Nautical Nathaniel's IM Nuvo 20

[nautical_nathaniel]

Hey everyone! I haven't updated my original tank thread in over a year, so instead of trying to catch up, I thought I would make a new thread starting from where the aquarium is now.

If you would like to see the original thread, which shows how I put together most of the aquarium, you can go <here>.

Thanks for coming by, now let's get to the good stuff!

Here is how the reef currently looks:

Here's a wider shot:

Here is an equipment list:

Innovative Marine NUVO Fusion 20 Aquarium
Jebao DC2000 Controllable Return Pump
Eheim Jager 150w Heater
Innovative Marine Ghost Desktop Skimmer
Innovative Marine Minimax Desktop Media Reactor
Tunze Nano Osmolator/ATO
2x Innovative Marine Custom Caddy
2x Innovative Marine Spinstreams
Jebao PP-4 Controllable Powerhead
SB Reef Lights SBox PRO 16"

I think that's everything. Most of this was purchased on a college student budget over the last year and a half. Next post is current fish stock!

 

[Tahoe61]

Really impressive. Clean and sharp with beautiful corals. :-)

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Here is the current fish stock:

Longest inhabitant: ORA Black and White Ocellaris Clownfish "Little Budy"

Standard Ocellaris Clownfish "Lil' Fluffy" (He's a gangster but also friendly)

Neon Dottyback "Xenon" (rehomed Sept. 2017)

Melenarus Wrasse "Mel" (Currently in initial/female phase, I'm hoping she/he goes through the color change into a full male eventually)

New Kid on the Block: Longnose Hawkfish "Snooter"

Honorary fish: Red Flame Shrimp "Debbie" (Acts like a fish so I'm including her on this list!)

I know some of these fish aren't recommended for nano aquarium, but I'm going to upgrade to a larger aquarium in another year or so.

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Really impressive. Clean and sharp with beautiful corals. :)

Thanks! I put alot of time and effort into it! Nice to know someone besides my cat and girlfriend appreciate it!

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

I'm not sure why it's attaching the big images at the bottom, anyone have any insight on that? Edit: I figured it out!

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Here are some of my favorite corals:

Aussie Blasto:

Everlasting Gobstoppers Zoas:

Joker Zoas

Bam Bam Zoas:

I really do like my high quality zoas, but my blasto will always be my favorite. I also have a wall torch, branching frogspawn, several green nephthea leathers, mixed zoas, some montiporas, and a few acros. I will go over the acros soon, I don't have any good pictures at the moment :D

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Here's a thread I put together on my experience with fluconazole: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/success-with-fluconazole-nano-reef-edition.318364/

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Here is an updated photo for everyone:

I got a bit over my head with fragging my nephthea leathers. I had, at the time of this photo, 13 nephthea leather frags, many of which you can see in the frag rack and to the left of the big torch coral on the right side of my tank. Turns out, not many people in my area wanted them as much as I thought since I had them for sale on craigslist, facebook, letgo, and our local Pensacola area reef forum with no takers. I ended up trading them for store credit at my LFS, SB Reefs.

Some issues I'm having with my tank now are relatively minor and more like gripes if anything. I'm not really all that satisfied with my SB reef lights 16" fixture. It's gotten to where it just looks ugly to me and takes up a lot of space. I've been considering getting a high end LED. I want something with ramping and scheduling features that can also mount from the rear of the tank as opposed to the sides. Been looking at NanoBox duos, Maxspect Ethereals, and AI Hydra 26s and after watching the BRS-TV Black Box in-depth video I've been looking at those lights even more. Thankfully the SB Reefs Light does grow coral in my system so I'm not in too big of a hurry to get a new light.

I also want to get a better skimmer, but I'm stuck on which one to try at this point. Was looking at the Eshopps Nano but have also seen folks have good luck with the HOB styles. All-in-all it must be quiet, have little-to-no micro bubble issues, and also produce a good amount of skimmate. I feed my fish pretty good, so I have to have a skimmer, otherwise I'd need to slow down on feedings and I cave too easily to their begging :rolleyes:

Any suggestions at this point are definitely welcome!

 

[el_ote]

awesome tank! love the corals and their placement. keep the pics coming!

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

awesome tank! love the corals and their placement. keep the pics coming!

Thanks! I need to do a picture without all the nephthea frags! It looks way less cluttered without them.

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Quick update to fish stocking:

I have captured my neon dottyback since his tendency to move corals out of his way and ruthlessly attack his tankmates randomly got the better of my patience. I'm convinced that some of these dottybacks belong in a 100+ gallon aquarium just to spread out their aggression over a wider area. Hopefully, someone will be coming to get him today as a simple rehoming of the little guy.

I used the plastic bottle trap method to capture him only after chasing him around the tank with a net and poking stick for 30 minutes (that only resulted in getting everyone upset, including myself and the corals). I put the bottle trap in the tank, left to get something to eat, and came back to him successfully trapped, so I put him in a breeder box and called it a day :D

Here he is in the breeder box, you can almost feel the rage through this picture:

In the meantime, I've gotten a yellow watchman goby and tiger pistol shrimp pair. I had a yellow watchman goby for a long time before it went carpet surfing and didn't make it. I actually got pretty torn up about it and said I never wanted another one since the one I had was so great and couldn't possibly be replaced. That was over a year ago when it died, so I've decided to try again and this time be careful about how the lid on my aquarium is placed. I'll have pics of it later :)

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[el_ote]

That is a mean looking fish! - how did you catch only that one fish and not the rest of them in the bottle trap? i banished a clown and damsel to the sump while i re-scaped the tank and bought new fish. I'm pretty sure they wont play well with the others even after a lengthy time out in the sump, but want to give them a chance. I love the goby/pistol combo!

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

That is a mean looking fish! - how did you catch only that one fish and not the rest of them in the bottle trap? i banished a clown and damsel to the sump while i re-scaped the tank and bought new fish. I'm pretty sure they wont play well with the others even after a lengthy time out in the sump, but want to give them a chance. I love the goby/pistol combo!

He's naturally curious and also super territorial towards anything new in the tank (including corals), so I just played to those weaknesses of his and hoped he would be the first and only one to go in the bottle. I didn't put any food in it either so he purely went in there off of curiosity alone, whereas my other fish such as my wrasse or longnose hawkfish would have needed some coaxing or enticing to go in.

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Quick update:

I've upgraded my light from the SB Reef Lights Pro 16" to a Maxspect Ethereal. It looks amazing on the tank and I am thoroughly enjoying the increase in build quality and lighting efficiency. Pics coming soon.

The big bad mean 2" long neon dottyback was rehomed to a fellow reefer here in Pensacola that likes to stock his 125 gallon reef with nano fish so he will have plenty of room to explore and not be so aggressive about territory.

The yellow watchman decided it wanted to live in the back of the tank so I had to spend a few hours trying to get it out. That didn't work :confused: so I decided I would let it live back there until I could come up with a better method to catch it. Well my girlfriend wasn't going to have that so she spent 30 minutes or so, after I got all of the equipment out of the back, and caught the little sucker ;Shifty

To keep the watchman in the display side of the tank, I got some fish guards and installed them on the tank. They work great and the watchman is no longer able to squeeze through to the filter section of the tank. However, the clownfish pair immediately started beating up on the little guy so I had to put them in the breeder box until the watchman paired up with his pistol shrimp again. This didn't happen though because the original pistol shrimp had died :mad: So my girlfriend and I went to the LFS yesterday and got another tiger pistol shrimp.

As of 45 minutes ago, the pistol shrimp and the watchman were in the same hole :rolleyes: I'm going to wait a couple of days before releasing the clowns to make sure that the goby and the shrimp are paired up fully.

Here is a picture of the little sucker looking smug as he can be in his hole with the pistol shrimp (the shrimp is way in the back and can't be seen):

 

[Oli2509]

Here is an updated photo for everyone:

I got a bit over my head with fragging my nephthea leathers. I had, at the time of this photo, 13 nephthea leather frags, many of which you can see in the frag rack and to the left of the big torch coral on the right side of my tank. Turns out, not many people in my area wanted them as much as I thought since I had them for sale on craigslist, facebook, letgo, and our local Pensacola area reef forum with no takers. I ended up trading them for store credit at my LFS, SB Reefs.

Some issues I'm having with my tank now are relatively minor and more like gripes if anything. I'm not really all that satisfied with my SB reef lights 16" fixture. It's gotten to where it just looks ugly to me and takes up a lot of space. I've been considering getting a high end LED. I want something with ramping and scheduling features that can also mount from the rear of the tank as opposed to the sides. Been looking at NanoBox duos, Maxspect Ethereals, and AI Hydra 26s and after watching the BRS-TV Black Box in-depth video I've been looking at those lights even more. Thankfully the SB Reefs Light does grow coral in my system so I'm not in too big of a hurry to get a new light.

I also want to get a better skimmer, but I'm stuck on which one to try at this point. Was looking at the Eshopps Nano but have also seen folks have good luck with the HOB styles. All-in-all it must be quiet, have little-to-no micro bubble issues, and also produce a good amount of skimmate. I feed my fish pretty good, so I have to have a skimmer, otherwise I'd need to slow down on feedings and I cave too easily to their begging :rolleyes:

Any suggestions at this point are definitely welcome!

Great looking tank :)

how is the Jebao PP-4? heard they can be noisy. was looking at getting two myself

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Great looking tank :)

how is the Jebao PP-4? heard they can be noisy. was looking at getting two myself

Thanks for stopping by!

It's alright, it makes a little noise when its clean but film algae and general tank slime buildup will cause it to quiet down in a couple of days. When that buildup occurs however, it also loses like at least 50% power too. They're a good budget DC wavemaker for what it's worth, but I'm already anticipating having to get a new wavemaker within a year.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Sweet set up!

Is the maxspect on the tank? I'd love to see it on the tank.
(Fts junkie)
How does the spread compare to the BB? I'd guess better. Pretty big hot spot on the Bb for that tank / scape configuration.

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Sweet set up!

Is the maxspect on the tank? I'd love to see it on the tank.
(Fts junkie)
How does the spread compare to the BB? I'd guess better. Pretty big hot spot on the Bb for that tank / scape configuration.

The Maxspect Ethereal has been up and running almost two weeks now. Interestingly enough, the SB Reefs Light had less shadowing and disco effect than the Ethereal. However, I now have a lot more control of spectrum and intensity than I did on the SB light. The shadowing has not been an issue so far since my aquascape was originally built to combat shadowing. The biggest things I wanted was ramping and controller features and for the light to look way sleeker and less obtrusive (the SB took up a lot of above tank real-estate and made it hard to do maintenance sometimes).

Here are a few pics:

This morning with the moonlight on only:

When I first got it on the tank:

I've had much better PE with this light than I did with the SB light and my zoas love it, 6 new polyps each in my everlasting gobstopper and sunny D colonies in the past week. The biggest change that tells me this light is better is that my PC Rainbow has started to turn back to its famous red color after turning green under the SB light. Also it looks like a fricken spaceship which is pretty awesome!

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Nice!! Looks like coverage is about the same it seems.

Yea currently exploring greening in both tanks. The sb tank and ai sol tank. Very dissimilar spectrums there.

Are you using a par or lux meter?

And oh yea. Ramping ROCKS!!!!

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Nice!! Looks like coverage is about the same it seems.

Yea currently exploring greening in both tanks. The sb tank and ai sol tank. Very dissimilar spectrums there.

Are you using a par or lux meter?

And oh yea. Ramping ROCKS!!!!

I haven't used a par/lux meter on it yet. I ran the SB light on pretty high intensity (65% blues, 30% whites) and the corals were already used to a lot of light. I have the ethereal on 75-80% right now but I think that is actually less intense than the SB since that light has those focusing lenses and covered my entire aquascape from above. The Ethereal definitely spreads light out better and evenly over a wider area, but it has a tighter focal point/smaller footprint, hence a little more shadowing.