Schg

No you are absolutely right, and it certainly is doing the trick to keep the temps down (it was up to about 85* without the fan ), but the evaporation is really just a LOT with it. I also plan on running the fuge soon, and would prefer to lose the fan so I can stuff a light in its place!

Took this for someone on Facebook, but figured I would show it on the forums as well. I will have to think of a more elegant solution for the fan eventually, but it is doing the trick right now. The yellow/orange outlet box is for the float switch, which I am trying to set up in the display as cleanly as possible. Hoping the switch will disappear as much as possible, but it is worth it for the safety factor of shutting off my pump in the event of a potential overflow. The Y split clear tubing is attached to the AQQA wavemaker pump I have, and is how I get most of my water flow.

That is awesome, I love it! I had a hermit crab back in the day that had a red mushroom on its shell.

Installation was quick and easy, no issues whatsoever. Played around with the presets that Lux provided, and do really like the crispness of their "Optimized III" full spectrum preset, its a really much better looking white overall. I am going to need to mess around with a new schedule layout, and will likely need to borrow a PAR meter to make sure I am not cooking my coral here, but I REALLY like the spectrum so far. I was also able to get a really nice showoff blue with their "Ultra Pop" preset, I think this will give great results over time.

I'm not 100% sure I'll want an empty sand be for anything, but its easier to fill an empty bed than to remove rock thats in the sand later. @howaboutme turns out the puck will be here today (that was quick), so I'll be able to give initial impressions earlier than I thought!

This is amazing, so glad to be part of this group!

I adjusted the scape a little bit already, as I was having a hard time envisioning how certain things would grow in with the old one. The new one looks a little boring from the front in photos, but looks great in person and looks especially good from other angles. I also think it has some nice open space in the middle for activities (or a nice little ric garden!). First proper FTS: From above: And a semi-side shot to show the business of the glasswork on that side, but it really still isn't as obtrusive as other options.

For sure, I definitely will! Hoping I can see the difference in lighting with @telegraham getting the Blue one, thinking we can compare and contrast. Things have cleared up completely the tank is looking much happier already. The SPS I thought were goners don't seem completely out yet, although there is quite a bit of skeleton showing on some of them. So far only three pieces affected, hoping they can recover but they were all free either way. I'll grab a photo a bit later today to show the tank a bit better, but this setup seriously looks SO clean in person. Looking head on, the glass really almost just entirely disappears inside the tank. I put in an order for some inverts from Reef Cleaners, which will ship Monday and hopefully be here first thing Tuesday. The order was for the following: Babylon Snail Bumble Bee Snails Cortez Cerith Snails Dwarf Cerith Snails Dwarf Planaxis Snails Dwarf Trochus Snails East African Cerith Snails Limpets Money Cowries Nerite Snails Virgin Nerite Snails Pom-Pom Crab Candy Cane Pistol Shrimp Porcelain Anemone Crab Some of this will be going in the sump as I prepare for that to be a diverse environment as well, but I am excited to start getting more inverts into this tank. I'll wait for the pistol shrimp to make sure it arrives okay, and then pick up my Hi-Fin Goby I want so I can see how they rearrange the sand bed. ?

Thanks! I did the Gold one. I feel like I am always happy with whatever I can get out of the blues with lights, but it is the whites that I am pretty unhappy with on this light. After reading the info and data posted on the Humble Fish thread Lux was a part of, I feel that the whites on this should hopefully get me where I need to, while still being able to get a solid offering out of the blues.

It is new sand, and it is about 2" deep on average, which is what I tend to do in most nano tanks. I think more of what you are seeing is just the shadow on it. I neglected to mention that I also had the lights off the old tank for about 3 days straight while I sorted out the new light mount, so it was probably a combination of factors here all at once. I'm not super worried about it, it already looks DRASTICALLY better in the last half hour after the water change. No ETA on the Lux yet, its coming from California so probably sometime next week. It is for any of the older Prime or Prime HDs, but doesn't work with the 16 since thats a different chip setup.

Things are looking a little clearer so far, hoping the water change helps out. I'll probably do another water change tomorrow, just to try to clear it up a bit faster.

A little good, and a little bad: Good: Things are still running great with the glassware, even after multiple times turning the pumps on and off, so I feel pretty good about this working long term. My Lux order shipped, hopefully I'll have the new puck in a few days to see how it looks! I'm very excited for this. The fan seems to have brought the temp down, so I'm not as worried about cooking the tank long term, but I'm still going to look for a chiller for a more reliable solution long term. Bad: I'm not sure if it was the heat, the transfer, I didn't let the PVC glue cure long enough, or a combination of multiple things, but I have a decent bacterial bloom going on. I'm not sure how much it is impacting things, but I am going to do a 40% water change once I have a minute to step away from work and see if that helps. I still don't see my fish, and I have lost 3 pieces of SPS already. I am a little worried about my jawbreaker mushroom too, it isn't looking amazing at the moment... My temperature controller doesn't seem to be working right, it is reading the temperature (whether in the water or outside of it) at ~180*F. I am going to see if I can calibrate it, otherwise I might have to order another one...

Yeah, I am excited as H-E-double hockey sticks, everything is working great so far with the setup itself. I do think my sharknose goby may have died, I can't find it anywhere and it is definitely not a shy fish. I also have to sort out these temps, as without having central AC in this house, my tank temp is currently 85*... have a clip on fan coming this afternoon for the sump, hoping it will help enough and not kill me with evaporation.

Cloudy shot of the successful transfer, and a little glimpse of just how little the pipes interfere with things:

Thanks! And yes it is, just bent it and painted satin white, then ran the cable through and mounted it. Wanted the light to be less of a focus on this tank.

Glassware came in! I am super impressed with the quality of the VIV stuff, I hope it ends up working well once I fill it up. I need to heat up the tubing a bit to get it in a better position, but overall I think things look CLEAN as H-E-double hockey sticks! I am so stoked to transfer this over, but I need to buy some 3/4" tubing for the return line of the closed loop. I know the outflow tubing for the closed loop is pretty darn long, but I wanted to get more flow so I opted for the 17mm version.

Yeah, you are actually what prompted me to buy one, it really just is so convenient. We also have a strange wall switch situation that basically nullifies a whole walls worth of outlets, so I will be switching our ceiling mounted light to this power strip and get those outlets back!

It is! I appreciate the insight, I have a replacement bulkhead coming in this week for the return spot since I wanted a threaded one to use a barbed fitting that will connect vinyl tubing from my pump to the bulkhead. Hoping it works out fine, but we will see!

Getting ready to make the switch: The stands paint is dry, inside and out (minus the doors, I am still working on those...), so I can technically move things over if I want to. I am torn between waiting on the glass plumbing to come in and testing everything or just moving it over now and continuing to use the canister filter for now, which I am more inclined to do. I picked up 10lbs of new sand last night, and will add a little bit of (rinsed) sand from the existing tank, along with some crushed coral for the future goby/pistol shrimp combo to utilize in their home. Tank mostly set up, just waiting on a few more things. I am still waiting on a bit of other plumbing pieces to make my life easier with the closed loop setup, as well as a new smart power strip to at least make it easier to turn things on and off as I need to (I don't have controller money right now). I'm itching to get this tank filled though, as I have things starting to grow to rocks that I don't think I will want them on when I have a different aquascape. Next picture posted will probably be a filled tank!

honestly I feel like my cuts with the pvc shears are not 100% cut even with schedule 40 lol

Yesss, it’s happening!!! Looking good man, can’t wait to see this filled.

Picked up a cheap set of close up filters to see if I could photograph the coral a bit better, which did seem to help a tiny bit. I realize more than being able to get close up to the coral enough, I honestly just can't seem to get the colors on the AI Prime to my liking for photos.... I had this issue on the IM10 that I had way back, and was able to photograph WAY better on the NanoBox Reef that I had. Honestly, I just kind of miss that light in general... I might try to sell my AI and buy one of them again, or trade or something. It is the light I was definitely the happiest with overall out of anything I've owned. Anyway, the only two photos I got that were okay... I feel like my photography skills have just gone way downhill on reefs lol.

Yeah, I also ended up doing 3/4” for everything except the overflow hole itself, which is 1 1/2”, which I think looks better overall. The above design was also based off the stand I was going to build, which is slightly smaller than what I ended up getting. Agreed on the contrast! It looks pretty good painted as well, although I still need to finish that up (today if I can get to it after a birthday thing I’m going to).

Prepped the stand for paint, and just threw down a coat of primer. I can't guarantee any of this will be the best job, but if I care enough about the stand long term, I'll just make a new one that really meets my needs. This is just going to be a rattle can job on a cheap used piece of furniture at this point!

Only problem with going that route is I really limit myself on flow locations. The idea behind this is to be able to move my lily pipes around to get optimal flow, that is assuming this closed loop wavemaker works with the lily pipes... it may not! Edit: Another option I was thinking, just keeping the overflow in one spot (might move it to a corner instead of center):