My ULM Office Tank- Nuvo 30L

[New&no clue]

This is my second tank. I've wanted a tank in my office for some time but scared away by some hurtles. I had several concerns about an office tank;

1. Water changes- I will not be able to have an RODI system at work so all water has be brought from my house.
2. Testing and Dosing- I will not be at work every day, nor would I have time every day to do testing or dosing.
3. Cleaning and Maintenance- the amount of time it will take to clean the glass, sand, and filters. Plus cleaning things in a shared kitchen or bathroom sink might get me some dirty looks.
4. Feeding- will the fish starve over the weekend without me?

This is why I'm going to try my best to do an Ultra Low Maintenance tank. I've watched the whole series from BRS on them, and will probably watch it again but here is what I've got right now.

EQUIPMENT
IM NUVO-30L
Current IC LED
(2) Current 660 GPH wave makers
NUVO protein skimmer
Cobalt Aquatics NEO-Therm heater
Nuvo APS stand
MightyJet 538 GPH Return Pump
Desktop CustomCaddy Media Basket

Possible/Probable Additional Equipment
ATO
Back up return pump
Back up heater
Media cup
Filter Floss
Supplemental T5 light

So how do I plan to make this tank ULM? I looked at the following things
Tank Selection
-Tank Size: I was cautious of the size for a couple reason. I wanted something large enough to have several fish and house corals, however, not so large that tank maintenance and water changes became an issue. With a 30 gallon I have enough room for 4-5 fish and a 10% water change each week will only be 3 gallons.
-AIO: I wanted an all in one due a reduction in plumbing and less chance for an issue to occur while away such as a clogged overflow or return pipe.
Redundancy
-My goal is to switch the plumbing in the back for the return pump. Currently there is one return pump with a split hose that goes to two returns in the tank. My plan is to put an additional pump in the back, change out the split hose to two individual hoses that each go to one return.
-Additional heater in tank in case a failure of the first
Filtration choices
-As this is an office tank I don't want to be transporting dirty filter socks home every couple of days. My plan is to remove the filter sock and put a media cup in its place. Then fill the media cup with filter floss.
-I went back and forth on a skimmer as it can be a mess to clean in a communal sink, however, I did decided to go with it.
-Additional filtration with media blocks.
Automation
-I haven't pick it yet, but thinking about buying at Tunze Universal 3155 ATO. I had initially thought to save money I wouldn't buy an ATO and just top off each day. However, when thinking about it more I am leaning towards an ATO.
-Auto feeder for weekends and holidays. I love feeding my fish, because they get to know you as the food person, but I think it would be better to set up an auto feeder that way it will be a consistent feed every day and the fish can eat on weekends. I plan to do flakes and pellets and then maybe a couple times a week I would feed frozen.
Stock list
-Looking for fish and livestock and work for me. My goal is a very healthy CUC. I do not want to be siphoning the sand each water change, which means I need some good stand sifters. I've never had a conch before but I have hard good things so try a couple of those in this tank. I have an Urchin in my tank at home and their if very little algae on any sort on the rocks.
-Corals will be mainly Sofies with a couple LPS. To keep dosing and testing down doing a primarily softy tank will be easier to mange then heavy LPS or all SPS.

Fish/Corals
(2) clowns
Starry Blenny
Yellow Watchman & Shrimp Pair
Zoas
Xenia
Elegance
Toadstool
Fuzzy Pulsing Sinularia
Torch
Duncan
Anemone

 

[Infidel]

Nice setup so far, I like it! You may want to consider getting a backup battery for flow if the power goes out.

 

[reefiniteasy]

Looks awesome! I love that tank. 30L is perfect. I don’t feed my classroom tank on the weekends. You’re fish will be fine. Congrats on the new tank.

 

[New&no clue]

Nice setup so far, I like it! You may want to consider getting a backup battery for flow if the power goes out.

I actually work for a utility so the building has a backup generator that automatically kicks on when power goes out. It's nice for fish, but sucks for work because I we can't use it as an excuse to stop working for the day.

 

[New&no clue]

Looks awesome! I love that tank. 30L is perfect. I don’t feed my classroom tank on the weekends. You’re fish will be fine. Congrats on the new tank.

I know I'm on the fence about feeding over weekends. I'm worried the auto feeder will spit out too much and make my nitrates increase... but I just feel so bad not feeding them.

Also I work four 10 hour days so they would be Friday-Sunday with no food. Now I could have someone else here feed on Friday... but Im not sure I trust anyone to feed properly.

 

[Sarah24!]

Hello,

Welcome to R2R and I love your set up and equipment selection. The current usa items are very reliable as well, and will suit your needs.

I do see your dilemma from when your off fri to sundays. Do you have access to your office during the weekend or is your building locked down. One way to new the tank is security camera that aim at the main tank and is moveable or rotating. You could always do auto top off and doser and feeder. I’ll admit I’m not fond of them at all, but in your case that’s literally your only choice if you can’t access it. I’d love to see pics and totally off topic love that purple color in your hair, do you know what shade of purple?

 

[New&no clue]

Hello,

Welcome to R2R and I love your set up and equipment selection. The current usa items are very reliable as well, and will suit your needs.

I do see your dilemma from when your off fri to sundays. Do you have access to your office during the weekend or is your building locked down. One way to new the tank is security camera that aim at the main tank and is moveable or rotating. You could always do auto top off and doser and feeder. I’ll admit I’m not fond of them at all, but in your case that’s literally your only choice if you can’t access it. I’d love to see pics and totally off topic love that purple color in your hair, do you know what shade of purple?

Thanks I have the Currents on my 75 at home as well, plus 4 T5 as supplements. I was thinking about doing something similar here if I need to add some more par. However, as the tank is so shallow I might be fine with just the lights.

I can get into the office on weekends, I was considering doing my water changes on Saturday so as not to bother the other employees here, I could always skip feeding on Friday feed Saturday and then skip Sunday. Something to think about. I am really worried about an auto feeder. I have one at home for vacations, and the last one I went on when I got home my nitrates had gone from 10 to 25... everything seemed okay though.

My hair has extensions, I change the color a lot, they are the Micro-Loops. Below is a link, I have my hair dresser do them for me, I didn't even know you could buy them online until I just went looking for the color... maybe I could try it myself going forward.

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www.parahair.com

 

[New&no clue]

My tank has been up and running for almost two weeks so I did my first water test today. I had to dig out my old API test kit and realized how much I dislike them... I just must be color bind or something because I have a hard time seeing the difference in the colors.

I put some what in a water bottle to bring home. I put it on the cup holder in my car went to go grab my kids and husband for gymnastics, what does my husband do as soon as he gets in the car... pops open the bottle and takes a great big swig. I could see the comprehension of the fact that he was drink tank water dawn on him;Hilarious;Hilarious;Hilarious. Needless to say I don’t think he will ever drink from a random water bottle again.

Im cycling by using 30 pounds of live rock, 30 pounds of live sand, and some media blocks from my home tank. I’ll test again next week to see where I’m at.

 

[Infidel]

I actually work for a utility so the building has a backup generator that automatically kicks on when power goes out. It's nice for fish, but sucks for work because I we can't use it as an excuse to stop working for the day.

Haha, I hear that; I work at a hospital, so it's the same thing here. Although, I don't think I will try a tank in my office. I hope yours works out well for you.

 

[ludnix]

I know I'm on the fence about feeding over weekends. I'm worried the auto feeder will spit out too much and make my nitrates increase... but I just feel so bad not feeding them.

Also I work four 10 hour days so they would be Friday-Sunday with no food. Now I could have someone else here feed on Friday... but Im not sure I trust anyone to feed properly.

I would skip feeding over having a coworker do it. I have heard really good things about the eheim autofeeders but I definitely test it over a cup or bucket for a while to make sure I was happy with how much food it was adding and it's consistency.

It looks like a sweet setup, I love havig a reef at work to enjoy on my breaks.

 

[Freddie Lake]

Good morning, i have an office tank AIO and its only a 10 gal. I have no skimmer only media basket with carbon and bioballs. I do not use an ATO but im also working 5 days a week and have access anytime. Good luck looks nice! Below is my pic

 

[New&no clue]

So I've discovered the worst thing about an office tank is dealing with the office people. Every day it's the same thing... when are you going to put fish in... why can't you just put a fish in... can I put a goldfish in... it's been sitting there for a week don't you think its fine to add a fish... can I just put a fish in there and see what happens... can I put a lobster in there... why is this taking so long, did you do it wrong... I really think we can put a fish in now.

OMG SHUT UP!!!!!!

I mean I thought I was impatient, holy guacamole.

 

[New&no clue]

I would skip feeding over having a coworker do it. I have heard really good things about the eheim autofeeders but I definitely test it over a cup or bucket for a while to make sure I was happy with how much food it was adding and it's consistency.

That is why I was thinking have it feed every day. That way I can monitor it every day to see what it is dumping. If Monday-Thursday it appears to be doing a good amount then maybe I would trust it over the weekend. However, I do love to feed my fish. So my next thought was set up an auto feeder, I have the Eheim one at home so do the same here, have it feed flakes and pellets in the morning when I'm here and then I can feed frozen at night before I leave. Friday-Sunday one feeding in the morning from the auto feeder.

Although on the other side, by not feeding over the weekend they might graze more on algae on the rocks. At home I have a tank full of "grazing fish" I've not seen one ever do it. Why? Because they're all fat and lazy because I feed them too much.

 

[New&no clue]

I do not use an ATO but im also working 5 days a week and have access anytime.

Do you have a lid on it or is it open? Mine seems to evaporate water quickly

 

[link81]

lol, so true.
i have a little 8 gal biocube on my desk.
small enough that i bring in water every week in a water bottle to top off, and do water changes with a 1 gal milk jug lol.

mine is in the middle of a re-boot after a bad algae outbreak, so all that's in it now are some zoa's and a few snails.
debating on whether or not i'm putting a fish in, might just go with a few sexy shrimp and corals.



*i have no idea why its sideways, stupid phone*

 

[New&no clue]

I went in Saturday night to check on the tank, I still don’t have an ATO so I wanted to check water levels. There is an algae bloom going strong. I’m wondering if my lights are on too much, I can’t tell if they turn off at night with the timer. Anyway so I went on reef cleaners to get a CUC going. Usually I go to my LFS for my CUC, but apparently somebody is going in every week and clearing them out. Not sure why one person needs so many snails and hermits....

Anyway, so I ordered a 30 gallon cuc which includes;
28 Dwarf Ceriths
10 Nassarius
10 Florida Ceriths
8 Nerites
6 Assorted Hermits
It seemed a little aggressive for starting a tank. However, like I said, my LFS clean up crew is cleaned out. So I think I’ll take some of these for my home tank. I have a giant hermit, Big Bertha, who demolishes snails. So I’m probably just buying her a snack.

Next issue... this is a dumb one. So I bought the Tunze Universal 3155 ATO on BRS, it get delivered tomorrow. Here comes the super impulsive part. I was on BRS checking out the “Open Box” sales and they had the
Tunze Nano ATO which is for tanks under 50 gallons which was almost 60% less than the 3155. Well I thought I should obviously go with that one instead. I didn’t do much else, like read a description of it or any reviews. I immediately purchased it then send an email to BRS saying I needed to return the 3155. Well... 10 hours later I actually read the description and reviews, not good. The Nano doesn’t include the optic eye which is the big selling point of the whole thing. The reviews are terrible, all the reviews for the past 6 months are one star. Well great. Soooo... then I had to email BRS again and say “hey, just kidding, I don’t want to return the 3155 AND I bought the Nano on sale so not sure if I can return that, but it hasn’t shipped so can I cancel it?” Well of course this is Saturday night and no one is there so no response. I called today and left a message hoping I could cancel before it shipped. Well I just got a shipping confirmation email saying my order has shipped...sigh...

Moral of the story, do some research before you just buy something, even if it’s on sale.

 

[New&no clue]

Tested water again tonight and it looks like ammonia is down to zero and nitrates are at 10.

So I’ll be adding a CUC Thursday/Friday and if that goes well start to add a fish. Still working on a stock list, but getting closer to something. I typically start with a want list which changes 9 times between my first fish and last fish. I started a thread on the subject here

Nuvo 30L stocking list... fyi I was already told this was a bad list so looking for a second.. third.. fourth.. until someone agrees with me opinion

Hi, Cycling a Nuvo 30L right now and have an ideal stock list... I'm assuming, because this always happens, that I wont end up with whats on the list because someone doesn't get along with someone else, or because someone is too aggressive, or too shy, or just not a great tank mate. So without...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[New&no clue]

I put in my ATO today, that was a little tricky. I bought the Tunze Universal 3155. I love how small the pump was. It easily fit into a water jug that I had, and the cords fit through a hole in the lid meant for a spout. As I don’t have many... any real tools I love when I can find something that will work without having to modify it.

The set up was very easy, however, once I had the pump in and sensors in place I turned it on... and no water. I could hear the pump running, but nothing was coming out of the tube. After a little research I learned there is a dial inside the control panel to increase or decrease the amount of water. As my tank is an AIO and it has to pump the water up a fair distance instead of just to a sump I had to increase the flow.

I stole this picture from BRS, the part on the left that is circled is how to change the alarm settings, on the right is how to increase or decrease flow. Once I turned it up it was working great.

 

[New&no clue]

So now that I am cycled I decided to add in filtration equipment. When cycling I didn't have anything except the filter sock to get some of the junk that comes out of the sand. I've taken out the filter sock and don't plan to use that anymore. Currently I have;

NUVO protein skimmer
Cobalt Aquatics NEO-Therm heater
Desktop CustomCaddy Media Basket
Media cup
Filter Floss
BioBlocks

I would like to turn one of the chambers into a refugium at some point. On BRS all their ULM tanks I believe had a refugium set up and I think it is a good added filtration for the tank. My thought was to combine the chamber that had the floss and bio blocks into one and then use the empty one for the fuge. I'm just not sure what to do about a light. I'm worried about algae growth in the other chambers if there is a light back there.

 

[New&no clue]

On Friday I received my CUC from reef cleaners. When I first dumped them in it looked like way to many for a 30 gallon tank, and I still think it probably was. However, once they spread out onto the rocks and glass and buried themselves in the sand it didn't seem as bad.

I also ordered two conchs from them. One for this tank and one for my home tank, however, both were DOA which was sad. I was excited to have a conch as I've heard they are funny, I've never had one before. I also ordered a turbo snail which was DOA and several of the other snails and hermit were DOA. When they ship they send them in bag with little to no water and just a wet paper towel. On the website they claim that leads to higher several rates than shipping with water in the bags. Unsure about that, but disappointed all the same. I sent them an email and asked if it was possible to just resend the conch and turbo snail, wasn't too worried about the others, and was sent one sentence back.. "a refund will be issued"¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I would still like a conch for this tank, so possibly ordering from LA next time.

I let the CUC marinate over the weekend, they did a great job cleaning the algae bloom on the rocks that had started, and also got the sand looking nice again. On Monday when everyone was still alive I decided to put some fish in... yes office people you can rejoice there are FINALLY fish in the tank. I picked up two snowflake clowns from my LFS. I was really temped by some Davinci's they had, but went with the snowflakes instead.

Not sure if these two have fully bonded yet, they spend much on their time on opposites sides of the tank from each other. Hopefully they become friends soon. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Here is an updated FTS