somthinfishy20
New Member
I don't understand the mod you said I could make and wonder if you could give me more details on it. How many watts would this add. Thanks so much. By the way ur tank is killer. Thanks for your time.
Mr guerrero followup question
- Thread starter somthinfishy20
- Start date
mikeguerrero
Active Member
To begin my complete answer to your question: Can you give me all the details on your tank and what you would like to have in it?
Mike
Mike
somthinfishy20
New Member
It is a 24 gallon nano cube with 72 watts. Currently I have 6 pounds of live rock and 16 pounds of live sand. I want to get the lighting and everything taken care of before i start dropping money on other stuff. I removed the bio balls and ceramic rings from the filter and left the carbon in. The lights run for 6 hours everyday. I would like to keep a variety of corals, soft and hard. I am really interested in montipora and acropora. I also want to drop a clam or two in it. I have kept a reef before but it has been awhile. When I had my previous reef I was easily able to maintain shrooms, polyps, and even some leathers. I have a seaclone 100 skimmer from my previous tank and want to hook it up to my new cube. I found a way to do it but before i do, i want to see if there are any other options so that i dont have to cut part of the hood. I will keep the fish load light, but i want somthing that will eat algae because it is my pet peeve. I would also like to have some frogspawn, bubble, and elgance corals. This is really everything that i want to do with the tank. My budget is fairly unrestricted but i want to keep it as cheap as possible.
That is the basic rundown. Thanks for helping me out, so far you have been one of my best resources.
That is the basic rundown. Thanks for helping me out, so far you have been one of my best resources.
Well since you called on mr. guerrero, I guess I can chime in as well, hehe. (I'm his younger brother) I do know you can mix the soft and hard corals (LPS & SPS) just because they both require special needs, especially SPS. My brother Mike can go into detail about that being that he has one tank dedicated to SPS, and another tank dedicated to LPS.
As far as Elegance Coral, that's nearly impossible now. They are carrying some sort of unknown disease that is killing them in captivity. My bro has owned two and did not live very long, and one of his died in less than a month. There is currently a study going on with the elegance to further learn more as to why this is happening.
Well that's as much as I can tell you for now, the rest my bro shall help you. Best of luck, and welcome to nanotank!! :lol:
As far as Elegance Coral, that's nearly impossible now. They are carrying some sort of unknown disease that is killing them in captivity. My bro has owned two and did not live very long, and one of his died in less than a month. There is currently a study going on with the elegance to further learn more as to why this is happening.
Well that's as much as I can tell you for now, the rest my bro shall help you. Best of luck, and welcome to nanotank!! :lol:
somthinfishy20
New Member
Thanks for the input on the corals. I just really need some mods i can make. I dont understand the daisy chain thing your talking about mike. I just need some more watts because i want to get this tank going. Thanks
Tyler
Tyler
mikeguerrero
Active Member
Hi Tyler,
I apologize I didn't answer you sooner, I've been a little tied down at work. Let me first welcome you to the board.
And I'm very happy that Incysor and my brother Dragon have contributed to your questions before me.
I will give you advice on best practices that have worked for me:
If you can avoid mixing LPS and SPS corals do so. The main reason is size of the tank and the fact that they require space and different water flows; Incysor touched on that nicely.
Your tank needs to have a theme, either SPS or LPS. OKay if you decide SPS, it can be done but requires more lighting. The MH is the preferred method and there is a mod out there with the MH ready for your tank; I just don't remember the thread.
You can however get away with power compacts like me; I run four 24watt PC and a 13 watt fuge light under my 12 gallon cube.
You may purchase the T-5 Actnics and daisy chain them; in your hood, you should have space to place two. They go inbetween your current lights. They daisy chain off of each other through a small connection that they have.
So they require only one cord to power them up, which they give to you when you purchase them.
I daisy chained three of them and ran them for 6 months, I had the 11 inch series. You will have to see which one fits yours since your run 36 inch bulbs.
This light is intense and brings up the wattage of your tank allowing you to place Acros in your display. You can mix other corals in as well, I've stayed away from the blue corals that are intense light feeders.
My LFS only sold me what he thought would fair under PC lighting and you should do the same to be on the safe side.
If your theme is LPS, you can get everything you mentioned except the elegance coral, like Dragon and Incysor mentioned.
The key to keeping LPS or SPS healthy is not just the lighting, but the water changes. I use catalina water and I do a water change every sunday religously for both tanks. Each tank gets a fresh batch of 5 gallons of water.
I do not doze with anything, unless I miss one week; however I'm still seeing that it doesn't hurt to doze inbetween.
You also need some good water flow in a SPS tank and you can achieve that by placing a powerhead in the return chamber pointing outward if you are into concealing powerheads.
Skimmers are still very foreign to the nano cubes so I really don't have any input on them other than JBJ is going to launch one soon that will fit nicely without having to cut holes; so you might hold off.
Water changes are all you need for now, but I would love to have skimmer since I was a fan of one back in my reefing days.
Hope this helps you out a little.
P.S
I forgot to endorse the clams as a yes into your cube... I was flammed for being one of the first to push the envelope, but today they are just as vibrant as the day I got them, and growing too...
Mike
I apologize I didn't answer you sooner, I've been a little tied down at work. Let me first welcome you to the board.
And I'm very happy that Incysor and my brother Dragon have contributed to your questions before me.
I will give you advice on best practices that have worked for me:
If you can avoid mixing LPS and SPS corals do so. The main reason is size of the tank and the fact that they require space and different water flows; Incysor touched on that nicely.
Your tank needs to have a theme, either SPS or LPS. OKay if you decide SPS, it can be done but requires more lighting. The MH is the preferred method and there is a mod out there with the MH ready for your tank; I just don't remember the thread.
You can however get away with power compacts like me; I run four 24watt PC and a 13 watt fuge light under my 12 gallon cube.
You may purchase the T-5 Actnics and daisy chain them; in your hood, you should have space to place two. They go inbetween your current lights. They daisy chain off of each other through a small connection that they have.
So they require only one cord to power them up, which they give to you when you purchase them.
I daisy chained three of them and ran them for 6 months, I had the 11 inch series. You will have to see which one fits yours since your run 36 inch bulbs.
This light is intense and brings up the wattage of your tank allowing you to place Acros in your display. You can mix other corals in as well, I've stayed away from the blue corals that are intense light feeders.
My LFS only sold me what he thought would fair under PC lighting and you should do the same to be on the safe side.
If your theme is LPS, you can get everything you mentioned except the elegance coral, like Dragon and Incysor mentioned.
The key to keeping LPS or SPS healthy is not just the lighting, but the water changes. I use catalina water and I do a water change every sunday religously for both tanks. Each tank gets a fresh batch of 5 gallons of water.
I do not doze with anything, unless I miss one week; however I'm still seeing that it doesn't hurt to doze inbetween.
You also need some good water flow in a SPS tank and you can achieve that by placing a powerhead in the return chamber pointing outward if you are into concealing powerheads.
Skimmers are still very foreign to the nano cubes so I really don't have any input on them other than JBJ is going to launch one soon that will fit nicely without having to cut holes; so you might hold off.
Water changes are all you need for now, but I would love to have skimmer since I was a fan of one back in my reefing days.
Hope this helps you out a little.
P.S
I forgot to endorse the clams as a yes into your cube... I was flammed for being one of the first to push the envelope, but today they are just as vibrant as the day I got them, and growing too...
Mike
somthinfishy20
New Member
Im new with all of this wrigging of lights so pardon my stupidity. Are the t5 actinics a single bulb, because the lights in my nano cube are very close together and it doesnt look like i could fit anything else. Do i leave the other lights where they are. Sry and thank you so much. And i have decided to go with soft corals. Will my stock 72 watts work or should i go aheadd and break out the upgrade.
somthinfishy20
New Member
One more thing, should i just wait until chris gets back from vaca and get his upgrade then. It seems like it would save me some time.
t5's are a type of fluorescent lamp. They're thinner, and the High Output versions coupled with and individual reflector per bulb are a more intense lighting system than PC lamps. However they don't make the HO versions in a short enough lamp to fit on most nanos. The ones that Mike has used are not the HO version.somthinfishy20 said:
Mike incorrectly stated that you have 36" bulbs. You don't. You have 18-something inch PC bulbs, that are 36w. You can fairly easily add a couple t5 bulbs in your existing space, but since they're not the HO versions you'd be better off going with a new PC retrofit, because the par value of the non-HO t5 lamps is lower than normal PC lamps.
Daisy chaining, is the term for plugging several t5 lights together. They're designed in such a way that you can plug one into the wall. Then run a small cord from the far end of the first bulb into a second bulb, then another small cord from the end of that second bulb into a third bulb, etc... The number of lamps that you can have running off of one power cord depends on the wattage/length of each lamp.
B
mikeguerrero
Active Member
Thanks B,
I did make a mistake,
I forgot you have 36 watt and they might be 18 inchs long... I got my figures mixed up...
HO t-5 are not out for the cube in our size; however they are intense light already and do a fantastic job, my corals love the light.
Remember that in my tank, I'm at a proximity that far exceeds some other tanks in terms of closeness to coral.
What works for some doesn't for others; the 24 gallon has had a lot of problems so Chris has refrained from modding it for now.
If you want results now, just get the t-5s I'm going to show you a picture of mine in the past...
Mike
I did make a mistake,
I forgot you have 36 watt and they might be 18 inchs long... I got my figures mixed up...HO t-5 are not out for the cube in our size; however they are intense light already and do a fantastic job, my corals love the light.
Remember that in my tank, I'm at a proximity that far exceeds some other tanks in terms of closeness to coral.
What works for some doesn't for others; the 24 gallon has had a lot of problems so Chris has refrained from modding it for now.
If you want results now, just get the t-5s I'm going to show you a picture of mine in the past...
Mike
somthinfishy20
New Member
thanks for your help. Tomorrow im going to a lfs and ill try to find those bulbs, but i actually just found a killer deal on 175 watt mh pendant that ive got a great mod idea for so we will see what happens. Thanks.