Aquapod: bio-balls...lose them?

[kev-dog1]

The Aquapod 12g has arrived! Will add sand, base rock and water this weekend. Very exciting!

Anyone familiar with these 'all in one' nano set-ups?

It comes with 4 chambers in the rear. The first at the overflow has a filter sponge. The next chamber had two sacks of small ceramic ring things...I've heard these are useless. Chamber 3 had bio-balls and a sack of charcoal. Chamber 4 is for the up, back to the tank...I've heard recommended to change powerheads to the MaxiJet 900.

I'm not planning on using the ceramic rings, nor the bio-balls. Probably put a small heater in one of the chambers...does it matter which?

Thanks

[Fanof49ASU]

For those types of tanks, here's the best place I've found.

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/

[gflat65]

I can't think of any issues if it were placed in one chamber over another... I haven't thought about heater placement much, but I wonder if it would be more efficient to place it in the highest flow, medium flow, or lowest flow of the system (I'd think lowest flow would quickly rule itself out of the equation). Chamber size would come into play with that.

See, these are the types of things geek engineers think of... I don't think it matters where you put it in something that small. Nano reefers might have pondered this before and have a better answer, though.

[gflat65]

Beat me to a link:).

[Scucci]

Shouldn't really matter which chamber you put the heater in if you're leaving the back chambers empty. What most of the nano-reefers have been doing is, like what you've done, scrap the bioballs and and ceramic media. Get some LR rubble and put that in one of the chambers... probably put the heater in the 1st chamber, and since you have 4 chambers on yours (lucky...) put a fuge light on the other chamber and toss some chaeto in there.

So... I guess depending on how the water flows from chamber to chamber... maybe something like:

Heater and temp probe --> LR Rubble --> Chaeto/Light ---> Upgraded return pump.

Or something along those lines... I've the BC8 and only have 3 chambers so I had to cram my LR rubble and chaeto in the middle chamber.

[kev-dog1]

How do you light one of the chambers for chaeato?

[Scucci]

Pick a chamber for the chaeto... scrape the vinyl or paint off the back glass behind that chamber, then build a light for it. Pretty much just make a Home Depot run and see what you can find... the LOA light work just fine for most people. Here's a pretty nice DIY light right here: http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=70138&st=160

I'm using LEDs behind mine right now, but not 100% how that's going to work out... only been back there for about a week or so.

[gflat65]

Should the temp probe and the heater be in the same compartment? I think you'd be getting false readins go the water volume. Since the chambers are so small, the heater will likely heat the chamber water to higher than the tank, meaning your tank would actually be lower. May not make a difference in the long haul (as everything gets used to a given set up), but something else to think about. Maybe have the temp probe in chamber one, and the heater and LR rubble in chamber two, three ,or four. This lets you measure temp upstream of the heater (as it comes in from the tank).