First Ever Aquarium!

[marlins76]

Hey guys,
I've been looking to get into the hobby of saltwater aquariums for years now and i finally have! I recently purchased a 24-gallon JBJ Nano Aquarium. I've done a lot of research and although I may not know as much as most people on these threads, I have pretty clear idea of what I'm going to try to do. I've removed all the stock filtration components and am in the process of building an egg-crate tower to house filter floss, chaeto, and chemi-pure. Im hoping that within the next few days, I'll be able to get my live sand and live rock in there and get my tank underway.
A quick question that some of you may have experience with is what kind of light would you recommend for the chaeto? I've been looking around and have gonna to a few stores and cant seem to find a decent light that will be able to get wet and help the chaeto grow.

 

[nano-newb1983]

google Duel 10watt submersable light, that will lead you
and your filtration sounds good, but put cheato in the 2nd chamber and get some purigen for the 1st chamber
cant wait for pics

 

[nissan577]

great info mark gave you! cant wait for pics!

 

[salami trigger]

COOL
I have the 12 gal jbj It's an awesome tank!

 

[marlins76]

thank you for the advice guys and that light looks perfect! And nanoweb, I was wondering if youve had good results with purigen and what exactly it does for the tank?

 

[nano-newb1983]

the purigen is the bomb. I buy the Prebaged packs, lil more money but awesome
Here is what is does:
Premium synthetic adsorbent removes soluble and insoluble aquarium impurities. Purigen is a macro-porous, synthetic polymer that removes proteins and a broad spectrum of organics at a rate and capacity that exceeds all other chemical filter media by over 500%. Controls ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate, by removing nitrogenous organic waste materials. Seachem Purigen also significantly raises redox to improve aquarium water quality and clarity.

 

[marlins76]

The purigen sounds amazing!
Well I'm trying to make this thread kind of like a diary of my aquarium and I know this is kind of embarassing but I cant seem to figure out to post pictures (maybe because I have a Mac??) If someone could help me out I'd appreciate it and that way I can start putting up pictures of the custom filtration set-up I've been working on!

 

[nano-newb1983]

I post my pics useing photobucket to upload them

 

[marlins76]

Today was a big day, I added 13 lbs of blue ridge live rock (I plan on adding more), 20 lbs of live sand, and my saltwater to my tank!
It took at least 6 hours for the sand cloud to settle but it finally did. Now its time to work on the aquascaping. im going to try posting pictures as soon as i can!

 

[marlins76]

Hey guys I'm having a bit of a problem. I've been taking temperature readings the last few days and the temp is hovering around 80-81.5 degrees. Does anyone have any suggestions over than dropping big money on an expensive chiller?

 

[nano-newb1983]

one thing that would help is take the feeding lid off, or get a clip on fan to blow on top of tank.

 

[marlins76]

The problem with the fan is that my tank has a full lid and the problem with taking the feeding lid off is that i was planning on getting a firefish. I just checked my thermometer and it read 81.7 degrees, do you think thats too warm to house fish and corals?

 

[nano-newb1983]

get some sort of screen to cover the hole where feed lid was. Im sure it would at least get you under 80

 

[marlins76]

what do you guys think about how many hours a day I should be running my lights in the tank? I asked the owner of my LFS and he told me 8-9 hours a day. Any opinions?

 

[nissan577]

well in my 90g i run the actinics from 2-11 and the MH from 3-10. 9 hours total. so yea you can say it runs good. the light hours are good.

 

[marlins76]

I went into my LFS today and I saw an awesome piece of live rock that I had to buy. It was only half a pound and it came with a sea urchin so it was definitely a good purchase. I also made the first strides towards a CUC by purchasing 5 nassarius snails

 

[marlins76]

So I've been looking for ways to bring down the temperature in my tank and I've kind of settled on installing a Heatshield and a Fan Kit into my tank. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of stuff or know how effective this may actually be?

 

[yearofthenick]

As for a fuge light, you could always get the Rio Mini Sun LED light. It's great for nano refugiums and is pretty commonly used in this application. Worth the $30 in my opinion. It's an LED so you never have to worry about it overheating. It's water resistant so it's not going to shock anything.

 

[zigster]

i have the same tank and my temp stays at a steady 82 degrees. that is a fine temp. the main thing you want to watch is that you dont have a temp fluctuation of more than a degree or 2 over the course of the entire day. i only see a change of about 1/2 degree if that.

 

[marlins76]

so I ordered the heatshield and the fan kit and it should be arriving the mail any day now.
And I finally have the diatom bloom under control. I've decided on turning off the lights indefinitely until the bloom has receded.