How NOT to start a nano reef

[Medical_Reef]

October 6th - Radion rebuild and tv wall mount.

The next purchase I needed for the tank was a light. Ultimately, I knew that I wanted to grow corals and have an anemone for Fred and George, but I didn't yet know what type of coral I was going to focus on. Therefore, I had three main goals when looking at lights: 1) it needed to be inexpensive. Again, I am doing this all on a student-loan budget, so really there isn't that much to work with. 2) I wanted the light to have the longevity to light up any kind of coral I decided to house in my tank down the road. Since I was planning on being in this nano tank until my residency training is over, which is looking like another 7-8 years, I needed a light that I wouldn't have to upgrade anytime soon. 3) I wanted it to be low maintenance. I know that T5 systems are about as plug and play as they get, but I didn't want to have to change bulbs, even though I wouldn't really need to do it that often. With these criteria in mind I started looking at LEDs.

I made the rounds of the diverse black-boxes out there and read as much as I could. While there were some concerns of burning out corals, it sounded like as long as you mounted them high enough that risk could be mitigated. What worried me was the number of times I read about people swapping out their entire LED array or heatsink for an upgrade in a relatively short period of time. Being as this was an already cheap light, I interpreted that information as the light fixture probably wasn't worth my money. I seriously considered SBReef as they had a good reputation, and though slightly more expensive than black boxes I could track down on eBay, they were more reliable. As I was trying to decide if the 16'' Basic was enough light for me, I decided to message a member of the Facebook group here in Northern Mexico that had posted a light for sale over a year ago. It didn't appear that anyone had bought it, so I figured I'd see if it was still lying around. Turns out that was the right move to make.

He had a Gen2 XR30 Pro that he wasn't using due to the fact that one of the LED pucks was damaged and it would power off shortly after being plugged in. I had done enough research that I knew these could be upgraded and that Radions were the lights to have, plus the fact that an XR30 would be more than enough light for the Nuvo 20. The best part? He let go of the light and ballast for $50. Score! I took it on the spot hoping the upgrade wasn't more than the $100 he thought it was, but well knowing that even if it was a little steeper than that I'd be getting one heck of a light for about the same price as the SBReef with wifi.

So, off the light went to EcoTech, bubble-wrapped in a cardboard carriage to have Gen3 Pro LED pucks installed. I received the lights back the first week of October with a total bill for installing the new LED pucks and return shipping of $150. While more than $100, for a total cost of $200 I now had a basically brand-new Gen3 XR30 Pro that would meet all the needs of this tank for years. That was something I could live with!

Now to hang the light. I can't take hardly any credit for this next part of the build, that all belongs to @Denisk as I followed a previous article in the DIY section.
DIY LET Wall Mount! Check it out!

First thing I did was pulled the light apart so that I could clean the fan. The previous owner had been using the light over his fuge and had it resting on an eggcrate above the tank, so it wasn’t the cleanest light I had ever seen. I also had to get behind one of the hanging screws as it had come unattached from the main body of the light causing the plastic panel to flex. This also meant I couldn’t screw into that corner to hang the light, and I wasn’t about to suspend the most expensive piece of equipment I had bought to date over water without knowing that it would hold. Unfortunately, the screw in question lied just behind the motherboard, so it was a delicate task, but I was able to gain access to the nut and secure it with Loctite.

I believe I ordered basically the exact same TV mount as Denisk, it just had an updated bracket. I optioned to leave that bracket attached and instead cut a metal sheet that I could screw to the radion mounting light and also attach to the TV bracket. Let there be sparks!

I gave it a nice coat of black paint and when it was all said and done, I had a stellar mounting solution that was screwed into a stud and could swing out of the way for easy tank maintenance. Thanks for the guide Denisk!

As a bonus, I was able to Velcro my Eheim auto feeder to the top of the metal plate and it worked like a charm, dropping little morsels in through the mesh lid right into the greedy mouths of the Weasley twins.

 

[eggplantparrot]

Literally laughed out loud. It was definitely a butt-clenching moment. I've learned my lesson, my two year old loves tools so I just can't leave them out anywhere. I'm hoping the roller coaster is less exciting going forward, it hasn't even been 6 months yet!

speaking of tank mishaps, i was cleaning out a 2G cube in my sink to use as my top off container, ended up smacking the edge on the side of my sink... put a chunky crack in one pane. tried to fix it but too much shattered glass made that impossible, gunna use it as a plant pot now.

 

[Medical_Reef]

speaking of tank mishaps, i was cleaning out a 2G cube in my sink to use as my top off container, ended up smacking the edge on the side of my sink... put a chunky crack in one pane. tried to fix it but too much shattered glass made that impossible, gunna use it as a plant pot now.

This hobby gets you however it can. Sucks to crack tanks. At least you didn't dump two gallons of salt water into your living room. I'm still in a bad place over the moldy rug we had to chuck.

 

[eggplantparrot]

least you can pick up a rug and throw it, we got hardwood, makes me shudder just thinking about a flood...

that light mount looks legit, might have to consider that for my next build.

 

[Medical_Reef]

least you can pick up a rug and throw it, we got hardwood, makes me shudder just thinking about a flood...

that light mount looks legit, might have to consider that for my next build.

No its true, tile floors have been awesome for a fish tank. I love the look of hardwood but definitely is a risk with water.

The mount was pretty easy to make and I never had to worry about it. I loved the fact that it swung right out of the way too, made it super easy to access the tank when I wanted. I have an AI Prime for the WaterBox with a mounting arm, I am curious to see if I like that solution or if I will adapt another TV wall mount.

 

[Denisk]

Looks incredible!!!! Thanks so much for tagging me haha just make sure your Radion fan has enough space to breath!

 

[Medical_Reef]

Looks incredible!!!! Thanks so much for tagging me haha just make sure your Radion fan has enough space to breath!

Of course! I was just glad I found the post again so I could give you the credit.

And that's a good point. I don't think the sheet I cut made any difference in the lights ability to cool, I made sure it was just large enough to span the four bolt holes and I hadn't removed the plastic cover on top, so it shouldn't have changed any function. It always had a nice constant flow of air out the sides. But, since I had to sell the XR30 to fund my tank downsize after I broke the Nuvo 20, its neither here nor there. Fun while it lasted!

 

[Medical_Reef]

October-ish – Auto top off.

It seems like it’s pretty standard advice that no system is complete, especially a nano, without an auto top off. So of course, that was my next project. As always, the big focus here is on the budget aspect of this build. My dad was using a series of floats and a controller that he really liked from autotopoff.com, so I figured I would go the same route. I went with the double-nano system for $42 that supplies “Two Nano float switches, one with a reversed switch holder designed to be mounted above the primary switch on the same nano bracket.” It came with extra bracket material so that the mount could be adjusted, and all I had to add was a pump. Lucky for me, he had some cheap pumps listed on his site and I snagged one for $7.

I don’t have any pictures of it on the original Nuvo, but here is the system in action on the WB15. It’s pretty straight forward, with one float valve sensing the low water volume and turning on the pump, with another valve positioned higher that will shut off the pump when levels get too high in the event the first float is stuck or malfunctioning. While I know we can all still envision scenarios where this single back-up method could fail, for my purposes I am happy with the setup. It just took a little work to cut the mounting strips to the right size and I utilized zip ties to secure the individual floats to the bracket, incase I ever needed to switch things up a bit. To hold the tube on the system, I zip tied a ¼ inch quick connect coupling to the bracket and added another short section of tubing.

I utilized a lovely 5-gallon bucket from HD and it tends to last me at least 2 weeks if not longer between refills. I thought I was being rather clever and drilled a hole in the top of the lid and placed a quick connect fitting into this hole, thus leaving the pump inside the bucket with the lid secured. I believe it was a ½ inch quick connect conversion to a threaded ¼ inch that I punched through the hole, then secured with Teflon tape and a threaded ¼ inch to ¼ inch. I did have to cut a slit for the chord which I secured using unidirectional bonding strips to ensure a semi-water tight seal. Additional bonus here, I can easily unplug the tubing from the top of the bucket and the pump from the ATO controller to remove the ATO reservoir for refilling.

All-in-all this has been a great system and I have had no complaints so far. With the AIO setup I needed something that was relatively small, and with the WB15 I can fit my heater, return pump, and ATO float valves all in the same final chamber leaving room for other upgrades in the remaining chambers. It was a tight squeeze in the Nuvo 20, as I had my Tunze 9001, two return pumps and associated hosing, as well as the float valves all in the middle chamber, but it worked just fine.

Side note: when the Nuvo 20 cracked and started leaking everywhere, the first thing we noticed was how often the ATO system was cycling on. It took us a good while to figure out there was a problem, and I believe I pumped ~2.5 gallons of RO/DI water into the system before I started draining the tank. The salinity got down to about 29ppt. Luckily, I only had the clowns in the tank, and they were unaffected. Fun day.

 

[Medical_Reef]

Mid-October to November – Added corals too soon.

I took a Neurology exam today, so I figured after spending the weekend studying it was time for another entry.

This next step in my “things that you shouldn’t do” series will include a common mistake that I read about all the time on the forums and easily fell into myself. I bought a clean-up crew and corals way too soon. I tried to keep everything small, and I won’t say that I invested lots of money here, but it was still too early in the hobby and I got carried away. I can’t count the number of times people have written on R2R “… well they said at the lfs that this would be fine..” only to get differing opinions from the reefing community at large. The advice usually boils down to “do your research,” which I agree is an essential step in building a successful reef tank, but I want to rephrase that just a little. Instead of doing your research and searching on the forums if a certain coral or fish is right for your tank, I think it is much more important to research with the purpose of developing a plan that you can stick to. Prior to even adding the water to the tank, if a new reefer can establish a plan with a time-line for when the first fish will be added, what cuc will be tried first, how to control initial algae, and probably more importantly when to add the first coral, this takes the guessing and the mistakes out of impulse buying and moving too fast. I fell victim to this by visiting the lfs and asking about the coral. He was more than happy to sell me good beginner corals, I was definitely ready...

For instance, the BRS/WWC 4-month cycle is a plan that hopes to offer a reliable way to establish a new reef tank into a relatively good rhythm before corals are added. I personally like this method for two important reasons, one being that as the tank cycles through its new phase and nuisance algae, you won’t have any corals in the tank that you are worried about; and two, I find the concept that successful coralline algae growth can be used as an indicator that a tank can sustain coral very appealing. If it really is that simple, then we can tell all new reefers “don’t add coral until you see coralline in your tank” and solve a majority of issues encountered in the early tank stages. I’m hoping that my round of BRS/WWC works well and lend evidence to support this theory.

With that being said, we are still talking about my mistakes on the first round filling the Nuvo 20, and my biggest mistake was not utilizing a calendar to accurately assess how much time had passed. I always thought I had waited way longer than I actually had before starting the next step. So here are some pictures of the brand-new tank, white rock, a cuc that I probably couldn’t sustain, and corals that took a while to grow at all. Kinda feels like a confessional.

For the cuc I didn’t go overboard, and I only added ~5 snails and 3 hermits. After this initial add, I only added more as I had algae issues that the current cuc wouldn’t solve. I ended up grabbing some turbo snails that really mowed down some algae on the rocks for me. We also found a big algae blenny when the algae really started to take off, and while Jaba did a great job of eating algae, the clowns Fred and George were so intimidated by him they would never leave the top back corner of the tank. Jaba was probably a good 4 inches across and really got to the point that he just dominated the little 20 gallon tank without even trying; his presence was enough to stifle the clowns. I felt bad for the clowns and rehomed Jaba who actually ended up crossing the border and now lives in Monterrey, Mexico. Go figure.

Sometimes my oldest still asks about Jaba. He has an amazing memory, and I can tell that he feels deeply about events in his life. I'm hoping that even though we've already had more losses than I thought we would that this fish adventure is an overall positive one for him.

 

[NY_Caveman]

I agree totally. My tank was completely planned out including the timing before I even selected the tank. I am amazed people buy tanks and then ask, “how should I stock it?” Everyone is different and I am not criticizing. I just see a lot of people who soon realize their tank simply will not work once they think about what they like. I could not imaging buying a tank without knowing what I would put in it. Would you buy a dog crate before selecting a dog? A bird cage before the bird?

The other obvious problem is rushing. A cycle is really nothing, it is basically automatic. It is the maturing process after the cycle that is crucial. I have always used real live rock for the best maturity and biodiversity. I feel 6 months in like I can let my tank handle most problems itself.

 

[Medical_Reef]

I agree totally. My tank was completely planned out including the timing before I even selected the tank. I am amazed people buy tanks and then ask, “how should I stock it?” Everyone is different and I am not criticizing. I just see a lot of people who soon realize their tank simply will not work once they think about what they like. I could not imaging buying a tank without knowing what I would put in it. Would you buy a dog crate before selecting a dog? A bird cage before the bird?

The other obvious problem is rushing. A cycle is really nothing, it is basically automatic. It is the maturing process after the cycle that is crucial. I have always used real live rock for the best maturity and biodiversity. I feel 6 months in like I can let my tank handle most problems itself.

Exactly. A plan and patience will greatly increase success for new tanks. I think especially when dry rock is used. BRS loves to talk about how a tank started with dry rock won't be stable for at least the first year if not longer, so I feel like these tanks (mine included) need all the help they can get.

 

[Medical_Reef]

November 2nd– Filtration upgrade, the start of the end?

Being the studious reader that I am, I knew that people didn’t love the included filter socks that came with the Nuvo 20, and I quickly agreed that cleaning these socks was going to be a chore. I decided to utilize a couple media baskets on each side with a filter pad and a bag of carbon on one side and GFO on the other. I also added some marine pure blocks to the second chamber with the heater and started up some chaeto on the other side. I utilized an LED grow bulb and a cheap reflector from Home Depot. I did not, however, buy my chaeto from a clean source and instead decided to grab a bag from a LFS. There were a lot of floaties in the bag that were sold to me as pods, but since I never saw them move, I tried my best to rinse the chaeto before adding. Who knows what I ended up adding to the tank. I got some decent growth out of the chaeto for the first little while and it did a good job of keeping my nitrates down. Here’s a shot of the back compartment nice and full. The joys of AIO!

The carbon was a great idea since it keeps the water clean and free of smell, and I haven’t found anything yet that suggests there is a reason not to run it all the time (please chime in if you have one). The GFO, however, may have caused some of its own problems in the tank. I think I buy into the theory that over-utilizing GFO or other means of nutrient removal can set the tank off balance and pave the way for nuisance algae. Eventually my hair algae issues turned into what I believe were Dinos and caused me lots of headaches. It was one of the big reasons that I decided to eventually bleach the rock and start over, but we’ll get there.

 

[Medical_Reef]

November 20th to December 7th– Hamilton the Anemone

My wife names everything that goes in the tank. She’ll tell you she doesn’t get attached to the pets, but we all know better than that. Hamilton was no different. George (or maybe Georgina at this point?) took an almost instant liking to Hamilton and never let Fred get anywhere close. Poor Fred would have to sleep in the corner while George was all cuddled up inside the anemone. This was by far the highlight of our short-lived Nuvo 20.





But these videos have a silver lining, and I’m sure it’s obvious to see the algae growing on the rock and back glass that just continued to thrive. This was soon replaced with Dinos and I couldn’t keep up with the growth. I would use a toothbrush to scrub the rocks off and would siphon the sand, but it didn’t make any difference. One of the solutions I read in multiple different places was to increase flow, and since I didn’t currently have a powerhead in the tank, I added an IceCap 1K Gyre.

I thought the pump did a great job at creating flow, but it was definitely more than the small 20 could handle with sand on the bottom. I moved it around, tried it vertically with only one of the pump heads attached, but I ultimately ended up running it at a max of 30%. While that increased the flow, Hamilton didn’t like it. He had been pretty happy for a couple weeks, but as soon as I added the powerhead, he never settled down again. He’d detach and float around, only to rest on the sand bed until I’d turn the pumps off and help him attach to the rock again. As soon as the pumps turned on again, off he’d go. This lasted for 5 days before he finally shriveled up and lost stickiness. I pulled him out of the tank to make sure he didn’t nuke the whole system and kept him in some water to see if he’d recover, but he didn’t make it. Another hard lesson, but again one that I could have avoided if I kept better track of my tank’s progress and followed the cues my tank was sending me. Algae I had a hard time controlling transitioning to Dinos that slowly spread over the tank was a good sign that the tank was not happy nor ready to keep an anemone. Wish I had listened.

But that is exactly why I started this thread. It gives me a chance to reflect on my first attempt while also hopefully guiding other new reefers and steering them away from making the same mistakes. So, take your time, make a plan, and stick to it.

 

[Medical_Reef]

November 29th– Tank stand skin and canopy

For my tank stand, I built the standard 2x4 base structure and planned to build panels to cover it down the road. One of the things that I underestimated with my setup was how much light bled into the room from the XR30. I didn’t have the light mounted super high, but I still found the light annoying, plus there was the added risk of little toddler eyes looking up into the light every time they looked in the tank. I decided I wanted a canopy, and while I tossed around a bunch of different ideas, I ultimately decided to build a single wooden structure that would serve as a canopy and skin for the bottom of the stand. I constructed the two side panels and the front separately and then joined them together to form a “U” that sat on the floor and I could slide over the stand and the tank, thus blocking the chords and the light from little hands and eyes.

While the almost finished product looked nice (I never got around to finishing the wood, as the tank sprung a leak) its function left a lot to be desired. The first problem arose as I tried to use a circular saw and an undersized table saw to make most of my cuts, which lead to a less-than square structure. It was especially a problem at the bottom, as the three panels narrowed towards the floor. Thus, when I first glued everything together, it could only slide on about halfway. That was a bummer. I ended up removing some wood from the 2x4 stand and shaving down some of the skin, but it was always a tight, awkward fit, and I planned on redoing the whole stand in a couple years at the end of Medical school. But for the moment, I strengthened the stand with metal brackets and tied it to the wall to ensure it was stable and secure, and it looked nice while it lasted.

The second major problem was that the fit around the glass was pretty snug, and this did not leave very much room to slide over the outer magnet of the Gyre. That was something I truly had not considered, and in order to tank the skin off I either had to remove the magnet (which was a pain because it had an adhesive backing) or I had to gently wiggle and push the stand so that it would just barely squeeze by. I am sure this put extra stress on the tank, and it was not one of my best woodworking projects to date. So, when the Nuvo broke, I was almost relieved to be downsizing and going in a different direction with the stand, as I now had an excuse to get something that worked. Though the new stand was a total pain for its own reasons.

 

[Medical_Reef]

December 9th to January 25th– A Wifi power strip and The Crash. This one is a long one!

As a student, one of the biggest goals I had putting this tank together was to build a low maintenance system that could run with little input. Maybe this is a foolish dream of mine, but it is one I thought I would work towards. An ATO was an easy obvious choice and I was hoping that adding the refugium as a nutrient export would keep the tank in balance. The ATO would last well over 2 weeks and from my current Chaeto growth it looked like I could go that long at least between harvesting fresh algae. The auto feeder was running perfectly and the fish were happy, even if the Dinos were maintaining a steady hold on the tank. I was sure that once I got those kicked I would be good to go.

The other piece of equipment I added was a wifi controlled power strip, specifically the Geeni Surge 6-Outlet Smart WiFi Surge Protector. It was a very reasonable $29.99 from the wonderful Amazon marketplace, and it provided six different ports that I could set timers for and turn on and off individually from my phone. This provided two big benefits for me: the first being that I didn’t need to buy a bunch of different manual timers for pieces of equipment that didn’t have controllers, such as the lamp for my refugium which I was only running at night; and the second was that, as I mentioned in my previous post, the skin I built for my stand was a tight fit and kind of a pain to get on and off, so now if I needed to turn off a power head or return pump I could do so from my phone without the need to get inside the stand. Pretty nifty idea actually huh? And it worked really well as a timer for the fuge, no issues there. I think everything would have been fine had I not put the return pump on that system. I didn’t put the heater or the lights on it, as the lights were on a schedule and I had no reason to turn the heater off on a regular basis, but for some reason I wanted more control over the return pump and power head in the tank. So, my first piece of advice if you use this product is DO NOT put anything that is critical for life support on this power strip. More to come shortly.

The first test of this system came over Christmas break. I was going to be out of state for a little over two weeks, and while we had someone who was going to stop by and take a look at the house, he didn’t know anything about the fish tank and wouldn’t be able to provide much insight into its situation. When he stopped by, he said the tank “looked a little cloudy” but the fish were swimming happy and I just assumed this meant the film algae had taken off again. I didn’t worry about it too much, but when I got back from the trip it was obvious something was wrong.

It turns out that the wifi controlled power strip that I was using did not like it when the power to the house shut off. I don’t imagine the power was off very long, probably just a passing surge. However, when the power came back on, only one of the six outlets on the power strip turned back on. I bet you can guess which one it was. While it is an important part of my system, I did not need to have the fuge lit while I was on vacation, so it really didn’t help me much that the one outlet that came back on was the fuge light. The heater and XR30 were still running, as they were on a standard power strip, but the ATO, the return pump, and the gyre were off for what I assume was most of the break, or roughly 10 days. This is the aftermath.

George was already gone to the big sea in the sky by the time I got home, and even more heartbreaking was watching Fred slowly go within an hour of finding the tank in its sad state. Of the corals that were in the tank, only the GSP and toadstool survived. My son still misses his hammerhead coral, which was by far his favorite. Luckily, I flew back to Texas a week before my family did, so I was able to remove most of what I believe was an absolute Dino explosion in the stagnant water, do multiple 5-gallon water changes, get the tank back up and running, and adopt Fred and George 2.0 before the kids came home.

While my kids didn’t notice much of a difference, this was a hard blow for me and my wife. I hated that we had made the mistake of putting the anemone in the tank too soon and lost it, but it was even worse to come home to the disaster of a tank and the dead fish. Especially knowing that had I not used a fancy power strip to run the pumps, the tank more than likely would have been just fine. If the water had been circulating while we were gone, the chaeto would have done its job and the tank would have been fine.

So, what did I learn from this? I think @Mini Coop summed it up pretty well in her thread: “Sometimes this hobby is heartbreaking.” Expense aside, it can be demoralizing to put time and effort into a system just to have it crash in a matter of days or less. I can see why many reefers get out of this hobby soon after starting, and I can only imagine how much worse it would be if I had a large system with thousands of dollars invested in the tank.

I pushed on for a couple weeks and tried to stay ahead of the Dinos. I would vacuum the sand and scrub the rock off, as well as scrub the growth off of the GSP. I would also routinely remove my Chaeto and rinse it as it was constantly covered in Dinos and other nuisance algae, but it would always come back. I knew a UV sterilizer could help, but with the loss of the corals I was considering restarting the tank to kick the nuisance growth once and for all and I didn’t want to spend the money. As a last-ditch effort, I removed the Chaeto and I believe I started to see some improvements as the nitrate and phosphate presumably started to climb. And then almost overnight, GHA sprung up all over the rocks and I was back to a different nuisance that was just as hard to clean off. I decided to start over. I pulled the rock, hosed it down in the driveway, and tossed it in a bucket of bleach. It was a sad day to only have Fred and George 2.0, a couple corals and some snails in there.

My family was flying to Utah, so I packed up my corals and sent them along with my wife in her carry on in a little Tupperware of fresh saltwater to my parent's house. Turns out it isn’t that hard to travel with corals, but I think the best advice I got was from an article @ihavecrabs wrote about his experience. I also read it was a good idea to have the TSA policy up on your phone and to ask to speak to a supervisor. My wife said the standard agents had no idea what to, but as soon as the supervisor stepped in everything went smoothly. It also wasn’t a huge risk for me as it was only a half-dozen frags of run-of-the-mill coral, but when you are on a budget and just lost most of your livestock, you save what you can.

The corals are still safe and sound in my parent’s tank in Utah and my boys are waiting for the day that we can bring them home. Fred and George had a temporary home in a 10 gallon on the kitchen counter that drove my wife nuts, but I wanted to pull the whole tank down and really give it a good cleaning. So here they stay until the Nuvo was clean and ready to give this hobby another go.

 

[Medical_Reef]

January 30th– Bare bottom reboot

With the Nuvo clean and ready to go (which included bleach and vinegar soaks of all the equipment and the tank), it was time to put it all back together. I did some more reading and decided that running a bare bottom system would require less maintenance and be less prone to nuisance algae growth. It also meant that I could crank up the flow rate on my Gyre and make the most use of the powerhead. I am not a fan, however, of the plain glass bare bottom look. The shiny reflection is not very appealing in my opinion, and while I know that eventually it would be covered in coralline and different corals, I would still have to look at it for a long time. I decided to add Seaboard to the bottom of the tank as I had read good things. I debated between a white and a black bottom for a while, but I really liked the look of the WWC tanks and felt like the Seafoam colored Seaboard gave it a nice clean look. We will see how clean it looks once the lights come on, but I was very happy with the initial look. Another great buy from Amazon.

While I had the tank clean and dry, I filled in the chip on the front of the tank from my toddler's hammer blow, and I think it turned out pretty nicely. I used a UV cure chip-repair kit made for car windows, and while the chip didn't completely disappear it was much better. It was also much smoother to the touch, so I was pretty happy with that repair.

I also took the time to build a new rock structure for my tank and that was a total pain. It was much more difficult to drill and balance the rock than I expected it to be, plus I didn’t realize that JB Weld had such a long cure time, so I had very little confidence when I went to bed that my zip-tied structure would even be in one piece the next morning. To my great surprise, the rocks were stuck together very nicely, and I ended up with a single piece of rock that was pretty close to what I was looking for. My goal was more of an open-water concept that would give lots of swimming room and look nice once the corals grew out. It’s a decent first try at epoxying rocks together, but I think I could do a much better job the next time around. I made up some fresh salt water, tossed half a bottle of Fritz 900 starter bacteria into the tank, and brought Fred and George back home. George seemed to love the extra legroom and would routinely fight his way against the current all the way down the tank only to zip on back as fast as he could. Fred mostly just watched.



At this point I was feeling pretty good about my reset. I liked the clean look of the Seaboard and the contrasting black back glass. I was happy with my rock structure that had just enough shape to keep it interesting before adding corals. I had rewatched the BRS/WWC 4-month cycle video and added reminders to my calendar for when to add more starter culture, coralline algae, and to turn on the lights. I had a plan, it was in the calendar, and I was sticking to it dangit.

As I was getting ready to close the tank back up with my skin, I noticed that the back-right corner of the stand was a little wet. It wasn’t a large amount of water, seemed like just enough to soak through the top piece of plywood in that small section. I didn’t think too much about it and chalked it up to spillage from getting the tank back up and running. In retrospect, I wish I had paid better attention to that water, as it was the beginning of the end of the Nuvo 20.

 

[Medical_Reef]

February 5th– I broke the tank

As if the start of my fish tank story couldn’t get any worse, I managed to crack the bottom glass on my Nuvo 20 less than 5 months from the date I received it in the mail. That might be a new record? Not one that I am proud of.

I should have discovered the leak as I was walking through my living room and stepped on the rug. Rugs are not usually supposed to be wet and squishy, but what is really funny is that initially I didn’t think anything of it. I had been studying in the back room and my family was out running errands, so I just assumed that our little hellion of a toddler had spilled some water and my wife was well aware of this wet spot on the carpet. I happily went back to my room and continued to study. It wasn’t until later that evening that I was sitting in the chair and my wife stepped on the same corner of the rug and asked me “did you spill some water?” In that instance I knew that my fish tank was leaking. My wife says she saw the realization on my face instantly and I jumped into action.

The water had done a pretty good job of spreading through the living room at that point, down along the wall underneath the entertainment area and soaked into about a foot of the rug along its entire length. I pulled the skin off the tank, which was also showed signs of water soaking into the wood from the bottom, and found a very wet mess. There weren’t any immediate signs of cracked glass or gushing water, so I grabbed the towels and walled off the wet area around the tank and started draining the tank water into my 5-gallon buckets. The rocks and fish went back into the 10-gallon tank on the counter while I assessed the damage.

The pictures may not be super clear, but the water had soaked all the way through the top layers of the stand on its way down to the floor. Retrospectively, my wife mentioned noticing the ATO was cycling quite often that day, and when I checked the salinity of the water it was down below 30 ppt. It also looked like I had drained roughly 3 gallons of my ATO water, so I assumed that about that much water was sitting in my living room. It’s amazing how far a little water goes once it reaches the floor.

Once I got the floor all cleaned up and mopped, I set the tank up next to the sink and added a little water to see if I could find a leak. Nothing rushed out, but water slowly started to accumulate under the tank and seep out around the edges. Interestingly, I only noticed the leak when the back compartments were full and not the main display area. Initially upon finding the leak, I thought it must have been my toddler’s fault from hitting the tank with the hammer, but it didn’t seem to be leaking from the front at all. I concluded, probably prematurely, that it must be a seal that came lose and it could potentially be covered under a warranty. This was probably me grasping for hope that I was going to keep this tank alive, because at this point, I could not put any more money into this hobby for quite some time.

Long story short, after providing video evidence that the tank was leaking to IM, they had me peel back the foam padding and I found a crack in the bottom glass underneath the rear AIO sections. There was no way for me to see this crack before the foam was removed and I couldn’t for the life of me think of an instant that I had cracked the glass. Ultimately, the crack on the bottom was not warrantied, and I believe that I most likely broke the tank when I let it sit with bleach water and vinegar on the back porch. It was a relatively level surface and I padded it with a yoga mat, but I knew it wasn’t perfectly level. I thought that such a small tank would be okay over the short period of time, but I was very wrong. Since I never dropped the tank or heard an audible crack, this is the only explanation I can come up with.

As a side note, IM was very kind and helpful with the initial start of my warranty process. They soon changed their tune, however, after I found the crack and sent them a picture of the tank’s serial number. It turns out that when I ordered the package from BRS, I was sent a tank that was manufactured in 2016, and IM seemed to be implying that I was trying to make a warranty claim on a broken tank that was over 2 years old that I had not purchased in September. This was extremely frustrating and rather unprofessional of them, especially since a quick call to BRS confirmed that I had received an older tank and they weren’t sure how that happened. Ultimately, it didn’t matter as I had broken the tank, and IM even said that if the tank had been 2 years old it would be still be under warranty, just not for this kind of damage. BRS made some indications they would talk to IM and try to figure out why the older tank was sent, but I didn’t pursue it because it didn’t matter. Once I discovered the broken glass, I knew the chances it was covered by a warranty were slim, so I owned up to the mistake and even told IM it looked like I had broken the tank. I asked for their opinion on whether being moved in a warehouse for two years could have weakened it, or if they had some advice on my stand build, but it was obvious that IM had decided I was not being truthful and was trying to jerk their chain in order to get a new tank.

BRS, on the other hand, happily answered my questions and mentioned that even for a 20-gallon tank, it wouldn’t take long for that 200 lbs. of salt water to crack a tank that was on an uneven surface. They even offered me a $20 discount on a new Nuvo 20, and while it isn’t much of a discount, they were under no obligations to help and I sincerely appreciated the gesture. I learned my lesson and vowed to never fill a tank again unless it was on the leveled stand it was intended for. One of these days I plan to stop learning lessons and just get back to reefing.

So here I was, a week into my new cycle, with my two clowns and my rock sitting in a 10-gallon tank on the kitchen counter, trying to decide what to do with my broken tank and my broken hobby. Not to mention some potential water damage to the wall of the rental that I wasn't supposed to have fish in, but I promise I didn't know that until AFTER I had started the tank. I promise.

 

[Medical_Reef]

February 8th– Spilled carbon

With the fish tank sitting on the counter top without a filter, it started to smell a little fishy. This was not okay with my wife, so I filled up a little bag of carbon and tossed it in the tank, thinking it would sink down to the bottom and do its job. I failed to account for the flow in the tank from the little MJ600, and it up-ended the bag and rapidly dumped all of the carbon out. Fred and George were initially very excited at what they perceived as mana from heaven, but thankfully it looked like they were very discerning and chose to not ingest any of the carbon pellets.

The good news is the smell went away and Fred and George are still alive today, so all is well that ends well. Just one more minor bump on the road, though it took me quite a while to get all the carbon out and I’ll still find little pieces that fall out of the rock.

 

[A sea K]

While I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your thread I feel absolutely terrible for all your misfortunes. I sure wish you were a little closer as I have a nearly complete 30 gal that I would gladly give you for all the "stuff" (insert implied profanity of your choice here) you have been through.

 

[Medical_Reef]

While I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your thread I feel absolutely terrible for all your misfortunes. I sure wish you were a little closer as I have a nearly complete 30 gal that I would gladly give you for all the "stuff" (insert implied profanity of your choice here) you have been through.

I'm glad you've enjoyed the reading! I started this thread partially to work on my writing skills, as I'd love to write a novel at some point. If I was closer I would take you up on your offer! That's very kind of you! But the good news is I was able to resell a bunch of equipment to downsize and start over without investing any more into the hobby.

That being said, when it comes time to stock the tank with coral, I will gladly pay for shipping to anybody who wants to donate! We'll call it the "community student tank because he has messed up too many times already to be trusted."