Nuvo Fusion 40 build
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OP
OP
Thanks! The neon goby has gotten a lot more comfortable in the tank, and tends to come out when I get close, hoping I'm going to feed him. Managed to get a quick snap of him after he wolfed down some lunch. Sorry about the glare, but it's very sunny today!
The only "gotcha" I've had with the Gyre 2k is figuring out what percent output I'd get from the pump, based on the percent I set the preset to. Since the minimum for the pump is 25%, it took me a hot minute to figure out that 1% on a preset was actually 25% output. When I started playing with the maximum speed of the pump, things got really confusing, trying to figure out what I would get with a preset of 50% with the pump range set to 25% - 65%.
For settings, I went a little (read: a LOT) overboard. When I first set it up, I was running one daytime routine with random flow, ranging up to 55%. The clownfish started spending a lot more time in the lower flow areas of the tank, so I've got it set to run different programs at different times of day. They seem to be happier, spending less time under the arch, and so far I've got good polyp extension on the cyphastrea and the toadstool. I didn't have coral when I first put the 2k in, so I can't really compare polyp extension before and after the changes, but the corals look happy with the current routine.
At two points during the day I run a sine wave with the highest flow I can get without moving the entire sand bed (it's enough to blow a few grains, but when I siphon the sand bed, it gets put back where I want it). I feed heavily, and this has really helped kick up leftover food and random detritus. Anyway, here we go:
Fiddle's Overly Complicated 2k Settings
- I've got the pump speed range set to 25% to 100%.
- For presets I have
- Day Slow - Random - 2% - 17%
- Day Medium - Random - 5% - 20%
- Day High - Sine Wave - 10% - 30% with a 1 minute cycle duration
- Move S*** Around - Sine Wave - 30% - 55% with a 15 second cycle duration
- Sleepy Time - Constant Speed - 1%
- My triggers are
- 1030 - Day Slow
- 1200 - Day Medium
- 1330 - Day High
- 1400 - Move S*** Around
- 1402 - Day Medium
- 1530 - Day High
- 1630 - Day Medium
- 2000 - Move S*** Around
- 2005 - Day Slow
- 2100 - Sleepy Time
OP
OP
Thanks for the compliments and the advice on the gramma! I am hoping that if I add something semi-aggressive last, that it will be less likely to decide the entire tank is their domain. I had similar concerns with something like an orchid dottyback, but hopefully if I give the more peaceful fish a chance to set up shop first, a Gramma or dottyback would mind their manners a little better.
I seriously considered going snail-only, but I really enjoy watching hermits scuttle about picking at things, and plotting their next snail murder.
I have no idea how the scarlet hermit is able to lug the huge shell he moved into around, but he's managed to climb to the top of the arch. He's either stronger than he looks, or just really stubborn. He's certainly easier to find now!
Thanks @fiddlesticks.
I like the schedule. I was actually thinking about implementing something similar. It's good to see what has worked on a similar tank.
I was reading a different thread where Jeff from Coralview was talking about his settings. They found 'random' to not be quite random enough, which is my thoughts. And he uses the square wave instead. Link here
Like you I will probably go a little (lot) overboard when setting up test scenarios.
I like the schedule. I was actually thinking about implementing something similar. It's good to see what has worked on a similar tank.
I was reading a different thread where Jeff from Coralview was talking about his settings. They found 'random' to not be quite random enough, which is my thoughts. And he uses the square wave instead. Link here
Like you I will probably go a little (lot) overboard when setting up test scenarios.
OP
OP
Thank you!Welcome to R2R, tank looks great!!!
That's interesting. Based on my (very limited) observations, it seemed like random tended to just fluctuate a few percent around a set point, so it wasn't quite doing what I thought it would. I liked it better than constant for the day routines, but I'll have to play around with the square wave next.
OP
OP
Resurrecting my old, decrepit build thread! Truthfully I forgot about it, but the tank is still going, so updates!
The uglies hit, and hard. I had a GHA bloom the likes of which I'd never seen before. The rocks and back wall were completely covered, and no amount of pulling/siphoning was going to cut it. Vibrant didn't touch it, even after the 8 weeks of treatment. Fluconazole would kill it, but it would come right back after stopping treatment. After months of fighting it, and trying all of the other options I could find online, here's what I did that worked:
And here we are today:
Unfortunately, the male clownfish stopped eating at one point, and even taking him out to treat for internal and external parasites, he wasn't able to pull through. I was able to get the female to pair with this black and white clownfish, and thankfully it only took her a couple of days of putting him in his place for her to decide he was OK. Also pictured is the king of photobombs, the neon goby.
I plan to update my original post with my updated equipment list, but this feels like a good start at reanimating my zombie build thread.
The uglies hit, and hard. I had a GHA bloom the likes of which I'd never seen before. The rocks and back wall were completely covered, and no amount of pulling/siphoning was going to cut it. Vibrant didn't touch it, even after the 8 weeks of treatment. Fluconazole would kill it, but it would come right back after stopping treatment. After months of fighting it, and trying all of the other options I could find online, here's what I did that worked:
- MacGyvered algae scrubber
- I can't grow chaeto to save my life, but growing GHA was something I was exceptionally good at. I took the InTank refugium I had been using, and added a bunch of surface area, in the form of "granny grate" (those plastic grids of squares at the craft store for making rugs and such) and a bunch of zip ties. I already had the light from my attempt at a chaeto refugium, so chucked the InTank hodgepodge in the rear chamber with a ball of GHA, and let it do its thing.
- NoPoX dosing, and getting my protein skimmer dialed in
- I set up a dosing pump with NoPoX, and dialed it in so my nutrient levels stay pretty constant. Nitrate hangs out about 5ppm, and phosphate hangs out around 0.07ppm. Any lower, and the corals start sulking.
- Terminate with extreme prejudice (the original idea came from excellent contributions made by @brandon429 on multiple threads on algae management).
- I took every. single. one. of the affected rocks out of the tank, and took a steel wire brush to them. The fact that this brush was mounted to a drill did two things: sped the process up, and threw algae all over the place. Thankfully I was able to clean up my huge mess before my better half caught me...
- Each of the rocks then got a spritz of 12% H2O2 and a couple minutes to think about what they'd done, before putting them back in the tank.
- I pulled the entire sand bed, and replaced it with sand that I had rinsed to within an inch of its life. It was a colossal pain in the butt, but I wasn't doing half-measures at this point. Between the rock, and the MarinePure cubes in the rear chambers, I wasn't too worried about a crash, and I never saw an ammonia or nitrite spike (though I did have amquel and 30g of new saltwater on standby in case things went sideways on me).
- I took every. single. one. of the affected rocks out of the tank, and took a steel wire brush to them. The fact that this brush was mounted to a drill did two things: sped the process up, and threw algae all over the place. Thankfully I was able to clean up my huge mess before my better half caught me...
And here we are today:
Unfortunately, the male clownfish stopped eating at one point, and even taking him out to treat for internal and external parasites, he wasn't able to pull through. I was able to get the female to pair with this black and white clownfish, and thankfully it only took her a couple of days of putting him in his place for her to decide he was OK. Also pictured is the king of photobombs, the neon goby.
I plan to update my original post with my updated equipment list, but this feels like a good start at reanimating my zombie build thread.
I can not thank you earnestly enough for updating the life journey of that tank
you commanded it you absolutely did. you can feel that pull away from direct intervention, its engrained in us somehow to be hands off, but the strange thing about reef tank cpr is it will keep the reef alive until we get lucky or aligned in such a way as to need no more pumps. through the tradeoff of water, export and a jack ton of rinsing we simply buy more months to search for the ideal
reefing used to be about riding the 1st wave only, to the crash, and the baddest around were those who prevented the initial crash first go
I can not reach that bar with my pico, it must be rip cleaned to live.
Maritza the vase reef needs no rip cleaning to run 8 years carrying the densest coral loading ive ever seen in a pico, kudos there as well.
it is not ideal to have to rip clean tanks, but thankfully its an option to simply crack the whip and the hardest part is just being willing. You absolutely took the reef and had a talk with it and then it straightened up. I identify with that.
you commanded it you absolutely did. you can feel that pull away from direct intervention, its engrained in us somehow to be hands off, but the strange thing about reef tank cpr is it will keep the reef alive until we get lucky or aligned in such a way as to need no more pumps. through the tradeoff of water, export and a jack ton of rinsing we simply buy more months to search for the ideal
reefing used to be about riding the 1st wave only, to the crash, and the baddest around were those who prevented the initial crash first go
I can not reach that bar with my pico, it must be rip cleaned to live.
Maritza the vase reef needs no rip cleaning to run 8 years carrying the densest coral loading ive ever seen in a pico, kudos there as well.
it is not ideal to have to rip clean tanks, but thankfully its an option to simply crack the whip and the hardest part is just being willing. You absolutely took the reef and had a talk with it and then it straightened up. I identify with that.
OP
OP
Thank you so much for all of the wonderful info you contribute to this site. If I hadn't found your threads on how to really get to the bottom of extreme algae issues like the one I had, I would probably hit the 1 year mark and be contemplating whether it was worth it to keep going, or to sell off my surviving inhabitants, and call it quits. I'll be honest, I was terrified of tearing everything down to deep-clean, but your posts gave me the needed kick in the pants to get going! Time and again I read that if I didn't address the root of the problem, no amount of tank treatments would fix it, but I'm stubborn, and had to try all the other things first. ;Shamefullyembarrased
Again, thanks for all of the great info, and the encouragement to crack the whip!
OP
OP
I meant to add a before picture for comparison, but I'll give a before/after shot its own post here.
This is where we were when things were really dire:
And here's another after shot:
Not everything made it, which is a bummer. Parameters swung wildly while trying Vibrant and fluconazole. Not the fault of the products, but some of the coral just couldn't handle the swings, and weren't able to pull through. My euphyllia are still a little miffed at me because the alkalinity got pretty out of whack at one point, but a month and a half of pretty consistent parameters have them slowly bouncing back.
This is where we were when things were really dire:
And here's another after shot:
Not everything made it, which is a bummer. Parameters swung wildly while trying Vibrant and fluconazole. Not the fault of the products, but some of the coral just couldn't handle the swings, and weren't able to pull through. My euphyllia are still a little miffed at me because the alkalinity got pretty out of whack at one point, but a month and a half of pretty consistent parameters have them slowly bouncing back.
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