Modified Cad Light 12g

Lilmatty5dimes · Nov 1, 2014

Tank: Cad light 12g AIO modified
Stand: came with the tank
Lighting: Reef Radiance Nano 60 (thanks to begow)
Heater: Cobalt Aquatics Neo-Therm 75-watt
Return Pumps: n/a for now
Water Flow: Jebao RW-4 (little reef shop)
Filtration: Aquaclear 50 with intank media basket running carbon and GFO (thanks nanosaurus)
Aquaclear 50 with cheato and intank light (thanks to boggers for the light)
Skimmer: n/a
ATO: not sure manually top off for now
TOP: no top
SALT: IO reef crystal found a sale $45/box

had to sell my nuvo due to roof leak that has been going on for longer than we bought the house and it causing a ton of rotting damage and mold issue to the wall need money to repair it. i had a few corals nobody wanted to buy at which i thought was a pretty fair price and couldn't sell the clowns for $70. so decided to just start this up since its stuff i had laying around the house not being used. i got the tank off a curb alert for a local reefer who couldn't sell it for $40. thanks to his wife i shot up to his house and grabbed it and came home and did a leak test and nothing was leaking. the rock i traded an old pair of clowns for so some nice branching rock. soaked the rock in some ro water for a few weeks in the tank. did my aquascape the other day and had to raise the salinity up a tad and started the cycle yesterday. now the long wait. lol

Lilmatty5dimes · Nov 1, 2014

here's the set up

aquascape

2 aquaclear filters left will be the cheato and right will be intank media rack

view from the kitchen

Lilmatty5dimes · Nov 1, 2014

started the cycle yesterday with this.

tempt holding tank

craigtaylor · Nov 2, 2014

Looks great.......I might've kept it had I had the great idea you did to remove the back......you definately made something out of nothing

Lilmatty5dimes · Nov 4, 2014

craigtaylor said:
Looks great.......I might've kept it had I had the great idea you did to remove the back......you definately made something out of nothing

Thanks Craig. I'm just glad I was able to grab this from ya. If not I wouldn't have a reef going right now.

Lilmatty5dimes · Nov 7, 2014

tested the water today and these were the results. ammonia o nitrites 0 and nitrates 10

i went ahead and dosed another 15ml of ammonia to see what it does in the next 24 hours to see if the tank is truly fully cycled and if it is i'm going to look for a lil 6-line to throw in there before i put my clowns in there. let see how it goes.

lil update on these. rodman and myself went ahead and bought 2 of the sample pack. they were $2.50 for 100 colors and $2.99 shipping. when i picked them up the other day at his house all i can really say is that everything looked a million times better with the orange filter. maybe he'll play around some more and find a better filter for them.
before

after

ninjamyst · Nov 8, 2014

zoa heaven!

Lilmatty5dimes · Nov 8, 2014

ninjamyst said:
zoa heaven!

yea my friend went crazy at coral con and got about 10 zoa frags plus a few i sold him a month ago tearing down my nuvo 16. hes got that beautiful golden torch i want that he got a crazy deal on. 4 heads for $100. but i know where my first stop is when the time comes for zoas. lol

i hope it'll look half as good as yours. love your 12g.

Lilmatty5dimes · Nov 8, 2014

ok just checked the tank parameters and heres what it looked like.
ammonia 2-4
nitrites 0.25
nitrates 15-20

i think its safe to say its cycled.

dwair · Nov 8, 2014

Not really... Ammonia and nitrites need to be 0 for it to be truly cycled.

Lilmatty5dimes · Nov 8, 2014

dwair said:
Not really... Ammonia and nitrites need to be 0 for it to be truly cycled.

i mean before i dosed it with that second 15ml of ammonia. in a few days once those are 0 its good.

Lilmatty5dimes · Nov 14, 2014

well, wednesday night i went and checked the parameters again and everything was looking good so i went ahead and transferred everything over to the new cad light tank. thursday was my day off and i got the rest of the equipment moved over and cleaned up so the new tank as of thursday is official. lol i plugged in my neo-therm and the temp on the tank was 86 or thats where it was blinking at so i think that the temp. hopefully the reason why my one bigger chalice is looking bad. had a small lil leak on one of the aqua clear that was an easy fix. the lights are 100% blue and about 40% white.

heres a few pics i took with the iphone and the gel filters.

FTS

corals

acans

chalices

only thing that has taken a beating on the transfer.

Lilmatty5dimes · Nov 14, 2014

here's a video with the iphone and the gel filters. i took the filter off at the end to show the differences it does with the camera. and the

New tank Cad light 12g - YouTube

second one is the rw-4 thats in the tank. i have to say an awesome lil pump thats working great so far.

New tank cad lights 12g - YouTube

craigtaylor · Nov 14, 2014

:tea:

Lilmatty5dimes · Nov 14, 2014

craigtaylor said:
:tea:

Thanks Craig. Now the hunt for zoas(at a slow pace) begins. Lol

Lilmatty5dimes · Nov 16, 2014

here's an update coral list that transferred over. i've got to chalices but trying to sell them now for some more zoas.

Coral

Zoas
utter choas
candy apple reds

LPS
Acan Bowerbanki
acan blue/red
acan red/green

Softies

bright red mushroom

Barryrey · Nov 21, 2014

How do you like the black sand so far. I recently went with it on my JBJ 28g nanocube and like the looks but don't care for the way it gets in my Tunze mag scraper. Second guessing my decision to go that direction but something that isn't easy to swap out.

Lilmatty5dimes · Dec 3, 2014

Barryrey said:
How do you like the black sand so far. I recently went with it on my JBJ 28g nanocube and like the looks but don't care for the way it gets in my Tunze mag scraper. Second guessing my decision to go that direction but something that isn't easy to swap out.

Sorry for the late reply. I love the look of it and i think it brings out some colors better. The only thing that sucks is its magnetic and will stick to the two little fish cleaner.

Lilmatty5dimes · Dec 3, 2014

Well, haven't updated in awhile but the tank had a bad diatoms outbreak that's finally going away after 2 weeks. It made the rock look a ton better with more color and more "live" which is great. I've been finding some killer deals near and far. Mostly far lol. Drove to daytona for some sunny d, yodas, chucky's bride, and a no namer for $50. Then to a lfs for 2 chalices that are pretty sweet and a wobbegong and no namer for $60. Then for birthday got green cap (has a different name), red planet, vdm zoa, darth maul, and bubble gum monster pink ****** chalice for $60. All in all think I've made out pretty good. I pulled out the dslr but the laptop is acting all crazy and i can't get it to turn on so I'm going to have to figure out what to do with that now. Like i need anything to break or leak on me now. Lol