Mad Dawg's 14g nano

Thanks Burt.  I still got a long way to go.  You all have been a lot of help.

I just ordered Nanocustom's 3.24 lighting upgrade kit.  I know, I know, it's not as cool or effective as LED or MH, but it's quite a bit cheaper ($80 vs $360).  I'm not planning on SPS corals, but I found a few people who have grown them at the top of their tank with this setup.

Here's a couple pics of my homemade media basket for those interested.  I've got two different grades of filter floss, then activated carbon and then chemi-pure.  There is a removable panel on one end.  This is short enough to allow the use of the factory water drip diverter thingy on top.

That looks awesome! I like it a lot better than the media basket that is sold online.  I'll have to get one running as soon as my tank gets cycled (currently just running some filter floss through it)

Thanks guys! 

Burt - I'll try to get to a DIY thread for that this weekend.

Here's an updated pic of my project.  The 3.24 PC lighting upgrade will happen sometime by the end of this weekend.  Let's hope with the additional 50/50 bulb I get some more color.  Some of my corals don't look quite as pretty as they were under the MH lighting. 

First pic - with flash


Second pic - no flash


Darned clown fish keep moving!

The anemone is doing great.  So happy that it chose a place far from all my corals to settle down.  My clowns haven't hosted in the RBTA yet.  They seem to like the hammer and the star polyps near the top of the tank, but haven't really hosted in either of those either.

I got the nanocustoms 3.24 PC lighting upgrade installed today.  I like the look but it's not MH.  Colors are a little more brilliant and the tank is brighter.  I think I may try a small inexpensive SPS to see how it fares.  I had to make a few adjustments to the kit/installation instructions to make it work properly, but overall a good kit.  One of the new upgraded fans is not working and since heat hasn't been a problem in this tank I will reinstall the original fans tomorrow.

I also put in a fish guard today.  I didn't think there would be much room for a fish to jump into the filtration section, but someone on another forum said they had a goby get out with the same setup.

I've also added some macroalgae; chaetomorpha, caulerpa mexicana, caulerpa prolifera, caulerpa racemosa and halimeda.  It's all in the tank for now.  I'll move some of it into the mini-fuge once I get a light for back there.

I'll post pics of these mods in the next couple days.


Edited by Mad Dawg - February 21 2010 at 3:23am

Is that digital thermometer for the water temp or light temp? Just be careful either way as those things are know to be really inaccurate, If it's for the water I prefer a cheap glass therm, you can't get much more accurate and they are cheap.

Todd,

Looks good!

Man Todd, thats an awesome tank.  I'm excited to see it on Wednesday

Thanks guys!

The past week has been fun.  I got 4 lbs of Tampa Bay LR from WhiteReef.  This rock is so full of life: crabs, sponges, tube worms, feather dusters, barnacles, shrimp, macroalgae, and more!  I extracted the gorilla and rock crabs and disposed of them.  The grass shrimp went into my tank and hasn't been seen since.  The red mithrax crab went into my tank and has been hiding.  I reworked the rockscape and now have a total of 11 lbs of lr.  Now I need more frags to fill up all the new naked rock.  The watchman goby is quite happy in his house and I'm seeing the first signs of coraline algae forming on the back wall.  I also got the auto top-off installed and worked out the bugs.