NanoReefBlog

Roberto Denadai’s 45g hi-def SPS wonderland

Curvball — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:30:42 +0000

Despite the aquascaping of this 45g Brazilian based SPS reef, it’s the shear beauty of corals which deserves your viewing attention… and according to Roberto, the colours are bouncing back since the tank transitioned from metal halide lighting over to T5s.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf0reSnnmrA

You can view his tank thread over at ZEOvit.com

Lotilia graciliosa (White Cap Goby) turns up at Uniquecorals.com

Curvball — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 01:03:51 +0000

The elusive and highly desirable White Cap Goby (Lotilia graciliosa) has made an appearance on the pages of online vendor, Uniquecorals.com. At a cool $1000 I’m not sure how long this beautiful fish will be available for, but if you’re after one of these gobies, you’d better put your money where your mouth is… who knows they might just through in a free shrimp partner too… but you’d have to ask nicely.

Our friends over at Glassbox-design posted a few videos of this fish awhile back, you can see them over here: Lotilia Cinema

The UK’s leading aquarium publication, Practical Fishkeeping magazine is looking for a new editor

Curvball — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 13:40:52 +0000

Yesterday, Matt Clarke, PFK editor of ten years announced he will be leaving the UK based magazine. With his departure comes a great opportunity for the right person.

Practical Fishkeeping is looking for an editor to produce the UK’s best-selling fishkeeping magazine and run one of the world’s best-known aquarium websites.

Due the forthcoming departure of the current editor-in-chief, Matt Clarke, we are now recruiting for an editor to work on Practical Fishkeeping and the PFK website.

The successful candidate will understand what makes fishkeepers tick and be able to commission and produce outstanding content that inspires and educates the reader. They’ll understand the distinct segments in the aquatic market and know what appeals most to the people in each, allowing the magazine to publish a well-balanced range of articles spanning tropical, marine and coldwater fishkeeping

Practical Fishkeeping is looking for an editor to produce the UK’s best-selling fishkeeping magazine and run one of the world’s best-known aquarium websites.
Due the forthcoming departure of the current editor-in-chief, Matt Clarke, we are now recruiting for an editor to work on Practical Fishkeeping and the PFK website.
The successful candidate will understand what makes fishkeepers tick and be able to commission and produce outstanding content that inspires and educates the reader. They’ll understand the distinct segments in the aquatic market and know what appeals most to the people in each, allowing the magazine to publish a well-balanced range of articles spanning tropical, marine and coldwater fishkeeping

I myself have given this some thought especially with my long history of working within the publishing worls, but if I got the PFK job, where would it leave nanoreefblog.com – besides, I don’t care much for goldfish… perhaps I’ll still put my CV forward, I’ll give it some more thought over the weekend.

You can find out more information about the position and how to submit your CV on the PFK website.

How small is too small for a reef aquarium?

Curvball — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 23:24:23 +0000

Sure many of us consider reef aquariums in the 6-12g range to be small, but we know that 2g or even 1g reefs have existed – perhaps not long lived, but hobbyists have tried. I guess it comes down to the fact that the smaller the ‘tank’, the less you can really put in it especially when it comes to fish. I personally have no interest in keeping a single zoanthid polyp and it’s lone copepod friend.

The question I ask everybody, is a 300ml (0.07gallon) ’reef aquarium’ just taking the piss or a legit ‘nano’ system?

Plankt0s a member over at nano-reef.com has recently started a thread showing off this tiny, tiny ‘tank’. I must say, it looks like a mini version of any normal sized reef aquarium, right down the aquascaping.

I got bored one day and had some scraps laying around so I made this little 300 ml tank. It has an oak stand and canopy and is made from acrylic. I change the water every couple days and use an aqualifter to move water around. I made a PCB with some LEDs that I have in abundance. The only thing in there is some palys that I had floating around in another tank and they are acutally doing pretty well. – Plankt0s

Here are some of the photos of the Planktos’ 300ml custom pico reef complete with LED lighting.

First look: ATB Multi Use Cone Protein Skimmer

Curvball — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:07:09 +0000

On my previous 12g system, I ran a Tunze 9002 protein skimmer and it did a great job of removing some generous amounts of foul smelling DOCs. However when I switched over to the ZEOnano9020, I found that the Tunze just didn’t want to perform as I wanted it to, no matter how much I tweaked it… I’ve always liked the idea of running an oversized skimmer on my tanks, although for the nano side of the hobby, most decent skimmers are bigger than the aquariums themselves. I toyed with a few options, threw caution to the wind and opted for the ATB Multi Use Cone. My main reasons for going with this exact model are as follows:

1. The feed pump is located externally
2. Size wise it was about right for my tank (physical, not filtration capacity) and the space available
3. ATB are world class skimmers
4. It is one of the only cone style hang on skimmers
5. Easily allow upgrading of the tank without upgrading the skimmer
6. I had a choice of colours… is that really a valid reason?

What follows is a selection of photos of the unboxing, setting up and a few photos of some really scary skimmate produced after only 48hours on my tank.

I will put together a more detailed review of the skimmer in the next few weeks as right now I’m still seeing how it’s performing and what affect it is having on the ZEOnano9020.

But before I leave you, I would like to say that this is one solid bit of reef aquarium equipment, the craftsmanship is outstanding – overall the skimmer is just downright good looking, and I’ve seen a fair few skimmers in my day. I do wonder what it would look like in red instead of the plain black I opted for…

Wear your hobby on your sleeve

Curvball — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 13:11:01 +0000

Want something else to buy for your tank? Well not strictly your tank but for yourself instead? Why not grab a shirt declaring your love for this hobby? You can thanks to Brett at Fishbrains.net

Check out the first two available prints.

'Make a window' print

'Clean up crew' print

Fishbrains.net is a new website selling aquarium and reef-related t-shirts to fellow hobbyists. For many years I wished I had some hobby themed shirts to wear around and show off my pride for reef-keeping. With so few options available I decided to take a shot at designing and selling them myself. The very small initial offering will grow as fishbrains gathers steam. Show your passion for the hobby and look stylin’ at the same time!
- Brett Hendricks, Fishbrains.net

Shirts cost $24 each with XXL shirts selling for $26. You can order directly off the fishbrains.net website.

Shirts are available to everybody around the world, for those outside North America, please email Brett for shipping costs.

The invaluable clean up crew member, the Brittle Starfish (ophiuroids)

Owlbassboy — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:57:06 +0000

I’m sure a lot of you are sick of your cleaner shrimps (Lysmata Amboinensis) stealing food from your corals. This is not such a problem for SPS dominated reef tanks but LPS and Dendrophylliad keepers will know what I mean.

There is a great member of our clean up crew that is always over looked and they are the brittle stars (ophiuroids). We all have hitchhiker brittles in our tanks but I added two more into my system. I have a pink bubbletip brittle and a black brittle and without them I could never get away with the amount of feeding my tank gets. Every two or three days my tank gets up to four cubes of mysis into it to feed up my tubastrea colonies and balanophyllia. There is a lot of waste from this but thankfully these guys do some great scavenging throughout the whole tank and clear up all the waste.

However please be aware that there are a lot of big green brittle stars (Ophiarachna incrassata) on the market and these are fish eaters. They will set up basket traps to await a fish swimming under and then wrap it up and kill it. I have heard of people keeping these long term and losing no fish but I wouldn’t personally take that risk.

Be careful with this brittle starfish, it's a known fish eater. © Wikipedia

What are you experiences like with brittle stars?

No related posts.

First look: ATI 6 x 24w dimmbar Powermodule T5 lighting unit

Curvball — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:33:48 +0000

By now many of you are familiar with the ZEOnano9020 reef system I’m running and if you’ve seen those posts, then you’ll have seen that the tank is lit by an ATI T5 unit. The exact model is the 6 x 24w ‘dimmbar’ Powermodule.

The dimmbar model makes use of dimmable electronic ballasts instead of the standard ballasts found in these German T5 units. The 6 x 24w Powermodule consists of two channels, one for 2 T5 lamps, the other controls the remaining 4 lamps. The ‘dimmbar’ function allows the lamps of the Powermodule to be dimmed by the GHL Profilux computer. This is extremely handy for sunrise/sunset cycles and of course to adjust the intensity of the light provided when adding new corals and other light sensitive animals.

What struck me about the ATI T5 Powermodule was how extremely well put together it was, the quality of materials used it outstanding. I had seen many images, read loads of reviews, but when I pulled the unit out of the box, I was completely in awe. The matt finish contrasting with the polished edging, the ATI branding on the cooling fans – this is one stunning bit of aquarium equipment. It’s as if the Apple Mac designers drew this light up, I’m sure the longer bigger units would look great in a design studio dominated by Apple hardware… but I’m getting off topic here.

As I mentioned, the Powermodule has cooling fans, one for each pair of lamps. These lamps are controlled by an adaptor allowing you to switch up the speed at which you need them to run at. I still don’t understand why some lighting companies forgo active cooling since it’s been proved that T5 tubes produce the most amount of light at a certain temperature (35C if I’m correct?)… does the ATI Powermodule 6 x 24w unit deliver on the lighting front? A quick measurement revealed (that with my lamp configuration), I was getting over 600PAR at the water surface with the unit roughly 5″ above – I was impressed.

Before giving you my review of the unit and how it has been performing, I wanted to share a collection of images highlighting this beautiful lighting fixture, from unboxing through to setting it up over the tank. Enjoy the images.

Look out for the upcoming review of it’s performance and my overall thoughts on the 6 x 24w ‘dimmbar’ Powermodule.

Thank you to Alex @ Empac and ATI Aquaristik. for allowing me to review this unit.

The ZEOnano9020: Tank details

Curvball — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:13:12 +0000

It has been a while since I posted the first few photos of the ZEOnano9020 and today I will share some the system details with you.

The ZEOnano9020 roughly 2 months old

Overview

The ZEOnano is an all-in-one (otherwise known as a AIO) aquarium basically meaning that the display and sump system share the same main tank area. On the ZEOnano, the entire back wall is the sump area.
The sump is divided into 3 main chambers. First chamber is where the water enters the ’sump’ and primary pickup area for the protien skimmer. The water then flows over a set of baffles, and then up through the 2nd chamber which houses a built in ZEOlith reactor. The water then flows into the final chamber which houses the return pump, heater, probes and dosing pump outlets.

Decisions

I considered numerous options for this tank in terms of glass, but knew that normal, um green glass, wasn’t an option. Low-iron glass was what I wanted, and wanted the tank to have at least all three sides in this ultra clear glass… and somehow I ended up going acrylic. Who knows how that happened, but all I can say it that it is incredibly clear, acrylic clarity is just stunning, glass doesn’t even come close. I may never go glass again. What about the scratches I hear you cry – yes, it scratches easily, but the trade off is well worth it, even if it means just being the extra bit more careful inside and outside the tank.

I would like to thank David at Fistafiltration for all his input and help with putting this and the previous ZEOnano system together. If you’re interested in a ZEOnano system, please get in touch.

Vital Stats:

Tank size: 600mm long x 600mm wide x 350mm high – water level sits at 310mm
Sump area: 600mm long x 100mm wide x 350mm high
Material: 10mm acrylic with the rear/sump wall being in 10mm black acrylic
Return pump: Tunze Silence 1073.008 @ 50%
Filtration: ZEOvit method, ATB Multi-Use protien skimmer* and roughly 5 gk’s live rock
Main circulation: 2 x Tunze 6055 controlled via GHL Profilux
Lighting: 6 x 24w ATI ‘dimbar’ Powermodule (click to read review), 2 x IceCap Lunar LED Lights*

The stand is a modified/reinforced Ikea kitchen base cabinet with a beech or birch door – which ironically matches the bookshelves that flank the system (that was just a lucky coincidence). All in all I think I have achieved the modern look I wanted, it’s not quite an Elos quality system, but it’s close enough for me… besides, there is always the next reef to improve the skills on.

* reviews on these products coming soon.

Photos:

Reef Bowl videos – pico reefs in vases and jars

Curvball — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 13:55:06 +0000

Since Brandon Mason published History of Pico Reef Biology here on nanoreefblog.com -- many more hobbyists have attempted the ‘reefbowl’ concept.

In this HD video Mark Krieg shows off his 5 month old reef in vase:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPleEReXxfs

1.5g Cookie Jar reef by mecamind

www.youtube.com/watch?v=StO0MZ-IyyM

Another Cookie Jar reef by flyboy318

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yHpW-Apg40

Know of any more reef bowls? Please let us know in the comments below.