[kamebard]

So I've got a bunch of extra substrate from my 16G planted redux and decided to set up another tank in the office.

Here's what I have coming so far:
http://www.truaqua.com/zen-nano-glass-aquarium-zn-5g.html
http://www.truaqua.com/aquarium-led-light-nano-tp.html

I'll be adding in about an inch of Flourite capped with some river rocks, and plan on hosting both some golden snails, cherry reds, and an assortment of plants (mosses and stems) transplanted from the other tanks. I'll be using a home baked yeast reactor for CO2 supplementation. Going to be interesting playing around with the internal filter on the truaqua tanks - probabally going to stick with some dental floss in the first basket, and fill the rest with matrix - initial water/biomedia will be coming off the other tanks.

Going to be interesting to see the light output of the type-p led's and see what type of growth I can expect in the office. Will update with pictures and whatnot as the parts arrive in the next few days.

 

[SmellsFishy]

Looks interesting. The site you listed has some pretty cheap stuff! I'm going to go dig around on there for a bit ^_^

 

[Leviathan_XE]

I have one myself, chose the the 3 gallon, wish I would've went with the five. Nice tank though.

 

[kamebard]

I've got some nice pieces of driftwood laying around and am thinking about maybe doing an underwater root scape. Looking forward to getting the tank and start arranging the hardscape

 

[kamebard]

Some pictures. The tank just arrived. Probably put the substrate down tomorrow and let the substrate outgass.

 

[PeterN1986]

You are going to get good light output from the Nano Type-P; I have it also on my office desk tank. There are some pics of the light and tank in my Mini-M journal towards the end.

 

[kamebard]

Had the plants in a holding tank too long, didn't fertilize so are a bit yellow. Expecting them to bounce back now they are being properly nutrified.

 

[kamebard]

Had a bit of a rough start with the tank. The impeller didn't seem to want to turn. Took the impeller out and covered it with petroleum jelly, and added some to the drive shaft as well. Filter working fine ever since.

I added a finnex PX-360 canister from one of my other tanks onto the tank to increase the overall filtration of the system and to help establish the bacteria colonies.

Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 10ppm

Doing a daily dose PPS and the plants seem to be picking up.

 

[kamebard]

The room is getting pretty hot - its Florida. So I added a small chiller to the tank. Since this is a desk tank, I decided to go with one of these:

csxc-1-aquarium-chiller

Small compact, and keeps the tank at a nice 73 degrees in a room around 85 degrees.

 

[SmellsFishy]

The tank is looking good so far. I have the complete opposite problem. My house is so cold that I had to add a second heater to my 29g to keep it up to 75 degrees. It needs to warm up lol

 

[Neatfish]

What's that fish in the tank?

 

[kamebard]

Little black moscow guppy frys. Once they get big enough they're going back in the community tank.

I think this tank just became the unofficial fry grow out tank

 

[kman]

Interesting, have a shot of the tank with the chiller on it? Don't think I'll need one, but I'm curious how it looks.

Other than the initial impeller issue, how does the filtration look? This is an interesting setup, it looks like they're trying to do something similar to the Fluval Spec tanks.

I've been wanting to set up a cube; I'm torn between something like this (or another Edge) and one of TruAqua's low iron Cube tanks (4 or 7 gallons, I guess), and adding my own filter of some sort.

That Fluorite looks an awful lot like Eco Complete.

 

[farmhand]

I have one myself, chose the the 3 gallon, wish I would've went with the five. Nice tank though.

The 5 Gallon is $54 with free shipping. Am I clear, it includes tank, filter and light? Some one tell me not to do this. This is a support group, right?

 

[farmhand]

The room is getting pretty hot - its Florida. So I added a small chiller to the tank. Since this is a desk tank, I decided to go with one of these:

csxc-1-aquarium-chiller

Small compact, and keeps the tank at a nice 73 degrees in a room around 85 degrees.

That chiller is only going to quicken the time it takes for the water to equalize with the ambient room temperature. Unless I'm missing something, it's only a nice fan.

 

[dubels]

That chiller is only going to quicken the time it takes for the water to equalize with the ambient room temperature. Unless I'm missing something, it's only a nice fan.

Its not just a computer fan. Its a miniature thermoelectric cooling setup similar to those on the higher end wine chillers. It does not create condensation like regular compressor driven chillers. Impressive but expensive. I just use a dual fan and a temperature controller that keeps my tanks at 71 degrees through out the hot summers here in Sacramento. It causes a bit of evaporation but top offs with RO works well enough.

 

[kman]

That chiller is only going to quicken the time it takes for the water to equalize with the ambient room temperature. Unless I'm missing something, it's only a nice fan.

Looks like it functions the same as a computer fan. Heat is drawn off by the fan blowing across the cooling fins on the heat sink. Not sure how much cooler than ambient it can get, but an ordinary fan cools (at least a small amount) temps just by blowing ambient air, so I believe it can get at least somewhat lower than ambient. Interesting application for a computer cooling system, however.

Edit: Based on the above, perhaps they've integrated a powered cold plate into the design, which would certainly increase the temp delta.

 

[farmhand]

Its not just a computer fan. Its a miniature thermoelectric cooling setup similar to those on the higher end wine chillers. It does not create condensation like regular compressor driven chillers. Impressive but expensive. I just use a dual fan and a temperature controller that keeps my tanks at 71 degrees through out the hot summers here in Sacramento. It causes a bit of evaporation but top offs with RO works well enough.

I've left this hobby a few years ago. Excuse me for being amazed at the changes upon my return. When I started they hadn't invented dirt yet. :eek5:

 

[kamebard]

That chiller is only going to quicken the time it takes for the water to equalize with the ambient room temperature. Unless I'm missing something, it's only a nice fan.

It's got a peltier cooling element in the base, large heat sink and fan to cool the heat sink.

Brought the tank down from 85 degrees (ambient) down to 73 degrees - so definitely working more than ambient. Nice thing is its relatively quiet so doesn't cause a lot of annoyances.

I was a bit skeptical at first and was going to go with the ice probe, but since the tank doesn't really have space to put the probe in, I went with this little one to go inline with the output of the filter.

According to the specs it should cool a 10g by 8-10F - so far so good (even though this is a 5g). Very easy to set up and install, and if you don't have a filter you can always use a water pump to push through the cooler.

 

[kamebard]

Temperature readings from the tank and ambient.

29C Ambient, 23.4 tank:

Cooler running about 42C

Cooler Shots

Power Supply Shots (10A 110/220V)