Selfish JBJ Nano 28 Build Thread

[chad p]

You got it bockscar! I'm in the same boat as you. I was away from the hobby long enough that I really needed this forum to catch me up to speed. Build threads like ange's helped be sooo much. I just wanted to "pass it along" and provide details about what worked and what hasn't and help folks who may be considering similar additions to their tanks.

Glad it's been helpful for you and thanks for taking the time to say thanks!

[bockscar1]

Chad, how do you like your Kessil A350w, I know from what I understand the Kessil light is one of the best light out there in the market for that price range.

Only issue from what I hear is no controls for dawn and dusk, does it really matter in that case?

[chad p]

It's really personal preference. I like the light although it's only been up about a week and I've been out of town this weekend. But before I left the corals all seemed happy. Mine is an A350 rather than the wide version though.

Some people really like to be able to see the lights ramp up in the morning and ramp down at night. That would be cool I guess but it's not a make it or break it feature for me. When I look in my tank I pretty much just want to see full brightness all the time.

So to answer your question...it really only matters if the controlability is important to you. It would be nice but a simple $6 timer that turns the light on and off really does all I need it to do. I'm sure you'll be happy with the light.

[chad p]

So just a minor update. I made another purchase of some frags on ebay. I picked up a nice light green acro with purple tips and a purpleish millepora. I also got another frag of acan and two frags of zoas. Unfortunately the piece I was most excited about didn't come with the shipment. It was a frag with about 5 polyps of lunar eclypse. Instead I got some big purple palys with bright green mouths which I'm not real siked about. The seller offered to refund me for them but I'm still bummed. You can't top buying stuff from the LFS but the only good one is over an hour away and it's kind of hit or miss depending on their stock.

The other zoas are pretty sweet though. The seller called them toxic mamba jambas but who knows what they are. My favorite piece is the light green acro with purple/blue tips. I've decided I only want really bright stuff from this point forward. With such a small tank you only have so much room so I want to get a lot of color packed in there.

One note regarding my mandarin...unfortunately he's getting skinnier all the time. I went on vacation for a week and a neighbor girl took care of the tank. I showed her how to feed him but I could tell he'd slimmed down a little bit and I feel like I've been playing catchup ever since. We'll see if I can make any progress or if he'll dwindle away. I've found that the gel type cyclops-eeze works well because I can put it in front of his face. But now the other fish are learning and they're swooping in more and more. It feels like a losing battle at the moment but we'll see.

As for the Kessil A350, I'm loving this thing. I love the ability to crank up the blue from time to time just to really make the colors pop. Plus I feel like everything is looking better. My green acro looks better and it's finally starting to encrust over the epoxy. I've got it up to about 65% or so and I should have it at 100% in the next couple of weeks.

Until I get a macro lense the sucky iPhone pics will continue. As usual, the camera phone doesn't do the colors justice but here's a couple of the corals in there now along with a FTS:

I know these frogspawn are a dime a dozen but I love this thing. It looks so much better now that I've got some more blue to my lighting.


These are the zoas that were referred to as "toxic mamba zamba". The photo is bad and way washed out but they have a bright green fringe and a bright orange center. Anyone have an I.D. for these? I googled toxic mamba zamba and didn't get much back.


Love my ric rock!


My eagle eyes on the right and the palys I got by mistake on the left. Wish I got my lunar eclipse instead.


Here are 3 of my 4 SPS pieces. You have to sort of look hard for the purple piece on the right but it's sweet and it seems to have colored up some in the 2 weeks or so that I've had it.


Finally here is my tank as it looks today. I had to turn the blue way down just to get a shot with my phone that doesn't look super blue. Definitely want to add a lot and things are barely starting to grow in but I'm pretty happy with where it's going.


Sorry for the bad pics folks. I think the macro lens one of my next purchases just after the RO/DI.

[chad p]

Went to the NSLFS (not so local fish store) and one of the employees was placing frags in one of the tanks. I ended up picking up a nice sized Cali tort frag and a Ponape birdsnest. Both had great coloring and I think the Cali tort was a pretty good price for the size of the frag at $45.

Here's a couple of pics of them acclimating and in the tank.




Anyone have experience with the Cali tort? I've read medium to low light and medium to intense light. Anyone have any recommendations to keep the best coloring?

I've got it just below half way down and about 8-10 inches away from the center of the light. Should that work fine? Kessil A350 is at 100% blue and white.

[Lou Young]

Sweet looking tank. I have the 24g version and hope mine will lok nice like yours someday.

[chad p]

Thanks for the compliment Lou. It's still got a long way to go but I'm siked to see how it comes along as everything grows out.

[chad p]

OK so I know that this probably my most boring update, and that's saying something, but I've seen the question come up on the "Nano Cube 28 Owners Club" thread about adding sand to an established tank so I thought I'd post about it.

I had the same sand in my tank since I bought it used. It was really fine and pretty dull looking. More importantly it was really thin in the front and I couldn't get rid of the diatoms in the that area. For some reason only the really thin sand in the front stayed a dull brownish color and got bubbles after the lights were on a few hours. Finally I had enough of it so I bought a 10 pound bag of Fiji Pink live sand to swap some out.

I did a water change and started by vacuuming out all of the affected sand in the front until it was almost bare bottom. Then I cut a hole in the corner of the bag and just dunked the whole thing in and poured it as close to the bottom as possible. This is what resulted:


I knew I'd get some clouding but I was kind of surprised that I got this much considering that it was wet live sad. Luckily it settled pretty quickly, probably in about 2 to 3 hours. It was a little stressful and kind of a pain. I knocked off a paly frag and my birdsnest frag in the process. I took the opportunity to rearrange a few things though and I'm really happy with the results. This sand is much lighter in color than the old stuff and it just makes the whole tank look so much nicer and bright. There were no ill effects to any fish or corals or anything. I hit all the rocks and things with the turkey baster and it all cleaned up nice and easy.

Forgive the crappy iPhone pic but here it is after:


All in all I'd say it was well worth the $20 and headache involved. If the diatoms and bubbles stay away it will be even better.

Everything else is going really well. I picked up some nice zoa frags the other day from someone on the board. I got a rasta, dragon eye, utter chaos, frag with 3 fruit loop polyps and another frag that the seller called circus zoas. Haven't seen any like it and he said he hasn't either. Really cool zoas and I can't wait for them to grow out.

I also ordered an extension tube for my Canon DSLR so I'm hoping it works as a poor man's macro lens. If I get good results with it I'll post some pics of the new zoas and other stuff.

[chad p]

OK so I was able to add some awesome SPS frags to my tank today...for free!

So at the advice of a LFS employee I contacted a local board member who has an AMAZING tank. And when I say amazing I mean an absolutely outrageous system. So I PMed this guy a few days ago to ask if he had any SPS frags he'd be willing to sell me. He gets back to me and says basically that he's not in it to make money but I should come check out his tank and see if there are some colonies that I like and look in his frag tank and if I like anything he'll just give them to me. What?!

Long story short he calls me today and says come on by if I have time. I go over to his place and I'm just in awe of his system. He ends up showing me everything and then just offers whatever I want. He shows me what he has in his frag tank and then says if there's anything I like that's not there he'll just cut some pieces for me.

I end up leaving with the following frags: Oregon Tort, GARF purple bonsai, Palmers Blue milli, rouge milli, some amazing baby blue acro, and some crazy aqua blue acro that I forget the name of. I basically finished stocking my tank, at least for SPS in one shot and without spending a dime!

It is unreal how nice this guy was. He basically said just pay it forward and when they grow out and need trimming give some frags away to someone else who's new to the hobby. Now that's what it's all about right there!!

It'll be a while before these things grow into nice colonies but I'll definitely remember this guy and pay it forward for someone else when the time comes.

BTW, I'd love nothing more than to publicly thank this guy but I just don't want people endlessly hitting him up for free corals and driving him crazy.

Here's a cruddy iPhone shot of the tank after adding the frags. I've got to get my other camera going so I can take better pictures once and for all. iPhone pics just don't do the colors any justice. I had to turn the blue waaaay down just to get a shot that looks like anything but it's still crappy but here goes:

[x3thelast]

nice cube. i really like the your cove scape

[chad p]

Thanks x3. I was literally just commenting on someone else's thread that it seems to be a popular sort of scape. I definitely dig it though.

[ange062]

Sweet score on the frags. Look forward to better pics!

[chad p]

Thanks ange. I got extension tubes for my Canon T1i to try to get some macro shots. Works OK but not ideal. I'll try some different things and see if I can get some decent pics of the new additions and maybe a better FTS.

[chad p]

So first of all, a couple updates. I FINALLY got an MP10 and installed it yesterday. I'm not going to go on and on about it because there's a million and one posts about how awesome these pumps are. I'll just say that I concur. It's safe to say that these things are a must for any reef tank.

As of right now I have mine set on Reef Crest mode topping out at about 75-80%. I'd love to crank it up to 100% but it seems like if I do I'll have no sand on the left side of my tank in about 72 hours or so.

Unfortunately I have a bummer of an update too. My spotted mandarin died a week or so ago. He would eat anything other than pellets and I fed him twice a day. Over time my shrimp and eventually my fish learned when it was feeding time the easy food items were anywhere where the mandarin was and it made it nearly impossible to keep him fed well. He slowly thinned out and finally one night he looked like he had slightly labored breathing. I told my wife that I was going to remove him and take him to my LFS and ask if they'd be willing to take him and hopefully keep him in one of their small displays with no fish and try to rehab him and keep him there. The next morning he was dead. It was a bummer but at the same time it was almost a relief because I was always sort of stressed knowing that this poor guy wasn't getting enough food despite all of my efforts.

I've also got an RO/DI on order finally.

Lastly, I'm not sure how much longer this build thread will go on for and I doubt it will be seen through it's maturity because I'm in the planning phase of a new build. I'm going to do a Solana 34 Superbrite. I still really love my nano cube but I love the look of a clean rimless cube with everything hidden away in a sump. I'm going to keep the current skimmer in the sump and the A350 on the cube.

Anyways, enough of all that. I've been tweaking with the Canon T1i and trying to get some better pics. OK, so maybe I haven't been completely successful but I think it's a step in the right direction.

Purple Ric:


Lower left corner:


Some purple palys that were sent to me by accident:


Eagle eyes are a dime a dozen but they're still purdy:


FTS:

[chad p]

So I've had the MP10 up and running for a couple of weeks now and I love it. I had to turn it down to about 55-60% or so because my back left corner was going bare.

I'm having a small issue now though and I'm hoping a couple folks may weigh in on it...

I'm starting to see some cyano and a bit of green hair algae as well in the last 10 days or so. As of right now it's not getting out of control. I just did a 5 gallon water change and siphoned almost all of it out so we'll see.

I finally got an RO/DI up and running so my water quality has actually improved on my top off and water changes. I went from 10-12 TDS to zero with the new RO/DI.

I'm thinking that a few possibilities for the new nuisance stuff could be:

-I added new sand. I've read that sometimes these things could pop up after adding a new sand bed?
-Increase in flow with the MP10 stirring up old sand. Under the new sand is old fine sand that was in the tank when I got it months ago. Maybe the increase in stirring it up has thrown my balance out of whack.
-I've been out of town a couple times in the last few weeks and my dad has dropped in and fed my fish while I was out. Maybe he over fed?

I'm pretty confident that I can get this under control with a few regular water changes and I'm planning on adding to my CUC as well which I hope helps with the algae. Right now I'm down to about 5 hermits (blue legged), 2 astrea snails and one turbo. I'd say it's time to add a few members to the family don't you think?

On a side note, here's a sneak peak into my next build that I'm just getting off the ground. It's going to be a Solana Superbrite 34 gallon rimless cube. I'm going to do a Glass Holes overflow I already picked up the sump for it. Here's a shot of the stand I build before putting the door on:


Here's a shot of the sump I got for it. It's big enough to fit the proper return pump and skimmer but small enough that it leaves room for a couple of phosban reactors so sit outside the sump.

[bnano]

I'm really enjoying reading this thread as I'm having a love/hate relationship with my JBJ 28g LED professional as a beginner tank. Also any word on the hair algae? I've got some growing in my tank along with some diatoms. Diatoms are no biggie but the hair algae takes over pretty quick. Let me know what you did to get rid of it.

I'd like to see where you tank is at now! Post pictures

[chad p]

Thanks bnano. Glad you're enjoying the thread. I haven't been updating much because it's mostly just watching things mature at this point. A new pic wouldn't be much good because things haven't grown in much.

As for the hair algae...it really hasn't been much of a problem at all. The cyano got a little annoying though. I realized after that last post that my GFO reactor had been unplugged for some time. I have a bad habit of unplugging things when I do a water change or some other maintenance like changing reactor media and things like that. I do it with my ATO all the time. I'll look in the back and realize that it isn't topping off. Then I'll look underneath and remember that I never plugged it back in 2 days prior.

My guess is that the combination of the reactor not being on along with the MP10 stirring up the sand bed may have caused a little nutrient spike but that's just a guess. Once I got the reactor plugged back in the hair algae stopped where it was at. There is one small patch about 1" X 1" and another about twice that size but they don't grow long or spread and I'm sure they'll be gone soon.

The cyano was another story. It never really spread or became a big thing but it would create a few patches on the sand and I'd syphon it out. Then the next day a couple of patches would form on the sand and I'd syphon it out. Every day the same thing. It would leave some stringy pieces that would make their way around the tank and end up on my zoas and SPS which was driving me crazy!! I had a couple really nice pieces of SPS that seem to have died back in the area that the cyano would always hang up in. My zoas would always close up or stay half opened because they were constantly harassed by the stringy cyano floating around and catching on them. I finally blacked out my tank for 3 days and so far it's completely gone but it's only been a few days since I put the lights back on. All of my coral seem perfectly fine after the blackout.

It's hard to help you with your problem because I don't know the details as far as how well established your tank is etc. However, my general suggestions for hair algae would be to check the nutrients in your tank. Are there nitrates or phosphates present? Are you topping off and doing water changes with ZERO TDS RO/DI water? That would be the first place I'd look.

Generally I'd tell you to do whatever it takes to get your tank to as close as possible to a 0 nitrates, 0 phosphates situation (more water changes, better water quality, lower feedings, more skimming, clean filter pads more often etc etc). I'd also suggest that you use an efficient skimmer and add a GFO reactor if you don't have one running. When we first get in the hobby we tend to want to just sort of ease in and not go too crazy with the spending early on. Unfortunately in this hobby we sometimes make it hard on ourselves by trying to go easy on the wallet. You can also make sure that your tank isn't getting any residual light from a window. I think this may have played a part in my problem. My tank is a good 10-12 feet from a window but I think this time of year the sun gets sneaky-low late in the day.

If your nitrates are low and you're not overfeeding I'd consider turning your lights out for 3 or 4 days to see if you can get a head start on it. Good luck with it and let us know how it goes, just don't give up! I know sometimes reef tank problems seem hopeless but they're not. Sure, sometime's they become expensive but not hopeless. Just stick with it and take the necessary steps and things will get better.

BTW, I finished my stand for my next build (Solana 34 Superbrite). Here's a pic of the finished product:


Can't wait until after the holidays to get the tank, overflow, return pump and plumbing so I can get this bad boy going. I picked up some Reef Cleaners dry rock to add to my current rock for the next build and I highly recommend it. I was really happy with it and the customer service from John with Reef Cleaners.