• Folks, if you've recently upgraded or renewed your annual club membership but it's still not active, please reach out to the BOD or a moderator. The PayPal system has a slight bug which it doesn't allow it to activate the account on it's own.

ds4x4's 28g JBJ LED Nano

A little follow thread for my LED Nano. It's been setup for 6 months or so and had a couple big changes one being my own ignorance.

here it is brand spanking new.
DSC03230-1.jpg

DSC03233-1.jpg



with its first residents that came from the 120.
DSC03244.jpg
 
I can sadly say that most of the corals and fish died before I had moved to the new house. I had been using a pair of marineland heaters that were way over sized and one malfunctioned while i was at work cooking the tank to 95F. I now use heaters that are under rated for the tank in case the same thing happens.

The next blunder was my own by not doing any maintenance for 2 months except add water, heck sometimes the crud on the glass was so thick you couldn't even tell anything was there. anywho, back to reality with regular maintenance and things are going back to normal.

now if i could only figure out how to upgrade the filtration since the included style ... well.. sucks.
 
i've seen folks with nanos like the jbj/bio cubes add an additional powerhead inside the tank for added flow. I used a koralia nano but if you had the money I guess an mp10 vortech would work quite well. The other suggestion i've seen is to use a larger maxi jet for the return (assuming you are using a maxi or mini-jet type pump.

Also SteveT on the nano forums sells some nice custom acryllic boxes and such. I'm not sure though how you'd fit a skimmer with the built-in-hood. I had to remove the hood on my biocube to get a skimmer in there.

Looking forward to more pics (sorry to hear the old 120 residents moved on). :/
 
im currently using the cheap pumps that came with the tank but i do have a maxijet i was hoping to use for my dual canister reactor. I did add a Koralia nano to increase the tank flow. maybe upgrading the pumps would be a good idea.

The only real problem i have had is the cheap LED driver for the dawn/dusk actinics seems to flicker every so often. I might play around with it tomorrow and get a few more pics.
 

Fish Brain

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Replacing the stock pump is the second thing most people do to cubes. First modification being removing the bio balls.

I recommend a maxi-jet 900. There is only a 60 gph difference between the 900 and the 1200 but the 900 is half the watts. There is usually an issue with heat in the cubes because of the small water volume, so minializing the watts in the tank will help out in the summer time.
 
i use a maxi-jet 1200 on my 12 gal nano cube. with a ball valve to adjust the flow. try that then youll have the capability to add/lower flow if needed. also have you tried the tank without any heaters and monitor the temp? i have two tanks in the house both have no heaters. my 40 b and my nano both stay in check.
 
wow! very nice!! great job! cant wait to see pis with the clam opened up!
I haven't talked to Terri and Ant latley but they had the clam it was beautiful just too much for a little nano.

Replacing the stock pump is the second thing most people do to cubes. First modification being removing the bio balls.

I recommend a maxi-jet 900. There is only a 60 gph difference between the 900 and the 1200 but the 900 is half the watts. There is usually an issue with heat in the cubes because of the small water volume, so minializing the watts in the tank will help out in the summer time.

I'll probably check out the 900 even though we usually have the central air on i dont want to cook anything again.

i use a maxi-jet 1200 on my 12 gal nano cube. with a ball valve to adjust the flow. try that then youll have the capability to add/lower flow if needed. also have you tried the tank without any heaters and monitor the temp? i have two tanks in the house both have no heaters. my 40 b and my nano both stay in check.

with a HOB filter to clean the water up 1 heater both circulation pumps and a koralia nano the tank had dropped to 70F ish and i which was darn near room temp, so i found my second heater and plugged it in.
 
For most nano fish, 70 degrees is not a problem. We run our nanos cold; our 12g is right around 73-75, and our 20g is in the same range. If your tank is consistently running cold, take advantage of it - there are a number of species that do better at 68-72 degrees that are difficult to keep in a warmer tank.
 
My update to this tank is it has pretty much been ignored for the last 6 months. We've got a couple hermits and snails still kickin as well as our sole Chromis. Still have Orange Zoas, green and brown Polyps, Green mushrooms, red mushrooms and my SPS rock that has been to hell and back is doing awesome. I just wish i could get it to spread. got some apastaisa (sp?) which I have been Nuking with the electrode and I am still using the same bucket of Bio-Actif.

I'm about to go and grab a couple mj1200's since my stock pumps suck and plumb my dual BRS reactor into the system to keep everything clean. I'll snap some Pics of our Koi pond that had been takin up my time
 
I did o a bunch of water changes, used phosguard and new ROX carbon with a MJ900...... on that note I am not a Nano person, the bigger the better and I will be trying to salvage a couple corals and the fish from this tank back into the 120.. look for this to be up for sale soon.
 
Sorry for your luck with the tank. I run a nano 12 with DIY led and It is a lot of work. I have a 90 sitting in the garage with a 20 long for sump that I want to set up but the wife is not budging on it.. lol
If you do decide to sell let us know the price.
 
I was suprised at the amount of up keep for a nano. The quanity of supplies used is alot smaller but I had alot less maintnence to do with the 220gal display with 400gals total including sump and refuge

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk 2
 

TanksNStuff

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Yep, it's typical for people to think a small tank is easier to take care of just because it's smaller. But in reality, it's completely opposite with this hobby. The more water volume you have the easier it is to take care of. This is mostly due to a higher chance of something bad being dilluted and spread out thinner by all the additional water.

In a small nano, a problematic situation has no where to go and it's kept concentrated in a small area. When it stays local to one spot, that spot gets more contact with the bad situation, thereby having a bigger impact on your livestock.

But if that same situation is in a big tank with a large sump... it gets moved around, mixed with water that wasn't affected which dillutes the "bad stuff" and makes it less harsh on your livestock. And since the volume of water gets circulated through the large sump and greater area of your tank... it has less contact time with each coral because it's just floating by briefly.

So, as you can see, while it's true that maintenance on a bigger tank may require more salt water, bigger equipment, etc... there's less of a chance of something dieing. That is, as long as you keep up with the water changes and keep the tank clean. Because, as you would expect, if you neglect it too much you CAN have a tank crash. And when it happens you lose a lot more than you would if you had a nano.
 
Top