Bcheek’s IM Fusion 10 mixed reef office tank

Bcheek · Jan 4, 2019

Got this as a Christmas present for my office, planning on keeping it pretty simple. Stocking plans are going to be mostly sps, lps, and inverts. Picking up live rock tomorrow from a LFS. I have some dry reefsaver rock from BRS but still need to break them up to fit into the tank since they’re too big. If the live rock looks really good at the store I might only use the dry rock for my holding tank at home, which is a fluval spec 3 with a par 38 bulb. All input and comments are welcome

Equipment:
IM Nuvo Fusion 10
Stock return pump (upgrading to sicce 0.5)
Ai Prime Hd
Stock filter sock (upgrading to intake media basket)
Eheim jager 50w
5lb live sand
Smart micro ato in the mail

lbacha · Jan 4, 2019

Office tanks are great, everyone loves mine and it is about as simple as it gets

I recommend keeping it as simple as possible

Bcheek · Jan 6, 2019

Went to the LFS during my oil change today to look at their live rock and to see what else they keep in stock. I hadn’t been to this one before, but they’re super close to my house (I’ll be able to walk there when the weather is nicer) and only open on saturdays. The owner didn’t recommend their live rock, and they didn’t have any branching rocks so I’ll be kick starting the dry rock with some sand/rock from my holding tank at home which is already cycled. They have a great selection of coral frags at really reasonable prices so I’m sure I’ll be back as the tank starts maturing.

I got some micro blue leg hermits, two $10 zoa frags with some nice coloration, and a single head drag of a green/blue Aussie duncan. I’ll be dropping in a couple pellets for the crabs until there is some algae growing in the tank for them, but I wanted to get at least some life in the tank. I won’t be adding anything else for a few weeks until the cycling is finished, and will be staying up on water changes in the mean time.

Hopefully I’ll get some pictures of the corals, and the rockscape once I get to the office on Monday and move everything into the fusion.

Bcheek · Jan 9, 2019

Zoas opened up right away in the tank, and they don’t seem to mind much with flow or lighting. Both frags have a lot of babies so I’m hoping they’ll grow out fast. I’m still trying to figure out how to take photos with my phone, the camera+ app seems to help and I probably just need to tinker with the settings more.

The Duncan has been ticked off, not sure if it’s too much light or too much flow, I turned down the ai prime another 10%, and moved it to a lower flow area in hopes that it’ll perk up.

The stock pump is putting out a steady stream of micro bubbles and I can’t figure out why. I’ve taken it out and re attached the tubing to no avail, and it’s not because of the water level in the 3rd chamber. Hopefully it’ll go away when I upgrade to the sicce next month.

The heater was poorly calibrated when I got it, but I seem to have that sorted out now too .

Pretty satisfied with the current rock scape and am planning on leaving it alone for a while.

Bcheek · Jan 14, 2019

Came in to work this morning to find the Duncan had opened up and was looking great. It probably just wanted to be left alone to adjust. Lesson learned give new corals more than a day to open up before trying to find a new position for them.

My ATO arrived over the weekend so I’m hoping to get that installed today or tomorrow. The amount of evaporation in this small tank is quite surprising, and I want to get that stabilized before adding any more new corals.

SPR1968 · Jan 14, 2019

You’ve got some great pictures there and I really like the aquascaoe design, it’s very nice indeed!

Bcheek · Jan 14, 2019

SPR1968 said:
You’ve got some great pictures there and I really like the aquascaoe design, it’s very nice indeed!

Thanks! Not bad for iPhone pics. I was trying to go for a scape that would give me varied heights with some caves/tunnels for inverts. It'll probably change a bit in the future once it starts filling up, but I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out

reef-rc · Jan 14, 2019

Nice. I like the aqauscape.

Bcheek · Jan 15, 2019

I was able to hook up my ATO today, it’s super small, and you can barely tell it’s even there. The pump is really quiet. It mostly fit into a 2.5g water container, just needed some minor cutting. Now I just need to figure out where to put the jug so it’s out of sight.

reef-rc · Jan 15, 2019

Bcheek said:
I was able to hook up my ATO today, it’s super small, and you can barely tell it’s even there. The pump is really quiet. It mostly fit into a 2.5g water container, just needed some minor cutting. Now I just need to figure out where to put the jug so it’s out of sight.

in case you may consider taking the water container up a notch, I have found this to very durable. It's super simple to just add that small hole for tubing and power in the middle of the screw on cap.

Reliance 9713-03 Water-Pak Water Container https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GIEPS8G/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_qXOpCbDJNGF81

Bcheek · Jan 15, 2019

reef-rc said:
in case you may consider taking the water container up a notch, I have found this to very durable. It's super simple to just add that small hole for tubing and power in the middle of the screw on cap.

Reliance 9713-03 Water-Pak Water Container https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GIEPS8G/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_qXOpCbDJNGF81

Thanks, that does look a lot nicer than what I’ve got now. I might upgrade to the innovative marine ATO container in a few months, but that could be nice in the meantime

Bcheek · Jan 21, 2019

Got into work early this morning before my lights turned on. I think it’s safe to say that the duncan is doing great now, it’s full open and extended. I’m thinking I’m going to start target feeding it and the zoas with reef roids

In other news I bought a couple new pieces at a live sale over the weekend that I’m pretty excited for. Picked up a favia, two more zoa frags, and a really brightly colored rock flower anemone. I’m planning on taking these 3 frags off of their plugs and mounting them onto the rockwork this week. I think it’s time to pick up some more cleanup crew to work on this algae.

Captain Quint · Jan 21, 2019

This is really nice.

Simple, sleek and just pretty.

Good choice on the smart ATO.

Thanks for sharing the awesomeness.

Bcheek · Jan 22, 2019

Took my zoas off of their plugs and glued onto the rocks. The rightmost ones got dropped twice trying to attach to the rocks so they’re still a little mad 8 hours later, but I’m anticipating they’ll recover just fine. The ones on the left are changing colors. When I got them they were pretty dull, but now the mouths are a vibrant green and the main part is a mix of pinks and golds. I’m hoping the skirts will color up too, but I’m happy either way. The rubble they were mounted on with the plugs also has some nice purple coralline so that it’ll start moving onto my main rocks. I haven’t decided where the duncan is going to go yet so it’s still on its plug in the sand bed for now.

Bcheek · Jan 24, 2019

New arrivals!
Not pictured are my two new zoa frags or the favia. Hopefully the zoas will open up all the way tomorrow.

Both of these Mithras crabs are about the size of a quarter, but they’ve been really active eating algae on the sand and rocks and haven’t been hiding at all.

Not that satisfied with this picture, but it turned out close ish. It’s more red in person than the orange seen in the picture. It’s roughly the size of a quarter, and has a few babies on the base too.

ua hua · Jan 24, 2019

Looks like a great start. I just started a Nuvo 10 myself and I’m really impressed so far with this little tank. Now it’s just a waiting game for it to fully cycle.

Bcheek · Feb 1, 2019

I’m looking to add some more flow to the tank and am debating between a jebao sw-2, or upgrading the return pump and adding a spin stream. I like the idea of not adding any cords to the display, but I would get some more flow customization options. I wish the mp10 was more affordable, but maybe it could be a good birthday gift.

I’m on the lookout for a fish in the next month or so. Some options I’m considering in no particular order:
1) pink streaked wrasse
2) white banded possum wrasse
3) a pair of baby clowns
4) a clown goby

Here’s the two zoas I got last week:

This frag looks similar to twizzlers in person, but I can’t get the colors to show up right on the camera

These are at a hard to photograph angle, and the colors aren’t quite right, it’s less green in person but is very vibrant and will look great once I get it glued onto the rocks. Their mat is spread onto multiple small pieces of broken frag plugs instead of one piece of rubble, so I’ll probably just cut the post off of the main plug and glue the disk directly to the rocks.

I still haven’t gotten a favia picture that I like enough to post yet, maybe next week.

Bcheek · Feb 8, 2019

Not much new this week, zoas have a bunch of babies popping up on the edges so they must be happy with lights/water conditions.

My duncan has been upset most of the week so I've done 2 small water changes and it seems to be doing better. I have a suspicion that it's mostly upset because the AI prime acclimation mode ended and it just needs to finish adjusting to the brighter lights. I'm running 60% at 20k currently.

The rockflower has been roaming for a while and is on the sandbed at the moment. I've also found 2 much smaller baby RFAs that have attached to the rocks but are mostly hidden inside cracks.