Mini_GBR's 24g Nanocube

[Mini_GBR]

 

Thought I'd put a photo here as an update for everyone who wants a quick sneek peek of the progress. On page five there are some more details of the 3+ year update update. 6.1.09.

 

Hi All,

 

So after browsing through these forums for the past few months I decided about a month ago to take the plunge and set up my very own 24g modded nano. I wanted to start this forum so I could get some feedback on my sytem and see if people liked, disliked, had any pointers, or wanted to bash what I have done. I am continually looking out for new upgrades that I could do, so any feedback is much appreciated. But a little history first: I first stared a 60g reef eight years ago when I was in high school (and let me say the technology has changed greatly since when I had set that system up, so I am very plesantly surprised with how great the new technology performs and costs). I had to tear that system down when I went to college and haven't had a chance to set a new sytem up till now due to school and extensive travelling (including studying the Great Barrier Reef in Australia at James Cook University, an amazing facility and school to dive and study the most magnificant thing I have yet to see in my lifetime). Now enough about me, here's the system:

 

Equipment:

 

1 - 24g 2006 Nanocube

1 - Maxijet 900 in chamber 1 leading to lockine in upper front of system

2 - Maxijet 1200, 1 replacing stock pump in chamber 3 and 1 buried in the aquascaping for extra movement.

2 - 36w powercompacts (the stock lights ont he nanocube)

1 - 70w HQI with 14K phoenix bulb from illuming.com

4 - Thermoflow fans, found at Nanocustoms.com

1 - NVM Moonlihgt fix from Nanocustoms

1 - R2 Moonlight

1 - Ebo Jager 75w heater in chamber 3

1 - Reefkeeper 1.0, with temp probe in chamber 3

1 - JBJ Auto-top-off, with float in chamber 3 and water return in chamber 1

30 - Pounds of Kaelini Live Rock, great looking stuff from vividaquariums.com

30 - Pounds of 'live sand,' 3+ inches of sand

 

Here's the original setup of the system, more for me so that I could put humpty back together if I really screwed something up, and as a reference point of where this whole thing started.

 

 

After I finished tearing most of the stock stuff out of the hood, I went to work on getting the metal halide into the hood. My goal was to make my mods look as stock as possible. I used tin snips to cut out the center of the reflector. I got the 70w halide setup from one of the sponsors of this great site at illuming.com, which had good prices and really fast shipping.

 

 

And here it is all setup and epoxied into the reflector. Notice I had to mod the halide reflector to sit flush wth the stock reflector, and also open it up a bit to keep down the spotlight effect that would have occured if i left the total parabolic reflector intack.

 

[

 

And a look at the finished wiring. I dont have any pics of the modded fans, which I got from a local computer store, but are also the same fans from nanocustoms.com, where I bought many of my other supplies like the moonlight mod fix, an extra R2 moonlight, and a reefkeeper. Go to Chris with any questions you might have and for many of you products, he's a great asset to this site and to this hobby. I also forgot to take a picture of this, but I ended up taking the stock wire nuts out and then sodering the wires back togther with heat shrink tubing so that I could save space in an already crowded hood.

 

Notice also the fans, which I set at angle's to get better tubidity through the hood and across the top of the water for better evap-cooling. I used nylon washers and extra long screws to turn them at an angle in the stock spots, and then used epoxy to set the other two into postion. I have 3 fans sucking air into the system and 1 blowing air out.

 

 

And the finished hood. I used a dremel 9the greatest tool ever used for a DIYer, right tool for the right job) to cut out the stock hood for the fans and the light, and then epoxied and (very important) siliconed the glass plate included witht the HQI setup on the inside the hood.

 

 

And a look at the top of the setup, once the hood had been replaced.

 

 

The backside where the cords and everything else hang out. I used a dremel again to take out the extra platic bits on top of the hinges so I could slide the plugs through the hood to keep everything organized. Really opens up how much you can fit into the sytem without putting any extra hole in the hood.

 

 

And the reefkeeper and cords. I have my two extra maxijets running on a wavemaker that the reefkeeper controls. The water movement is amazing.

 

 

And a look at the finished product setup:

 

 

Future Plans:

 

I think i might add a refugium into chamber 2.

 

Future stock:

 

- Possibly a mated pair of marron clowns with anenome

- a lawnmoweer blenny

- some type of sand sifting goby

- six line wrasse

- emerald crab

- clean-up crew (? TBD)

- SPS corals

- Lots of Zoos

- and a couple of monti's.

- plus whatever suggestions you all might have.

 

So I hope you all like, I will continually update this site, so check back, and thanks for the forthcoming input.

 

-Mike

[crrichey]

Very nice. Just an observation but is the furniture that aquarium sitting on bowing any?

[Mini_GBR]

the main part is a bit (good onbservation), but I placed a bit bigger than footprint sized piece of oak between the cabinet and the tank to withstand the bowing that might occur. I might do some modding to the cabinet this weekend to help support it too, a double redundancy. The angle of the photo and the lighting seem to accentuate the actual bowing that is taking place, which is very little. If you think it could be a problem, i can always come up with something to fix it.

[johnxboi]

VERY NICE. i will most definatly look into doing this. very inspiring.

 

thank you

[fras]

very nice indeed, well done! only bit I wouldn't have done myself is the locline exit at the front. It's such a clean design it seems a shame to spoil it any. Should be a very nice tank though!

[Mini_GBR]

Thanks all. I was hesitant to do the locline in front, but really wanted to have some front side water movement and couldn't think of anything else. THe only thing that can really be seen from the front at eye level with the tank is te little nipple that hangs down a bit into the water. I might raise it a bit so it isn't noticeable enless looking up from below the tank.

 

BTW johnxboi, bear in mind that I had only a working knowledge of electronics before this, and had never used a dremel. I started out with a master plan, doing one task at a time coming up with solutiions as problems presented themselves (and there were plenty, but nothing too difficult). Have a good plan, ask a lot of questions, and know what you want (for the most part). I should also mention that I got a lot of inspiration from Shoa-lin-nano, and asiankidd's nano's, who have both been very willing as am I to answer any questions. Good luck and have fun, modding can be nervous, exciting, and rewarding, and I had a lot of fun setting this tank up.

 

Now I can't wait to stock it, patiently that is, after the cycle.

[johnxboi]

lol. no problems here with modding things. i have already took a dremel to my hood. ive used dremels before so its no biggy. and i have a little bit of exp with electronics. only thing that gets me nervous is wiring the MH into the hood. but im sure i can figure that out when i get the light in my hands and look at all the wires. other thing that gets me iffy is wiring the fans into the hood, did you just splice into the old fan power lines? or did you just soder onto the circuit board?

[johnxboi]

did you get the 3 pin spillters for your fans? trying to get my wish list for my mods together =D

[Mini_GBR]

the fans came with the 3 pins, but since they were only .1 amp, I got a 500 milliamp converter and wired all the fans togehter to that power source. I might add one more eventually, now if only i could find a space for it

[debbeach13]

Welcome to NR. Great job with those mod's I wish I had the guts to try that stuff. Good luck and we love pictures so keep them coming.

Debra

[Mini_GBR]

thanks debbeach. Surprisingly I didnt think I had the guts either, so I just went in with a detailed plan of what I wanted and got to cutting, which is scary and fun. There are some mods on this site that I've seen that I don't ever think I'll manage to aspire to. Baby steps I guess.

[asiankidd2]

how do you like your reflector? well im glad things worked out, sorry i havent been around to help out, im just knee deep in work stuff right now even my tank is feeling it good luck man.

 

-Jon

[Mini_GBR]

Hey thanks for the help you were able to provide. I like the reflector a lot, and the idea of opening it up to knock down the spotlight effect was great. the tanks has a great shimmer effect and it all gets great light coverage. My roomates think I'm crazy, they think its too bright now in my room. what do they know.

[Cam barr]

what a cool cube nice job on the mods hows the heat, has it become an issue yet

[Mini_GBR]

Thanks Cam. The heat is debateable how bad it is. I set it to 79.8 and the worst its got on a 90 degree day with no AC running has been 82.1. Im looking into some other ways to keep it down since a 2 degree shift, while not bad, is still a swing that I think I might be able to control. I'll have new pics of my aquascaping that I've been changing soon.

[Mini_GBR]

My Tank has cycled, yeaaaaaaa!!! So it's time for updated pics and posts. I re-did my aquascaping and now really like it. Between the fuge and the tank I have around 38 lbs of rock, which is a bit much, but leads to better filtration I think. I was also able to get the extra maxijet 1200 hidden in the rock work with no problem to the sand bed stirring, check it out:

 

 

FTS 5.1.06

 

 

and the Right Side

 

 

and Left Side

 

 

I added my clean up crew on the first too. They are:

 

6 Cerith snails

6 Nassarius snails

3 Astrea Snails

6 Common Hermits

 

I think I will either get some more Astrea snails and/or an emerald crab to help with the hair algae. So far the astrea have mowed down a few good sized patches, ut not enough to really put a dent in it.

 

I added a few corals last night:

 

a great piece, but not able to see becasue I had just glued them to the rock and they are peeved.

 

 

Some fire and Ice I think:

 

 

And a great little piece of Pink Zoas and an encrusting sponge under:

 

 

Future fish starting with 2 this weeekend are (and I am open to objections should there be any, I can always use help):

 

Mated pair of Signal gobies (really fun little sand sifters that work in a pair well

Mated Percs

1- Sixline Wrasse

1- Cleaner Shrimp

2 - Peppermint Shrimp

 

I might not do the mated percs and get a pistol shrimp/goby pair instead, not sure. I would do both, but am afraid of too much bioload even with the fuge and 15% water change a week. Let me know what you all think.

 

-Mike

[Mini_GBR]

time to get fish, any suggestions. I want to get a goby/pistol shrimp pair, maybe a signal goby pair, and one or two other fish. What should I put in first (obviously I'm not going to put all these in at once) to allow for better tank cohesiveness (sp) and then what should I feed them. Thanks

 

-Mike

[kiltboy1675]

PISTOL/ SHRIMP. i would go with a blackray (hi-fin red banded) goby and whatever pistol available. they are the cooooooooolest.

[Mini_GBR]

 

Here's where I started 2 months ago

 

 

And here is the tank 5-28-06

 

Hope you all like and enjoy and that you think I'm progressing fine. Let me know any corals you think would fit well and where, plus I'll have more close-ups of the corals I do have posted soon.

[Cam barr]

sweet reef

[Mini_GBR]

Thanks Cam .

 

I've been slowyly adding more corals, but I am itchin' to get more in there. As promised I have a few more pic's of some of the recent purchases. Hope you all enjoy.

 

 

the frospawn and the zoas in front really glow a respective bright green and orange at night under the moonlights too. Thinking of which, i need to get a pic of that too. and that cleaner shrimp loves to hang out by the frogspawn constantly.

 

 

a great multi-polyped mushroom peice.

 

 

I'm not sure the names of any of my zoas, but I really like this variation

 

 

 

and these too

 

The following are my fish inhabitants:

 

my red headed goby

 

Randal/pistol pair

 

and the Tail spotted blenny.

 

I'm hoping to get some rics and some othe monti caps eventually, but don't know really what else. There's so much out there thats great, its hard to pick. Any ideas are welcomed greatly. Thanks

 

-Mike

[filmscratch]

You really have done quite a bit. The new corals look great. I had no idea that you had to do that much modification to get what you wanted!!

Keep posting new pic's.

[supahtim]

very nice!! i really like the colouration in your fish and those mushrooms. wanna ship some over the border? lol

 

Tim

[irishtexan]

WOW! Looks really great. Really like the zoo's, and frogspawn. Can't wait to see it all finished!

 

texan

[rickjg]

2 - 36w powercompacts (the stock lights on the nanocube)

1 - 70w HQI with 14K phoenix bulb from illuming.com

142 watts total, that's almost 6 watts per gallon

I think you need at least one more 70w HQI, maybe two. LOL

Great start on your tank, though.

 

 

-Rick