SPS Nano Build Plans

[Rivers&Reefs]

Hey all. I’m currently planning my first mainly SPS tank & looking for some feedback on my current plans. I will post regular updates & pictures once the build is started. The tank I will be going with is an Innovative Marine Nuvo Fusion Pro 30L AIO 30 gallon.

After doing alot of research over the past couple of months, I’d like to go with an elevated parameter approach with high alk & high nutrients. I would achieve this by using the full Red Sea Reef Care program for a mixed reef & Coral Pro Salt, as well as feeding on the heavy side with heavy nutrient export and 10-15% weekly water changes. I like the elevated parameter approach for a nano tank because the high alk should help keep the system and pH stable as long as I keep up with the Red Sea care program, which is practical for a tank this size. My desired parameters would be:

Salinity: 34ppt or 1.024@25C
Temp: 78F
Calcium: 450 ppm
Magnesium: 1350 ppm
Alkalinity: 11.5 dkh
Nitrate: 2-10 ppm
Phosphate: 0.08-0.12 ppm

In terms of equipment, I’m looking at going with the following:

Flow: 2x AI Nero 5
Lights: 2x AI Hydra 26 HD, possibly with 3DReefing Diffusers
Return Pump: Innovative Marine Mightyjet Midsize w/random flow generator nozzles from vivid creative aquatics
Skimmer: Aquamaxx HOB 1.5 or Innovative Marine NuvoSkim DC Midsize
Refugium: finnex fugeray water pump hob refugium w/Algae Barn Fuge starter pack - marine pure blocks, chaeto, pods blend or Pax Bellum Arid N18 algae reactor w/ quick disconnects & Cobalt Aquatics MJ 900 Pump
Reactor: Innovative Marine Media Reactor midsize w/ Seachem Seagel 250ml
Media Baskets: 2x Intank Media baskets - each with filter floss, seachem matrix, chemipure blue, and seachem purigen
Sand & Rock: Caribsea Dry Liferock & Caribsea Special grade 2-2.5inch deep
ATO: AutoAqua smart ATO micro or XP Aqua Duetto ATO w/ 5-10g reservoir
Heater: cobalt neo therm 150w x2, with a second heater for backup set 2 degree’s lower - both plugged into autoaqua smart temp security
RODI: BRS 6 stage water saver delux plus

Livestock Plans:

Fish:
- 2x snowflake clowns mated pair
- 1x blue star leopard wrasse for pest control
- 1x goby for sand cleaning(suggestions?) or something different?
- 1x Coral Beauty Angel or Possibly Flame Angel as my centrepiece fish (hoping being well fed will keep the Angel from bothering corals) introduced last

Clean Up Crew:
- 1x fighting conch snail for sandbed cleaning
- 4x Astraea turbo snails for algae control
- 4x Nassaurius snails for general/sandbed cleanup
- 2-4x Banded Trochus Snails for more algae control
- 2x scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp?

Corals:
- 1x long tentacle anemone for the clowns (introduced first & allowed to settle)
- Various Acroporas
- Various Montipora Caps
- Staghorn
- Birdsnest
- Possibly a couple Zoas and/or Acans

I’d like to go with a duel rock formation scape that will allow for space down the middle and edges of the tank between the two formations. The excess available flow on hand from the Nero 5’s should be plenty even after coral is grown in. Also planning on feeding corals with the pods, Red Sea Energy A&B as part of the program, Reef-roids, and seachem plankton.

I’m pretty happy with the plans for this tank but I can use as much feedback as possible on the parameters, equipment, and livestock before I get this build started! It’s always easier to make changes before hand. Thanks and happy reefing

 

[NY_Caveman]

Welcome to R2R! First thing I notice is if you want to dedicate the tank to SPS, multiple anemones may not be the best choice. Anemones can move around a tank and could damage your corals when they do. It can be done, but there are risks. Curious, is this your first tank, or your first all SPS tank?

 

[Rivers&Reefs]

Welcome to R2R! First thing I notice is if you want to dedicate the tank to SPS, multiple anemones may not be the best choice. Anemones can move around a tank and could damage your corals when they do. It can be done, but there are risks. Curious, is this your first tank, or your first all SPS tank?

Thanks! Not my first tank, but it will be my first SPS tank. Okay that is definitely a concern, how about a single anemone? Would it pose much of a risk? If introduced first and letting it settle, would that help?

 

[HotRocks]

Acro dominated Nanos are possible. May be more difficult to keep stable parameters, it can be done may just require more frequent testing and adjusting of dosing. I would avoid the nems all together personally, again people keep nems with acros, it is high risk IMO. If the nem brushes against an acro it can/will kill the stick.

Leopard wrasse are not suitable for a 30g tank. They also need a fine sandbed (Which the fiji pink will work) but the fine sandbed may not be desirable for the amount of flow necessary to keep acros happy. Just things to think about. Wish you the best of luck with your build!

 

[Rivers&Reefs]

Acro dominated Nanos are possible. May be more difficult to keep stable parameters, it can be done may just require more frequent testing and adjusting of dosing. I would avoid the nems all together personally, again people keep nems with acros, it is high risk IMO. If the nem brushes against an acro it can/will kill the stick.

Leopard wrasse are not suitable for a 30g tank. They also need a fine sandbed (Which the fiji pink will work) but the fine sandbed may not be desirable for the amount of flow necessary to keep acros happy. Just things to think about. Wish you the best of luck with your build!

Thank you for the feedback! I’m planing on getting some good Hanna test kits and testing regularly and adjusting the dosing as needed, as well as introducing things slowly in order to gradually account for coral uptake in my dosing.

In terms of the sandbed, I’m thinking about doing half-2/3 special grade to settle in higher flow areas, and the rest Fiji pink. I would like to have very good flow and am curious as to how this would work out, and would still allow for a wrasse to settle in the Fiji pink areas.if anyone has mixed these two sands in a high flow tank, your input would be appreciated!

I have been following a build with this same tank, who has had a leopard wrasse for quite some time that seems to have been doing very well with lots of of swimming space as it’s a long tank for its size. Will definitely do more research on this, thank you for your input!

 

[HotRocks]

Thank you for the feedback! I’m planing on getting some good Hanna test kits and testing regularly and adjusting the dosing as needed, as well as introducing things slowly in order to gradually account for coral uptake in my dosing.

In terms of the sandbed, I’m thinking about doing half-2/3 special grade to settle in higher flow areas, and the rest Fiji pink. I would like to have very good flow and am curious as to how this would work out, and would still allow for a wrasse to settle in the Fiji pink areas.if anyone has mixed these two sands in a high flow tank, your input would be appreciated!

I have been following a build with this same tank, who has had a leopard wrasse for quite some time that seems to have been doing very well with lots of of swimming space as it’s a long tank for its size. Will definitely do more research on this, thank you for your input!

I can not vouch on mixing sand. My acro tank is barebottom. I use Fiji pink in my larger tank (because I keep 7 leopards) and other various burrowing anampses and halichoeres wrasses and it's not real tolerant of much flow. My only corals are softies and LPS in that tank.

Leopards are fairly sensitive fish. You can try it, I'd start with a smaller fish (which the smaller the less hardy when speaking of macropharyngodon Wrasse). Proper QT and a well established tank with a large pod population you may be fine. I've never kept one in a small tank other than for QT purposes.

 

[Rivers&Reefs]

I can not vouch on mixing sand. My acro tank is barebottom. I use Fiji pink in my larger tank (because I keep 7 leopards) and other various burrowing anampses and halichoeres wrasses and it's not real tolerant of much flow. My only corals are softies and LPS in that tank.

Leopards are fairly sensitive fish. You can try it, I'd start with a smaller fish (which the smaller the less hardy when speaking of macropharyngodon Wrasse). Proper QT and a well established tank with a large pod population you may be fine. I've never kept one in a small tank other than for QT purposes.

I haven’t used Fiji pink before but I honestly just really like the look of it. I’ve herd as time goes on it gets a lot more stable and doesn't blow around much, have you found this to be true? If this is the case it might be okay by the time I have enough growth to really have to turn the flow up high.

I’m planning on keeping the acros in the top half of the tank mostly with the Nero’s in the top third, pointing slightly upward since it’s a shallow 13” deep tank. It also seems like the Nero’s have a very broad, less jet like flow which is powerful yet more gentle then the narrow flow pumps at the same time. If anyone has a Nero 5 with Fiji pink, your input would be much appreciated on how the Fiji pink holds up with these pumps!

 

[Steven Garland]

Be caredul with the RSCP salt,incredibly high alk and because of the batch I had with high po3 turned me off of the salt. I tested a batch once and my Red Sea alk kit wouldn't even register it since it was so high,I'm guessing 15+ and had burnt tips then stn the following day.

Its doable for sure,shoot I kept a acro dominate 2g cube for over a year.

Stability,good strong random flow,good lighting,just a small trace of nastiness is always good for sps tanks. There is 101 ways to skin a car and everyone has a different approach,but majority of them work fairly well.

30g should be a good point to start with,either keep the stock pump ans get 1-2 wavemakers,bare bottom and crank the flow up,just a TRACE of nutrients,good consistent par/light.

 

[Rivers&Reefs]

Be caredul with the RSCP salt,incredibly high alk and because of the batch I had with high po3 turned me off of the salt. I tested a batch once and my Red Sea alk kit wouldn't even register it since it was so high,I'm guessing 15+ and had burnt tips then stn the following day.

Its doable for sure,shoot I kept a acro dominate 2g cube for over a year.

Stability,good strong random flow,good lighting,just a small trace of nastiness is always good for sps tanks. There is 101 ways to skin a car and everyone has a different approach,but majority of them work fairly well.

30g should be a good point to start with,either keep the stock pump ans get 1-2 wavemakers,bare bottom and crank the flow up,just a TRACE of nutrients,good consistent par/light.

Thanks for the reply! I’ll definitely keep an eye out for that. From what I understand, you can either have normal alk and low nutrients, or high alk and high nutrients. High alk and low nutrients seems like when people run into problems, as the coral skeletons growth rate is much higher then then tissue growth rate from lack of nutrients. I will be making sure this doesn’t happen.

And yes I agree! I know bare bottom would be the best choice functionally, but I just really like the natural look of a sand bed. Stability is the name of the game regardless! Thanks for your feedback

 

[Rivers&Reefs]

*Update*: I’m between the current larger HOB skimmer & the finnex HOB fuge - or the smaller in back of tank Innovative Marine skimmer & a Pax Bellum N18 algae reactor - second option would allow me to have no HOB equipment making for a cleaner looking setup - thoughts?

 

[NY_Caveman]

Personally, I would put a Tunze 9004 in one of the back chambers. I like mine (on a 45 AIO), but have not used the others. Why did you want an HOB instead of in a chamber?

 

[Rivers&Reefs]

Personally, I would put a Tunze 9004 in one of the back chambers. I like mine (on a 45 AIO), but have not used the others. Why did you want an HOB instead of in a chamber?

Mainly because I can have a larger skimmer if going HOB. Also, this would allow me to have more in the back chambers (2x media baskets, the finex fuge return pump, & Media Reactor). The build I’m getting a lot of my inspiration from, which is the same tank with heavy nutrient export, used the Aquamaxx with lots of success and highly recommends it. Just thought I’d use something that’s already proven to work with this tank.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Got it. With SPS I get what you are thinking.

 

[Rivers&Reefs]

Got it. With SPS I get what you are thinking.

Think I’ll most likely go with my original plans of the HOB skimmer and fuge. If I want to feed heavy I’m not sure the in-chamber skimmers would be enough. Seemed to work really well for the inspiration build and it didn’t look that bad, actually thought it looked kinda cool lol

 

[Rivers&Reefs]

Wondering if anyone has any experience with Caribsea Special Grade sand & high flow? Also, is it suitable for burrowing wrasses & sand sifting Goby? Seems like it may be one of the only choices for both SPS flow and Wrasses/Goby’s.

 

[Rivers&Reefs]

*Update* Finally found a build that will serve as inspiration for my aquascape. I think this will translate very well to the IM nuvo30L. Very similar corals that I’d like to keep as well. Thanks to @SunnyX for the inspiration!

 

[cojo8888]

I had an ice cap gyre 1k in the beginning with mp10 and mighty jet mid size dc return pump.

Even with coarse size pink sand, sand was blowing everywhere and ice cap make a pretty annoying sound when theres sand flying (can even hear in the room and tank is at freaking living room lol). So I'm running only one mp10 now.

You will be surprised how this aio tank is so narrow and small and same time long and big for nano. It's a weird size tank but I like it... lol

If I were you I would do bare bottom. And not worry about sand blowing. if you want almost sps only that is. and due to small space I would put montis on the bottom areas of the tank.

Also sand takes lot of space on the tank. Water height is like 10" even with intank surface skimmer Would be less without it. Little space.

Looks natural with sand tho. Your choice [emoji16]

Rock work would be really challenging. I think if you use stax dry rock style rocks, you might able to put some more sps on the rocks. Again super narrow tank is bit hard to do good rock work.

 

[Rivers&Reefs]

I had an ice cap gyre 1k in the beginning with mp10 and mighty jet mid size dc return pump.

Even with coarse size pink sand, sand was blowing everywhere and ice cap make a pretty annoying sound when theres sand flying (can even hear in the room and tank is at freaking living room lol). So I'm running only one mp10 now.

You will be surprised how this aio tank is so narrow and small and same time long and big for nano. It's a weird size tank but I like it... lol

If I were you I would do bare bottom. And not worry about sand blowing. if you want almost sps only that is. and due to small space I would put montis on the bottom areas of the tank.

Also sand takes lot of space on the tank. Water height is like 10" even with intank surface skimmer Would be less without it. Little space.

Looks natural with sand tho. Your choice [emoji16]

Rock work would be really challenging. I think if you use stax dry rock style rocks, you might able to put some more sps on the rocks. Again super narrow tank is bit hard to do good rock work.

I’m thinking with the 2x Nero 5 both set lower and bouncing off each other, it should help a bit with the sand storms! I know they have a much more broad flow to them then the MP10’s. Decided not to go with Fiji pink, will be going with special grade which people seem to be okay with in SPS tanks. Most likely 2” as I don’t want to take up any more special then that. Hopefully this will work out lol

In terms of the scape, I’d like to go with a modified version of the scape I posted about (a lot thinner lol) im sure it will end up being totally different tho lol I just really like the liferock! Gonna check out the stax though, thanks for the recommendation!

 

[BrianPoni]

If you have any questions, I’m building something very similar to you. Mine is a 40 Fushion instead of you 30L. I’ve been wet for over a month but had my dry rock curing for about 2 months prior to that. I’m planning on multiple high end Tenuis and Millis up top. Thinking I’ll have room for 6-8. Then some mid level caps. And once the caps grow and reduce par down low I’ll be adding my higher end zoas and shrooms from my frag tank. I’m kinda crazy and ambitious with this build, but smart at the same time in that I’m extremely patient. I’ll be putting a frag rack in when my new custom Led/T5’s arrives from NanoBox next week to see how some of my zoas and lps react. But I won’t add any corals to rocks till probably the 6 month mark or more. I like where your heading. We share lots of the same equipment. I’m using Intake as well. One side with the 3 chambers, only floss and some carbon at the moment. Other side with just the floss holder. I like to run mine kinda natural. I have their Fuge basket with a small clump of cheateo on one of the inner chambers and running the Midsize skimmer in the other. Jury is still out if I like it or not.
I will be controlling nitrate/phosphate by dosing NoPox. I feed my clowns and Goby/pistol a bit heavy with a mix between frozen and pellet, and dose 2ml of NoPox a day. My phos has been between .01 and .025 every day for a week. I feel dosing is a better way to keep those numbers more consistent compared to using a phos remixing like ferric.
Get some rocks and get them seeded ASAP. It’s a long road until a nano will be SPS ready, my frag tank took over a year...but with many mistakes made along the build. Why I’m planning for the 6-8 month mark with the new set up.

 

[Rivers&Reefs]

If you have any questions, I’m building something very similar to you. Mine is a 40 Fushion instead of you 30L. I’ve been wet for over a month but had my dry rock curing for about 2 months prior to that. I’m planning on multiple high end Tenuis and Millis up top. Thinking I’ll have room for 6-8. Then some mid level caps. And once the caps grow and reduce par down low I’ll be adding my higher end zoas and shrooms from my frag tank. I’m kinda crazy and ambitious with this build, but smart at the same time in that I’m extremely patient. I’ll be putting a frag rack in when my new custom Led/T5’s arrives from NanoBox next week to see how some of my zoas and lps react. But I won’t add any corals to rocks till probably the 6 month mark or more. I like where your heading. We share lots of the same equipment. I’m using Intake as well. One side with the 3 chambers, only floss and some carbon at the moment. Other side with just the floss holder. I like to run mine kinda natural. I have their Fuge basket with a small clump of cheateo on one of the inner chambers and running the Midsize skimmer in the other. Jury is still out if I like it or not.
I will be controlling nitrate/phosphate by dosing NoPox. I feed my clowns and Goby/pistol a bit heavy with a mix between frozen and pellet, and dose 2ml of NoPox a day. My phos has been between .01 and .025 every day for a week. I feel dosing is a better way to keep those numbers more consistent compared to using a phos remixing like ferric.
Get some rocks and get them seeded ASAP. It’s a long road until a nano will be SPS ready, my frag tank took over a year...but with many mistakes made along the build. Why I’m planning for the 6-8 month mark with the new set up.

Tanks looking good man, thanks for the info! It looks like we have quite similar builds indeed! I’m also pretty ambitious with this tank and I think that like you said, patience is the way to get there. I’ll most likely use NOPOX before I get the pax going, but once I do they recommend not carbon dosing so I guess I’ll see how that works out.

What substrate are you using by the way, and how’s it holding up with your flow? That’s one of my biggest concerns at the moment. Also, I highly recommend getting the random flow generator nozzles for the tanks return, there pretty awesome and will work great for the randomized flow that SPS likes! Also, the clowns and gobies will be my first 2 additions as well, along with the clean up crew and pods. Do you have a pod population going and at what stage did you introduce them?

Yeah I’d like to get the rocks curing ASAP! How did you go about doing this? Just have them in a saltwater container with a pump in there? Did you add any bacteria to the container?