Binosage's 24G nano tank

[albinosage]

Random pic:

Punk rock star with eyeliner

[albinosage]

My "centrepiece" RBTA refuses to be in the limelight . Anyone knows why this one doesn't like light? It prefers to hide in a cave for the last 2 weeks.

[albinosage]

FTS!

Left side View:

Wide angle:

Right side 3/4 view:

With the new additions to the scaping, the tank is much livelier, with the fish darting in and out of the caves, seahorse and crabs hanging onto the branches and cliffs instead of swimming in circles. The black sand also makes the tank appear crystal clear and colourful. Thanks again Ray!

[peacemaker]

Sweet~ Did you stick the rocks together?

[yikai]

eeeeee ur tank so nice with the black sand!!! *jealous*

and yea ur right that flame hawk is starting to grow on me too! i got it because my mom said it had mascara and a gothic look. and im starting to love it too haha

[albinosage]

Sweet~ Did you stick the rocks together?

Nope, bad experience with epoxy. I tried a few combinations which looked nice but keep collapsing, then got fed up and threw everything in randomly and see what fits hahaha.

eeeeee ur tank so nice with the black sand!!! *jealous*

and yea ur right that flame hawk is starting to grow on me too! i got it because my mom said it had mascara and a gothic look. and im starting to love it too haha

Yah man, I have been in love with this fish since I first visited reefing sites. The black sand is nice right? Hahaha, I love it too!

[albinosage]

Evolution of my nano reef over 6 months, just for fun

[sherman]

Nice progress

[peacemaker]

Your final scaping looks best. Looks like randomly throwing rocks together helped!

[raydiative]

Evolution of my nano reef over 6 months, just for fun

nice! was the sand enough or just nice?

[albinosage]

Nice progress

Will be nicer with your lights... Will visit you early this week, bringing along my tank canopy

Your final scaping looks best. Looks like randomly throwing rocks together helped!

Hahaha... Like playing with Lego bricks.

nice! was the sand enough or just nice?

Actually not enough, but just enough for show haha. The yellow wrasse is now homeless after knocking his head on the glass bottom many times after lights out the last 2 days. Will be buying one more packet of sand when I get the chance, I think I need another 5kg to have enough depth for the livestocks that hide in the sand.

[Vlamingi_cont]

Evolution of my nano reef over 6 months, just for fun

Black sand is more dramatic ya...

[albinosage]

Black sand is more dramatic ya...

Yup, easier to take pics without over exposing too (see the first 2 fts) haha.

[albinosage]

Random pics of corals:

I think this is a hitch hiker xenia, very small colony that grew out of nowhere. Sorry for the blur pic.

[albinosage]

More FTS:

[sherman]

Will be nicer with your lights... Will visit you early this week, bringing along my tank canopy

Actually not enough, but just enough for show haha. The yellow wrasse is now homeless after knocking his head on the glass bottom many times after lights out the last 2 days. Will be buying one more packet of sand when I get the chance, I think I need another 5kg to have enough depth for the livestocks that hide in the sand.

You can have the mockup set immediately.Can sms me where you stay

Training the Shaolin Tie Tou Gong

[pokmingsheng]

More FTS:

your tank is really very nice

can PM me the price of the black sand and where did you buy it???

[albinosage]

Tank canopy is in Sherman's good hands to mod the lights now

Sherman was kind enough to loan me a temporary light fixture for the time my canopy will be with him, here are some comparison pics of his 18 LED fixture (9 white, 9 royal blue) vs. the stock JBJ compact florescent lights.

Pictures taken at the same time at night, with the exact same camera settings. Here's the FTS taken at 32mm, 1/160, f2.8, ISO 800 with the living room lights off.

Stock lighting:

LED Fixture:

[albinosage]

Stock lighting:

LED fixture:

Stock lighting:

LED fixture:

Stock lighting:

LED fixture:

[TayHongSiang]

Hi bro, your zoas and bubbles seems to open up more under PL.

[albinosage]

Comparison, side by side.

I cannot decide if I like the new effects better, maybe it is a matter of getting used to. The obvious advantage (visually speaking) is the "MH type" of light penetration, the shimmering reflection is a joy to watch. The concentrated light also brings about better contrast and sense of depth, giving the tank a more 3D feel to it and deeper colours (really nice!).

With the untrained eye, it seems that the stock lights is brighter, which is kinda true cos the tubes and reflector will flood the whole tank (just compare the wavemaker at the back of the tank in the shots above, the corners of the tank are much darker than seen in the pics). This is the only thing that bugs me, but according to the LUX meter readings by Sherman in his thread, theoretically, the LED lights are stronger.

My LED configuration will be 12 white, 6 royal blue, instead of the 9 white 9 blue combination of the light set, so I hope it will look brighter than this

[albinosage]

Hi bro, your zoas and bubbles seems to open up more under PL.

Oh, to be fair, cannot compare like that, cos when I took out the canopy to pass Sherman, the tank went without lights for 2 hours. Photos were taken 1/2 hour after installing the LED, so the corals were reopening. Anyway to compare growth would take days and weeks. I was just taking photos to compare the light penetration.

[albinosage]

Two more pics showing the fixture:

[pokmingsheng]

just wondering...

did you have alot of trouble removing ur old sand and replacing it with the black one?

as in, you have to remove everything from corals to fish to LR before u can remove the old sand right? haha...

[albinosage]

did you have alot of trouble removing ur old sand and replacing it with the black one?

YES!!!

did you have alot of trouble removing ur old sand and replacing it with the black one?

Hahaha, I had to empty the entire contents of the tank, put them into multiple containers, run pumps and airstone... then scoop out the white sand completely from the tank (which may sound easy, but it's a real bitch). After that, just as I think that I can throw in the black sand, and live rocks, I realise that all the activities has turned the remaining 20% of water muddy, then got fed up, decided to just do a 100% complete water change. That means I had to re-acclimatise all my live stock.