Aquamedic Nanowave 9 Aquarium Review

Aquamedic Nanowave 9 Aquarium Review

I purchased The Aquamedic Nanowave Aqarium 9 a couple of years ago and wanted to share some of the things that I liked about it and some things that I felt could be improved on the unit.

Upon first glance the aquarium appeared to have the whole package: It included a skimmer in the back of the unit for filtration, as well as a convenient "take out" tray that could accept mechanical filtration, carbon, or anything else that I felt like putting in to filter the water. The aquarium also included a return pump to keep everything flowing.

I was pretty impressed with the light fixtures for the aquarium as well: the lights included were compact florescent (PC) lights and there were separately switched moon lights as well! Finally there was another compact florescent light fixture in the back of the aquarium above the filtration unit - this would allow a refugium to be used in the back in lieu of a mechanical medium.

I got the tank setup in no time and everything was functionally pretty well. We used this fish tanks as a "fish only" tank.

In addition the dimensions of the tank were really well suited for a small saltwater tank. The tank dimensions were more like a cube then a traditional "wide" and narrow tank so it had depth depth that I would believe would work well for some nice aquascaping with live rock (or a fake palm tree like we had).

A few improvements could be made on the Nanowave 9. The largest problem with the Aquamedic Nanowave 9 is overheating. As mentioned above there are quite a number of watts per gallon and this would not be a problem if there was sufficient ventilation but the Nanowave 9 was made so compact and "airtight" that if the lights were all left on and the lid were closed the aquarium would overheat every time. It wasn't ideal but for a "quick fix" I would just keep the front part of the lid open all the time to allow the hot air to escape. If you wanted a more permanent fix you would most likely have to cut some additional vents into the lid and/or insert a small fan somewhere on the lid to help encourage a little more airflow.

In addition to the overheating problem I (and granted this could be attributed to "user-error" could never actually get the skimmer to work correctly on the unit. I couldn't tell you if I just hadn't adjusted it correctly or if the skimmer just plain didn't work properly but every time I turned the skimmer on it would give me a VERY wet skimmate and would continue to over flow every time I attempted to use it for filtration.

Finally, the only other fix that you may have to do yourself would be to introduce some "surface" skimmer slots between the rear and display portions of the aquarium. If the water wasn't broken enough from the return pump then a dirty film would appear on the surface of the water and it would stay there until the next water change.

Overall I feel like the Nanowave is exactly what it is made to be: it's a nice, neat, compact All-In-One aquarium with nice dimensions that allows you to buy one piece of equipment and run a "turnkey" aquarium system. The setup and equipment is not perfect but it can be repaired and/or improved with a couple of personal "tweaks" or you can run it despite a couple of minor flaws and maintain a successful aquarium.