New Refugium and Light On My 5.5g Nano

[Rcpilot]

Finally got a small refugium for my little 5.5g nano. It's got a built in skimmer. It's basically a clone of my CPR Aquafuge PS unit, but it's only 14" long and holds about 2g of water.

I bought a refugium from Aquatraders. I was REALLY hesitant to buy from them, given their reputation, but I decided that I could use the CC and get my money back if they hosed me.

I bought a 10lb bag of live sand from a LFS today and dumped it into the fuge. I've got all 10lbs in there. It's about 8" deep. Y'all know how much I love the DSB. I had an awful time getting a powerhead hooked up to it. I had to use some 1/2" vinyl tubing to get it connected. The only powerhead that would work is a MJ1200. Yeah!! --300GPH in my 5.5g nano now. Might be too much, I'll have to wait a day and see if the water clears up. It's cloudy as hell right now. I don't think the sand is blowing around. Just cloudiness from adding the sand to a new fuge. My 6-line wrasse, Striper, is gonna have to get strong and swim his ass off, or die. I'm still pissed at him for trying to kill Nemo in the 30g tank. Thats why he's in the 5.5g by himself. He's an evil little sh*tball.

I'm worried about a spike, so I put my new little Rapids mini-canister on the tank with fresh carbon in the reservoir. Hopefully that will eat any nitrates and ammonia from the new "live" sand.

I got a PC light from Catalina. It's got 3 bulbs @ 13w each. 2 of them are 10K and one Actinic. 39w of PC on a 5.5g tank. Maybe I can grow some SPS with all this flow and light? Wouldn't that be hilarious? I can't grow SPS in my 30g tank, but I can just see myself overgrown with it in 6 months in this little fishbowl.

Pics later if y'all wanna see. It's fugly right now though.

[Rcpilot]

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you

BORG NANO w/ Zip-Tie






I'll take the canister and power filter off in a couple weeks. They're both full of carbon. I'm praying 10lbs of live sand in the refugium won't cause too much of a spike.

[reeffreak]

I like that description...''borg nano''.It does look like one with all the hoses coming out of it.I would never recommend Aquatraders for anything else but the HOB refugiums.You couldn't build one cheaper and they still much cheaper than a CPR..

Good luck Rc.

[hibye]

how does the skimmer work?

[NewbReefer]

lookin good RC

[Rcpilot]

About 26hrs later and we got some foam in the venturi and a few drops in the cup. Skimmer is working okay so far. It will take time to break in. I'll give it a few weeks to get up to peak performance.

The light is the wrong one. Thats the 12" light. The tank is 16" long. I gave them the wrong measurement when I called to have it built. I did get a 16" light too, but I need to rig a different system for supporting it. I decided to keep the 12" light, rather than send it back. Hell! It was my fault the thing was too short. I didn't feel right sending it back, but they offered anyway. The inlet and outlet tubes on the refugium stick up too far and the legs are worthless. I might silicone a piece of plastic onto the top rim of the tank and raise the light up to clear the tubes. I need about an inch more room.

I'm going to put the 16" light on later and use the smaller 12" light for the 29g refugium when I put that 90g tank together.

I can't complain about Aquatraders. I know a million people have had bad experiences with them. I was fairly shaky about doing business with them. It worked out good though.