Nano cube - out of the box

[Erick]

Just wondering, bought a nano cube from the store, I noticed some people added a heater, a pump?, and some have even recommended removing the black plastic balls located in the filter. What is a good heater, and do I need a pump to circulate more water? Also, is the lighting that it comes with sufficient?

This is my first saltwater set up, I'm interested in keeping it simple, but healthy. Any advice appreciated.

PS: sorry about all the questions, I'm excited and eager to get this tank going..

[SaltyMist]

A heater would be a good thing to keep the tanks temp stable. As for adding another pump, does yours rattle? If it rattles then you may want to replace the pump with something else. I am still using my stock pumps and they are quiet now after being reattached (re suction cupped to the bottom of the sump) but added a small Rio 50 behind the wall for more water flow. But when I switched out the prefilter sponge to polyfilter, I had to remove the extra rio pump because it would try to pull too much water volumne through the polyfilter and would end up running dry. im more and more finding that it's not absolutely necessary to do.

 

Ebo Jaeger heaters seem to be good, but I've had two bum ones in the past 4 months. My no name heater in my 20 gallon is the only reliable heater in all my tanks, and it's starting to piss me off let me tell ya, I hate futsing with heaters to get them to keep a constant temp, even my newest ebo is like that right now, says it's set to 72f, yet the tank is 78f.

 

As for the light, it depends on what you wish to keep, if it's going to be a FOWLR, then its more than adequate and would then just be dependant on what is visually appealing to you. If you want corals, then you'll probably have to upgrade the lighting.

 

You can remove or leave the black plastic balls if you like, I have left mine in, and my nitrates are not going up because of them, there are really so few of them in the back, and chances are the ceramic rings will produce more nitrates then the few (what is it, like 4 or 6 bio balls in the back), bioballs in the sump area. It's your call.

 

Enjoy, and welcome

[xcajx]

When I got my nanoCube, included was a sheet that specifically said to remove the bio balls and the ceramic rings. It was from JBJ and was a photocopy so maybe it was an update.

[SaltyMist]

Really? I didnt get any such sheet, and I bought one of the old ones (the ones with the sticker that says Nanocube on the front of the tanks rim) and bought I presume one of the newer ones that has the decal that says nanocube on it. Neither of these said to remove the ceramic rings and bioballs.

 

Did they say why? Did they say to only use these two items for freshwater or what?

[xcajx]

yes, it said only for freshwater

[Whitten]

That is good to know about them becoming more aware of the reef needs. Any word yet from JBJ about a reef specific cube or the speculated cube with a built in skimmer? I am about ready to buy a Cube myself and was just wondering if they were going to have any late developments or new great stuff.

[dagermain]

I will have to go back and look, but I believe it said to remove them and RINSE them, but you may be correct. I still have the flyer you speak of.

[Erick]

Thanks alot, very informative. A friend of mine who has a nano with a reef set up said to remove the ceramic/and bio balls, and the live rock/sand would be sufficient for filtering. Judging from the replies, it sounds right.

[xcajx]

I know I am correct, look at the flyer - it is there right under "Reef Tank Instructions" in the center of the page on the back. I quote:

 

It is recommended to remove the following for Reef Applicatons to prevent the build-up of undersirable Nitrate:

 

a) Bio-Balls Ceramic Rings

 

 

I'll fax you a copy, pm me

[dja1980]

I don't know about JBJ coming out with an upgraded Nano Cube with a built-in skimmer, but I did send them an e-mail asking them if there would be any upgraded lighting available. Here's what they sent back to me on 4/19/04:

 

Hello David,

thank you for your email. We are working on an upgrade hood that will house (2) 24 watt lamps and built in CPU fans to alleviate heat in the canopy. This upgrade hood will be available separately so owners of the original model can simply "pop" off the old hood and "pop" in the new hood.

 

We expect to release this hood in 2 months.

 

 

JBJ - U.S.A. - AQUARIUM PRODUCTS

[SaltyMist]

Okay, thanks guys, I must have totally missed that when setting up my tank a couple months ago, and have long since thrown out the box and instructions.

 

So I dont know that my tanks qualifies as a "reef" tank since there are no corals in it, just 15lbs of liverock and about 10 or so lbs of livesand.

 

It's inhabitants are 1 small clown fish, 1 firefish (though I havnt seen him in about a week so he may have been a jumper and gotten eaten by my dogs since hes' nowhere to be found), a peppermint shrimp and an assortment of snails.

 

So would I be jeoperdizing my tanks inhabitants by removing the bioballs and ceramic rings now? I did have plans to add some kind of corals, mushrooms or something along that line in the future, but will it unstabalize the system now by removing the bioballs and ceramic rings?

 

Thanks

[xcajx]

That's a reef. People do run it with all the media. I know there is a post in here maybe by stingray who is running completely stock and he rinses everything once aweek. You should be fine if you clean everything.

[SaltyMist]

To be honest, I've been lax on cleaning it, I do the water changes religiously, but since it's been up and running, I've never taken out the ceramic rings or the bioballs to rinse them off, my last nitrate test was low, around 10ppm so it seemed everything is fine, but I also dont feed heavily very often, just break off a little bit of mysis shrimp soak it in a cup of tank water then feed it with tweezers till the clown and peppermint shrimp dont want anymore.

 

Maybe I'll start slow and just remove the bioballs this week, and then in a week or two remove the ceramic rings that are in the bag since I would eventually like to get my nitrates down to almost 0 so that I can keep some corals or shrooms etc.

[harday]

I have a NanoCube as well, and I have read all of the posts about whether or not to keep the bioballs and ceramic rings. Currently, I still have them, as I could never really figure out what was the "right" thing to do. I bought mine a little over 2 months ago, and there was no flyer with it advising to remove anything. Here's my question though. I'm a noob and would love someone who knows to answer this for me. How are the the ceramic rings any different from live rock rubble being in the back? If I threw a handful of liverock rubble on top of the ceramic rings, wouldn't the ceramic rings over time harbor the same "life" as the rock, thus benefitting the system in the same way? How could the rings cause any higher level of nitrates when they would in essence be just like small pieces of liverock? I just don't get it, but again, I'm definitely new at this.

[dja1980]

I purchased the book The Conscientious Marine Aquarist by Robert Fenner, and I believe it states that Live Rock and Live Sand are used to keep nitrates down because it conusumes the nitrates and turns them into harmless nitrogen gas. I'll have to consult my book though to be certain.

[SaltyMist]

Heres a tip for a nano right out of the box:

 

Reseal the bottom of it, the black plastic backwall is not properly sealed on them if it's sealed with anything more than being pushed down to meet the glass.

 

I broke mine down last night and finished emptying it this morning, while siphoning out the remaining water, you can see it siphon underneath the backwall. Icould see water swirling up from under the black plastic. After fully dumping it of water, I turned it over and saw all kinds of YUCK "under" the black sponges that reside on the very bottom of the sump area. So.... Seal that black back to the bottom with something so that the water enters the back from where it should (at the grating near the top).

[Looselyhuman]

Guys:

 

Bio-Balls are a type of Wet/Dry biological filtration, and ceramic rings are great for "wet" biological filtration - because of their large surface area. Both of these things are great at processing large amounts of Ammonia(um) and Nitrites, into Nitrates, which is exactly what is needed for Saltwater "Fish-Only" and Freshwater/FW Planted aquaria.

 

However, as soon as you add Live Rock (or a DSB), artificial biological filtration becomes counter-productive. This applies to FOWLR and Reef systems. You want all of the processing of nutrients to occur in your "natural" filters - so that denitrifcaion (Nitrate --> Nitrogen gas) can occur. This process is much less efficient (read: doesn't work for sh*t) when the Nitrate production is going on seperately from the denitrifying microbes in LR/DSB.

 

HTH,

Ian