CWerner's IM 50 Nuvo AIO build

[cwerner]

Another tank update!

I've received some new coral Colonies, some from Saltwater Aquarium Farms, and some from a LFS here in Madison called Big Kahuna. I've also got the rest of my hydros controller setup that will be in the main part of my tank. I'm also planning on putting some sort of hole in the floor behind the tank so I can run cables down to my Mixing station and perform AWC and possibly Auto Top off directly from my reservoirs and eliminate 5 gallon buckets almost entirely.

Below are some tank shots of fish and coral.

My new Green Splatter Hammers:

My GSP back wall effort so far. It's about a 12" by 6" section. It grew straight up very quickly and has slowly been expanding to the sides now.

A new Blue Staghorn from Big Kahuna

My poor candycanes.

Some new Zoa's from SAQ:

My new Duncan's from Big Kahuna:

You cannot kill that which is unkillable:

 

[cwerner]

Made some progress on my plans tonight. Got a 30" x 72" stand from menards rated for 2000lb's. That should be fine for 2 44 gallon brute trash cans. I got some cheap Jebao pumps for mixing and a utility pump that should be up to pushing water up the roughly 9 ft to my tank. I'll be so relieved once this is done and I've got fully automated daily water changes and can do much larger water changes without having to carry 5 gallon buckets up and down the stairs.

I'll hopefully have some pictures of the mixing station once its done. I'm planning on using the Hydros top off pump for draining the water since it's all downhill and will be gravity assisted. The utility pump inside the saltwater Brute can will pump up the saltwater and for now I have my freshwater reservoir underneath my tank, but I have plans to probably use a BRS dumb doser or perhaps the Hydros kamoer peristaltic pump for ATO needs to have it pull directly from my freshwater reservoir.

 

[cwerner]

Well, had a chance to work on the mixing station tonight and made a lot of progress! The mixing and feed pump plumbing is done, and the line to the rodi complete with float valve is run. I also installed a dual anion/cation brs canister to cut down on the amount of DI resin I was going through.

Now to figure out plumbing the auto top off and the AWC pump. My plan currently is to run a data-only hydros command cable down to the basement where I can wire it up to a UPS and power an rodi shutoff valve, possible future dosing pumps, and plumb my RODI directly to my tank so it can perform ATO duties as well as feed my mixing station. This plan is still subject to change, but cutting out an additional pump needed in the basement would be pretty neat, as well as having a reservoirless auto top off, but that comes with its own set of dangers (flooding my house etc.

P.S. sorry about the mess in my basement, I have a mud pit in my yard where a brand new garage is supposed to be, so the basement became a temporary permanent catch-all for all my garage items.

 

[cwerner]

It's been about a month since I did a tank update since my electrical disaster. I've got my Saltwater mixing station spun up now, though I still have to make the tubing runs and program Hydros. I also am seeing good growth in my new corals and the old ones that survived appear to be recovered.

My Zoa's in particular are showing great growth. My Acro's are showing pretty good growth now as well. I've been keeping my water parameters around the following:

CA: 440
MG: 1350
ALK: 7-7.5
PH: 8.1 - 8.2
Phosphate - .02
Nitrate: ~15-20

I've been dosing the HydroSpace ProBio bacteria as well as Microbacter Clean since I had a GHA outbreak after my tank crash. The corals seem to be doing well with these additives, but it looks like the biggest benefactors have been my pod population which has EXPLODED these past few weeks. The glass is full of them at all times right now. Here are some updates of existing corals and ones I haven't made a picture of yet. I'm really digging Euphyllia in this tank.


Pink Frogspawn:

Acro showing good growth:

 

[cwerner]

Checking in again. Seeing some good growth for the Zoa's and Acro's. My Euphyllia seems to be at a standstill except for my duncans that are growing well the green toadstool is growing well as always. I had a pleasant surprise and found one of the arms of my previous acros was alive and had polyp extension despite the rest of the skeleton being engulfed in GHA. I will probably frag and dip it and try to place it back on the scape somewhere to dispose of the rest of the skeleton.

My GHA problem is slowly going away as my nitrates/phosphates get under control. I'm hovering around .02/20 Phosphates and nitrates. Previous to my tank crash it was around 8-10 nitrates and undetectable to .01 phosphates. This range is likely fine too, but if I can get it to the ran

 

[cwerner]

Things have been running stable for a few months now. I noticed yesterday that my salinity was a little low, not sure how that happened, but I'm slowly bringing it back up. I'm still battling a little bit of hair algae, but it doesn't appear to be growing anymore, just not receding. I picked up some more SPS for the higher rock-work to replace what was lost. I got these at a local fish store. Some plating Montipora, a green monti, and some Acro sticks. I'm not too sure of the name, I think WWC green tips is one of them and Madman is the larger frag.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Things have been running stable for a few months now. I noticed yesterday that my salinity was a little low, not sure how that happened, but I'm slowly bringing it back up. I'm still battling a little bit of hair algae, but it doesn't appear to be growing anymore, just not receding. I picked up some more SPS for the higher rock-work to replace what was lost. I got these at a local fish store. Some plating Montipora, a green monti, and some Acro sticks. I'm not too sure of the name, I think WWC green tips is one of them and Madman is the larger frag.

Nice looking coral!

 

[cwerner]

Not much to photograph this week but I have gotten some stuff done. I setup an auto shutoff valve for my RODI unit and installed a splitter and Hydros-controlled Solenoid valve going directly to the tank. I know that theoretically this is not the safest setup, but between my UPS, high level sensor, and the built-in timer safety settings setup in the controller itself there is a lot of levels of redundancy for safety. Tomorrow I'll be running the 3/8" tubing for the drain line and feed line for the automatic water changes so that I'll have fully automated daily water changes. Wish me luck tomorrow.

 

[Lebowski_]

It's been about a month since I did a tank update since my electrical disaster. I've got my Saltwater mixing station spun up now, though I still have to make the tubing runs and program Hydros. I also am seeing good growth in my new corals and the old ones that survived appear to be recovered.

My Zoa's in particular are showing great growth. My Acro's are showing pretty good growth now as well. I've been keeping my water parameters around the following:

CA: 440
MG: 1350
ALK: 7-7.5
PH: 8.1 - 8.2
Phosphate - .02
Nitrate: ~15-20

I've been dosing the HydroSpace ProBio bacteria as well as Microbacter Clean since I had a GHA outbreak after my tank crash. The corals seem to be doing well with these additives, but it looks like the biggest benefactors have been my pod population which has EXPLODED these past few weeks. The glass is full of them at all times right now. Here are some updates of existing corals and ones I haven't made a picture of yet. I'm really digging Euphyllia in this tank.


Pink Frogspawn:

Acro showing good growth:

I really enjoy pink frogspawn. That’s a nice frag to get you started on it.

Exciting build. How are you enjoying the 50 lagoon dimensions? I run a 25g version and I think this will be my next upgrade size.

 

[cwerner]

I really enjoy pink frogspawn. That’s a nice frag to get you started on it.

Exciting build. How are you enjoying the 50 lagoon dimensions? I run a 25g version and I think this will be my next upgrade size.

I do enjoy the 50 dimensions. The AIO just makes things very simple and it was great for a beginner tank. That being said I'm already dreaming of a 90 display with an in-basement sump.

 

[cwerner]

Well its been a while since I updated this thread. Things are coming along. I've made some equipment changes to the tank. I haven't changed philosophies, but I have changed methods. About a month ago I installed a HOB skimmer and a Biopellet reactor along with the new IM manual filter roller. I can't overstate how much I like even manual filter rollers over filter socks or foam pads. I also switched my lighting from the Reef Breeders over to the NooPsyche K7 Mini 60 watt units. Here are some pictures of the new equipment:
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipOx-Vvf3G19wOPCeiKuDOHcWb6CU0KguBI0WJk

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipOx-Vvf3G19wOPCeiKuDOHcWb6CU0KguBI0WJk

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipOx-Vvf3G19wOPCeiKuDOHcWb6CU0KguBI0WJk
I also installed another Octo Pulse 2 wavemaker on the other side of the tank to give balanced flow to the tank. I didn't make a huge effort to clean up as you can tell from this full tank shot. There's also a nice little graveyard of some coral that are left over from my tank nuking a while back. My one remaining Acro is still alive and has actually been showing signs of growth lately. My pride and joy chalice is unfortunately about the same and not showing much growth. There's some Acro's on the sand bed that will be shortly getting placed onto the rock work once they adjust to the new light.

One thing I have noticed is that since switching to carbon dosing for nutrient export I cannot keep my glass clean to save my life. There's a healthy layer of slime on the glass within a 24 hour period. I have to take the scraper to the glass every 24 hours.

Here's some gratuitous coral shots. You can see that some of the coral (particularly the SPS) is showing some good growth. My GSP is also recovering and is spreading along the back of the tank wall quickly again.

Right now I'm thinking about coral placement and how to mix the colors best to create the best look. I have a lot of greens/blues/purples and not much of anything else so I'm hoping to arrange them to highlight the standout colors. I plan on playing around with it a bit before gluing stuff together.

Parameters:

Alk: 9.0
No3: 12.8
No4: .02
Temp: 78.6
PH: 8.33

PS - Oh, I also installed a CO2 scrubber in-line to my skimmer and it has really perked up my PH values. Almost too much so at peak times, I'm flirting with 8.5 PH at peak.

 

[cwerner]

Thought I'd update the thread with a FTS.

Things are coming along, most things are growing, some things aren't. My chalice is sort of recovering, my SPS seems to be growing very well while most other things aren't growing quite as quickly. Ever since I installed the biopellets my nitrats have been steadily dropping. They're now below 10 and I have to dose phosphates occasionally to keep detectable levels.

I'm slowly moving my sticks onto the upper rockwork and trying to get them used to higher light levels. My hammers aren't so happy right now and I'm trying to figure out why that is.

Levels:

PH: 8.29
Nitrates: 8.3
ALK: 8.0
Temp: 78.2
Calcium: 390
SG: 1.026

 

[cwerner]

Another tank update! Things are progressing. I added some new corals and just got my first BTA! My biopellets are fully spun up and are sucking nutrients out of the tank faster than I can generate them. Might have to start dosing nutrients or I could bottom out if I'm not careful. My toadstool leather must have reached critical mass because my clowns are now bugging it all the time with hosting behavior.

Here's some additional pictures I took with my Macro lenses. Makes me wish I had my old, crappy DSLR still sometimes.

Here is my remaining SPS from before my tank crash. He is hanging in there and now glued to the rockwork. He has begun to show some signs of thinking about growing again.

Random picture of my dragonet. My kids named him Pee bag.

Water levels as of last night:

Temp: 78.3
Calcium: 400
Mag: 1330
Alk: 8.1
Nitrate: 4.6
Phos: .04
PH: 8.36

 

[cwerner]

Forgot to post a FTS!

 

[cwerner]

I thought I would update the thread. Things are sort of auto-piloting. I'm seeing steady, if unremarkable growth. I'm not really needing to dose anything besides nutrients as my Auto Water Changes are keeping up with my update (at least for now).

Temp: 78.6
Calcium: 390
Mag: 1330
Alk: 7.7
Nitrate: 4.4
Phos: .1
PH: 8.24