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Nano Sapiens 12g - Ye Olde Mixed Reef


Nano sapiens

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I'm always amazed at corals' ability to change structure and color to match different environments.

 

Case in point is a Leptastrea sp. that's been with me for nearly 10 years. Here's a pic of the reddish colony from my previous 50g tank:

 

LeptasreaOriginal.jpg~original

 

..and a frag of that colony that's turned green/lavender in my current 12g:

 

Leptastrea022710.jpg~original

 

Hard to believe that the two pics are of the same coral.

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Nano sapiens

Looks like I'm not quite done tinkering...

 

I decided to tackle the 'Corner Blowout' issue that many smaller tanks have, including mine. In my case, the hole for the return pipe was drilled a bit too low in this CADLights tank, thus causing my Hydor unit to blow out the sand from the left hand corner. 'Fins' on the Hydor helped when I had a mixed gravel/sand sustrate, but not when I went to near sugar fine sand.

 

There are a few ways to fix this problem, but I believe this to be the simplest:

 

I modified a piece of rigid acrylic tubing with the appropriate diameter to have an 'elbow' of around 20 degrees using a hacksaw and a file. A bit of superglue gel and here's the finished product:

 

20DegreeAngleHydorMod.jpg~original

 

When installed, the elbow is only visible from the side::

 

20DegreeHydorTankSideView.jpg~original

 

No more blowout!

 

20DegreeHydorNoCornerBlowout.jpg~origina

 

 

Fine tuning the flow is really simple, just twist the elbow a little to the left or right. Since the Hydor unit is now angled towards the surface, I see more surface agitation which is a good thing.

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Nano sapiens
Once again... Very nice additions and another sweet mod with the Hydro...

 

:bowdown: Nice CAD NS!!!

 

Thanks, and its great to see your tank doing so well!

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Nano sapiens

Well, it was bound to happen...

 

ACRO RED BUGS :o

 

I bought two small Acro frags from a LFS a few months ago and I noticed that one of them recently started to recede from the base upwards, color had disappeared and the polyps were always retracted. Yesterday I tried a fresh water dip to determine if some type of pest was the culprit and I found multiple tiny red bugs and some other tiny unidentified arthrodpod (which may or may not be another pest).

 

The other Acro species I bought is not showing any signs of tissue loss and neither is my Green Bali Slimmer, so I am hopeful that they have some immunity to the Red Bugs.

 

What's interesting is that this affected Acro was doing very well for quite a while, but then started to show tissue recession soon after I added an orange Yuma and the purchase of a Black Bared Circus Goby. It is quite possible that my large population of Amphipods were keeping the red bugs in check, and then the Goby wiped them out allowing the red bugs to proliferate.

 

Just takes a few nasties to cause havoc. Looks like I'll be dipping EVERYTHING from now on.

Edited by Nano sapiens
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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm still jealous of your ridiculous corraline :-P. Your tank rocks. Any plans to replace your light fixture? I couldn't stand that thing.

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Nano sapiens
got any pics of your acros? i would like to see their coloring and such? i'm considering this setup too

 

Unfortunately, the Red Bugs took out 2 of the 4 Acros. You can see the surviving Bali Green Slimer at the very top of my FTS and the other Acro sp. hasn't done much since I bought it, but it still looks fine. The stock lighting is much better suited to Montipora sp.

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Nano sapiens
I'm still jealous of your ridiculous corraline :-P. Your tank rocks. Any plans to replace your light fixture? I couldn't stand that thing.

 

Thank you. The coralline does well because the light intensity isn't very high.

 

So, there's the thing. I could upgrade to LEDs, MH or HO T5s and I could then better keep Acros and such, but I'd undoubtedly start to loose coralline. Due to the coralline as well as the very low power consumption I'm going to stick with the stock lighting/fixture.

 

I've modified the stock lighting fixture a bit and it is now quite stable.

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  • 2 weeks later...

More.

 

And what kinds of corals do you think I keep with this light? Also, if I run the light 10 hours a day how often would I need to change the bulbs to keep SPS happy?

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Nano sapiens
More.

 

And what kinds of corals do you think I keep with this light? Also, if I run the light 10 hours a day how often would I need to change the bulbs to keep SPS happy?

 

If you go to the first page of this tank thread you'll see a full listing of corals. Basically, anything other than high-light loving Acro types and perhaps high-light anemones.

 

Since the lighting isn't very intense to begin with, you don't want the bulbs intnesity to degrade too far. I would recommend that you replace all bulbs every 6 months, but allow one week between bulb replacements(4 weeks to change all bulbs so you can't 'light-shock' the corals).

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jmccoy62003

Question on the ATO. Did you leave the metal balls in the tube or did you take them out. If you took them out how did you do it. Great tank and Great idea on the ATO

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Nano sapiens
Question on the ATO. Did you leave the metal balls in the tube or did you take them out. If you took them out how did you do it. Great tank and Great idea on the ATO

 

Thanks. You'll need to remove the balls. The easiest method is to use a tool to straighten the bent lip of the tube end. You can also use a dremel tool with a cutting wheel to remove the lip..

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 5 months later...

Installed a pair of Ecoxotic 'Stuner Strips' (8°K White/453nm Blue) in my Cadlights 12g fixture which replaced two of the stock NO T5 bulbs. Installation is as easy as it gets (I just installed the supplied clips right over the existing individual stock reflectors and fitted the light strips). I'm going to run these without the Ecoxotic supplied reflectors for a week or two to allow the corals to adjust.

 

After a couple hours, none of the corals are showing any signs of distress, so it appears that they are about on par with the NO T5s, intensity wise. Visually, I can see a bit more shimmer throughout the tank, but it is somewhat muted by the other two T5s. All-in-all I'm quite pleased with these and it'll be interesting to see how the corals fare long-term under this combo.

 

Here's how I set them up: (T5s are 10K and Actinic):

 

StunnerStrips.jpg~original

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Man I love your tank... Doing super great as usual!

 

On a different note... As a comparision type experiment I have removed my LED Unit and am running a 20" NEP with 6 of the new UVL-R's on my CAD12G...

 

My tank did real well with the LED's growth wise (corals)

 

But since putting the NEP over them I was astonished at the faster growth rate of my acans... All produced 1 to 2 new babies each in the last 3 weeks :o and my Zoa’s circumferences are bigger :huh:

 

So I'm like Hmmmmmmm... Controllable LED's give great color and great PAR numbers but I'm thinking that they def don’t output the same type of spectrum of T5's that the corals want/need/like…

 

Sorry for the rant dude... Keep up the good work!

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Thanks for the compliments. I've been following your ADA 60 build and it looks like this will be a sweet setup!

 

While I like the T5s, the tank looked a bit too flat. The LEDs add a bit of shimmer which is a nice effect. I'd like to see a bit more color out of the corals with this combo setup and I'm fine if the growth rates aren't that fast.

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This is one great little tank! Very very nice!

I can see you swapping those T5 for full white LEDs anytime soon :P

 

Thanks. I may go full LED one day, but I still have 3 years worth of T5 bulbs to use up :)

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One last modification to increase the light getting to the tank:

 

SplashGuardCutAway101710.jpg~original

 

Removing a plastic 'Splash Guard' typically amounts to an increase in light intensity of around 10-15% to the tank and allows some extra UV as well. The tank itself is visibly brighter and I have observed my bottom-most 'Shrooms are not 'trumpeting' as much as when the full shield was in place. I left two 1/2" plastic strips of the original shield in place as a precaution should one of the T5 or LED strips accidentaly fall down.

 

Splash from the tank water is a very minor concern with this setp. The fixture iteslf is 6" from the water surface and the tank has no salt spray or salt creep. I just have to be a bit more mindful that the full shield is not in place.

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  • 1 month later...
MusicISUnlimited

hey nano i have a question. Did you find your salinity rising a lot in a two day period? MIne shoots up to 1.028 if i dont top off with fresh water everyday?

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hey nano i have a question. Did you find your salinity rising a lot in a two day period? MIne shoots up to 1.028 if i dont top off with fresh water everyday?

 

Evaporation on these tanks without a cover is quite high. I use around 32 oz. of top-off water every 5 days, but I don't see salinity swings because of my ATOs. Also, the more rock/sand you have the less water volume. The less water in the aquarium, the faster the rise in salinity due to evaporation.

Edited by Nano sapiens
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After rather mixed results, I removed my (2) LED Ecoxotic 'Stunner Strips with reflectors' today and reinstalled the original NO T5 bulbs. Here's some pros and cons of these LEDs after 2 months or so of use (no other changes to the aquarium or conditions):

 

Pros:

1. Shimmer effect

2. Higher intensity

 

Cons:

1. Overall sub-par color rendition compared to my T5s

2. Bleaching of some SPS, even with gradual T5 to LED aclimation over a 2 week period

3. Loss/change of Ricordia mushroom color (yellows and oranges turned into washed out greens) and 1/3 less polyp expansion.

 

To my eye T5s produce a warmer light and the coral colors show a much richer intensity than what these particular LEDs provided.

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  • Nano sapiens changed the title to Nano Sapiens 12g - Ye Olde Mixed Reef
  • Christopher Marks locked this topic
  • Christopher Marks unlocked this topic

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