- Joined
- Jun 5, 2019
- Messages
- 36
- Reaction score
- 22
Just getting back into the hobby and I have setup a new Innovative Marine Nuvo Fusion 20 Pro!
I gotta say the quality of the tank is great and I'm really happy with it. Also grabbed the APS black stand.
I like the stand, it's light and looks nice, but I have to say putting it together was not very straight forward. It took me a bit of time and fine tuning just to get the stand square. They could have done a better job and added exact placement notches for the hardware to tighten, making squaring it up a lot easier. Overall though, I'm extremely happy with the quality of both.
I've been out of the hobby for a long time so all the great new toys available are fun (and dangerous on the wallet) to see.
I kind of went all "reefer madness" with the setup.
Apex, ATK, DOS, WXM, MP10, and more I'll get into later.
I wanted to start clean so I started with some AQUAMAXX ECO-ROCK DRY LIVE ROCK.
Really love the stuff. It was easy to work with, lots of little holes, pieces hook to each other very well and looks great to me too. Breaking it up was a little tough at times, but nothing a sledge hammer can't handle!
I initially got 25lbs and used about 1/4 of it. Saved the rest for little frags or for another tank.
I did a few variations and came up with this at the end:
Next I moved the rocks, forgot what the aquascape was exactly, added some live sand, rearranged the rock, let it settle for a day or 2 and let the system run. After all that I added a bottle of Bio Spira let it run for about 2 hours and picked up 2 simple clown from the LFS.
I really like the simple clowns and coming back into the hobby to see the crazy clowns out there now 'frostbite' this and 'snowball' that takes away from the natural look for me to be honest.
I put my tank in my basement next to our stairs and use the under the stairs as my equipment room.
I have RODI line going in there, all electronics, mixed water for DOSn my water changes, etc .. I still have a bit of cable management to deal with and adding a Cyberpower UPS I had laying around so I'm going to get to that and maybe change some things up who knows but I would like the equipment room to be manageable mainly .. doesn't need to be perfect like the DT though.
So at this point I have the 2 clowns, a running MP10, Mighty Pro return pump, Apex all setup and a Hydra 26 HD running. I waited about 1 week and started adding corals after water came back good. I even had an ammonia badge in there (and still do actually) just to watch and then....
Great right?!
That was a pain .. either a mix of dino/diatom, who knows now but it wasn't great. It was going to happen and die like all new tanks I suspected. At that point I had a hammer, duncan, xeina, stylophora, 2 clowns and cleanup crew (6 blue 2 red leg 2 trochus, 6 astrea, 6 cerith snails). My xeina is still fighting the effects of it sticking to it and it's not even pulsing anymore .. didn't stop it from doubling in size though.
I took my lighting schedule down to about 4 hours of light a day for 4 days and that basically did the trick.
Now I have that gone and have added some gsp coral, monti cap, a plate coral (with like 4 mouths??) zoa, cleaner shrimp, a green clown goby and lost 3 astrea for their shells. I even added blank shells for the hermit crabs and they weren't good enough!
I'm going to wait on adding any more in about a month or so (maybe ) and my next focus is going to seeding more coralline algae I think, but I'd love some ideas of what next!
I'll be keeping this going too and adding more detail on some specifics of my setup, answering any questions, pics of new things or updates and if you'd like to see anything or better pictures of the setup just let me know too.
Here's some of what I'm working with as of now
(I need to get a camera filter for my phone, where??)
Duncan (idk)
Good 'ol GSP. I fragged it and glued that piece on the back low so it will grow up eventually
This one is on a shell I hope a hermit will wear one day
Plate. Can you see the 3 dots on the right and 1 on the left?
Hammer
Green Monti Cap .. My clown looks like it's sad, but it's just the other one's fin.
Mint Stylophora?
Hitchhiker mushroom of some kind
I gotta say the quality of the tank is great and I'm really happy with it. Also grabbed the APS black stand.
I like the stand, it's light and looks nice, but I have to say putting it together was not very straight forward. It took me a bit of time and fine tuning just to get the stand square. They could have done a better job and added exact placement notches for the hardware to tighten, making squaring it up a lot easier. Overall though, I'm extremely happy with the quality of both.
I've been out of the hobby for a long time so all the great new toys available are fun (and dangerous on the wallet) to see.
I kind of went all "reefer madness" with the setup.
Apex, ATK, DOS, WXM, MP10, and more I'll get into later.
I wanted to start clean so I started with some AQUAMAXX ECO-ROCK DRY LIVE ROCK.
Really love the stuff. It was easy to work with, lots of little holes, pieces hook to each other very well and looks great to me too. Breaking it up was a little tough at times, but nothing a sledge hammer can't handle!
I initially got 25lbs and used about 1/4 of it. Saved the rest for little frags or for another tank.
I did a few variations and came up with this at the end:
Next I moved the rocks, forgot what the aquascape was exactly, added some live sand, rearranged the rock, let it settle for a day or 2 and let the system run. After all that I added a bottle of Bio Spira let it run for about 2 hours and picked up 2 simple clown from the LFS.
I really like the simple clowns and coming back into the hobby to see the crazy clowns out there now 'frostbite' this and 'snowball' that takes away from the natural look for me to be honest.
I put my tank in my basement next to our stairs and use the under the stairs as my equipment room.
I have RODI line going in there, all electronics, mixed water for DOSn my water changes, etc .. I still have a bit of cable management to deal with and adding a Cyberpower UPS I had laying around so I'm going to get to that and maybe change some things up who knows but I would like the equipment room to be manageable mainly .. doesn't need to be perfect like the DT though.
So at this point I have the 2 clowns, a running MP10, Mighty Pro return pump, Apex all setup and a Hydra 26 HD running. I waited about 1 week and started adding corals after water came back good. I even had an ammonia badge in there (and still do actually) just to watch and then....
Great right?!
That was a pain .. either a mix of dino/diatom, who knows now but it wasn't great. It was going to happen and die like all new tanks I suspected. At that point I had a hammer, duncan, xeina, stylophora, 2 clowns and cleanup crew (6 blue 2 red leg 2 trochus, 6 astrea, 6 cerith snails). My xeina is still fighting the effects of it sticking to it and it's not even pulsing anymore .. didn't stop it from doubling in size though.
I took my lighting schedule down to about 4 hours of light a day for 4 days and that basically did the trick.
Now I have that gone and have added some gsp coral, monti cap, a plate coral (with like 4 mouths??) zoa, cleaner shrimp, a green clown goby and lost 3 astrea for their shells. I even added blank shells for the hermit crabs and they weren't good enough!
I'm going to wait on adding any more in about a month or so (maybe ) and my next focus is going to seeding more coralline algae I think, but I'd love some ideas of what next!
I'll be keeping this going too and adding more detail on some specifics of my setup, answering any questions, pics of new things or updates and if you'd like to see anything or better pictures of the setup just let me know too.
Here's some of what I'm working with as of now
(I need to get a camera filter for my phone, where??)
Duncan (idk)
Good 'ol GSP. I fragged it and glued that piece on the back low so it will grow up eventually
This one is on a shell I hope a hermit will wear one day
Plate. Can you see the 3 dots on the right and 1 on the left?
Hammer
Green Monti Cap .. My clown looks like it's sad, but it's just the other one's fin.
Mint Stylophora?
Hitchhiker mushroom of some kind