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28 Gallon

Monday, August 11th, 2008 | Author: admin

JBJ 28 Gallon HQI Reef


Here’s my JBJ 28 HQI, I ordered it from nanotuners
with their upgraded canopy which adds 2x18w atinic PCs.
That’s one heavy box! and no handles! The stand was also
pretty heavy.
I bought a plastic non-porous cutting
board from wallmart that I used as the bottom of the tank. I will be
running this with no sand and the cutting board reflects some of the
light back. It also keeps the the liverock off the glass.
 

The board is 18×10 I had to cut it to size.



Here’s a photo of the cutting board bottom before the
water fill-up.
One tip; the board will float so
place some live rock while filling the tank with water.
The stand that came with the tank had a
defect. One of the base columns was about 1/4″ longer. I didn’t notice
it while assembling so the tank would not seat evenly. Nanotuners was
going to send me a replacement piece but I was able to hack-saw it
myself.


Here’s the tank filled water. I used some spare dried
rock from my previous tank and added three pieces of liverock on the
front.
Here’s the back of the tank after the Auto-Top-Off
float was installed. I’m waiting for the chiller to come in before I
install I setup the fresh water reservoir.


You can see the Auto-Top-Off device on
the shelf. It will be on a timer so it can run for 3mins a day in case
the float gets stuck it shouldn’t over fill the Aquarium
One thing I hate about
this tank is the “Three Stage” filter. As you can see its a sort of
drop-in tray that holds a sponge, carbon, and there’s a spot for other
media.
The box is half the depth of its
enclosure so water can by-pass it completetly and go around it. If this
box was twice as wide it would have been perfect.
 

One problem from this design “feature” is that if you stir anything in
the tank it will end up back into the tank since it can just go arouns
this filter box.


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Here is the inside on the box
and here’s the bottom on the box

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I decided to remove the filtration “box” and replace
it with something that can actually filter…
I used this blue filter foam
This is how the back of the tank looks.
you can see the media basket hanging in the middle it doesn’t quite
touch the bottom of the compartment.
All kinds
of junk goes around that filter box and makes its way back into the
tank.

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I used about 3″ of the foam block and stuff it to the
bottom until it touched the base.
I then placed bags of carbon, Phosban and Zeolite.
Finally I added a ~2″ section foam.
I then used really fine filter mesh and
placed it under the lip of the return and on top of the ~2″ section of
foam.

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Sorry about the crappy quality on the
pics… Here’s how it looks from the top.
I
looked at it today and its full of crap I will have to rinse weekly
I’ve been hit with an algae bloom it on
the higher rocks. I hope this new filter will take care of the excess
food. I also have to purchase a real filter.

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55 Gallon

Monday, August 11th, 2008 | Author: admin

Old 55 Gallon Discus Tank



Click on Image to enlarge

This was my last freshwater aquarium before I switched over to saltwater. I had many Discus tanks and great success with them. This pair layed eggs multiple times but they never hatched prob because of the hard water.

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Aquaria

Monday, August 11th, 2008 | Author: admin



click on Image to enlarge

This is my favorite current hobby, I’ve been trying to setup a reef aquarium for some time now but have always managed to fail. But being as stubborn as I am I’ve never given up and every time something disastrous happens I manage to tell myself that it was a lesson learned and I try to move forward.

My latest project is this 72 Gallon bow which I transferred all my live rock
from the last tank and bought an additional 60lbs

I became a member of www.njreefers.com which is a local reef club for the tri-state area. Its a great place to meet other addicts, I mean hobbyists. My username there is Lithivm.

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