I’ve been running on a 14k bulb for quite some time now, but opted to upgrade to a new 20k Ushio bulb about a week ago.  I “burned in” the bulb over a couple of days by adjusting my aqua program to periodically turn the bulb off for a bit (theoretically allowing all those critters in your tank to recover from the new blast of light).  After a couple weeks of this, I’m now noticing that coral colors have definitely faded, some have even bleached a bit, due to the new light.  Of course, the chances are good that the color will return within a few weeks/months but it left me wondering … should you upgrade your lighting spectrum when you replace your bulbs?

I’d love to hear your thoughts/experiences and share any links you might have to offer.  Feel free to comment below!

1. 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
   
2. 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.

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!

Sapphire Aquatics NC28 Skimmer

I’m turning over a new leaf this week and starting into a series of reviews on my current equipment. I’ve been toying around with the idea of adding several pieces of gadgetry lately, and the first one is a new skimmer.

I upgraded to Sapphire Aquatics NC28 from the stock skimmer on my JBJ 28g HQI shortly after I bought it. The Sapphire skimmer is a pretty solid skimmer, primarily because of the high end laser cut construction. It is specifically engineered to fit into the center rear chamber of the JBJ 28g HQI tank, keeping the aquarium true to its AIO (All In One) roots. The provided pump is a small sicce pump with a custom mesh modified impeller wheel.

There are several above average elements of this skimmer, and there are also some areas it leaves lacking. First off, let’s start with the good stuff (that’s why you’re reading this right?).

1. Construction is awesome
2. Pump is SUPER quiet
3. The collection cup fits without any modification to the hood (and is VERY easily removable)
4. Price is good for what you get
5. Customer service WAS great (company went out of business)

The cons are a short list, but significant none the less.

1. The unit tends to not pull as much quality skimmate as I would like to see (either that or my cube just doesn’t have any protein buildup [not-likely]). I typically empty a quarter inch or so of light brown/yellow skimmate once a week max.
2. The control is fine tuned by a thumb screw on the side that slides a small gate up and down the side of the skimmer to adjust the flow. The problem with the thumb screw is that you can only open it up so much before the screw hits the collection cup. This leads to a very wet skimmate, and more of it than you would like.
3. Company went out of business, so no more support or easy to get parts

Overall, I’m giving this skimmer a 7/10 rating.  For the price, it’s pretty good.  No modifications, easy to install, and quiet.  But, if you’re in the market for a higher quality skim – you should look to a higher end device.

Next episode I’ll be looking at some possible replacement units, including my personal vote – the Deltec MCE300 HOB (Hang On Back). Until then, here is decent video of how the NC28 fits and works in the back of your nano – enjoy!

Here is a short clip from last night, enjoy!

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!

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 …

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.

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)