Solana 34 upgrade from Fluval Edge

[rcharliesam]

I have always liked the look of saltwater tanks but never had the time or motivation to start one. Then I had a child. She took a liking to finding nemo, and when we would go to pet stores, she would be obsessed with the fish section. For christmas, I decided to surprise her with her own tank. I showed my wife the fluval edge and immediately she was on board due to the form factor. Plus I thought I could get it started for a low cost. Lol.


Here is a top down shot of the current state of the fluval edge. Pardon the dirtiness of the sand, I need some more CUC in there. Also, I can't seem to get a good picture that captures the brightness of the LED fixture.

Equipment
Fluval Edge 6gal
Wingo Fluval Edge Savior LED fixture
Stock heater
Vortech MP10w es (bought with the Solana in mind)
Stock AC20

Livestock
1 occelaris clown
1 neon goby
1 cleaner shrimp
1 emerald crab
3 banded trochus snails.

Coral
Eagle Eye Zoa colony
radioactive dragon eyes
1 polyp of Shazaam - My equivalent of expensive wheels on a beater
gsp
tan hammer
dendro
green torch
ricordea florida
duncans
blasto merletti - not looking too hot right now, I think it's getting too much light
Short tentacle fungia, - also not doing too great. He had some battles with my duncans and dendros, and then from there it stopped walking around as much as it used to. Now it's pretty much dead, but as I have seen mentioned, they can eventually come back.

So 6 months later and my daughter's interest is still piqued, she knows the names of all of the corals and fish in there, plus names of fish that I don't even recall mentioning to her. I felt bad going with her to the fish store (just) for food and not being able to pick anything up. So an upgrade was in order.


I picked up a second hand Solana 34g and started to compile parts.


For lighting I was origially going to go with AI, but one LFS was swaying me from them for what seemed like the wrong reasons, and another LFS was swaying me from them for what seemed like the right reasons. I ended up picking up an Ecotech Radion (basically new) from a member on a different forum at a great price. Without even having it over a tank, as soon as I got it home and plugged it in, I knew I would be happy with the fixture. It's insane.


I purchased some pukani rock from BRS. Since a lot of people mention trouble with phosphates with this rock, I gave it a bath in muriatic acid. Wow, this stuff is dirty.

Not wanting the radion hanging from the ceiling, I made a fixture from 1/2" conduit and a pipe bender and painted it black.


Current tank shot

Equipment
Jager 150w heater
Stock Skimmer
Stock return pump
Koralia 750 powerhead (This thing is huge and will be kept for salt mixing only), MP10 will be transferred over once I am ready to introduce livestock.
Tunze Osmolator is ordered.

I have been cycling for a few weeks now, and I had one small ammonia spike (such a tease) that went away fairly quickly... so I am waiting for the big one, I have been feeding the tank some mysis and hopefully that will get some ammonia going.

If anyone can chime in on Jager Heaters, does the red calibration dial have any affect at all on the heater or is that just a personal reference point? I have been having a lot of trouble dialing the 150w in.

 

[allsps40]

Jager heaters are great. I would advise on a bit less rock, you will have have more room for coral and grow out. I like the Edge it looks good. Why not keep it up and running to?

 

[rcharliesam]

Jager heaters are great. I would advise on a bit less rock, you will have have more room for coral and grow out. I like the Edge it looks good. Why not keep it up and running to?

Thank you very much for the input.

I would like to keep the edge running, but my house is pretty small. I have a playroom for my daughter, so I might be able to find a way to fit it in there for her to continue to enjoy. I could use it as a QT tank I suppose. I always look at the fish and feel bad for them in there as it is so small.

Regarding the rock, I have been thinking that it's going to be hard to add corals anywhere else but on the top and slope on the right side. There are only four pieces in there and I am concerned with cutting it up and not being able to find a design that I like, especially in a cube tank. I know it's hard to get an idea off of a picture, but if you have any suggestions for the rock, I am open to ideas.

 

[rcharliesam]

Here is the right side profile of the rock. I was thinking about shaving back the topmost piece (top left on original photo) so it sits a little further back on the bottom piece and closer to the back wall, therefore creating a nice little ledge on the bottom for corals. I would also cut back the right side slope to fit in with the changes.

 

[Markdiego]

Nice tanks! I have the same ones right next to each other! How is the wingo led working for you? In the solana, its always tricky stacking the rocks, dont get em too close to the glass because you it'll be harder to squeeze in there to clean

 

[rcharliesam]

Thanks Mark. Do you have pics of yours?

I bought a two little fishies nano mag cleaner because of exactly what you mentioned with the rock.

The wingo fixture is pretty great for the price. He mentioned on another forum the possibility of making a bridge for it after hearing of a few guys (including myself) cutting a chunk out of the stock light bar to raise the fixture for a better spread. I ended up disabling the fans on mine as they were getting really noisy. Once I installed the fixture, my corals showed a huge response to it.

The only way I could see Wingo improving the fixture would be for him to find a way to angle some of the leds to spread out more light from under the hood.

 

[Markdiego]

I have a few in my profile. Im gonna pick one of those cleaners up, never seen em before. I wish they made something for the fluval for the back wall where the filter goes. Its a pain to be scraping it clean.

 

[rcharliesam]

Wow, I really like the rockwork in your solana.

The nano mag cleaner is good, very good actually. But the pad is TINY, so it doesn't cover as much surface area as a magfloat. However, since it's footprint is so small, you would probably be able to have rock within a 1/4" of the glass and still be able to clean it.

 

[jcrissey]

I'm considering a Fluval Edge nano reef tank and would love if you could share your feedback on the Wingo Savior LEDs that you are using. This looks to be about the only plug-and-play option since Nanotuners is out of the game.