JBJ Nanocube 28g Filter Basket Order

Herbie

Herbie

Banned
The filter box is a clear plastic colum that pulls out of the overflow chamber. It has 3 vertical baskets. It came with a sponge, ceramic rings, and carbon. I tossed the ceramic (Actually put in my FW HOB) and now have Black Sponge on top, old school blue/white filter media in the middle, and carbon bag on the bottom. I am not running a skimmer and would like to avoid one (Unless that is completely ridiculous). I would like to eventually convert one of the chambers to a fuge as that secton is clear glass on the back, but I barely understand what I am doing right now and want to introduce things slowly.
I have a CUC (2 emerald, 15 small to tiny hermits, 6 turbo snails and 6 of the medium astrealla(sp?) snails. I also have a small frogspawn and about 10 zoas on a frag (And a crazy hitchhiking nem). Everything seems to be doing great and my numbers are perfect (surprising to me((as far as I can tell with an API master marine anyway))). I intend to do 5 gallon water changes weekly or every ten days as MCF is exactly on my way home from work every day (sweet).
Please rip me a new one on anything and everything I am doing wrong.
Are my filter media right?
What the heck is purigen? should I have it, and where does it go?
Is it criminal to leave off a skimmer? (I have a 3-4inch sand bed and 24lbs of LR if that helps)
BIG QUESTION: Can I go a little bit nuts at the MCF party and frag out my tank now :a36:(like 5 small frags or so ((I really want to grow everything from the smallest source I can)))?
I really appreciate the help
 
Most nano skimmers are junk, don't need to use one as long as you do your weekly water changes. I have the same nano with upgraded InTank Media basket. I used to use sponge/purigen/chemipure elite. I ditched the chemi pure elite and now just use sponge 1st section and purigen 2nd section. 3rd chamber is empty. I use a hang on back refugium by CPR (the medium fits the 28gal JBJ. I'm probably just gonna ditch the refugium too and just convert the 3rd chamber into a chaeto chamber. My nano is doing great just buy using the purigen (which is like a synthetic carbon) and weekly water changes.
Yes you can put a bunch of small frags in the tank at the same time, they are not big bioloads, not like fishes. as long as you have good flow in the tank and established live rock, you are fine. The rocks does most of the biofiltering.
 
Thanks Cola. Is the Chaeto chamber as simple as getting the JBJ LED fuge light (Or something else that will fit right there) and sticking some macro in the basket? I was under the impression that I should wait on that until more established, but that sounds pretty easy to acheive and probably something that I should get going sooner rather than later.
Also, since you have the same tank, how often do you rinse the sponges that filter from chamber one to the outflow chambers? Mine were so full after the emeralds tore through all of the algae that I had to rinse them in RO water just to keep the pumps quiet. Is that going to be common, or just a result of the cycle? When I got the tank all of the media and sponges were in the main tank, so I'm also not entirely sure they are in the right side. I have them so that glass separates them from the u-shaped outflow. It seemed to make sense as a filter that way but they are sort of a pain to get in and out. I am just worried that I am making some major rookie mistake that will blow everything up on me. Especially since my only problem so far was completely losing one of the elbows in the u-shaped channel for like an hour once (There should be a law that aquarium parts can't be neutrally bouyant). .
 
I'll do a fuge in the back. So I plan to go charcoal phosban fuge with led lights.
 
So just to clarify; the water would hit charcoal, then phosban, and then macro algae (Fuge)? My intuition would have told me macro first, but I know squat (Which is why this site is great)

are phosban and purigen esentially just different brands of a similar item? Also, how do you actually administer those? It looks like it is sold in a bottle. Does it go in a bag or something like the charcoal, or do you just dump it in the appropriate chamber? Don't you still want some sort of sponge or is all the surface area you need really being performed byt the rocks and sand?
I think I will go ahead and order the JBJ light, but I am still confused on the order of things. Is this pretty subjective, or is like no Tangs in a 12g?
 
I now have the black stock sponge on top, purigen in a filter bag in the middle, and some old school filter floss on the bottom. I plan on adding the fuge light after christmas and am curious if I should change the order when I do that or if I should have it differently now. Any thoughts on how these different media affect various possible media down flow. Or does the order even matter much?
 
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