Hi everyone, I've been meaning to start my build thread for a while but here it is. I've lurked R2R for some time but haven't been an active poster, and I really enjoy all the content here so I might as well contribute. This is my second saltwater tank, my first was a Fluval Evo 5 that I ran for a couple years before tearing down last summer. I didn't do enough research setting it up so it was constantly a pain in the butt and I was never satisfied with it. Since tearing it down I've read build threads here extensively and did as much homework as I could to set this tank up right. For livestock I knew I wanted to have it be a LPS tank with a pair of clownfish and an anemone, and I had to have some real live rock.
Here's my equipment list
Tank: IM Nuvo 20
Light: AI Hydra 32 HD with HMS mount that I got from someone on here for a good deal
Pump: AI Nero 3 and RFG return pump nozzles
Heater: BRS 100W titanium with Inkbird controller
Water: BRS 5 stage RODI
Duetto XP Aqua ATO with 5gal hedpack reservoir
Filtration: Filter sock on one side and Purigen / chemipure blue on the other
I set up a mixing station with two 44gal brutes next to the RODI. This was a massive improvement to my previous system of buying 2.5gal distilled water jugs and mixing saltwater in 5gal buckets when I needed to do the water change. I have some cheap amazon water pumps hooked up to vinyl tube with on/off valves to transfer water between the brutes and into 5gal buckets for water changes and top offs. I purchased all of the equipment during the cyber Monday sales and started to set up in early December. With finals and the holidays I didn't have the time to start the aquarium up, so the live rock wasn't acquired until January. It was a long wait but I've learned that patience is key here.
(please excuse the mess)
The 15lbs of KP aquatics live rock arrived 1/13 and was absolutely awesome - hitchhikers included 4 or 5 mithrax crabs, a ton of harlequin or brittle starfish, a pencil urchin, some astrea snails, and at least one pistol shrimp. I'm sure there's more hiding in there but that's what I've accounted for so far. I was very satisfied with the whole KP experience. The airport pickup was easy, the rock was packaged very well with no leaks, and was at a good temperature. I would definitely recommend it.
I let the rock hang out and waited a week for the die off. I did daily water changes and never saw a large ammonia spike, I tested twice a day. At the beginning of February I set up my QT tank. I had some filter foam soaking in the back of the nuvo for a few weeks to establish a bio filter and added some bac in a bottle to the QT as well. I've been monitoring ammonia and doing water changes but haven't had any ammonia issues so far. I bought two fancy clowns from a local LFS with a blue/purple branching hammer, a Ricordea Florida, and GSP. Over 5 or 6 days I raised copper to just over 2 ppm with copper safe and a hanna checker and have been monitoring it since. 3/11 will be 30 days of copper treatment and I will remove that with water changes and cuprisorb and begin prazipro treatment. I have not QT'd fish previously so this was quite a learning experience and I have been following Jay Hemdal's guide. All of the coral received a CoralRX dip. I bought bayer as well but I've been a bit scared to try that, and none of my purchased coral has appeared unclean. So far the clowns seem happy and have been readily eating LRS and pellets.
About a week after getting the clowns and first coral, I bought a handful of zoas and a yellow hammer from a local reefer, Lazy's Coral house. I put the zoas in the sand bed at first but the crabs all wanted to pick at them, so I got a frag rack to get them out of reach from the crabs. They initially picked at the GSP when I first put that in the tank but stopped after a day. They seemed much more interested in the zoas, so I'm hoping it was some sort of "oh look at this new thing" and they won't pester them once I glue them to the rock.
This past weekend I rented a PAR meter from a local LFS and got my lights dialed in. I had initially guesstimated my lights and had them around 20%. Renting the par meter was a great choice as I was able to get the entire tank into a much better range. The sand bed measured in the 50-80 region and the upper rock regions at around 150 par. I also pushed the spectrum more towards blue after watching the BRS lighting series. I have the light mounted about as high as it goes, 14" or so, and the spread of light is really even throughout the tank. I really need a better light shade but I've been putting off designing one in solidworks and 3D printing it.
I treated myself to some more stuff during the WWC live sale so I'm looking forward to adding that in once it arrives this weekend, and I'll update with pictures. At this point I'm pretty much waiting for the clowns to finish quarantine and enjoying the coral. I've been feeding LRS reef frenzy to the tank to keep the crabs and starfish happy and to keep nutrients from being too low. Phosphates have been staying pretty low and nitrates hang out around 5-10 with the salifert test kits. I'm still waiting for the tank to mature more before I get the anemone, and I have my eye on a gorgeous gold torch at the LFS that I'm going to get as a self birthday present when that rolls around. Here are some additional tank shots:
This has been a bit of an info dump so I will try to keep this updated with any other thoughts and new pictures, happy reefing!
Here's my equipment list
Tank: IM Nuvo 20
Light: AI Hydra 32 HD with HMS mount that I got from someone on here for a good deal
Pump: AI Nero 3 and RFG return pump nozzles
Heater: BRS 100W titanium with Inkbird controller
Water: BRS 5 stage RODI
Duetto XP Aqua ATO with 5gal hedpack reservoir
Filtration: Filter sock on one side and Purigen / chemipure blue on the other
I set up a mixing station with two 44gal brutes next to the RODI. This was a massive improvement to my previous system of buying 2.5gal distilled water jugs and mixing saltwater in 5gal buckets when I needed to do the water change. I have some cheap amazon water pumps hooked up to vinyl tube with on/off valves to transfer water between the brutes and into 5gal buckets for water changes and top offs. I purchased all of the equipment during the cyber Monday sales and started to set up in early December. With finals and the holidays I didn't have the time to start the aquarium up, so the live rock wasn't acquired until January. It was a long wait but I've learned that patience is key here.
(please excuse the mess)
The 15lbs of KP aquatics live rock arrived 1/13 and was absolutely awesome - hitchhikers included 4 or 5 mithrax crabs, a ton of harlequin or brittle starfish, a pencil urchin, some astrea snails, and at least one pistol shrimp. I'm sure there's more hiding in there but that's what I've accounted for so far. I was very satisfied with the whole KP experience. The airport pickup was easy, the rock was packaged very well with no leaks, and was at a good temperature. I would definitely recommend it.
I let the rock hang out and waited a week for the die off. I did daily water changes and never saw a large ammonia spike, I tested twice a day. At the beginning of February I set up my QT tank. I had some filter foam soaking in the back of the nuvo for a few weeks to establish a bio filter and added some bac in a bottle to the QT as well. I've been monitoring ammonia and doing water changes but haven't had any ammonia issues so far. I bought two fancy clowns from a local LFS with a blue/purple branching hammer, a Ricordea Florida, and GSP. Over 5 or 6 days I raised copper to just over 2 ppm with copper safe and a hanna checker and have been monitoring it since. 3/11 will be 30 days of copper treatment and I will remove that with water changes and cuprisorb and begin prazipro treatment. I have not QT'd fish previously so this was quite a learning experience and I have been following Jay Hemdal's guide. All of the coral received a CoralRX dip. I bought bayer as well but I've been a bit scared to try that, and none of my purchased coral has appeared unclean. So far the clowns seem happy and have been readily eating LRS and pellets.
About a week after getting the clowns and first coral, I bought a handful of zoas and a yellow hammer from a local reefer, Lazy's Coral house. I put the zoas in the sand bed at first but the crabs all wanted to pick at them, so I got a frag rack to get them out of reach from the crabs. They initially picked at the GSP when I first put that in the tank but stopped after a day. They seemed much more interested in the zoas, so I'm hoping it was some sort of "oh look at this new thing" and they won't pester them once I glue them to the rock.
This past weekend I rented a PAR meter from a local LFS and got my lights dialed in. I had initially guesstimated my lights and had them around 20%. Renting the par meter was a great choice as I was able to get the entire tank into a much better range. The sand bed measured in the 50-80 region and the upper rock regions at around 150 par. I also pushed the spectrum more towards blue after watching the BRS lighting series. I have the light mounted about as high as it goes, 14" or so, and the spread of light is really even throughout the tank. I really need a better light shade but I've been putting off designing one in solidworks and 3D printing it.
I treated myself to some more stuff during the WWC live sale so I'm looking forward to adding that in once it arrives this weekend, and I'll update with pictures. At this point I'm pretty much waiting for the clowns to finish quarantine and enjoying the coral. I've been feeding LRS reef frenzy to the tank to keep the crabs and starfish happy and to keep nutrients from being too low. Phosphates have been staying pretty low and nitrates hang out around 5-10 with the salifert test kits. I'm still waiting for the tank to mature more before I get the anemone, and I have my eye on a gorgeous gold torch at the LFS that I'm going to get as a self birthday present when that rolls around. Here are some additional tank shots:
This has been a bit of an info dump so I will try to keep this updated with any other thoughts and new pictures, happy reefing!
