Fluval Edge Nano Reef

[whodah]

VERY nice photos there!

[cgoodman381]

Glad to see the neon candy canes made it. Hopefully they will come back fully soon

[DML08]

Oh yea.. Minh's Tank was on Nano Reef Blog too.. check it out.. clearly the best!.. Awesome Minh..

http://www.nanoreefblog.com/showcase...edge-nanoreefs

[eznet2u]

Outstanding Minh! Truly outstanding. My only complaint is that there is not one snail for me to Photoshop out.
I guess I could put Waldo in there somewhere...

[justins13]

Oh yea.. Minh's Tank was on Nano Reef Blog too.. check it out.. clearly the best!.. Awesome Minh..

http://www.nanoreefblog.com/showcase...edge-nanoreefs

No competition!

[mdt178]

Thanks for your compliments.

Minh

[Stoker]

We're Not Worthy!!!

[tangov559]

Minh,
What t5 bulbs do you have unde that fixture? and what type of LED's are those? Just blue?

[mdt178]

Stoker, thanks.

Teng, Current Nova is the only 18" T5HO fixture here in the US, available with "white" and "blue" bulbs. There has been some rumors that UVL is coming out with some 18" bulb, including those with internal reflectors.

[fourzero]

Looks fantastic, but I get the impression that corals could never thrive in that kind of environment. At best, you would have a nifty display tank to rotate small (and hardy) showpiece corals into for a while, then rotate them out before they die.

While every photo looks fantastic, the livestock seems to change around a LOT in that tank. Just an observation.

[mdt178]

John,
I'm thinking about changing the title of the thread to "Irresponsible Nano Reefkeeping 101"

[fourzero]

I've seen your display tank in person, and I'm sure you'll give the nano tank the same care and stewardship. My reservations about the long-term viability of such a small tank stand.

[ReeferGirl]

Hey Minh, Those are some of the most beautiful pictures! I would love to be able to take photos like those. Such a cool tank!

[nycskp]

Minh, love your tank!

I've only been in saltwater since November and added corals as soon as I could. I'd read up on lighting and was augmenting LEDs that replaced the stock halogens lamps with a 20 watt 50/50 Coralife CFL. Last week I managed two major improvements.
The first was to install a AquaClear 30 for more water flow. I found the nano powerhead to produce too much current and crowd the tank. This required surgery to both arms on the light bar, cutting them in half lengthwise.
The second was to mount a Bridgelux 1200 lumen cool white LED array I had lying around. It runs on 12V AC, as do the replacement MR11 LEDs, but needed a bigger power supply. I also had a 2500 milliamp 12VDC power supply handy.

While the color profile for the Bridgelux doesn't match what I've read corals need, I'm impressed by how much better the corals are doing and how much cleaner the tank is than it was with the Coralife 50/50 (which I used to illuminate only the left side of tank. I've placed the corals in the center of the tank, as the LED doesn't hit the edges, but even the Zoas and Green Star Polyps which get partial light are looking great!

The LED needs a heatsink, I sawed in half a CPU heatsink and this seems to be keeping things cool enough.

I think I may change out the MR-11 LEDs for Blue, if I can find them.

Photo links:
http://s38.photobucket.com/albums/e150/NYCSKP/Fluval/

[mdt178]

Barry,

Thank you. And kudos to your LED mod!

I hope your LED bulbs are more protected and better sealed than mine, which quickly rusted within two months. I don't even turn them on anymore . There are a few LED bulbs that look very promissing out there now.

I wouldn't do all blue LEDs. I don't think they have enough spectrum aside the 450nm range. Perhaps you can do a mix of blue and white bulbs.



Minh

[nycskp]

Sorry to hear about your bad results with the LEDs.
I should have mentioned that the MR11 lamps are NOT waterproof or water resistant.
In fact they can easily be knocked off and into the water! Doh!
However, it's easy to pull the three screws out and apply some silicone to the joint between white plastic base and metal housing and to seal where the pins come out.
I'm going to see what the moist environment does to that fully exposed Bridgelux chip, but it wouldn't be hard to find a frosted or clear hemisphere to cover it, and seal the joint between it and the smooth underside of that heatsink.

Thanks for you reply!

[mdt178]

The nano lost power a few weeks ago. I lost most of the cool shrimps and crabs, except for the hermits and one pom pom crab. Corals looked unhappy but all have recovered since.

Some new pics to share:

FTS (sorry about the glare)




















Cheers,

Minh

[cgoodman381]

Nice! What's the banded pipefish eating?

[mdt178]

Stuffing its face with frozen cyclops and tiny mysis - not the big PE ones.

[FishyBusiness]

Very nice minh, grey nice. Where are some top down shots? How is the algae build-up in there? I took Evelyns nano down because of algae problems.

[mdt178]

Dave,
No top down pics because the lights were in the way. Up until the addition of the pipefish, I hardly fed the tank so algea was virtually non-existent.

[MoparAce]

WOW that looks so Awesome

[RiOnRoxXx]

Very nice!!! I'm wiping the drool off of my laptop now...

[mdt178]

RiOnRoxxx and moparace,

Thank you.


New vid

[Richard King]

Whoa! Where am I?!
Thought I was in one of those scenes from Wonka's chocolate factory!