Edgray's 12 Nano Cube

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reefman23

New Member
Hello all.

I had the pleasure of cruising Eddie's favorite LFS' with him today. I also had the pleasure of photographing is Nano Cube for him as well. Let me just say that, honestly, Eddie's Nano is one of the nicest, if not THE nicest nano i have ever seen in person. Here are the photos to prove it.

Eddie, thank you for showing me your favorite fish stores...you are a great person and very generous. I thank you for the frags and I will soon post pictures of those, too.

Here they are....enjoy!




















Jesse
 
EDGRAY

EDGRAY

New Member
im really flatter :oops: jesse thx for saying that my nano is one of the best ones... and im doing my best to keep it that way and from now im just gonna lay back and enjoy my tank cause is finish know there is no more space for nothing just wating for my zoo's to grow so i can trade or sale them and like i say there is no space for nothing except for more zoo's i can always make some room for them :) :D, and also let me say that was a pleasure to spend time with you in some of my favorite LFS cause you are a great friend and nice person to have around and i hope we do it again soon.

your pictures look great :shock: i cant even tell that is my tank you really take great pictures , thx for taking time to take them & to make a post of my tank a really apreciate that thx jesse...

and for the record since my last crash or accident i been stressfree, ickfree and no problems at all in my tank for 2 months and weeks .... with alot of fish like always you know stupid eddy... but healthy and im trying to keep it that way.... and also i wanted to say that after alot of research i learned that a big water change is a good thing unlike some people think is bad but if you havent try it you can say is bad so ill keep everyone posted about the results and so far is my second 75% of water change and no signs of stress and my corals seems to open faster now & other prove is that the shy of my firefish after water changes he lasted couple of hours to get out of his cave and now he comes out faster maybe he likes the fresh air (in other words water) but ill keep an eye on it...

NO MORE PURCHASE FROM NOW ON IS LAY DOWN TIME CURRENT LIFE STOCK:

Fish:

1 False Clown 1 Red Firefish 1 Greenbanded Goby 1 Redhead goby 1 Yellow watchman Goby

Note: not signs of agression between gobies or agression for territory everyone his own space and they respect each other but they are in groups the goby's always together vrs clown and firefish but not any fights or picking each other

Invertebrates:

1 Cleaner shrimp 1 Red or Fire shrimp 1 Sexy shrimp 1 anemone crab 5 bluelegs hermits
12 Nassarius 6 Nerite 2 Cerith Snails & Clam(not recommended for anyone, impulsive purchase)

Corals:

Frog spawm, Torch , Alot of zoo's, starbust, Lavander hairy mushroom, Green rhodactus, blue shroom, orange and blue ricordias & Neon red shroom

Parameters:

Nitrate: 10
Nitrite: 0
Amonia: 0
Ph: 8.2 - 8.4
Gravity: .23
Temperature: 78.5 - 80.2

thx everyone for taking the time to check my tank and what i have to say about it and i hope you like it.

eddy :cool1:
 
aromano

aromano

New Member
:shock: I can't believe you have been keeping these cards in your sleeve all this time Ed :shock:

Your tank is absolutely S T U N N I N G !!!
These great shots really helped me visualize what I great job you have been doing these past few months.

Congratulations and Keep Up the GOOD WORK ED, and thank you Jesse for publishing these great shots.
Great team work guys! ;-)

P.S. Just make sure that the water you are adding to the tank match your tank's temperature, pH, alkalinity and calcium, to avoid stressing your critters.

Here is an article I found very interesting about water changes in reef tanks.

Part 1
http://www.reefs.org/library/article/t_ ... ll_wc.html

Part 2
http://www.reefs.org/library/article/t_ ... l#nitrate2
 
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reefman23

New Member
Eddie and I discussed the topic of 100% water changes today during our meeting. I was introduced to the idea by several articles by some of the articles from the experts at RC.com as well as marinedepot.com/forums (which is where many of the "experts" from RC.com moved to) and it seems like a beneficial method for nano's....if done properly, that is. If you are not using premixed water, that is, you are mixing it yourself, you must verify that the specific gravity, temperature, and pH are properly adjusted to match the water from the tank. You should also aerate the water properly for several days before hand.

Take into account that many of the ideas of Anthony Calfo can be somewhat controversial...for example, this quote from a post on RC.com...

"I do not use or recommend clean up crews by and large. With enough water flow, solids are kept in suspension for filter feeders or filter aspects to process them before they degrade into nuisance algae food. Furthermore... many shrimps and most crabs kill far more good things than bad in the live rock and sand. Algae grazing gastropods in small numbers are OK. For this I like cerith/Ceithium sp. Stomatellids are excellent too... as well as those tiny Strombids from IPSF.com (note most other Strombus sp/conchs starve to death and/or get to large for most home aquaria).

There are many other fine snails and scavengers, but few really should be needed in most home aquariums if you have aggressive enough nutrient export.

For this small tank... I don't need to depend on a skimmer in large part for nutrient export... but rather have strong water flow, and large weekly water changes."

And indeed... the common recommendation of selling/buying "clean up" creatures is a short-sighted address of symptoms (detritus, algae, etc) and not the problem (poor water flow, accumulating solids, weak nutrient export, etc).

If more folks would look beyond the marketing and hype, they might see and agree. Their tanks would be better, they's kill/starve less creatures, and everybody would be happier."

--Anthony Calfo

Indeed, there is alot of truth in this, but how many of us use cleanup crews? I do!

Well, here is the rest of the article on Anthony Calfo's 11 gallon ViaAqua nano tank in which he incorporates the "100% water change" method. It is worth reading through the four pages.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showt ... genumber=1



Jesse
 
EDGRAY

EDGRAY

New Member
thx for backing me up on this jesse that was a great chat about water change im gonna keep looking until i see my links of the big water changes too. but thx for inspiring me to do it without fear..... thx again jesse for all you wisdom.

eddy :cool1:
 
aromano

aromano

New Member
Great info about the 100% water changes. Makes a lot of sense. I wish it was that much easier to do it with a 75 gallon if one day necessary. :mrgreen:

I was wondering what happens to the livestock, while the tank only has only about 1 inch of water? Do you take them out of the tank and put it in a separate container w/ the water that is being drained from the tank, OR do the livestock stay out of water for a while the tank is filling? OR none of the above? :lol3:
 
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sadielynn

New Member
I tend to disagree I feel that even doing so would cause a lot of stress on the fish . I have a very light bio load now with ours . I run 2 mini jet 606 on full tilt and a 125 or 150 penguin for filtration , this is good flow but you are not going to have enough power to suspend all the stuff in the water column for ever, that is unless you blow the fish and other things out of the water . The live rock and the corals break up some of that flow naturally . I also run a cleaning crew and they can get to places I cant or where large flow cant . I think that you could do it by the instructions that he give and yo will still have a cycle just like a new tank ...does this not harm the fish with the ammonia , NitrItes, NitrAtes..Just think that you are not to cycle a tank with a fish isn't this not the same principal ????? I can understand a largish change of water done drip method in with room air water that has been reairated but to do the whole thing ,nah I disagree in my opinion it would be more harm than good if you would have kept the water quality good in the 1st place :mrgreen:
 
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reefman23

New Member
Sadie,

about the flow...you must understand the "proper flow" that Calfo is talking about. It isnt the typical 4x-10x flow suggested by most hobbyists. He is talking about anywhere from 20x per hour for low flow corals to 40x-60x turnover for higher flow corals (acros, etc.). Now if you were to use powerheads and other "direct flow" devices to achieve this, it would be unsuccessful. That is why he advocates closed loop manifolds... like this...



Something like this allows for heavy, indirect, random flow throughout the entire tank. A CLM like the above pictured would have around 300 gph PER OUTLET!

Calfo is also a fan of smaller, more open aquascaping....not going above the half-way mark of the tank, as well as distancing the rock up to 4"away from all sides including the back (if possible).

The thing about taking advice from somebody like Calfo is that it isnt unfounded advice that hasnt been tested and researched. Now that doesnt mean that you shouldnt be sceptical...you should show an amount of scepticism with EVERYTHING that you do to your tank.

Anyways...I am not a complete advocate of "all things Calfo", but i think a background about a little of what he supports is necessary. He is somewhat controversial, however many of his ideas show great benefits and are very unique.

As far as the drastic water changes, if you observe intertidal coral reefs, they are fully exposed to the air and sun up to twice a day for 3 hours at a time! This includes all corals/inverts from acros and other SPS to clams, sponges, LPS, mushrooms, zoas, etc etc. Many corals such as zoas and others can even be shipped overnight "dry"...no water other than moist papertowl or newspaper.

When Calfo talks about these 100% water changes in his own tank, he notes that many of the corals in the tank are these intertidal species.

I dont know I am going with this, but hope it helps.

Jesse
Jesse
 
EDGRAY

EDGRAY

New Member
aromano said:
Great info about the 100% water changes. Makes a lot of sense. I wish it was that much easier to do it with a 75 gallon if one day necessary. :mrgreen:

I was wondering what happens to the livestock, while the tank only has only about 1 inch of water? Do you take them out of the tank and put it in a separate container w/ the water that is being drained from the tank, OR do the livestock stay out of water for a while the tank is filling? OR none of the above? :lol3:
Click to expand...
well what a do aromano is that i take all the water as possible and onli let like 4 or so inches of water enough for my fishies to swimm and breathe then i introduce the water at same temperature as my old one and i dust the corals and the back of my tank with the presure of the freshwater cause like jesse said that if posible to leave space in the back of the rock so there is not dead parts well i didnt know that until he told me that even i have some space in the back just in case a do that what i discribed above and then i replace all the water so thats why i say i do a 75% cause i always leave some for fish to swimm when canging water but after 75% replaced and dusting dead parts i see alot of waite so i still take out like 25% to take as much as dead material as posible.

and about trace elements i got some mix water from my LFS but also im aware of ph,amonia,nitrate,nitrite,calcium,kh,magnesium and all the elements that change during big water change but the laps are not that big so thats why i dose after the water change and other day other trace element so i dont do all of them at once and everytime i do that same amount of trace elements and eventually the live stock will ge used to it and like a mentioned still not signs of stress... just better respond from live stock. but everyone has his/her point of view and i respect that cause we sometimes are not familiar with the unknow.

and still alot of research to do about the big water change but the good thing that not alot but some people are doing it so there is badground of having good results and so fare i havent seen any bad results so fare in my reading and search.

and about a little new cycle i dont think so cause the good bacteria still there and the freshwater has no amonia or nitrate and the exposure of air doesnt kill the good bacteria. (in my opinion but correct me if im wrong cause im still learning)

JESSE

yeah no is a great and more expecific answer jesse i was gonna say something similar and if i knew before that i had to leave space behind i would probably do it but to late know i wanted to doit but to late know if i do everything will fall apart but thats why i hoose the back during my water changes.

and that system looks great i wish i could do one and also i think in reef central some one did that to his nanocube and look amazing.

eddy :cool1:
 
skipm

skipm

Moderator
Staff member
The bacteria are located in the LR and not in the water so a near 100% water change won't trigger a cycle. When doing a water change in this fashion you should already have the water aerated, heated, pH matched, etc. so the LR and corals are only out of water for maybe 2 minutes, which is nothing really compared to nature as already pointed out where they are out of water for a much longer time on a regular basis. Some of Anthonys idea a re a bit different than what everyone else is doing but his ideas are not untested, he practices what he is talking about. There is one other thing I would like to point out, it wasn't that long ago when everyone said it was impossible to run a smal aquarium or run an aquarium without a protein skimmer but today we don't even think about it because it is now excepted. What is thought of today as being pretty far fetched may be the norm tomorrow.
 
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mikeguerrero

Active Member
As I read the article of Calfo I must say it solidified how I did water changes in both my 12 gallon cubes.

I would bring down the water to just an inch or two, enough that my fishes could breath and await the new surge of fresh salt water.

I can attest to the fact that my reef would fully respond to the new set of ocean water; fully extended polyps, mushrooms open etc. This would all happen within minutes of the new water entering the tank.

I would even fan in my LPS prior to the drop of water; this keeps them safe from damage.

Now one methodology isn't scientific proof that it's the best, just that it works and I'm one to back up Anthony Calfo's water changes on nanos; but then again my style of reefing is more radical than conservative.

MG
 
Dickie52

Dickie52

New Member
Ed,

I have to agree....your tank looks great!!!! You can be very proud of the job you have done.

I have always been a big fan and love water changes. I don't believe you can ever change enough water!

If you have been following my 6.6 gallon bookshelf thread you will see I have been doing a 10% water change every day. With small tanks, the 100% water changes make all the sense in the world.

I never have less than 20 to 30 gallons of fresh saltwater going at all times..... :razz:
 
EDGRAY

EDGRAY

New Member
Thx skimp, mike and dickie to agree with us on doing a big water change and is true dickie i been looking on you 10% of water change everyday but i think takes more time :razz: :lol: :lol: .... and also now that i been paying more attention to avatar does zoo's in your avatar do you have some to trade ???? or sell?? im gettting on to the zooooomania like you & jessy.

Mike i know about radical im like that tooo but since i got why i always wanted on my tank im trying to be conservative and add no more to my tank but like i mentioned zoo's are more than welcome and there is always space for them :razz: ;-)

skimp i know about this not been tested but like i say when people are afraid of the unknow and hopefully this 100% water change will be a success like nano cubes and some have gone to the extremes to keep only 1 gallon :shock: in my opinion is really amizing..... :mrgreen:

eddy :cool1:
 
Dickie52

Dickie52

New Member
EDGRAY said:
also now that i been paying more attention to avatar does zoo's in your avatar do you have some to trade ???? or sell?? im gettting on to the zooooomania like you & jessy.

:
Click to expand...
Ed,

I wish I had some myself...they are the Blane Prerun, Purple People Eater

I bought some on ebay that were supposed to be them, but they have just not colored up as I had hoped.....oh well, I will just keep trying!!!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 7729587514

:fu
 
EDGRAY

EDGRAY

New Member
dont we all wish to have does people eaters.... :???: :???: :neutral: you trick us this time dickie...so now im gonna try to steal the other zoos that i have in mind the ones on jesse avatar :lol: :lol: j/k.... but those amazing zoos i now for sure jesse owns them so i have to wait a year to have som of those when he gets some babies.....

talking about zoo's hey jesse did the new frags open... and if so the ones from aquadesignz by any change did you got at least one or two with pink or light read interior with green skirt or just light green with green skirt.... cause i want you to have some of the pinkies so you can make them grow mine look really :shock: amazing let me know so next time i see you i can take a frag of does for you....ohh at same time so you can take some pics of my newest addition does zoo's that im talking about so the guys/girls can see them.... please.....


eddy...
 
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reefman23

New Member
the pinks that you gave me are almost completely opening now...about 90% open. They are very nice, but they tend to blend into the coraline on my LR. The frag from aquadesignz hasnt opened fully yet, so i cant even tell what color they are. The loose zoas from your tank are also opening about 75% every day...they are pretty cool.

Jesse
 
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