The 28 Gallon JBJ - NanoCube

So I haven't really posted about my the new tank... Ok, so it's not REALLY mine, but I completely helped set it up and will be taking care of it. It actually belongs to my girlfriend, Mal (you can thank me when you're famous, Love). I guess I can say I'm "consulting" on the setup (that means pointing fingers, complaining about water changes, making top-off water, providing some frags, etc...). Well, we set it up and it's been running for about a month now. We moved an existing 12 gallon nano aquarium into the new 28-gallon Nano tank (including rock, fishes, and coral). Don't worry, we set it up right. We started it with just base rock and started dosing Brightwell's Microbacter7 immediately for almost 2 weeks. We also added a handful of live sand and a few gallons of aquarium water from the existing aquarium. We then added the live rock and fish, and tada...

But Oh No's! It wasn't 9 months of cycling!!! Yes folks, it's possible to stock a tank in a matter of just a few DAYS. Do your homework, plan it out, and stock it slowly... Don't worry, I'm a professional. In all reality, I've set up new aquariums in a day in a pinch, and have never had problems. I have ALWAYS stocked slowly, though...

So far the tank is doing well. The previous aquarium was running a 70 watt metal halide fixture, and the new aquarium is running JBJ's 89 watt Advanced LED light (JBJ 28 Gallon Nano Cube LED Aquarium - 89 Watt Advanced). Not too shabby! The soft coral all did pretty well during the switch, however a frag of my Pink and Green Damicornis bleached out; this was not a result of the light.

Anyways, I'll be posting updates from time to time to track the progress, and here's the latest picture...

 And no, I haven't downsized (yet). I have some good things going on with MY 60-gallon reef, and plan on posting more soon... So until next time...

Heater Off!

Well the power went out briefly on Monday, and somehow my heater was turned off. All other devices were fine, except the heater. Unfortunately for my coral and fishes, I didn't realize the aquarium was so cold until today. When I noticed the problem, it was at 69 degrees. In fact, I only thought to check the temperature after I put my hand in the tank to target feed my coral.



After checking the graph of the temperature, it looks like there is only a couple of days of data showing, indicating the power loss we briefly experienced on Monday. Going forward, I think I'll change the default status of the heater to "ON", and I'll make sure to check the temperature more often. While there is no loss yet, my Maxi-mini Anemone and my Torch Coral are looking unhappy. I'll keep an eye on this closely.

24 hours later...

The Nano-cube is still cloudy. I cut up a filter sock and added it into the overflow. The tank is clearing up slowly. Started adding Microbacter7 to the tank. I'll seed the sand with some sand from an established tank, and I'll add some live rock from the same aquarium to speed up the cycle. More to come...

Setting up a 28g JBJ Nano-cube

Still cloudy. Looks like we'll be here a while!

I'm starting the tank with some CaribSea base rock, Aragalive Aragonite sand, and I'll be inoculating the tank with Brightwell Aquatics Microbacter 7. I'll post more when the sand settles!

First Photo Update of the Year