Any of you Saltwater people have/had a JBJ Nano Cube?
Was selling a unissued yugo SKS and ended up with someone offering a trade of the JBJ Nano Cube 28G Quad CF
Link Its still in the box and includes the JBJ Stand for it, cheapest deal on it seems to be $300 so I'm taking it. Now I'm debating on flipping it or setting it up.
I have 90G, 40G saltwater setups and a 29 I'm raising some clown fry in, so I'm already familiar with the SW world, but I've never had any of these all in one type deals, other then the light limiting me on what corals I can have, how are these setups? I've got extra pumps, heaters, a box of dry fiji rock the only thing I'll need to buy is 50lbs of live sand and a skimmer.
Wow, I don't know if they are still made the same. Back in the day, when CF bulbs were first hitting the scene, I managed an aquarium shop that was selling a boat load of those things. JBJ sent me some of the prototypes before they even hit the market. They were decent little tanks that functioned a lot like the Eclipse system from Marineland (I've been out of this for a while and don't know what's changed).
Bottom line, they work pretty well. They tend to run a little warm due to the light. I kept my shop at about 76 (because it made more sense than having a boat load of heaters and foggy windows) and the tanks would run at about 82. If you have an existing reef that could parrent the nano for the first week you could start adding polyps and such about a week later. Do it right and all you'in have to do is add RO and do a partial WC every couple of months.
I used to set those things up on a shelf 6 in a row. I'd get them all set up and people would buy them right off the shelf. I'd drain about a gallon out, cover them with plastic wrap, and my salt customers would take them right home or to the office and constantly tell me about them. I just used little chunks of live rock that had nuisance polyps on them. They would keep on growing and all I would do is top off with RO. I'd sell them for about $500~ish/each and about 1 every two weeks or so.
I think they were more of an office novelty than anything else. I'd graft star polyps onto those bobble-head aquarium ornaments or skulls, people ate that up! All I was doing was screwing around, when all you do all day is mess with aquariums you tend to get creative/bored. Fast forward about 12-15 years from those days and I'm thinking I may want to get back into the hobby again. Back then my tanks were worth way more than my car, honestly, my chillers were probably worth more than my car. Now I have a 4' space on my office wall. Not sure that I want to throw thousands at it, but every week I think about it, it seems more and more like I may head that route again. Now another huge advantage is the internet! Then the best info around was in my library of 40 or so books that are probably out of date on names of a lot of stuff.
Good luck either way!
Originally Posted By Arms_Reach:
Wow, I don't know if they are still made the same. Back in the day, when CF bulbs were first hitting the scene, I managed an aquarium shop that was selling a boat load of those things. JBJ sent me some of the prototypes before they even hit the market. They were decent little tanks that functioned a lot like the Eclipse system from Marineland (I've been out of this for a while and don't know what's changed).
Bottom line, they work pretty well. They tend to run a little warm due to the light. I kept my shop at about 76 (because it made more sense than having a boat load of heaters and foggy windows) and the tanks would run at about 82. If you have an existing reef that could parrent the nano for the first week you could start adding polyps and such about a week later. Do it right and all you'in have to do is add RO and do a partial WC every couple of months.
I used to set those things up on a shelf 6 in a row. I'd get them all set up and people would buy them right off the shelf. I'd drain about a gallon out, cover them with plastic wrap, and my salt customers would take them right home or to the office and constantly tell me about them. I just used little chunks of live rock that had nuisance polyps on them. They would keep on growing and all I would do is top off with RO. I'd sell them for about $500~ish/each and about 1 every two weeks or so.
I think they were more of an office novelty than anything else. I'd graft star polyps onto those bobble-head aquarium ornaments or skulls, people ate that up! All I was doing was screwing around, when all you do all day is mess with aquariums you tend to get creative/bored. Fast forward about 12-15 years from those days and I'm thinking I may want to get back into the hobby again. Back then my tanks were worth way more than my car, honestly, my chillers were probably worth more than my car. Now I have a 4' space on my office wall. Not sure that I want to throw thousands at it, but every week I think about it, it seems more and more like I may head that route again. Now another huge advantage is the internet! Then the best info around was in my library of 40 or so books that are probably out of date on names of a lot of stuff.
Good luck either way!
Yeah I think the CF model is being discontinued thats why alot of places are selling it for $3xx with the stand. They JBJ has 3 other models out 2 with LED's and one metal halide. I think the Eclipse's now have everything attached to the hood including filter, they're more suited for FW now.
After reading on reef central forums I think I'm just going to sell it, as I'd eventually want to upgrade the lighting and it'll end up costing me a couple hundred bucks for DIY hood upgrade. Plus most of the skimmers that fit in the back chamber are crappy. If I want another tank I'd be better off selling and just doing another normal tank.
4' of space would be a nice fit for a 40G tank, can always go slow start out doing a FOWLR and pick up equipment as you go. Sometimes good deals pop up on craigslist saw a 46 bowfront w/ t5ho's, stand, some live rock and sand for $400 the other day. I'm trying to catch a deal on someone getting rid of a 150g+ tank only as an upgrade from my 90g reef.
Originally Posted By F4Squid:
Originally Posted By Arms_Reach:
Wow, I don't know if they are still made the same. Back in the day, when CF bulbs were first hitting the scene, I managed an aquarium shop that was selling a boat load of those things. JBJ sent me some of the prototypes before they even hit the market. They were decent little tanks that functioned a lot like the Eclipse system from Marineland (I've been out of this for a while and don't know what's changed).
Bottom line, they work pretty well. They tend to run a little warm due to the light. I kept my shop at about 76 (because it made more sense than having a boat load of heaters and foggy windows) and the tanks would run at about 82. If you have an existing reef that could parrent the nano for the first week you could start adding polyps and such about a week later. Do it right and all you'in have to do is add RO and do a partial WC every couple of months.
I used to set those things up on a shelf 6 in a row. I'd get them all set up and people would buy them right off the shelf. I'd drain about a gallon out, cover them with plastic wrap, and my salt customers would take them right home or to the office and constantly tell me about them. I just used little chunks of live rock that had nuisance polyps on them. They would keep on growing and all I would do is top off with RO. I'd sell them for about $500~ish/each and about 1 every two weeks or so.
I think they were more of an office novelty than anything else. I'd graft star polyps onto those bobble-head aquarium ornaments or skulls, people ate that up! All I was doing was screwing around, when all you do all day is mess with aquariums you tend to get creative/bored. Fast forward about 12-15 years from those days and I'm thinking I may want to get back into the hobby again. Back then my tanks were worth way more than my car, honestly, my chillers were probably worth more than my car. Now I have a 4' space on my office wall. Not sure that I want to throw thousands at it, but every week I think about it, it seems more and more like I may head that route again. Now another huge advantage is the internet! Then the best info around was in my library of 40 or so books that are probably out of date on names of a lot of stuff.
Good luck either way!
Yeah I think the CF model is being discontinued thats why alot of places are selling it for $3xx with the stand. They JBJ has 3 other models out 2 with LED's and one metal halide. I think the Eclipse's now have everything attached to the hood including filter, they're more suited for FW now.
After reading on reef central forums I think I'm just going to sell it, as I'd eventually want to upgrade the lighting and it'll end up costing me a couple hundred bucks for DIY hood upgrade. Plus most of the skimmers that fit in the back chamber are crappy. If I want another tank I'd be better off selling and just doing another normal tank.
4' of space would be a nice fit for a 40G tank, can always go slow start out doing a FOWLR and pick up equipment as you go. Sometimes good deals pop up on craigslist saw a 46 bowfront w/ t5ho's, stand, some live rock and sand for $400 the other day. I'm trying to catch a deal on someone getting rid of a 150g+ tank only as an upgrade from my 90g reef.
Actually it's closer to 5' so I'm just going to stick a 4' tank there. I still have most of the equipment around and one of those 72 bows (my home tank was 180 reef). It's the live rock and inverts that will kill the cash. Not being in the business anymore I'll have to pay standard pricing. Used to be that we would sell live rock for $5/lb and that had little mark up, it was heavy to ship. But the inverts, hermit crabs and turbo shrimp were sold for $3/each but the cost was $0.30. $30-50 coral would cost me $5-15, and so on.
I'll dig it all out and see what still works some day.. I still consider a 4' tank a bit small, a diverse group of coral can really stretch out at night and go to war. The voids can always be filled with polyps for showmanship, you know, something bright and flowing, but the big ones can be really aggressive. I guess I could just do stoney coral, but it isn't as nice to look at, IMO.
I know the markup on some stuff has to be ridiculous, just bought 2 pom pom crabs the other day for $15 a piece and thats after the girl gave me $4 off each of them discount. I was thinking of using the cube to try to breed some sort of invert's like shrimp or crabs but after reading about it most seem very difficult to breed. I've bred freshwater shrimp but they're easy most of the ones I did don't have the planktonic larva stage.
