reefer_cosmo

http://www.sgreefclub.com/forum/index.php?...68597&st=40 look at the above thread, got picture of how a bro fit a SK-05 into a small nano tank's rear compartment.

Recommended retail price is S$800 loh, I managed to convince the LFS boss to give me a $50 discount, meaning I paid $750. Also the boss throws in sand 1 bag, NSW 28g, coral chips 1 bag ... all live stuff, which speeds up my cycling process. I lagi kaisu, add bact starter solution daily somemore. Was going really well, tank able to take high bio load as i put in a huge piece of market prawn. but i made a wrong choice of coral, a purple sponge which killed 50% of my live stocks. almost crashed, but lucky got QT, so transfered LS to QT for few days while i get the main tank's water parameters all back in shape again.

Is price a concern to you? If you are able to shell out around $800 for a nano tank, I recommend the JBJ HQI 28 gallon (100L). It comes with a protein skimmer (with compartment specially for it), MH light 150W, a wave maker controller, 2 very powerful pump, blue night LED lights. Almost all-in-one, except for the chiller. And if you want to add chiller, look at my thread on how to connect it to a chiller and still retaining the wave maker function.

Hi Bro, Yes, I did come up with a plan to reconfigure the stuff if my next 2 months' electricity bill still do not go down. I have some constraints ... 7W air pump is the stock air-pump supplied (variable speed) for the airstone driven protein skimmer. Initially I thought, wow, so big arhhhh ... better get a smaller one to replace, then later realised why they supplied one this huge ... as the airstone age, and progressively gets "stuck", I could turn up the power to continue the skimming action at the last level of efficiency ... of course, after 2 months, the wooden airstone needs to be changed. So far quite happy with the supplied skimmer. So I will keep this piece of equipment running. 7W ACCELA pumps, 2 of them ... I am using one as "return pump" to return the water from the filter box section to the display area. The other one, I am using it to drive the chiller water cycle (the returned chilled water is into a compartment filled with coral chips, so got the additional benefit of higher surface area for bio filteration, which I will lose this additional bio filteration capacity if I pipe the water back into the display area - as below). Then, I have a small 4W powerhead serving as a small "return pump" that drives the water through an UV unit, then back into the display area. So, the only thing I can cut out is the 4W powerhead ... by connecting the UV unit to the chiller water cycle, then water flow back into the display area. But to do that, I need to raise the chiller up higher, as I am experiencing high head loss due to the placement of the chiller on the floor. Then there is the cutting of tubes, risk of saltwater flooding the floor while reconfiguring the tubes etc. etc. Which is why I rather run the 4W powerhead then to itchy hand go and modify everything again. I believe I have narrowed down the 2 highest impact items: Resun Chiller (darn Made-in-China stuff, not energy efficient) and the 150W MH light. Currently trying to cut the run time of these 2 items down to as low as possible, while still keeping the corals and fishes happy. BTW, sidetrack a bit, today I saw something very interesting ... my clownfish starts to "host" the jewel coral, and when I feed prawn cubes to the bigger fishes, this clownfish will snatch the prawn cube and place it on top of the jewel coral (right in the center) ... as though it is "feeding" the jewel like feeding an anemone. When I took the prawn cube away, and continuing feeding ... again, the clownfish did the whole routine again. This goes on for 4 times. Ahhh ... very cute. These are the magical Kodak moments that prompt people to continue with this money draining hobby ehhh? Amount of time and money spend to upkeep a marine tank, no joke.

If i am not wrong, weipro is those type that can be hung at the back of the tank one .... If you want something even smaller, try looking for a Resun SK-05 nano skimmer. I bought one before, it works well initially ... but later the powerhead leak electricity ... so i throw the powerhead away. some other bros with nano tanks are using the SK-05 successfully, so it might just be that i got a lemon ...

Bro, can I ask you one thing ... when you set your chiller temp at 27C, what is the temp of the water inside of the main display area? Becoz of the way that I setup my feed and return of the chiller water, my display area is always 1 deg C higher than the temp sensor indicated on the chiller, Thus, when I want to maintain 27C inside the display area where all the livestocks are, I need to set the chiller at 26 deg C. I tried to set the chiller at 27C before and the display area goes up to 28 to 28.5 deg C and lots of corals decided not to open up. Once I get the temp inside the display area down to 27C, the corals are happy again.

Thank bro for the link, very useful. Even at worst case scenario, the calculated bill should be less than $50 per month, to be exact $40+ ... and based on my current scaled back running hours and temp setting, should be $30+ per month only. But the huge jump really shocked the hell out of me ...

Hi Bro, looking at the size of your 2 tanks and the kind of Wattage and number of big-sized powerheads, plus lots of lighting ... quite understandable that the power bill can work out to be $100 for each tank. However, for a small 28g nano tank to consume as much electricity, something is not quite right. I am currently hunting down which component is the culprit. Most likely is the chiller (cheap China stuff, not efficient) ...

Hi guys, In view of the recent increases in electricity charges (again!), would like to survey fellow reefers on how much electricity bill they pay each month for keeping of their marine tank. Not talking about your total household bill, but the estimated portion belonging to the marine tank's upkeep. Also please indicate the size of your tank and what equipments inside, and running hours. Let me start: After I started my tank, I noticed a S$100 increase in my monthly electricity bill. And it is a very small nano tank, which causes me to wonder why is it consuming so much electricity. Maybe more experienced bros out there can suggest ways to save electricity in this hobby. MH light 150W - initially run for 7 hours a day, now reduced to 4 hours a day LED blue nite-lights around 4W - initially run for 9 hours, now reduced to 6 hours a day Chiller Resun CL-280W - initially set at 25 deg C, now set at 27 deg C One air pump around 7W - run 24/7 2 ACCELA powerheads around 7W each - run 24/7 1 small powerhead around 4W - run 24/7 1 UV around 9W - run 24/7 That's about it, not such a big electrical load, but still the PUB bill shoots up like crazy. Our household usage pattern and habits remain the same. But seriously speaking ... just paying the PUB bill for 1 year, almost the cost of my whole equipment setup. This is not counting the dosing chemicals, rowaphos, carbon, supplements etc. My tank is only a 28 gallon (100L) JBJ HQI. Wow, how does other bros who keep HUGE marine tank sustain their hobby? What kind of money do you spend per month on average, just for upkeep?

are u the guy that always stay at the counter at the corner of the fish food, additive, medication section? if so, we talked before, and never really can tell you are into reefing. i thought u only specializes in freshwater fishes only, and i never venture onto saltwater topics.

Ya boy, thanks for the pointer. I did up some reading on the internet, and yeap ... they are damn toxic. Becoz they do not move, their only defense against predation is their high toxicity level. It's placed so close to the clams, no wonder. And you are right on funny behaviours prior to the chain of death, other corals were oozing defensive slime/chemicals for no reason (that my eyes can see) ... never notice any fish go disturb them, nor any coral touching. Then, the anemone that was near the purple sponge starts running away from it. Now that u mentioned it, the signs all fit into the picture nicely. Just that I wasn't experienced enough to take proactive action, I even think how harmless the purple sponge was!! So cute, the one that I was least wary of, ends up to be the grim ripper.

Sponges are very toxic? I didn't know that, bought it becoz it was really colourful. Now that you mentioned it, you are right, the purple sponge was showing some signs of "melting" and disintegration prior to the 1st clam starts to die. For the 1st and 2nd clam that died, i only did 25% water change ... that must be the problem, the toxin is still in the system ... my carbon must have been already fully used up by then. (i have activated carbon and rowaphos in little bags of netting)

more pictures: skimmer after 16 hours of work (from the original pic that I posted above), and a pic showing the chiller on the floor ... how the tubes are connected. By the way, Resun CL280 cannot fit into the cabinet that came with the JBJ Nano 28g HQI ... just to let bros out there know this fact. It's a few inches taller than the compartment below.

Just to give you a quick idea of how heavy a typical small nano marine tank can be: Nano Tank, glass equipment etc. appox 10 to 18 kg If it is a 28 gallon (appox 100 L) system, the freshwater itself will be around 100 kg salt alone, you will need close to 4kg live rocks, most people add around 20 to 40 kg You can see that a relatively "small" nano tank can also add up to be more than 150 kg ... so don't play play, be safe rather than sorry ...

Better place the tank securely on a flat surface. It's no joke, the amount of water + salt + rocks ... the weight is more than you expect. Especially it seems that yours is a freshwater tank converted to marine (I did it before, I know). Freshwater tanks are usually made of much thinner glass, it is not able to withstand higher pressure exerted by the additional weight of the salt + rocks. By not placing your tank flat on a secure surface, you are putting uneven stress on the already over-stressed thin glass panels ... it's a matter of time that the tank cracks. My freshwater converted to marine setup: picture as follows, It remains as my QT for a while, and now it is converted back to freshwater. Got my new Nano marine tank stablized already.

Thanks for your suggestion Bro, but my frogspawn did not survive the Clam Trio death. Some sort of Clam virus, once the 1st clam starts to die and decompose inside the tank, even after removing it ... the rest follow the 1st one soon after. Big clams pollute the water big time when they starts to rot inside the tank. The 2nd clam, I was able to ascertain the period between the last time I checked on it, and the next time that I saw it dead, was only 3 hours to 4 hours ... but the tank was totally cloudy and Ammonia level spike real fast. Once the famous Trio saga was over, I lost almost 40% to 50% of my livestocks. The 2nd picture from the top is what my current tank looks like. The 3rd clam's death was the worst ... had to transfer everything out to QT, and do a flush out of the tank's water ... almost 100% water change. As for the following pictures: Skimmer after 4 hours of work (from the skimmer picture posted above), and the compartment that the chilled water return to the tank.

more equipment shots

equipment pics

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pictures

i meant to say i started with a very small tank. the other point i was trying to made at the end of my post is that most newbies learn through their mistakes, so you cannot really avoid that. most successful marine tanks are result of many failed trial and error attempts. reading a lot before you start can help you mitigate some of the risks, but pitfalls are still going to be there due to your inexperiences. in short, just do it. don't worry so much. u will learn along the way.

It really depends on what you want really. Everyone starts as a newbie. For myself, I started with a very tank, crashed it 3 times, wasted lots of money buying new fishes and corals. Learned through hands-on experience and mistakes made, then upgraded to a larger tank, but still trying to spend on minimal ... was slightly more successful, but not able to sustain large number of fishes in the tank. Then recently, decided to really spend significant amount of cash ... buy chiller, proper nano tank setup with powerful pumps, MH (powerful) lights, proper nite-light, UV filtering, all arrays of test kits, supplements and dosing solutions. It really made a significant difference, and I was able to keep a tank packed full of corals and fishes ... If you are looking at instant success and purchase the readily setup 2ft tank with fishes, what happen will be that when issues arises with the marine tank, most likely you will not know how to solve it, and it will crash.

Hi guys. Recently we bought a new piece of coral, a brain. But due to inexperience in keeping coral, and not looking carefully at the shop, we only noticed that the coral that we bought has black spots that "Eat" all the way into the coral's skeleton. Please take a look at the pictures to understand the situation. Can anyone enlighten me as to what is the problem with this coral: sick, infection, disease (will spread to other corals?) or just injury from fish bites? Also be so kind as to share with me how to best treat this condition and nurse the coral back to health. Many thanks in advance ....

Updated pictures with more livestocks and corals added ...

Wow, that's a very beautiful piece of coral. I am still learning how to keep coral. My prior experiences with marine tanks have all been fishes only. Today we added some more cleaning crew and one piece of coral that is easy to take care of (that's what the LFS guy said). Enjoy the pictures.