JBJ 28 Gallon Nano Owners Club

[seababy]

Help with my JBJ 28 Nano

Help with my JBJ 28 Nano

Nano reefers,
My ballast just died after 1 3/4 years of use.
Any suggestions on how or where to replace this unit?
JBJ stated just up grade to the new LED units. Paid a ton for this lid.
Any members recently upgraded and have the ballast available?
Any suggestions would be appreciate.
Thanks

 

[monster2183]

I got the pro led hood about a year old and the center strip of leds went out! I called them and its $75 to fix! I will not give another penny to a company to fix something that shouldnt be out this soon so I will be going hoodless soon with a reef breeders fixture and I cant wait!

 

[pleuralplexus]

I have the LED pro hood. Ran it for a year. It broke after a few weeks (two LED strips went out) and it is so WHITE that all of my corals and coraine bleached unless in the shade. Oh stuff will survive under that hood, but everything will bleach out and look terrible. I HATE that hood. Frankly Im quite done with JBJ. My 28G has been operational for almost two years now and the only thing that hasnt broken and been replaced or modified is the glass and stand. No joke. I wish I'd had the foresight to pick a solana with a sump instead. *sigh* oh well.

 

[pleuralplexus]

In fact, I have a few minutes so let me elaborate on the above a little bit:

1. purchased 28G nanocube with CF quad and stand. CF quad was terrible. the bulb spectrum faded after a few months and heat was a constant struggle.
2. got the JBJ mini arctica chiller to combat heat from the hood. It completely malfunctioned after only a month or two. Had to ship it off for a replacement, with no chiller in the hottest part of the summer
3. So I "upgraded" to the JBJ LED Pro hood. Terrible light sectrum and way too bright even for my acroporas. One of the light strips went out right away. Another went out a few months later. Had to dismantle the hood and rig in some stunner strips to keep things alive
4. The filter media basket fell apart and the handle broke off
5. Both stock power heads broke. Ive since replaced them with much better pumps
6. Originally bought the JBJ skimmer. It's crap. I threw it out after a few weeks and bought a HOB-1. One of the best decisions ever with this tank.
7. Mechanical filtration was entirely inadequate so I added the external Two Little Fishes phosban reactor canisters-- one for phosblan and one for carbon
8. Finally, I got rid of the LED Pro hood about a month ago, replacing it with the Radion Gen2. Im VERY happy with this decision too. The bleaching is already subsiding, and the corals have accelerated their growth so that I now need to increase the Ca doses.

 

[monster2183]

Yea im with you this is the last jbj thing I will buy and as soon as I can get my new light the only thing left jbj on mine also is the glass and stand! Hopefully not long after im planning on buying a different tank and moving everything over b4 that fails too and I get a leak

 

[SNAKEMANVET]

pleuralplexus ,I am with you on jbj equipment.My moon lights lasted about 4 months,they all burned out,stock pumps lasted about 9 months.I added a aquamaxx hob-1 and bought new led light fixture.Even my tank leaks around the edge if my output nozzle is pointed up much.

 

[terrypercula]

pleuralplexus ,I am with you on jbj equipment.My moon lights lasted about 4 months,they all burned out,stock pumps lasted about 9 months.I added a aquamaxx hob-1 and bought new led light fixture.Even my tank leaks around the edge if my output nozzle is pointed up much.

Lol I bought a 3 gallon picotope from jbj...what could go wrong on a 3 gallon tank. Lights burned up after a strong 2 months use, barely made it through my cycle. The tiny basically useless filter that came with it stopped working around the 3 month mark. Fine I don't need a filter anyway and I can just replace the light in it. 4 months in tank started slowly leaking. I now own a $50 acclimation tank which I had to reseal lol

 

[SNAKEMANVET]

Here is another one,I have a 12 gallon jbj that the ballast went bad for the lights,it lasted about 2 years.So when I call to get a replacement,I had to buy the whole hood along with the ballast because they changed the pin configuaration on the plugs.The ballast has a sticker saying 24 watt led,when the lights on the tank are 2x 24 watt cfls. I have since changed it out for a 18 watt led light fixture.

 

[Gagonzalez]

I have a lot of horror stories with JBJ as well. I am currently on my 5th tank from them for leaks. My float from my JBJ ATO died and I am currently trying to get a new one but they just ignore my requests. There is so much more but I won't go into it. Wish I could afford a new tank but I just can't right now. Oh well, hopefully in the future.

 

[pleuralplexus]

Yep and after gutting my tank and heavily modifying it to make it functional, "wow it looks like its on life support in the ICU!" As one friend put it. Yeah it's ugly, and its in the most prominent part of our otherwise-nice-looking house. If I hadn't spent so much time and money making my tank something entirely different than the JBJ I bought, I would've gotten rid of it long ago.
Moral of the story: thinking JBJ? Run the other way

 

[terrypercula]

Yep and after gutting my tank and heavily modifying it to make it functional, "wow it looks like its on life support in the ICU!" As one friend put it. Yeah it's ugly, and its in the most prominent part of our otherwise-nice-looking house. If I hadn't spent so much time and money making my tank something entirely different than the JBJ I bought, I would've gotten rid of it long ago.
Moral of the story: thinking JBJ? Run the other way

Which sucks because the new frag tank looks nice and I could use an easy frag set up. Maybe I'll just build one ha

 

[pleuralplexus]

Which sucks because the new frag tank looks nice and I could use an easy frag set up. Maybe I'll just build one ha

seriously, in hindsight, if I had just purchased a plane-jane 30 gallon rectangular generic tank at the LFS and a cheap MDF stand, I would have two more gallons in my display tank, would have spent way less money in the long run, it would have the same "life support" stuff hanging off of it all over (in other words it would function just fine and still look like crap as much as it does now) and all of the corals would be just fine and anyone visiting would never know the difference. :headwally:

 

[Neofandango]

I want one

 

[SantaMonica]

I'm mostly interested in the sump size and layout of the 28, since a lot of people try to put scrubbers back there. I don't have a 28 and the lfs does not either.

 

[Rob in Puyallup]

This past Friday I bought an old used JBJ HQI. The hood had been modified, the owner not replacing, then losing the glass that covers the metal halide bulb, leaving it open to condensation. I've decided to replace the light with a value LED fixture, once I find a way to hang it over the tank.

Anyway, Monday night I placed 50 pounds of live aragonite sand and after it settled a couple days I put about 20 pounds of live rock in the tank last night.

Here it is tonight after the dust settled. Now the cycling begins...

 

[kaskiles]

Back layout is something like this

 

[SantaMonica]

I thought the width of the larger areas was more like 5" instead of 3.75".

Is the 3.75" the norm for the backs of nano's?

 

[LTJGAlex]

LTJGAlex ,are you useing ro/di water,the liverock could be leaching some phosphate causeing the algae.Also is the tank new or used,the lighting could also cause problems,esp cfls when they get old.

Snake, thanks for responding. OK so the tank is now 5 weeks old and I've got it stocked nicely. Instant hair algae solution was finding the right cleanup crew combo: 2 emerald crabs, a flame angel and 5 of those snails that have a shell that looks like a ship's wheel (forget the name) made short work of it. There isn't a trace left for weeks now.

However, new challenges have arisen. I cut my lights down to 10 hours a day. I have bad cyano. It's creeping up some soft coral stems. I tried that conch that's supposed to eat it but he just eats diatom off the glass. I saw one of the emeralds try it and spit it out (darn, so close!). I have done 3 water changes of 4-5 gallons in the 5 weeks and am planning one tomorrow.

Ammonia, nitrite 0, nitrate down to 5-10, pH 7.9 (trying hard to raise it, dosing Red Sea). I just bought the calc test, haven't tried yet.

I will say this. I've had bad luck with mushrooms but very good luck with leathers and LPS. (Aside from frogspawn, of which I've tried 2 frags and both died...weird). Derasa clam does not seem to be thriving, it's gaping and the mantle is not out very far, even though I tried both bottom and top.

 

[LTJGAlex]

Oh, also yes I use R/O from my LFS and mix Red Sea salt. The tank was used but I don't know how much it was used. I don't think LFS is sure either. I was told the skimmer on this tank is not worth it. I bought the UV but decided not to use it because I'm encouraging pods and have heard UV can kill pods. I have been running the fuge for about 4 weeks with the special light: charcoal on top, chaeto in middle, nothing in bottom. I pulled it out last night and saw bigger pods, the ones with legs...amphipods, I believe?

-------addition
I just read all the posts relating horror stories about this tank. Sweet Jesus.....what have I gotten myself into? I have been so happy with this tank except for the cyano.......I'm just hoping we're only hearing the negative side of it?

 

[AKDmax]

Oh, also yes I use R/O from my LFS and mix Red Sea salt. The tank was used but I don't know how much it was used. I don't think LFS is sure either. I was told the skimmer on this tank is not worth it. I bought the UV but decided not to use it because I'm encouraging pods and have heard UV can kill pods. I have been running the fuge for about 4 weeks with the special light: charcoal on top, chaeto in middle, nothing in bottom. I pulled it out last night and saw bigger pods, the ones with legs...amphipods, I believe?

-------addition
I just read all the posts relating horror stories about this tank. Sweet Jesus.....what have I gotten myself into? I have been so happy with this tank except for the cyano.......I'm just hoping we're only hearing the negative side of it?

Me too, I just set mine up last week...so far so good. People have gotten great results with these tanks. Nothing is perfect.