Sinistard's 92w Nano Cube Dx

Well I just got my DIY upgrade kit from nanocustoms.com and finished putting it all together. It's basically the same thing larnie has in his set up. The only difference is I have my cold cathode moon light not the R2 LED. Here are a few pictures of the new lights.

Thanks Chris for the parts and the knowledge on how to put it together.

Installed with splash guard off

Lights on

Moonlight on

t-5 actinics on

tank with only actinics on

tank with 50/50 bulb only

The lights look good now all I need is some good coral and to aquascape a little better. The container in the front is my pom pom crabs new home until he grows back some legs. Until then I'm kind of limited to what I can do with the LR.

If you have a 2004 nano-cube with stock lighting its well worth the upgrade.

Any questions let me know. Thanks for looking

It looks like you did a nice job getting all of the components installed! The cold cathode seems to fit well up front. Have you decided what your light schedule will be? Keep us up to date on how things go as you continue to populate your tank with corals.

Thanks

I basically stole your light schedule. I have 3 digital timers one on the t-5s actinics from 8am-10am, one with a 50/50 bulb and the 24w actinic from 10am-8pm, the second 50/50 bulb is on from 11am-7pm, and the moonlight is on all the time.

I am getting a 13w bulb for over the back chamber. I'm going to replace the stock black splash guard with plexi and throw the bulb under it. Depending on how bright it makes the main tank I may run it at night from like 10pm-8am. If it lights up the main tank too much I’ll run it with the 50/50 bulb.

I was wondering if I could add a RBTA to the tank. It has been set up for around 7 weeks now and I did not know if I should wait until the tank has been running longer. One of my LFS has 2 small nice looking RBTAs for sale and I thought it might be good to get one now before I add a lot of coral so the RBTA can find a spot it likes. Let me know what you think.

i think it might be ok nice tank

you can make the cold cathodes smaller by removing them from the acrylic tube. just pull carefully at the base of the bulb till the glue gives and it will slide out.

then just put it inside a length of air line tubing and put it back in.

and be carefull not to break the wire along the bulb or shock yourself on it.

and be sure you feed that lil crab in a jar:P

I moved everything around.

It's a little hard to tell from the picture but thats a big open cave.

yea i can tell;)

The cave looks cool. Have you considered putting a yellow or orange sun coral back inside there? It would add a nice splash of color in that area of your rock. The down side is that it would require a little bit of additional work with periodic target feeding.

I was considering a sun coral in the cave. I still want to do a little research on them before I jump into one. Do you feed it every night or every other night. If I get one I would want to find a nice small one, my LFS has one but it's huge.

If I start adding a lot of coral is it safe to have an anemone? Like I said before I was looking at a small RBTA but if it's going to be to dangerous for the corals I don't want to add it.

Thanks for looking

I feed my sun coral most days (5+ days a week). I use a piece of rigid airline connected to a syringe with a short piece of flexible airline. It doesn't take very long once you get used to it.

The Nano-Cube is a pretty confined space. Although I have seen anemones in NC's, there are definite concerns. Provided with appropriate light, flow and food, anemones grow. In a relatively short period of time they dominate the tank. They also have a propensity to move. I've chosen to avoid anemones.

looking good sinistard

Here are a few corals I added to my tank.

I got the 2 ricordia polyps unattached and can't get them to stay where I want them. One has a shell stuck to the bottom and the other has a small piece of rock. There is no easy way for me to take out the LR and glue it out of the water so I tired to stick the shell to the LR with loc tite gel under the water and it would not stick. The other polyp only has small pieces of rock so there is no way I could glue it without getting glue on the coral. I have tried just setting them in place but my hermits keep knocking them off. Any suggestions?

ricordia

hairy mushroom rock

I like your picture of the hairy mushroom. Its kind of dramatically backlit. Try a search using "ricordea attach", there are some good ideas on how to place your new pieces.

Thanks, i'll have to try using a string to hold it down.

I just put in a peppermint shrimp

Hey Sinistard, Very nice tank! I noticed the water diffuser that you have. Could you tell me where you bought those pieces and what size please? The diffuser is the final part I need for my nanocube and nobody has yet to tell me where they got theres. Did you have to glue it on, or did it fit snug? Keep up the good work!

Thanks -T

That dual qgua diffuser is exactly what I need as well. Did it come stock with the deluxe cube or did you get it somewhere else? My cube is an old piece of crap. I just ordered new ballast and lights from nanocustoms and can't wait to get the party started.

tMoney,

Thanks

I got the parts for my diffuser at my LFS. What I did was popped the diffuser off the tank and took it with me to the store and just matched it up with the ones they had. I bought a Y adaptor and extra extension pieces. All I had to do was snap the Y to the existing ball joint, which just pulls off and it's easier to work on out of the tank, then add extensions and diffuser heads until the flow was going were I wanted it to go. It's nice because I can adjust the flow to lots of places in the tank but it is a little big and kind of an eye sore. If you look at larnie's tank post he has a Y adaptor that takes up less room but it looks like it has less flexibility. If you do use a Y adaptor you will probably have to replace the stock pump it is a little weak for two openings. I got the Mini Jet 606 and it seems to do the job well. I hope this helps.

Thanks, but the diffuser head didn't come with my tank. I got my tank from nanocustoms as well (I got the 2nd custom 3.24 tank Chris sold hehehe). Oh well, I guess I will buy something that I found on drsfostersmith and hope it works, I'll make it work if it dosent! LOL

Good Luck & Thanks! -T

I just picked up a small orange and yellow zoo colony and a small green and purple frog spawn. They are both nice sized for my nano-cube

zoos

frog spawn

I really enjoyed your latest macro shots! I like the idea of obtaining smaller frags and then letting them grow into the tank. Your zoo frag is already adding new polyps.

I just picked up some new zoos. This is under actinic lights around 30 minutes after I added them to the tank. I'll post some better pictures later the lights are off in my tank for the night.

Here is a collage of my tank and most of its inhabitants.

click on the picture to see a bigger version of it(warning 56k it's a huge picture 5000x2000) or right click and save target as

click on the picture to see a bigger version of it(warning 56k it's a huge file)

Hi! Great looking tank! How did you set up your back compartments? Thanks!

Thanks dzergoski ---- I have the stock pump, one sponge and chemi-pure in the first chamber, LR in the second, and 100w ebo heater and mj606 pump in the 3rd.

I clean the sponge every week when I do my 10-20% water change.