IM Nuvo Fusion 30L Upgrade

[intricate_reefer]

Update: (sorta)

Tank is still cycling. Not sure if the MB7 I've been using is still good (bought a liter of it in February to start another tank) and I'm not noticing any numbers for Ammonia change in the tank. I dosed 1.5ml of Dr. Tim's ammonia to feed the bacteria, but the waiting game will continue.

Ordered a few things for the tank.

Figured rather than burning through test chems I'm just going to slap one of the Seachem ammonia checkers in the tank. That should be here later today.

I also snagged a new AI 26 Hydra HD for $300 shipped so that will be on its way this week or next. Originally was going to go with another Prime HD, but with this being a 36" tank I'm not sure 2 Primes would have been enough. Going to run the Hydra 26 HD solo for a bit while everything gets sorted and most likely add another and look into a T5 retrofit as well. Figure I can run the Hydra 26 HD's at a low output percentage, but I'll at least have some room for some extra power from them rather than running the Prime's maxed on the blue's and violets. As for the T5's, those are going to be there to assist with fixing issues with shadowing, but mainly to get rid of the discoball effect as I don't like the idea of running diffusors. Two T5's should be enough to do the job.

I also snagged a bundle of sprouted Mangroves. They have been a challenge for me in the past and I'd like to incorporate them into some of my systems. I know the nutrient uptake on them isn't as noticeable as say Cheato, but the aesthetics of them are a whole new level. I just need to go through and figure out if they will be going on this system, one of the other SW systems, or somewhere in my FW Fish Room.

In addition to all of this I've started to gather some current hardware to get back into my side project of #reefpi so I'll be digging into that a little more with hopes to do some testing of my take on it on this tank. Some key things I'd like to work towards are parameter monitoring and trending, voltage monitoring and trending for pumps, and power automation to make it a little more simpler (allowing me to be a little more lazy) when it comes to turning pumps on/off for maintenance. By a little more lazy, I mean turn things on/off with software rather than opening my stand and flipping the switches on my unlabeled Triplite power strip... I'll most likely be setting up an R&D tank for a few other tests, but that tank will be a scaled system that's most likely going to be minimalistic and won't see much life besides maybe a test coral.

It can feel like forever when waiting for a tank to cycle, I hope it speeds up for you. I have 2x Ai Primes with diffusers on my 30L. I using the AB+ setting at around 65% and it’s plenty for my lps. With two primes I don’t have any shadowing at all. With two 26’s you will have plenty of light to grow whatever you want, especially if you add the t5s. Until you get the second im pretty sure the edges will be shadowed. Mangroves have always looked so cool to me, never had any but always admired them. Hoping they do well for you and looking forward to seeing how you incorporate them, are they going in the back or the display?

 

[Tihsho]

In our eyes LED's are the brightest thing on Earth when it comes to lights, but sadly they are a more directional with the optics that are used on the fixtures, so shading is extremely evident. When it comes to T5's they are more dispersed and fairly omnidirectional that they are going to hit portions of the tank that the LED's fixtures just can't. I was thinking of trying out the AB+ setting as I'm going to aim for more SPS in this tank.

As for the Mangroves, I have no idea if they are going to even hit this tank or not. I may put one or two in the back chamber, but I'm concerned about the roots taking off when the nutrients start rolling in and then a root takes out the return pump impeller.

 

[Tihsho]

Update:

Earlier this week I placed a Seachem Ammonia Alert tag in the tank to assist with a quick glance at the stage of the cycle. Per checking it after a few hours I noticed that the alert colors had not changed from how it arrived. This was a concern as when I tested it earlier that morning it was still testing at 2.0ppm... Only thing I could do was re-test. I went and scrubbed out my test vials in hot water and rinsed them in RO/DI and then grabbed my tank sample. Testing still came up to 2.0ppm... So something is up. I went and then tested my other two tanks to verify that the test solution was still reacting right, they came out to 0ppm...

Per some advice of @brandon429 I went through and did a large water change to bring down the ammonia levels and will work with the remaining 0.25-0.50ppm to continue the cycle. This huge water change also allowed me to migrate the tank to a new salt which I've been wanting to use, Tropic Marin Pro.

I'm planning on hitting up the LFS on my day off and getting another Ammonia test kit as well as grabbing some live stock to get into my QT system. I'll post back if I get anything.

 

[Tihsho]

Update: (another sorta)

Still battling the cycle. Not sure why, but ammonia is fluctuating though there was an addition of seasoned LR from an existing tank (didn't need to be cured as it came out of a tank, went into a bucket of SW and then was acclimated to the new tank.) Due to the semi rush as my IM 14 is being temperamental again I did a big water change (50%) which brought down the ammonia readings and acclimated some softies from the 14 to the 30 as they were just taking up too much space. I know I know, don't move coral to a non established system... I'm sorry, but I had to at risk of fluctuations from over flows causing a massive SG drop when the ATO goes off to fill the void. At this point I've moved the few mushrooms and all my zoanthids and palys. In the long run once the 14 is clear of livestock, I plan to fiddle with it to keep it going to house my overflow of zoas and palys that I seem to have to frag monthly to keep them in check. With that in mind the sand bed will be cleared up more than it is. Usually I would throw a picture up at this point, but the mess of frag plugs are a turn off from posting. In the long long run, I plan on moving my exploding frags of zoa and palys to my frag tank once I'm able to get that back up. I'll get into the frag tank later in a little story time.

In the case of hardware, everything has been ordered. Just received one of the Hydra 26 HD's today and am just waiting on the other one to arrive with the two mounts. Initially, I was looking at the single multi mount, but got turned off that AI made it a la carte. Ended up choosing to go with the single solid mounts instead. Here's to hoping they fit and I don't need to order a hanging kit... Started up the one Hydra and got it setup with the BRS take on the AB+ settings. We will see how that goes. I think I might take everything down 50% for a few weeks as to not burn everything to death. Here is what it is set to as of now:

UV ------------------118%
Violet --------------116%
Royal Blue ------- 79%
Blue ---------------- 80%
Green -------------- 4%
Deep Red --------- 4%
Cool White ------- 19%

Last time I had to do lighting acclimation for coral it was in the Halide/HQI and PC days. What's the best way to acclimate coral with LED's?

Story time:

Part of getting back in the hobby was making sure I did things right from the beginning. I setup a QT for fish and a QT for inverts/coral in two 20L's. Both systems were one offs with simple HOB filtration that could be nuked any time there was a disaster of pests that made it through the dips. HOB filtration consisted of dual AC 70's with the OEM media basket containing the OEM sponge, Brightwell Aquatics bio media, and either Purigen or Matrix Carbon. Carbon wasn't used in the fish QT. Both systems were setup in February 2019 and did well. Cycled quickly with Dr. Tims products and then I was up and running. About two months ago the frag tank got hit bad with briopsis and I couldn't keep it under control or find the source until I started doing some digging. Seems that heavy feedings to the coral caused buildups of gunk inside of the AC sponges! Ok no problem, that's a maintenance error, but because it was an issue I decided to pull the sponges. Little did I realize I over saw something... With the sponge gone I now replaced the void with LR rubble that had been in the tank that I was just keeping for inverts to hold onto besides the frag racks and the coral.

Weeks go by after the cleaning and the huge 70% WC and it started to come back in force and somehow aptasia decided to join in on the PITA party... Oh great, what is it now, I even cut back feeding ReefNutrition foods as well as any LPS pellets and ReefRoids... Seems like the Brightwell Media is just a place for mulm to collect as well... I pulled it prior and didn't think of rinsing it. With that being the case I ended up replacing it with Seachem Matrix in a Seachem bag in each filter. This round I didn't do the blackout, but I pulled the coral since they had all passed their 76 day mark and tried to battle it with a cleanup crew and had been failing since. Part of the cleanup crew was even a half dollar sized Tomini Tang and a Starry Lawnmower Blenny. The Tang I was planning on moving to the 40 for a bit until he got too big and we were going to bump him to our 75. Long story short, Tomini got a taste of flesh somewhere and stopped eating algae. Over night it seemed that the tank went from cleanup crew stocked to a fat Tomini. I know this is a husbandry issue, but I never thought a Tomini would have ate a blenny as well as the cleanup crew.

Weeks went by and I had given up on the frag tank as we had picked up a Seapora 60 frag tank to move our growing collection into. Went to take a look at the Tang and something didn't look right... Great, now this guy has ich... Pulled him and threw him into the other system and went on treating. Sadly we ended up losing him as he refused to eat. At this point both tanks were running and empty and ended going fallow, so I went through and restarted them about the time I started the cycle for the 30.

Let me rewind a little here, with the frag tank going down to deal with the blackout the only place coral could go is into three other tanks, and this then turned into two tanks as one tank turned into FOWLR. So all of the coral I had moved out either went into the 14 (i.e. where all the softies and SPS went) and the 40. Now with my 40 crammed full of coral on the rocks and covering the sand bed, I had no where to move the coral out of the 14 as my previous frag tank went down and the 60 hadn't come up yet. Right now the 14 just contains SPS and some LPS. I ended up pulling all pad based media as well as the InTank basket and just slipped in LR and bio media in the first chamber.

I'm currently at the point that I need to figure out why this cycle isn't going the way it should be as I need to get the SPS out and over there. That will be point to deal with over the next few days until the AI light bracket comes in with its sister light.

 

[Tihsho]

Update:

So I'm dragging my feet with this update. And I need to get back to it to provide a picture...

New lights and mounts came in last week! I have to say that the quality of light from the Hydra 26 HD is WAY better than the Prime HD. I would never go back and I'm glad I made the jump. Set the lights up with the new light mode (cut the blues back by 20% and will ramp them up to the settings above over time.) With the new lights on I moved over the rest of the LR that I wanted in this setup post another 70% water change on the system. Post checking everything the next day I ended up moving the rest of the live stock over and I'm just going to monitor it daily to make sure nothing spikes.

It's been about 5 days and I have to say, things look great! Polyp extensions on my Digitata's are insane compared to the Prime HD and they seem to be loving the additional flow I've cranked the Jebao up to. Only sad thing is that my Candy Cane Pistol and my Yellow Rose Antenna Gobies have decided to make a nest on the backside of a rock. I can see the gobies out when food is in the water, but it's no longer front and center as it was in the 14... Oh poop