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Nano Cube Question

Trying to decide on a tank for my daughter's room. There is a sale on the Nano Cube 28-gallon CF-QUAD w/Stand for $299. Wondering if this is worth it. The LED Pro tank is too expensive right now, and not sure if the HQI will be to hot for her room. Not looking to use a chiller. Will the coral colors with the quad lamp be vibrant. The only SPS I would like is a couple of monti caps, lps some Frogspawns, candycanes, brain. Any feedback would be appreciated.

Ghost427
 

mnat

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With the HQI bulb you will be able to keep just about any coral out there. You can choose the bulb that goes in there which give you some control over the "vibrance" of the coral so that is not really an issue. The issue is the heat, what is the ambient temp of the room?
 
Her room is on the second floor with the afternoon sun hitting the outside wall, so it gets a little warm nothing horrible but warm.
 

ecam

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My current bio has hqi's. I maintain my living rm at about 76. With lights on the water temp swings between 79.1 to 81.5 (w\ afternnon sun from patio)
Not sure if this helps.
 
The bio cube looks nice. Looks like there are no deals for them. I like the look of the stand alittle better than the nanocube.
 
I like the LED's, the one LPS i had left was on the sand bed and the polyps grew great. I moved it to the 120 and about half way up the rock and the Polyps look like they are reaching for the T5. I had a clam, zoas, polyps, SPS in the tank with no problem.
 
I purchased DS4x4's LED nano from him.

I have to say it is great. However, there are some issues (none of which are DS's fault, and he told me about the one.

First, the hood has heat issues.. I do not mean in the water, but the hood itself does not get enough ventilation. This can be fixed easily by upgrading the fans, and / or adding more fans. I was having an issue with the dusk dawns coming on and shutting off after about an hour, then turning back on after 10 minutes.. My first thought was this had to have been a heat issue.. I placed a small desk fan on top and it solved the issue..

I then went ahead and found some higher powered fans (must be 24v) and replaced the stock ones.

I also had to replace the power supply for the daylights.. It was fine then one day it just never turned on.. I checked with a volt meter, and it was dead. new one is about 70 shipped from jbj (I made my own for half). I have heard this is a fairly common issue, but that JBJ now used a larger power supply.

The dusk dawns that came stock from what DS told me where not functioning properly for him, with flickering.. He had JBJ send him new ones which had heatsinks. I'm sure he could expand on that, as I didn't do that work.

While that sounds like a lot of issues, I have to say JBJ is VERY good with customer service, and the lighting is amazing. I have seen growth on everything in my tank, and my clam is.... happy.. ha get it?

I would recommend maybe getting your hands on a used cube and just getting a diy kit for it. My old 12 had a retrofit kit on it, and i never had any issues with it supporting everything I threw in there.

The other tiny issue I have with the LED nano cube is that all the LED's for daylight are whites.. I fixed this by adding in a few blue pods to give a little more blue to my corals in the day. that's just personal preference through.

Overall it's a much better solution for sps / clams and lps then the hqi as you will not have to worry about it heating the tank up. My tank runs at about 78 at night, and 79 in the day.. Not a bad swing for the amount of light output.
 
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