JBJ Nanocube 28G light question

[Ranchhand02]

I have a JBJ nano cube 28 gallon with a 105 watt CF quad light in it. I have been out of the hobby for a few years now, but I set this tank back up in September of last year. I cycled it and added some coral in October. I added some LPS frags and some zoanthid frags. They have been in there since October and I have seen little to no growth. I have had a few zoathids add a few polyps, but the LPS frags have barely grown any. I am using instant ocean reef crystals for my salt and I am using kalk in the ATO. I do a 5 gallon water change every 2 weeks with RODI water. The tank is looking good and there is not any excess algae or anything growing in it. Do you think my light is not the right spectrum for LPS to thrive or is there something else that is causing them not to grow much? I am open for any suggestions.

 

[ange062]

I had good success with the cf quad for nearly a year, with everything from clam, to SPS, softies, LPS, etc. The bulb may need replacement, they are only good for about 9mo.

I will say that removing the lid and adding a Radion was the best thing I ever did for that tank though.

What are your water parameters (temp, salinity, ca, alk, mg, etc)?

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[Ranchhand02]

I replaced the bulb in February, so I should still have another couple of months in the bulb. I will test the tank again when I get home tomorrow, and post the results.

Thanks for the reply. I followed your build thread from the start. Your thread was the main reason I bought the tank in the first place several years ago. Your tank looked great with the stock bulb in it, and I wish I could get mine to look like yours.

 

[fishdip22]

:celeb3:

I replaced the bulb in February, so I should still have another couple of months in the bulb. I will test the tank again when I get home tomorrow, and post the results.

Thanks for the reply. I followed your build thread from the start. Your thread was the main reason I bought the tank in the first place several years ago. Your tank looked great with the stock bulb in it, and I wish I could get mine to look like yours.

It have also had sps in one with out a issue. Bad bulb to start with?

 

[Ranchhand02]

I am also considering doing an LED retrofit and doing away with the CF bulb. I like the idea of being able to adjust the lights.

 

[ReefWreak]

LED fixture with the hood off is the easiest way of changing up the lights to LED. If you like the look of the nanocube with the lid on, retrofit is a good way to go as well. I have the solderless retrofit DIY kit from RapidLED and can't recommend them enough if you're DIY-inclined. I love the customizability of my lights, as well as the solderless pop-in/pop-out of each specific color LED.

I've also turned down my lighting brightness recently and my colors have improved dramatically. I'm at 50%, and the tank is recovering nicely (I've had a few ups and downs recently, so it's recovering in general, but I think that the high brightness running my lights near 100% was actually lightening their color too much; They were growing like crazy, but weren't very colorful because of too much white light that I chose for them - it's complicated, but that's what I love about DIY!).

 

[Ranchhand02]

LED fixture with the hood off is the easiest way of changing up the lights to LED. If you like the look of the nanocube with the lid on, retrofit is a good way to go as well. I have the solderless retrofit DIY kit from RapidLED and can't recommend them enough if you're DIY-inclined. I love the customizability of my lights, as well as the solderless pop-in/pop-out of each specific color LED.

I've also turned down my lighting brightness recently and my colors have improved dramatically. I'm at 50%, and the tank is recovering nicely (I've had a few ups and downs recently, so it's recovering in general, but I think that the high brightness running my lights near 100% was actually lightening their color too much; They were growing like crazy, but weren't very colorful because of too much white light that I chose for them - it's complicated, but that's what I love about DIY!).

Thanks for the reply. That is what I am thinking of doing is a diy LED kit from them. I am fairly handy so I don't think it will be bad. Can you post pics of your tank with the leds installed? I would like to see how your color and growth is. I want to leave the lid on the tank because I have small kids and I like to keep the tank covered so the kids are not tempted to go fishing in the tank.

 

[ReefWreak]

Here are some nice top-down pics. I've had the RapidLED DIY LEDs for about 2.5 years now, haven't changed bulbs or LEDs, and any issues I've had have been due to my being lazy, not the lights.

You can start at the beginning if you really want to see what the growth has been in my tank. Everything you see in the tank was started as tiny frags.

 

[Ranchhand02]

Thank your for posting the pictures. I think I am sold on your LED set up after seeing the growth that you got. That is a very impressive tank. Thanks for sharing. What mix of LED's did you put on your tank?

 

[Ryan Darilek]

I have to fully agree with ReefWreak... A LED retrofit kit is hands-down the best option. I just recently put one on my BC32 and it is amazing!! I researched my options for about a month and it came down to the RapidLED or Steve's LED kits. I decided to go with Steve's LED because of their reviews, customer service, and mainly because of the controller that comes on the kit (cloud and lightning simulation, realistic sun rises and sets, all customizable) ... but I don't think you can go wrong with either honestly. I know Steve's LED has a plug-n'-play kit made specifically for your tank that is fully customizable, so you should entertain that idea along with the Rapid

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[ReefWreak]

Thank your for posting the pictures. I think I am sold on your LED set up after seeing the growth that you got. That is a very impressive tank. Thanks for sharing. What mix of LED's did you put on your tank?

So it's been a while since I've thought about it, and I'm kind of in a rush so I can't just go over and count the LEDs, but I think I'm using mostly stock, with all of the Royal Blues on one channel, and the other channel mixes what I call the "colors" channel, which is white, UV, LIME, and red.

The stock LEDs are:
LED Color Ratio: Full Spectrum: 1 Red, 1 Green, 4 UV, 8 Cool White, 10 Royal Blue (UV/Red must be run at 0.7A max),

I've swapped out 4 of the Cool Whites to Neutral Whites, and the Green to Lime. The Lime looked "crisp white" versus green just added "white" to the tank. I know that doesn't make sense, but that's the best way to describe it. I've also swapped 2 of the standard UVs to UVA LEDs.

My recommendation is if you pick up the solderless kit, get their default combiation of LEDs first, then add a handful of LEDs you'd like to play with down the line. I bought Lime, Cyan, and Neutral White at first when I bought my kit, and have played with those a few times. I have since also added their UVA LEDs.

I have run the power levels pretty high recently, but I'd recommend starting them low and slow (25% or lower to start, and increase 10% per week). I'm now at closer to 50% power on both channels and having better results than when it was higher.

 

[Ranchhand02]

I done my weekly water change and I pulled samples of the water I siphoned out of my tank this morning and I tested it. Below are the results.

Temp 78F
salinity 1.024
Calcium 400
Alk 9 DKH
Magnesium 1100

These should be good enough for coral growth correct?

 

[ReefWreak]

While chemistry is important, stability is just as important. Do you feel like things are stable and you're ready?

Most coral aren't all that hard. The most frustrating thing in this hobby is when some corals do great, and others don't do well at all, and you can't figure out why, because your parameters look perfect. So go ahead and try some basic corals, and they'll probably do fine.

 

[Ranchhand02]

I have had it cycled since October and my water parameters have not fluctuated more than 5% since I cycled it. I added the corals, but non of them have grown. I just ordered a retrofit kit from rapid LED so hopefully that will help with my coral growth and color.