JBJ Nano-Cube Acrylic Aquariums
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.
