I have posted another thread on my Nano but i've decided to start a new since its been modded quite a bit now
Here's a bit of what i've done.
The TL450 is a pretty good tank BUT either these are designed for europe or some place thats not incredibly warm because even with the standard lights this tank used to hit 29 - 30. Initially while I still had the lid on I had fans blowing on the water, while this brought down the temp down substantially, evaporation was up to 2L a days. So teh 1st thing to do was add an Auto Top Up. This went through quite a few forms until I settled on this version.
This is a external high pressure pump that's triggered via a float switch in the tank. Why external high pressure? Because I didnt want a pump sitting in my water resevoir, the pros are that I can now change the water container whenever I want with out having to mess with pumps (so literally just replace one with the other when they need refilling, push in the hose and im done) and I dont have to worry about the container running dry and the pump frying. This guy works a charm with no hassles in the last 5 months
On the outside of the tank you can see the 2 pipes running in and out from the pump. I have a 20L water reservoir since I travel for up to a week to a week and a half and 20L seems to be just enough, Originally it was 10L but that was dissapearing in 5 days so I needed to up teh capacity. It also allows me to only hassle with refilling every now and then rather than every 2 days.
Cable are the bane of my life and it took me a long time to finally settle on a config that was neat. A DB boards great but you still need to put it somewhere so I opted for power strips with on/off switches instead. Provided they are monted very close to the center pillar they are pretty unnoticable even with the timers.
There are 3 timers, 1 for the Metal Halide, 1 for the Actinic and 1 for the fans, these come on for 15 minute intervals while teh metal halide is on, suprisingly they drop my tanks temp down to 24 while they are on. These may not be so effective in summer but i have another plan once that season comes along
The next move was lighting. Now Nano Tuners dont have conversions for Boyu TL450's (Orca 450 there) mainly beacuse they cant get their hands on the tank (I asked). My alternatives were to mount more PL18w's (good luck finding them) and if I went with this route I would have to find some space for the ballasts which if mounted in the hood would raise the temp yet again. So I opted rather going for a Metal Halide fixture with Actinics. Its pretty oversized but I got it for a great price with the intention of cutting it down to fit the size of the nano (the 2ft T5's would been perfect for this). I decided not to since I will be buildin a bigger tank in the next few months so just a bit of future planning. The Metal Halide was originally 150w 10k which was way to yellow for my liking so that was changed out for a more eye friendly 150w 20k
The next thing to be replaced was the skimmer which was pretty useless tbh. Losing the lid offered more options and I went with a HOB Dymax LS10. This took awhile to settle in but i'm pretty happy with the results. Considering I dont have a huge amount of livestock, the skimmer pulls a fair bit of scum everyday. This has definately been probably the best mod i've done. This combined with the Purigen keeps my nitrates down to a constant 2.5 (salifert and red sea). Even after 2 weeks of not doing water changes my nitrates are still sitting at 2.5. I can tell you it was a fair bit of hassle getting this guy to fit. It origianlly came with a 1200lph pump which9had to be placed in the DT since the back compartments were too small. This brought up numerous issues so I changed it in favour of the original Boyu 750lph that was used for the original skimmer and it worked a charm. It wasnt great at the beginning but it has become a lot more effecient as time has gone by. I can seriously recommend going this route if you intend on going lidless.
Other things i've done is add a Jager heater as well as retain the original Boyu heater. I did this when we had that bad spell of temp drops and the temp stayed consistently at 24.8. Without the Jager teh temp was dropping to 22 some nights. I dont rate you have to buy a Jager, just add an extra heater and you should be fine. Also I have a Seio 320 in the DT. I tried out a wavemaker but I ended up destroying the Seio's shaft so rather dont go with that idea.
Compartments are as follows.
1.) Filter Floss (changed every 2 days) and Sponge.
2.) Skimmer intake and exhaust as well as some Caulerpa (the halide's overspill seems to help with growth here) + 100w Jager Heater
3.) Purigen and ElimiPhos + some left over ceramic rings I keep on forgetting to take out
4.) Return Pump (Luckily my Boyu came with a 1200lph as stock so no need to replace it) + Boyu Heater + ATU float switch
I dose every day with 4ml of Brightwells Alkalin8.3 (keeps the tank at a constant alk of 9.6 and a PH of 8.3) and every 2nd day, 4 to 5mls of Purple up which strangely I have managed to get good results, initially I thought whatever but there has definately been some decent Coraline growth since I starte ddosing the stuff. I keep my Salinity at 1.023 and a constant temp of 24.8 (thats the closest I could get to 25 for some odd reason). I also intend on starting to dose Iodine once I can find the stuff.
Livestock wise:
2 x False Percula clowns
1 x Byno Goby (which is living on borrowed time if he continues dumping sand on my corals!!!)
1 x Cleaner Shrimp
1 x Turbo Snail
Corals
2 x Green Star Polyps
1 x Pulsing Xenia's (both seem to be spreading rapidly)
1 x Yellow Star Polyps
1 x Sea Mat (either zoa's or platy's, dont really know)
1 x Ricordia (this was a hitchhiker that came with some liverock I bought, it needs to be fragged pretty soon)
1 x Gonipora (these guys are pretty bleached and were sold to me as "polyps" so hopefully I can nurse them back to health)
Wants
1 x Bubble Tip Anemone (my last anemone died but I have a good feeling the poor guy was dyed!!!)
1 x More Roccordia's
So this is my little slice of ocean, not huge or super impressive right now but very much my baby
Some more pics
Here's a bit of what i've done.
The TL450 is a pretty good tank BUT either these are designed for europe or some place thats not incredibly warm because even with the standard lights this tank used to hit 29 - 30. Initially while I still had the lid on I had fans blowing on the water, while this brought down the temp down substantially, evaporation was up to 2L a days. So teh 1st thing to do was add an Auto Top Up. This went through quite a few forms until I settled on this version.
This is a external high pressure pump that's triggered via a float switch in the tank. Why external high pressure? Because I didnt want a pump sitting in my water resevoir, the pros are that I can now change the water container whenever I want with out having to mess with pumps (so literally just replace one with the other when they need refilling, push in the hose and im done) and I dont have to worry about the container running dry and the pump frying. This guy works a charm with no hassles in the last 5 months
On the outside of the tank you can see the 2 pipes running in and out from the pump. I have a 20L water reservoir since I travel for up to a week to a week and a half and 20L seems to be just enough, Originally it was 10L but that was dissapearing in 5 days so I needed to up teh capacity. It also allows me to only hassle with refilling every now and then rather than every 2 days.
Cable are the bane of my life and it took me a long time to finally settle on a config that was neat. A DB boards great but you still need to put it somewhere so I opted for power strips with on/off switches instead. Provided they are monted very close to the center pillar they are pretty unnoticable even with the timers.
There are 3 timers, 1 for the Metal Halide, 1 for the Actinic and 1 for the fans, these come on for 15 minute intervals while teh metal halide is on, suprisingly they drop my tanks temp down to 24 while they are on. These may not be so effective in summer but i have another plan once that season comes along
The next move was lighting. Now Nano Tuners dont have conversions for Boyu TL450's (Orca 450 there) mainly beacuse they cant get their hands on the tank (I asked). My alternatives were to mount more PL18w's (good luck finding them) and if I went with this route I would have to find some space for the ballasts which if mounted in the hood would raise the temp yet again. So I opted rather going for a Metal Halide fixture with Actinics. Its pretty oversized but I got it for a great price with the intention of cutting it down to fit the size of the nano (the 2ft T5's would been perfect for this). I decided not to since I will be buildin a bigger tank in the next few months so just a bit of future planning. The Metal Halide was originally 150w 10k which was way to yellow for my liking so that was changed out for a more eye friendly 150w 20k
The next thing to be replaced was the skimmer which was pretty useless tbh. Losing the lid offered more options and I went with a HOB Dymax LS10. This took awhile to settle in but i'm pretty happy with the results. Considering I dont have a huge amount of livestock, the skimmer pulls a fair bit of scum everyday. This has definately been probably the best mod i've done. This combined with the Purigen keeps my nitrates down to a constant 2.5 (salifert and red sea). Even after 2 weeks of not doing water changes my nitrates are still sitting at 2.5. I can tell you it was a fair bit of hassle getting this guy to fit. It origianlly came with a 1200lph pump which9had to be placed in the DT since the back compartments were too small. This brought up numerous issues so I changed it in favour of the original Boyu 750lph that was used for the original skimmer and it worked a charm. It wasnt great at the beginning but it has become a lot more effecient as time has gone by. I can seriously recommend going this route if you intend on going lidless.
Other things i've done is add a Jager heater as well as retain the original Boyu heater. I did this when we had that bad spell of temp drops and the temp stayed consistently at 24.8. Without the Jager teh temp was dropping to 22 some nights. I dont rate you have to buy a Jager, just add an extra heater and you should be fine. Also I have a Seio 320 in the DT. I tried out a wavemaker but I ended up destroying the Seio's shaft so rather dont go with that idea.
Compartments are as follows.
1.) Filter Floss (changed every 2 days) and Sponge.
2.) Skimmer intake and exhaust as well as some Caulerpa (the halide's overspill seems to help with growth here) + 100w Jager Heater
3.) Purigen and ElimiPhos + some left over ceramic rings I keep on forgetting to take out
4.) Return Pump (Luckily my Boyu came with a 1200lph as stock so no need to replace it) + Boyu Heater + ATU float switch
I dose every day with 4ml of Brightwells Alkalin8.3 (keeps the tank at a constant alk of 9.6 and a PH of 8.3) and every 2nd day, 4 to 5mls of Purple up which strangely I have managed to get good results, initially I thought whatever but there has definately been some decent Coraline growth since I starte ddosing the stuff. I keep my Salinity at 1.023 and a constant temp of 24.8 (thats the closest I could get to 25 for some odd reason). I also intend on starting to dose Iodine once I can find the stuff.
Livestock wise:
2 x False Percula clowns
1 x Byno Goby (which is living on borrowed time if he continues dumping sand on my corals!!!)
1 x Cleaner Shrimp
1 x Turbo Snail
Corals
2 x Green Star Polyps
1 x Pulsing Xenia's (both seem to be spreading rapidly)
1 x Yellow Star Polyps
1 x Sea Mat (either zoa's or platy's, dont really know)
1 x Ricordia (this was a hitchhiker that came with some liverock I bought, it needs to be fragged pretty soon)
1 x Gonipora (these guys are pretty bleached and were sold to me as "polyps" so hopefully I can nurse them back to health)
Wants
1 x Bubble Tip Anemone (my last anemone died but I have a good feeling the poor guy was dyed!!!)
1 x More Roccordia's
So this is my little slice of ocean, not huge or super impressive right now but very much my baby
Some more pics
