Acrylic Aquariums - Home

Reefaddict's 12 gallon JBJ Nano Cube

2007-10-30T04:00:00Z

Reefaddict has a real nice 12 gallon setup using one of the early JBJ Nano cube aquariums. He had his fitted with a custom canopy that are quite popular on these style of tanks. Inside is a moon light LED and a 70watt HQI metal halide, giving plenty of light for a nano reef like this one.

What Reefaddict did really well with his photos is highlight the changes that a reef tank goes through at the start. Starting out with just a few rocks and some sand. It's always nice to see such a clean tank, but you know it won't last. Notice there aren't any fish though, that's the right way to do it especially on a pico tank. The tank will cycle just fine with what comes on the rock especially if there is die-off, and there is always die-off.

On of the reasons many beginner aquarists get frustrated is that they become impatient with the process and just dump fish and other critters into a tank well before its ready. Like many things in life, patience pays off. An aquarium, acrylic, glass or clear aluminum, are like gardens that need time to grow into their own but with careful planning and care can really flourish. Check out the third week on Reefaddict's tank. Some more live rock, the sand has gotten a bit of color from growing algae and other critters I'm sure.

Now aren't you glad Reefaddict was patient? After 12 weeks the tank looks awesome! A pair of percula clowns, or Little Nemos as most common-folk would say now, swimming happily amoungst some great looking corals. The only thing I don't like in the tank is what appears to be a Gonioporia coral or flower pot. These are notoriously hard to keep and should be avoided as most die in captivity, a real waste and a shame.

Other than having a great looking tank Reefaddict took some great shots highlighting one of the big differences between acrylic and glass aquariums. Being able to more easily shape the acrylic material, manufacturers make nice rounded front corners to their acrylic tanks. Check out the two pictures, so nice. You get such a better view from the sides with these acrylic tanks. I'm a big fan of trying to limit anything that takes away from the display of your aquatic friends and this is just perfect. For that reason I do prefer open top aquariums as well, but hey I'd take this setup in a second.

Well, that and of course if you throw in the nice Nano-cube stand. JBJ does a nice job with matching their stands with their Nano-cube aquariums. Tanks never look nearly as good on some random desk or table dug out of the basement. Sure the focus is on the inhabitants of the tank, but it can just be distracting when you have a crappy looking support underneath.

Of course, nothing in the tank would look that good without decent lighting. So while Reefaddict has a nice 70watt HQI setup, JBJ just recently introduced the 28 gallon Nano Cube HQ1. Looking at how bright 70watts is could you imagine 150watts on a similar tank? Not to mention that there are already two fans and an IceProbe chiller trying to keep the tank cool! One more reason for an open top. Reefaddict also had a nice shot of what the little bluemoon LED shows at night

Over all a very nice tank, hope to see some updated shots soon!

JBJ Nano-Cube Acrylic Aquariums

2007-10-29T02:18:00Z

JBJ is the maker of the popular Nano-Cube tanks. These run in the 6, 12, 24, 28 gallon tanks and also a pico sized 3 gallon tank. All of which come with various trimmings and a 6 month warranty. The great thing about them is the amount of mods made by aquarists since they've come out. The main reason for their popularity would be the integrated filtration seems to be adequate for reef aquaria even, and they are now making hoods with HQI metal halide aquarium lighting.

Although all of these tanks are cool in their own right, especially when you throw them together with the matching stand for a very nice looking combo. The little 6 gallon and the largest 28 gallon Nano-cube deluexe systems are the sweet spots. Although, the pico-cube is very tempting simply due to its size I have always thought of those tanks as being more work due to the fact that not as much equipment can be attached to it. Anyone who has dealt with evaporation by using an auto-top-off system will gladly attest to this being an almost absolutely necessary piece of equipment. And those just do not fit on such small tanks. The 28 gallon is still relatively new at the time of the posting, and has an impressive feature set that should raise the bar for other integrated arcylic aquarium manufacturers.

The Nano-cube's feature set :

150watt 14k HQI
4 Nite-Vu LEDs on a separate power supply
Dual directional output nozzles
Wave maker - Ocean Pulse Duo running two 266gph powerheads
Counter-current Protein Skimmer
Integrated Center Overflow
4 Cooling fans running at 3000rpm
Auto-shut off thermal protector on the canopy

The only downside is the fact that it's a counter-current skimmer. Now they include an air pump, but changing out airstones and adjusting / fiddling with airflow to make sure that the levels are maintained isn't always the most fun thing in the world. What would be preferable would be a constand level venturi skimmer like on the Finnex M-series.

I have seen some great tanks set up using Nano-cubes, some of which I am sure will find it onto here. The most common mod originally was to add an HQI bulb to the original hoods so it's good to see JBJ eventually integrated them. The addition to the 4 LEDs is great to light up the tank after-hours, just make sure it's not in your bedroom.

Finnex Acrylic Aquariums

2007-10-28T21:26:00Z

Finnex is a relative new player in the industry, but is boasting some really sweet looking acrylic tanks. They have a really nice looking 9 gallon nano tank with built-in wet/dry and lighting! Can't really beat that. (Well maybe a mini protein skimmer for those looking to make a reef.) That's taken care of with their larger M-tank series though so it's hard to complain.

These larger acrylic M-tanks range from 9 gallon with that wet/dry 2x24watt power compacts to the 32 gallon with,

Built-in wet/dry
Venturi protein skimmer
Refugium
1x 150watt 10k HQI, and 2x24watt T5 actinic bulbs and 4 LED lights

That's a spicy meatball! I would like see what people's results are with the protein skimmer as it's hard to tell just how high the reaction chamber is though. What is looking good for this setup is that the flow of water through the filter hits the protein skimmer first then it splits off with half going into the refugium and half out of an adjustable directional output to the top right of the tank.

The site lists the T5's as separately controllable from the HQI which should make for a nice dawn/dusk modes. I can't find exactly what the refugium light is on the 32 gallon tank, but the smaller acrylic 20 gallon MT-2102Q system lists a 13 watt power compact bulb. I'd say it's safe to say that the larger system has something similar. (Will update when I hear back on this)

There's a great little flash animation of the M-series on Finnex's website. It looks like thet based it off their glass version of the M-series. But it highlights one of the biggest acrylic / glass differences. Check it out :

I know it's a bit hard to tell but I wanted to point out the corners on a glass tank versus the acrylic. The acrylic tanks are rounded and seamless, making the entire front visible. The glass on the other hand really breaks up the view with those solid corners.

If you're looking for a tank the Finnex website has ordering so if they don't have a dealer near you. Which is good since they seem to have them all located in the mid-west.

SeaClear Acrylic Aquariums

2007-10-28T21:23:00Z

SeaClear Aquariums have one of those names that sticks in a aquarists minds. They can range to be expensive, but are certainly competitive amoung the acrylic tank makers. Some of their smaller size tanks would be perfect nano-reefs too with proper reef lighting.

One of the most well known manufacturers of acrylic tanks, SeaClear carries a lifetime warranty against leaks. Leaks of course are less common with acrylic than with glass. Less change of a seam springing a leak, possibly caused by a curious hermit crab picking at the aquarium sealant.

There are a variety of tank sizes and shapes offered by them, including the classic rectangle (10 gallon to 50 gallon acrylic aquariums), hexagon (8 gallon to 20 gallon), flat-back hexagon (10 or 26 gallon), and the great for viewing bow-front (36 or 46 gallon) tanks. Most are sold with a beginners kit to get you up and running as quickly as possible. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't be used for higher end setups, and some of these smaller tanks would be perfect for a nano-reef on your desk. The more advanced SeaClear System II has a built in wet/dry and room for an aquarium protein skimmer for all of you who don't like seeing equipment sticking out all over the place.

All of them are roughly half the weight of a glass counterpart, and are made to fit to All-Glass stands and canopies. (Who said glass is good for nothing? :))

Anyone have any tanks they want to share? Drop a note below or shoot us an email.

Advertise With The Acrylic Aquariums

2007-10-27T17:50:00Z

Get A Fav Icon Link

These great little links at the bottom of the site use your favicon and links back to your site.

Easy and cheap at : $4.95/month per icon