Juan's IM Nuvo 30L Reef Aquarium Build

[Zoaeasy]

Personal lesson of the day:

For those of you interested in using the Aqua Gadget reactor for the Zeolite media, 1. Fill the media in line with the overflow water level (This guarantees the media will always be submerged, even during water changes) and 2. "DO NOT" raise the canister to flush the mulm, you can accomplish this by spinning it instead...

Allowing air into the media is detrimental to the colonizing bacteria residing in it.

On a separate note, Wilson is a bum, he already knows his feeding spot and swims up to the tube every time I come by... Feeding well on Spectrum sinking pellets and frozen Misis/Brine shrimp.

Ah!, will begin to dose ZeoFood tomorrow, the guys at KZ replied confirming the component is not only meant for corals but also for the bacteria... so it seems I've been starving them.

Been looking online for a small Yellow Sarcophyton elegans (3" preferrably), or a Montipora Digidata colony, no luck yet.

Are you using the mid size reactor and how much are you using?
Now have water and my KZ salt came in so getting up to the right concentration then the fun begins.

 

[juanrmattos]

Are you using the mid size reactor and how much are you using?
Now have water and my KZ salt came in so getting up to the right concentration then the fun begins.

I'm using the Mid Size reactor with the 96gph pump set at the lower half flow (I had it with 8.2 oz of media but lowered to 7.5 oz to keep it fully under water).

The system calls for 1 Liter per 400 Liters, this translates to 0.4 oz per gallon... The most important thing is that you figure the net water volume in your aquarium as close as possible... In my case, is 20.5 gallons.

 

[juanrmattos]

Day 14th of the ZeoVit Nitrogen Cycle (Final day).

Right when I was about to claim defeat at the end of day 13, the reef came back around overnight and into schedule...

Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 0
PH: 7.9
At: 8 dKH
Salinity: Fluctuating 1.024 / 1.026
Water temp: Fluctuating 76 / 79

I don't want to jinx it, but I never got to see any algae bloom (Pretty sure I will have a nice explosion some day).

Dosing the ZeoVit program as follows:

ZeoLite Media: 7 oz at 40 gph (Spinning the canister every morning).
Zeo Start: 1 unit (0.1 ml) daily.
Zeo Back: 1 drop twice a week.
Zeo Food: 1 drop diluted in 5 ml of reef water and dosing 2.5 ml of the content twice a week (Alternating with Sponge Power).
Sponge Power: 1 drop diluted in 5 ml of reef water and dosing 2.5 ml of the content twice a week (Alternating with Zeo Food).

Started to dose B-Ionic Calcium Alkalinity and Magnesium:

Calcium: 5 ml every other day.
Alkalinity: 5 ml every other day.
Magnesium: 15 ml twice a week.

Will begin dosing Strontium on Tuesday.

Dialed in on my permanent light schedule.

Introduced 1st coral...

Won't be dosing Iodine so I hope it sticks...

And so, we are rolling... Thanks to everyone that stuck with this thread, for all the positives and the encouragement... Updates will follow but I will post on bi-weekly basis... For now, This is all there is:

Cheerio!!!

 

[juanrmattos]

Day 15th on the book...



As usual, apologies for the poor quality...

 

[juanrmattos]

A bit of a rough week...

Finally got some patches of Red Algae (Not the hairy kind, but more so like light dots) all over the rock and substrate... I believe due to a full dose of Strontium on a still very unstable system (The nutrient load is so low, I have yet to clean the glass for the very first time). Not sure why, or how, but I had an ammonia spike, so I removed the media floss, the Carbon and stopped dosing the B-Ionic 2 part. Only dosing the ZeoBack and ZeoStart (No ZeoFood or Sponge Power to help the die off process).

This coincided with a hardware malfunction in one of my Radion lights... I saw it going off and back on for 3 seconds a couple times last Thursday, honestly thought it was the cloud effect on the schedule, so I did not pay further attention, but right before lights out on Friday, I saw the buttons blinking Red and the unit just went off.

Finally got a hold of Ecotech this morning, they are sending a brand new replacement unit that should be here on Wednesday (Tomorrow)...

Introduced 12 Turbo Snails, 6 Blue Leg Dwarf crabs and 1 Blue leg crab as a cleaner crew... We also brought home a 2" Yellow tang foreseeing green hairy algae coming out of the Red spots (Wife had to name him Bubbles), we should be able to have him for some time before he over grows the space.

Other than that, will be doing water tests today and maybe a small water change.

Sorry I have no pictures this time around.

 

[wookiefever]

Loving the build. I currently have a nuvo 30L that I am going to be modifying so I can run it with a sump. Thanks for the great thread, will be following.

 

[Reef man 89]

Nice job with the tank!!! Looks stunning

 

[juanrmattos]

Loving the build. I currently have a nuvo 30L that I am going to be modifying so I can run it with a sump. Thanks for the great thread, will be following.

Nice job with the tank!!! Looks stunning

Thanks guys... I'm sure giving it all I've got

 

[juanrmattos]

UPDATE:

Received the replacement XR15w G4Pro fixture yesterday, very relieved to have the whole tank illuminated again.

The cleaning crew has been doing a pretty good work, the rock is nearly free of any spots and the substrate has greatly improved... It does look like the Guantanamo base camp with all the Snail shells popping out

Now, after hours and hours of research and dosing experimentation, I've come to the conclusion that the Ammonia spikes are being generated by the Salt Mix and constant water changes of 3 gallons every 5 days (According to the reviews from KZ and RedSea, it does not mean is a bad batch of salt, but more so precipitation of crystals and concentrated element content... Or so they say). To come to this conclusion, I've have discontinued one by one each of the elements in the dosing schedule (Suspended the ZeoLite / ZeoStart for 48 hours with no major change; Skipped a dose of ZeoBack and ZeoFood with no significant change; I went through the extent cleaning the Media baskets, the Skimmer body and even the floss with RO boiled water (Killing a lot of beneficial bacteria in the process)... Further more, I have tested the RO/DI before mixing to make sure the water was ok, tested the ROD/DI water after a few hours of being stored on the mixing container to make sure the container was ok, tested again after a couple hours of introducing the mixing pump to make sure it was not the pump and all came back ammonia free.

My question now, is if I should keep dosing the two part Alk and Ca, and how would the Ammonia presence affect the process (My PH levels are decent, but Alk is very low, which is not helping with the algae eradication either).

Help?

 

[juanrmattos]

Day 30th update

It seems to be reaching a stable water balance... Not there yet, but close, so I have restrained myself from adding any corals until stability becomes solid (The Toad Stool "guinea pig coral" has good days and extends decently on others, it may be lacking the Strontium and the Iodine though)

The Red algae dots on the rock are fully gone, very light patches in the substrate that seem to intensify during the day (Because of this, I have lowered the light intensity from 65% to 50%, and the daylight duration to 9 hours instead of 10)... This should help the soft coral too.

The ammonia level has lowered, the test isn't showing the desired Yellow shade to be considered as a zero reading, but is not Green enough to reach the 0.02 ppm either

Nitrite: 0.05 (I think because the ZeoLite needed replacing).
Nitrate: 0
PH: 8.2
Alkalinity: 7 (The goal is 10)
Calcium: 450

Dosing:

Just replaced the ZeoLite media for the very first time, went up to 8.5 oz (Need to educate myself: "DO NOT lift the canister when flushing the media").
ZeoStart: 2 units (0.2 ml) every day.
ZeoBack: 1 drop twice a week.
Zeo Food: 1 drop twice a week (Same day of ZeoBack).
Sponge Power: 1 drop every other day (Except on ZeoBack / ZeoFood Days)
B-Ionic Alkalinity: 10ml every other day until I reach 10 dKH
KZ Carbon: Two bags with 20grams ea placed at the bottom compartment of the IM baskets).
B-Ionic Calcium: 5 ml same days as Alkalinity.

Not dosing Magnesium or Strontium (Since there is no coral load seems to increase Algae bloom).

After doing some extensive research, I've decided to begin dosing Vibrant Aquarium Cleaner , it should help greatly with the bloom on the sand; I'm hoping to avoid having to syphon the substrate by all necessary means.


Other:

Here is a good one: One of the snails loves to crawl on top of the Blue Hermit Crab (The wife named the crab Megan), I know is always the same guy, because he has two tiny feather dusters in its shell; I'm telling you this because is visible in the photo, but that is not it... Bubbles (The Yellow tang), keeps leaning on its side "like playing dead", next to Megan, at the beginning I thought he was trying to nip at her legs, but he is not, what he does is to wait for her to come over on top for a few seconds and then swims away, he keeps doing this for hours at a time... The issue is that as of this morning, he is missing a little piece of his fin and another little bit of his tail. We've been feeding Megan shrimp every other day, she also likes the very few food pellets that make it all the way to the bottom, so I don't think is a feeding thing. For now, the plan is to take Bubbles back to the fish store after the next water change

As the days go by, I'm becoming more positive on the idea of a second MP10... Space inside the cabinet is tight as it is, but I'm certain better flow could be useful on the right side very soon.

That would be all for now...

 

[juanrmattos]

FINALLY!!!... After nearly 4 hours of chasing Bubbles, I was able to bag him out of the aquarium (The kind of stuff that goes viral when posted in YouTube!). Local fish store guy looked at me weird, but he took it (Everyone loves free stuff right?).

Anyway, the big deal for me today is that after a single dose of Vibrant Aquarium Cleaner, my reef is back to spotless condition (To many, this my be a simple combination of Amino Acids, Bacteria and Vinegar, to me, this stuff is hardcore magic!!!).

Truly VERY happy with my aquarium right now.

Moving along!!!

 

[juanrmattos]

Reef is running stable, all water parameters in order (Working on raising Alkalinity, but within range).

Failed in the attempt to bond Wilson with a new clown, so I'll be heading back to the fish store to get something different...

Still very bad at taking photos with the phone, but Upgraded the Toadstool...

And introduced the first hardy SPS (Branching porites cylindrica)...

Moving along...

 

[Zoaeasy]

FINALLY!!!... After nearly 4 hours of chasing Bubbles, I was able to bag him out of the aquarium (The kind of stuff that goes viral when posted in YouTube!). Local fish store guy looked at me weird, but he took it (Everyone loves free stuff right?).

Anyway, the big deal for me today is that after a single dose of Vibrant Aquarium Cleaner, my reef is back to spotless condition (To many, this my be a simple combination of Amino Acids, Bacteria and Vinegar, to me, this stuff is hardcore magic!!!).

Truly VERY happy with my aquarium right now.

Moving along!!!

I am dosing Vibrant in my Elos 36. Dealing with a Hair algae outbreak and documenting along the way. I am going to post in the Vibrant thread in a week or so but I think it's working. Was very sceptical as well.

 

[juanrmattos]

Day 45 - The "not much to update" UPDATE

I'm confident to say that I have established a base pattern to maintain solid water parameters; the reef is running steady, algae free and all the inhabitants seem to be doing well under these conditions.

I have decided to swap the MP10wQD pump to the right side of the display, being the side where the majority of the corals are going to be populated (Still thinking about installing a secondary pump in a near future); also removed the Toad Stool coral because the light intensity required for the SPS was melting it half way through the day (It now resides at a fellow reefer's aquarium); added a new fish, a Purple firefish dartfish and have begun to dose KZ Coral Snow and KZ Coral Vitalizer to complement the ZeoVit program with fast very noticeable results.

So, like the title says, not much to update, but feeling confident about incorporating other SPS corals very soon.



Thanks for reading

 

[revhtree]

Looking good!

 

[Chrisfish]

Very nice

 

[juanrmattos]

Looking good!

Very nice

Thanks guys.... I truly wish I had the camera equipent to show you how much better the reef looks in person (That coral is Yellow, water is pristine and the substrate is swow white).

I'm extremely pleased with it right now.

 

[bdare]

No updates since November? What's up?

 

[samnaz]

Yo can we get an update, FTS, anything?

 

[scastillo813]

Following