24G Nano Cube

[WaterWorldAquatics]

Keep eye on the clam, I'm thinkin of adding one down the road but after a upgrade from nano customs, they have a upgrade for our 24g nano's for only $109 be a huge help.

 

What is in the rear part for filter?

[Khayman]

Keep eye on the clam, I'm thinkin of adding one down the road but after a upgrade from nano customs, they have a upgrade for our 24g nano's for only $109 be a huge help.

 

What is in the rear part for filter?

 

What is the upgrade?

I have kept the tank stock for the most part. All I have added is a JBJ dual directional powerhead to remove dead spots created by my scaping.

[WaterWorldAquatics]

Got a link to that device thing?

 

I'm adding a nano koralia here soon for more flow.

 

Does your water hit the light when you put the overflow thing on the intake?

 

Here's the link for the light upgrade:

http://www.nanocustoms.com/product_info.ph...;products_id=51

 

Would imagine need to set aside some time to really work on this upgrade

[Khayman]

Got a link to that device thing?

 

I'm adding a nano koralia here soon for more flow.

 

Does your water hit the light when you put the overflow thing on the intake?

 

Here's the link for the light upgrade:

http://www.nanocustoms.com/product_info.ph...;products_id=51

 

Would imagine need to set aside some time to really work on this upgrade

 

Nice upgrade i will keep it in mind. I would like some Acropra coral (Spelled wrong) and the stock lights may not alow for it.

 

To answer your question yes my flow nozle causes water to hit my lighting canopy. I fix the problem by redirecting the nozzle a little.

[AlexNUFC]

my brother a T5 lighting for the jbj 24 nano it worked fine and i get to keep a lot of sps and clams

[Khayman]

I posted this earlier on another reefes thread and I feel it has relivance here also. Please only give advice if you have the proper experience of evidence to back-up your claims.

 

Just for your information.

 

I am happy to get criticism in this hobby. The clam is doing great in the tank. When I got the clam from the LFS it was quite pale and the centre area was white. Since it has been in my tank (2 months) it has deepened in colour alot and the centre has started filling out again. It is open and happy. I find alot of hobbyists would have a much better understanding of marine and reef life if they were scuba divers (I am). Alot of the so-called high light animals and corals live in low light or even perpetual darkness in the ocean. Sun coral is a perfect example. Many hobbyists will tell you that it cannot live except under MH or T5 lighting. I often fine this a very hilarious opinion. Sun Coral in the wild is found in very dark caves with little to no exposure to sunlight. Also before stating that the Lighting is inadequate on the 24G JBJ perhaps some research should be done. The lighting is as follows in the stock canopy. 2x 36 Watt CF lamps for a combination of 72 Watts of high intensity compact florescent illumination, 50/50 lamps with a total of 10k purified white and 7100k of blue actinic light this creates a combination of the suns spectrum for optimal health in animals and corals.

 

Also Montipora coral will do just fine in the stock lighting. Also if it grows a little slower I am happy for that. I also have done alot of research before and since starting a reef tank. I will agree that there are many animals and corals that my stock lighting will not support i.e.: Acropora Coral and some Montipora (But not all it depends on what you select). I have a 24G system I want it to grow slowly so that I do not forever need to frag. I do not have anyone around to swap my frags with. Also as I am sure you have all experienced LFS will not give you much for a frag. Lets say you pay $50 on a small coral if you give them the same coral back only twice the size or larger you are lucky if you get a 10th of its original price back (Also before you say it I know that is the nature of capitalism).

 

Also as for the Clam situation they will do just fine check out this thread. These clams are in a tank placed close to a window. All they get is sunlight from the window. I mean who would have thought that the sun would give these animals adequate light, completely unheard of right.

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=164200

 

I am sorry if this seems like a rant because it is not. I am just a little tired of people regurgitating advice. I give advise on my experience or on the experience of others (books)

[zygote]

Khayman,

 

Two years ago, I had a 20g long with 2 36W CF bulbs. Did fabulously for 8 months, then bought a Crocea against the advice of the LFS.

 

Placed him, his name was Chowder, high in the tank. Probably no more than 6-8" from the lighting source. He attached right away and I thought he was doing well for about 3 months, but then he started losing color and gaping. I couldn't afford better lighting and tried desperately to give him back to any LFS that would take him. None would.

 

He died rather suddenly, wiping out my entire tank, including a very expensive Blue Spotted Jawfish.

 

I've since moved across the country and am looking into getting another tank, largely in part to finding this forum again and reading your thread. I may get the larger Nano Cube, but I won't get another Crocea until I get a larger tank with better lighting (I can't mod a nano and can't afford the very high end nano with upgraded lighting available).

 

Not coming down on you and I hope very sincerely that your guy does better than mine, but with the personal experience I've had, I'd no sooner recommend putting a Crocea under CF than I would putting a Mandarin in a new tank.

[Khayman]

Khayman,

 

Two years ago, I had a 20g long with 2 36W CF bulbs. Did fabulously for 8 months, then bought a Crocea against the advice of the LFS.

 

Placed him, his name was Chowder, high in the tank. Probably no more than 6-8" from the lighting source. He attached right away and I thought he was doing well for about 3 months, but then he started losing color and gaping. I couldn't afford better lighting and tried desperately to give him back to any LFS that would take him. None would.

 

He died rather suddenly, wiping out my entire tank, including a very expensive Blue Spotted Jawfish.

 

I've since moved across the country and am looking into getting another tank, largely in part to finding this forum again and reading your thread. I may get the larger Nano Cube, but I won't get another Crocea until I get a larger tank with better lighting (I can't mod a nano and can't afford the very high end nano with upgraded lighting available).

 

Not coming down on you and I hope very sincerely that your guy does better than mine, but with the personal experience I've had, I'd no sooner recommend putting a Crocea under CF than I would putting a Mandarin in a new tank.

 

Hello zygote

 

Your opinion is a valid one and taken into consideration where you have kept this animal in the past. As you know however i already have the Clam so the experiment moves forward. I do have a Crocea Clam and he seems to be fine. He is even colouring up very nicely. He was sick when I brought him home or atleast very stressed, his flesh was very pale. Since moving in to my 24G he has coloured up very nicely and is open all the time except at night. I am concerned about your "Gaping" comment. How will I tell the difference in open and feeding and Gaping?

 

Also as far as the Mandrine goes I have decided to wait on it. I have a Red Scooter Dragonet and I do not want her and a Mandrine to fight.

 

I do realize that to many it seems I am a novice to this but I have done alot of research and this is a practice tank to me. Though I do very much love this little setup it is a stepping-stone for me. I am going to be building a Length 4 foot x Width 4 foot x Height 3.5 foot in the future. (LxWxH=V 4'x4'x3.5'=419G). I have had a Cichlid tank that was 243G on display in my last house. I have decided when I buy a new house I want a Saltwater Reef as a display. If this little tank crashes I will be upset but not heart broken. So far I feel I have disproven a few myths and false advice I have heard while on this journey.

 

#1 I was told a suncoral would never live in a 24G JBJ. This was stated by a person who believed the lighting would not be strong enough. I found this a little odd based on the fact that I know SunCoral lives in dark underwater caves in the wild. I use to be an avid scuba diver and I have seen alot of these animals in their natural environments. I picked up 2 very sick suncorals 1 orange and 1 Yellow Tube. The orange was half dead and covered in Cyno I got it for $10 being told it will die very soon. It is alive and well and has regrowen most of the dead portion. It has also doubled in mass in 2 months. The yellow was given to me by my LFS just to see what I could do with it. It had 3 living heads when I took it home. It now has 10 also in a 2-month period. I do not mean to sound arrogant or pompous but I do believe this means one well known fact, i.e. Suncorals need strong lighting, has been disproven. For any that want more info on this gorgeous nighttime coral please feel free to contact me.

 

#2 Clams - Many believe that all clams want intense lighting. Again in my experience diving many clams seem to live under ledges in the wild sheltered from direct sun. I picked up a Crocea mainly because they stay fairly small and grow slow. Now I do have mine at a mid level in my JBJ Nano Cube 24G DX. After1 month 2 weeks it seems to be fine. As mentioned above it has darkened in colour becoming much more vibrant. I assume this means it is "happy as a Clam". Sorry i had to put that in lol

 

New Experiment

 

Montipora Coral - A common belief is that this coral needs intense lighting. I think people mix it up with Acropora Coral. Unlike Acropora that does live in highly lit environments many Montipora corals live in low light. What all these hard corals need is calcium and alot of it. I have just picked up 2 frags of green Montipora coral. I have placed one up high and one mid. I will do my best to keep you all posted on their development.

 

After only doing this for 3 months I have become a sought after person for my knowledge in my area. The only reason for this is because I have read and boughten many books and have done alot of research on all my purchases before I made them. I do not give advice out that i do not have proper references to back it up, or like you personal experience.

[Khayman]

Hello everyone

 

Here are this months pictures December 2008. I have done a little rescaping so that I now have room for water flow behind my rock formation. I have also added a few new corals: Green Montipora, Dendrophillia, Green Ric, Red Pimple Mushroom, Pink Zoa's, and a Green and Blue Mushroom which is still in a holder until it attaches to a frag of rock.

 

Front

 

Left

 

Right

 

Clam

 

New Additions Labled

 

New Coral Pics

 

Pink Zoa's----------------------------------Ricordia

---

 

Green Montipora Top-------Green Montipora Mid

---

 

Duncan-------------------------Red Pimple Mushroom

---

 

So Fresh and So Clean

 

Here is my new Dendrophilla. It is sick and only has two living heads. i am going to do my best to recover this sick but rare coral. I will keep you all posted.

 

Here is the Orange Suncoral that you may all remember was very small and almost dead. It has doubled in size and I have cicled where the dead area is showing regrowth.

 

If anyone has any advice on how ti get this poor Dendrophillia healthy again please message me.

[Khayman]

I just added a Duncan coral it is so cool. The picture is in the edit above.

[Lizzie1324]

Sweet new additions! The sun coral is looking good.

[Khayman]

Just too keep you all posted on my water perameters. I did a water test last night.

PH: 7.8 Nitirite: 0 Nitrate: 15 (Down from 20) Amonia: .24 (Up from 0) Salinity: .25

 

I did water change to bring the Amonia down. I hope it works it is odd the Amonia was up in the first place. There has been no new additions and the feedings have been reduced for the last 2 weeks.

 

What tipped me off was my Leather Coral it was darker than usual and was looking sick. I bought the peice in a dieing state and brought it back to health. I hope my water change fixes the problem.

 

Here is a pic of the Leather lastnight

 

Here is what it looks like healthy

 

I am sure you will be all happy to know that all my other corals and animals seem to be fine

[Khayman]

Yeah the leather has recovered.

Has anyone else ever had a Leather shrivel up on them and then 2 days latter it bounces back?

I wonder what it was?

[Khayman]

We have had a tramatic Holiday season this X-Mass.

 

My GF and I deiscovered "Scooter" (Our Red Scooter Dragonet) had wedged himself between the glass and a rock work in our aquarium. He was dieing fast and did not make it. Also our Torch Coral stung our Yellow Suncoral and killed 3 of our 8 living heads. When I got the yellow sun it only had 2 living heads. I am sure it will recover.

 

So the learning experiece is to make sure thier is room between LR and Glass for fish to move. Also Torch Coral though beautiful should have alot of room.

 

On a good not my Dendrophilla now has grown a new Head. It is now up too 3 heads and is recovering well.

[zygote]

Khayman,

 

I'm very sorry about your recent loss. I briefly had a Scooter Blenny - gave him away a few days after I bought him when I realized my tank couldn't support him long term (the LFS flat out lied to me about his diet when I purchased him). Unfortunately, the girl I gave him to picked up a batch of bad water from her LFS two weeks after I gave her my Blenny, and it wiped out her tank. They have such great personalities, that I became very attached to him in the short time I had him.

 

Your ammonia spike concerns me. Something had to have died in your tank.... Snails?

 

Wanted to correct an earlier mistake. It turns out that I had 130wt CF's (2 65wt bulbs) above my 20L...

 

 

News of my own: I received a very nice Christmas gift from my bf. A 29g BioCube. I love the look of it, but the small footprint is proving to be a problem with my stocking choices. Originally I'd wanted another Blue Spotted Jawfish, a Helfrichi Firefish, and a Red Sea Mimic Blenny. I won't have the room for them in this tank and I feel bad because the tank wound up costing him over $600 by the time we got the stand, live rock and substrate... Yesterday I found a complete 72 gallon bowfront on Craigslist for $600. I still may pick that up on my own.

 

[Khayman]

Just too keep you all posted on my water perameters. I did a water test last night.

PH: 7.8 Nitirite: 0 Nitrate: 15 (Down from 20) Amonia: .24 (Up from 0) Salinity: .25

 

I did water change to bring the Amonia down. I hope it works it is odd the Amonia was up in the first place. There has been no new additions and the feedings have been reduced for the last 2 weeks.

 

What tipped me off was my Leather Coral it was darker than usual and was looking sick. I bought the peice in a dieing state and brought it back to health. I hope my water change fixes the problem.

 

Here is a pic of the Leather lastnight

 

Here is what it looks like healthy

 

I am sure you will be all happy to know that all my other corals and animals seem to be fine

 

Very odd Indeed

 

All paremeters are back to 0.

As you may have read my Red Scooter died. She got stuck between the glass and the LR in my tank. I have since corrected the fatal flaw in my scaping so that this never happens again.

 

Also my Leather in the picture will look amazing for a couple days and then shivel up for a day or so. Does anyone know why this would be? Also just to note it is growing really fast. It was the size or a pincels eraser only 5 weeks ago. The leather is now the size of half a buisiness card.

[Khayman]

Here is a link to my post on Mandarine and other Dragonette feeding techniques. Though I can not take credit for it all. I have compiled the information form many sources.

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...p;#entry2007302

[Doolz]

Here is the London store.

 

 

http://www.incredibleaquariumonline.com/store/

[Khayman]

Hello everyone

 

Here is a quick update. I have added a few pictures.

 

Tank Pictures

----

 

Corals

Green Mushrooms ------------------------- Hammer Coral

--

Zoa's, Dendro, and Pearl Coral

Can anyone tell me what the coral is that is growing beside the Dendro and above the Pearls coral? I purchased this coral skelly as a cool looking peice of LR and this coral started to apear on it. So I truely have no idea what it is.

Orange Sun Coral ------------------------ Yellow Sun Coral

--

My orange and yellow suns have come a long way. If you have read my thread you will already know these were a cople of very sick corals when i got them. I pair $10.00 for the orange and the yellow was free. The yellow only had 7 small heads on it. It now has 5 medium heads 1 large and 2 small. So I would say it is on the mend.

Ricordia

My rics just recently split. I gave 2 of the green to a freind and kept 1 for myself. The Orange split but the new one floated off into the rock work and I can not retrive it. Will it still grow or will it die with no lighting?

Leather Coral

This leather is a veru odd little guy. It will look amazing for a few days. Then for no reason I can think of it shlivels up and looks awful for about a day or so. Does anyone know why? The frags I have given to people from the original mother colony never do this. I will say however that I kept the smallest peice and it is easily 10 times larger than any of the other frags other people have.

Red Mandarine

Before anyone critisizes this fish and my purchasing it I would like to say this. The Mandarine is eating frozen, she is also in good health. I also know that there is a good chance she can die in my setup. Remember though that if she stayed at the LFS some one who did no research could have bought her. I made sure she was eating. As I stated earlier in my thread my LFS was happy to get one that was trained to eat frozen. They then kept her for a couple of weeks to be certain she was eating. I am however curious about this fishes sleeping habits. It seems that when she is asleep her colour fades out alot. I was worried the first time I seen this I though she was dead. As soon as I turn on the lights however she colours up and is looking for food and eats very happily. If you have any positive comments or advice they are welcomed.

 

If you have nothing but uneducated critisims please refrain from commenting. I do not mean to sound rude by this statment. By uneducated critisims I mean those who do not offer solid advice through experience or research. I am tring to get this thread to a point where people that want solid advice from experince can come and reference.

[Khayman]

My Nitrates are at .20 and have been ever since my cycle completed. They have never gone up or down. I do weekly water tests. How do i get it to 0 or should I even be worried?

[Lizzie1324]

Your tank is coming a long great! I love the new additions! And those are star polyps, I think, growing next to the Dendro. Maybe green star polyps but I can't tell from the pic. They grow really quickly, but are very pretty.

The new mandarin is gorgeous! Its good that you know what your doing! I think my scooter blenny died, I haven't seen him the past few days.

I don't know why, he was eating great, and getting fat, but one day he just disappeared. :/

But other than that all is well, and your doing a great job!

[Doolz]

Hey how is the frag I gave you doing? Did it live?

 

Cheers

[Khayman]

Hey how is the frag I gave you doing? Did it live?

 

Cheers

 

Doolz

 

It survived and I think it is doing ok. It is a little early to tell. I will get som pictures up soon.

[Khayman]

Here is a description of the Cultures I am currently using. I hope this helps some people. I decided to start these cultures after growing tired of buying plankton for my corals.

 

I will do my best to get some pictures up soon. I have had a few issues with my camera as of late.

 

Materials:

500ml Beaker, Rubber stopper, Airline, air hose, air pump, daylight bulb, lamp, Brine shrimp eggs, and photo-plankton or phyto-plankton (both should work). I use photo

 

Note: be sure your beaker and airlines are clean and sterile.

 

Step 1

Drill a small hole in the centre of the rubber stopper. Then insert the Airline so that it is about 2" from the bottom of the beaker when the stopper is in place. Also leave about 1" sticking out the top of beaker. Attach air hose to the top of the Airline. Then attach the air hose to the air pump. This will create aeration for the culture. Be sure to leave sufficient room around the airline so that air can escape. If you do not do this stopper will pop off once air pressure builds up.

 

Step 2

Fill the beaker about ¾ with saltwater and add plankton to the mixture. (I use the water that I have prepared for my Aquarium) The mixture should be green once the plankton is added. Then add about ¼ teaspoon of brine shrimp eggs. Put the rubber stopper in place and put the culture in front of your lamp. Plug in your air pump to produce aeration. Make sure your aeration is only producing about 2 to 3 bubbles every 3 to 5 seconds.

 

Note: The aeration is meant to supply oxygen to the culture not turmoil. You also do not want the culture to get to hot but you do want it warm. I placed mine about 1 foot away from my lamp. I also have the light coming in from the side. The light is on 24/7. Your brine should hatch within 8 to 12 hours depending on the eggs you buy. I use AA grade eggs. The brine fry once hatched will eat the plankton fairly fast I add plankton daily. I always make sure the mixture is green.

 

Note: I culture my plankton in this method also, only I use larger jars.

 

Once my camera is working I will post my pictures of this culture. I hope this description helps though.

[jhjones2000]

hey Khayman, great thread. I've learned quite a bit. Just starting a Nano myself, and was wondering about your spiny cucumber. How's it doing? I've read that keeping a cucumber in a Nano is not recommended. You've dispelled some other myths, is this one of them? Also, where did you purchase it? I'm in the GTA, and have never seen one for sale.