOW! I just saw your thread and..... IT'S FREAKING AWESOME... so jelly here.. :bowdown: that's a nice variety of corals you have there. So no protein skimmer huh? ... interesting.......... :unsure: i notice you live in LA what part since i notice you have a chiller does it get really hot... i'm by fullerton so I'm not seeing on getting a chiller any time soon... so I wonder if we bump to each other at reefapalooza... lol

 

Thanks!! I bet your tank wil turn out awesome too! I'm really happy with my JBJ so far, my stock pumps are dead silent and the LEDs seem sufficient to grow most corals, even the acro I have, although its browning a bit probably due to some phosphates but I never really was interested in acros for this tank anyway. I am not running a protein skimmer as I feel it's not really necessary if you don't over feed :)

I live in the San Fernando valley so it's pretty hot here, without a chiller over summer my tank would have been easily 85+ degrees and that's not good news lol. It's possible we bumped into each other lol I was all over the place, I really liked Cherry Corals booth

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Incubus_doubled
Thanks!! I bet your tank wil turn out awesome too! I'm really happy with my JBJ so far, my stock pumps are dead silent and the LEDs seem sufficient to grow most corals, even the acro I have, although its browning a bit probably due to some phosphates but I never really was interested in acros for this tank anyway. I am not running a protein skimmer as I feel it's not really necessary if you don't over feed :)

I live in the San Fernando valley so it's pretty hot here, without a chiller over summer my tank would have been easily 85+ degrees and that's not good news lol. It's possible we bumped into each other lol I was all over the place, I really liked Cherry Corals booth

Thats awesome, temps been between 75 and 78 here so need of a chiller... yet ;) I will ad a protein skimmer since I do want to add a couple of sps, not sure yet on what to get and im looking into getting a media or a bio pellet reacto for my phosphates and nitrates... but thats later in the future so many things I want to add... y3ah I checked out that booth, that was awesome... I felt like a little kid in a candy store :P

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