Coraltopia.com » 28g HQI

The Cycle is Over

Clinton — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 23:28:05 +0000

It’s been awhile (2 months to be precises) since I’ve added an update. However, the lack of entries is not unwarranted as I did a COMPLETELY new aquascape and added 60lbs of Fiji Pink sand! There are new images in the photos sections, a new video, and now that the cycle is finally over, a few frags have been “permanently” placed; life is starting to look good again!


View at Picasa Cali Tort	View at Picasa Hollywood Stunner Challice	View at Picasa Lunar Eclipse Paly
View at Picasa Meteor Show Cyphastrea	View at Picasa TRPE, Green Sparkle Paly, Lunar Eclips Paly, misc. zoas	View at Picasa Kryptonite Candy Cane

Cyano update and new DJ4 power center

Clinton — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 22:35:21 +0000

Looks like the cyano disaster is finally subsiding. After pushing a couple good doses of Boyd Chemiclean, and using the turkey baster liberally, the cyano is subsiding. I also made a minor adjustment to one of my Koralia 1 pumps to push more flow to the area.

I noticed during this debacle that my diamond goby is nowhere to be found …. coincidence? I think not. I’m guessing the death caused the spike and the cyano went on a rampage. At any rate, things are back in check now and I’m in the process of finding another goby. I’ve burned through 2 or 3 of the diamond backs. They last a year and change and then die off. Guess they just can’t handle the small tank sans refugium (which I’m planning to add as time and $$ allow in the near future). For the next sand sifter goby, I’m thinking about going with a 2 spot – thrive in smaller tanks and still churn up the sand pretty good. Check out the Two Spot Goby when you get a chance and let me know what you think, as I’ll most likely have to have on shipped.

I’m also upgrading to a dual DJ4 power center that I’m setting up inside my stand. The current DJ8 has been great, but it’s just laying behind my stand kicking off ambient light to the room. Time to upgrade and get things in house. If you or someone you know has a need for a used DJ8, I’m willing to trade for colorful frags in the West Los Angeles area.

Nano aquarium skimmer analysis (AIO)

Clinton — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 23:18:34 +0000

Today I’ll be looking at a couple All In One (AIO) skimmers for nano tanks. Specifically, I’ll be looking at solutions for my tank – the JBJ 28g HQI tank. Nano tank purists (like myself) have the mindset that part of the challenge of a keeping a nano tank is keeping your equipment self contained – or All In One. Others will argue that just because you have a small tank, does not mean you have to keep all the equipment in house (some will even go as far as to add sumps onto their tanks – essentially turning their nano tank into a larger tank with a smaller display). The argument rages on, but today I’ll be looking at a couple of skimmers you can buy and use within the rear compartments of your nano tank and still stay true to your AIO roots.

Tunze 9002 ($145) – It’s Tunze, which pretty much speaks for it’s self. If you do any google searches you’ll quickly find that this a favorite amongst the AIO purists (and other hobbyists that want a quality skimmer at a pretty good price). The major beef seems to be that the collection cup is a weird size, and thus needs to be changed out or modified in order to work with my specific tank (JBJ 28g HQI). You can certainly do your own Do It Yourself (DYI) project – or just bounce over to InTank Designs and pick one up a custom made Skinny Tunze Cup
Sapphire Aquatics NC24/28 (n/a) -There are several above average elements of this skimmer, and there are also some areas it leaves lacking. Construction is awesome, pump is SUPER quiet, The collection cup fits without any modification to the hood (and is VERY easily removable), price is good for what you get, customer service WAS great (company went out of business). For those of you that missed out, I wrote a more extensive review of this skimmer last week. Just follow the link above and you’ll get the full 411

Next week we’ll be looking at a few more protein skimmer options, this time Hang Off the Back (HOB) which opens nano tanks up to a lot more options and power when it comes to picking a scum kickin skimmer.

Project “growth shot” in full effect!

Clinton — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 04:29:53 +0000

I’ve been playing with the idea of starting up a full blown page to post weekly growth shots to, and tonight I finally decided to sit down and make it happen!

The wife is out of the house on Monday nights, so I get some bonus fish tank time. I usually do a thorough glass cleaning, check my levels, do the dosing, take care of any other maintenance issues that need addressed. However, now that I have this fancy new iPhone it’s easier than ever to take weekly growth shots! You’ll see the link to the page up there in the navigation – other than that, not much to report for this week. Added some extra rubble to the tank to try and close up some of the dead space under the over hang. Still pondering tearing that all out and do a complete rebuild (always the case right?!) but for now I am going to let it sit and grow. I’ll be sure to post another update next, till then – happy reefing!

iPhone 4.0 = more pics and vids on the way!

Clinton — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 23:30:11 +0000

I’ve been on a Twitter frenzy lately, mostly becuase (as the concept might dictate) micro-blogging is quicker and easier than full blown blogging (follow us @coraltopia). However, there have been several updates in the past weeks so I thought I would take a chance to reflect and share with any people who are silly enough to still be reading …

As you may have heard, I just picked up my new iPhone 4.0. This thing is pretty much amazing, and I can’t wait to start taking more pics and vids to get get posted on the site. I’ve been doing some cleaning in the past couple weeks, including adding some extra sponges for some mechanical filtration and taking the old school razor blade to the glass (which I do every couple months regardless). I’m going to try to post an update weekly for a bit and see how it goes … Hoping to have some more active growth shots as well as some more video as I start to add more pieces to the collection. This weekend I’m hoping to grab a little hammer coral from a guy down in Redondo Beach, look for pics next episode!

New growth shots

Clinton — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 03:21:10 +0000

The tank has been looking pretty dang good lately, so time for another round of growth shots. My raspberry prostrata is finally branching off, and I’ve got a handful of plugs of purple joker palys ready to hit the market.

Still looking to add a cleaner shrimp (the last one died some time ago) as well as a nice piece of hammer coral, in the hopes my clowns will host it. Kyle is in LA this weekend, we’ll see what he has to say about things …

Growth shots

Clinton — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 01:20:54 +0000

Shashin Error:

No photos found for specified shortcode

Salinity crash

Clinton — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:50:24 +0000

If you’ve been following Clinton’s 28g (mostly via the Twitter feed) then you’ll know that I’ve been struggling with some stability lately. I finally got the fans upgraded and the CA/MG issues on the mend. Everything was starting to stabilize nicely. On Sunday my wife and I went for a relaxing Sunday drive up to Kernville to catch an afternoon on the River. When I got back, the salinity had completely crashed down to 1.022 from 1.026.

I’ve always run a pure RODI top off sump under my tank, and never had problems. I guess on this particular day something inspired the water to evaporate at an unusually high rate – causing the top off to push extra fresh water into the tank and in turn cause the salinity to crash. Several pieces were on the verge of having to be thrown away (including my best piece of Palmer’s Blue Milli)

I quickly set up a station of 5 gallon buckets and began mixing more salt water. Pulling a gallon out of the tank, mixing with higher concentration solution in the bucket, then topping off the tank – checking the SG and repeating. After a couple hours of this exercise, I got the salinity back up to 1.025 and called it a night. The levels appeared stable over night, and this morning I did another water change leaving the salinity safely at 1.026. I’ve detached the top off for the day, and will see how much evaporates throughout the day today.

Moving forward, I guess I’m going to have to add a little salt to my top off solution. As it turns out I’m usually low on CA and MG anyway, so making a batch of reef crystals salt water with a slightly diluted salinity (1.020?) might help keep it more stable. This whole process has been very frustrating to say the least, and now I’m even considering upgrading my control to allow a Specific Gravity probe to help keep this in check. For now, daily manual checks will have to do.

Clinton’s Nanotuner 28g HQI fan upgrade

Clinton — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:21:35 +0000

Thought I would post some pics of my fan upgrade over the weekend. I noticed my fans weren’t cutting the mustard when I noticed the heatsink clicking the lights off after a little over 7hours. At first, I thought it might have been my controller doing the turnoff (I have quite a few ‘catch’ lines in there to prevent the heat from going overboard). However, the lights would *always* come back after about 3 minutes.

I bought the kit from http://www.nanotuners.com and followed the directional YouTube video listed on their site. The video was *pretty* good, but I did have to figure out a couple little details by myself. I also replaced ALL of the screws that hold the splash guard in place. Most of them were rusted badly, but some had actually broken off during previous bulb replacements and I had a suspicion that maybe (just maybe) some moisture was sneaking under the guard and effecting the bulb. Entire project took a little over an hour (but I took my sweet time and watched the Olympics while I worked)

More frags!

Clinton — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 21:13:43 +0000

Meant to post this update earlier, but better late than never right?! First off congrats to Kyle (everyone that knows him knows why) and also a huge thanks for swinging me some more frags!! Everything made the acclimation except the CA Tort (which was a teeny tiny frag).