tehSAC's NUVO 10

tehSAC

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Hello, my name is Paul and this is an early start to my NUVO 10 build. I say early because my tank is still sitting in its box waiting for my stand to be finished. Anyway let's start with a bit of a backstory.

For almost a year now I've been doing my homework and reading about anything and everything. Then watching YouTube videos about those items I was reading about. I've been keeping African Cichlids for years now and have always been tempted by the saltwater world. So I started thinking since I have limited room I would try a nano reef. In my garage I had a 20 long and a 10 gallon tank, so naturally I thought, "hey let's start here", but then I saw the innovative marine tanks. I was hooked but just couldn't pull the trigger right away.

Well a couple weeks ago my sister was in town and we were having dinner with my father. We were talking about my plan for a nano tank. At that point, my father who does wood working as a hobby had agreed to make my family and I a cabinet for Christmas. Well at one point in the evening I showed them both a photo of a NUVO 10 tank on bulk reef supply and mentioned how I'd love to have one in the future. Looking at my dad to say "hey make that cabinet top deep enough for that tank". LOL

Well the night before thanksgiving I find a large box on the front porch with my name on it and the return address being BRS. I ask my wife if she had purchased some items from them and she said "nope, call your sister though." As I don't normally get to see my sister for Christmas, as she lives in Southern California, she told me to face time her and open the package. I quickly grabbed a knife and opened the box carefully. There it was a IM Nuvo Fusion 10! I was completely surprised and overwhelmed to be honest. So the next morning I open it up to inspect the glass and such and the side of the box says "kit". Well as I opened I see that she had actually purchased the kit for me. Knowing that the SKKYE light isnt the best option I was still happy to see that I had a light. I sent her a text that afternoon asking why she purchased the kit, and she said that she didn't, she just bought the tank from BRS from their early black friday sale. So I'm guessing there was a mix up back in shipping and I received the kit. Since then I've purchased the intank media basket, and the spinstream nozzle. For now I'm not going to upgrade the stock pump and also going to keep from running a powerhead in the tank. Since I have the 18 watt Skkye light I'm going to run it for a while, then possibly purchase a AI Prime HD in the future.

As for upgrades I will address those when the time comes. My thought is I'll probably run an Eshopps Nano Skimmer eventually. I'm definitely going to grab either a smart micro or tunze nano ATO before I add livestock.

Speaking of I'm looking to keep ricordea mushrooms, zoas, and a couple LPS. Mainly Hammers and Acans. Possibly a hammer garden surrounded by the acan lords, zoas, and mushrooms. I also have a friend who is going to frag some blue hornet zoas and a dragon soul favia to get me started. As for fish my daughter wants an ocellaris clown and a tailspot blenny. After adding a Skimmer I might throw in a purple firefish. We will see. I plan to do 3 gallon water changes weekly.

So a couple nights ago, my daughters and I decided to do a little scaping inside the actual tank. I received 10 lbs of reef saver rock last week from BRS and wanted to mess around a little. Very impressed with the pieces I received. Plan is to also grab a very small piece of LR with coralline to help seed the tank when I get going. My father is finishing up on my cabinet so it's not ready to go just yet but hopefully it will be wet soon. The only thing is that the danged skkye light mount broke in half. The weight of the light was too much for it. :/ The light is held on with a couple clamps. Going to try to find some acrylic glue to glue it back together. Anyone have this same issue? I barely had the screws clamped down too.

Anyway I like the look of this scape so far. Lots of little places to mount frags and little caves for fish to go. Let me know what you think. Also I am going to start posting updates here and on Instagram. If you want to follow along there too the username is @tehsac_reef

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Current Equipment List:



IM NUVO Fusion 10

AI Prime HD with Flex Arm

Spinstream Nozzle

InTank Media Basket

Colbalt Neotherm Heater

Sicce 1.0 return Pump



Filtration:



10 lbs Fiji Pink Sand

8-9 lbs Reef Saver Rock from BRS

Filter floss

Chemi-Pure Blue



Livestock:



2 Ocellaris Clowns



2 Blue Legged Hermits

2 Trochus Snails

2 Nassarius Snails

1 Brittle starfish.



Current Corals (6-29-20):


Yellow Hammer (meshed into a green ‍♂️ )
Splatter Hammer
Red Acan Lord
Light Blue/Red Acan Lord

Date Night Paly's
Cornbred Rainbow Infusion Paly's
Rasta Zoa
Rainbow Hornet Zoa's
Fruit Loop Zoa
Gorilla Nipple Zoa’s
Scrambled Egg's Zoa's
JF Fairy Tale Zoa's
Utter Chaos Zoa's
Rainbow Incinerator Zoa's
Blue/Green Ricordea Mushroom
Orange Ricordea Mushroom
Gold/Green Ricordea

Purple Rhodactus Mushroom
Green/Purple Rhodactus Mushroom
Pink/Purple Yuma Mushroom
Candy Cane Coral Colony
Duncan Coral
Purple Gorgs
Pink Blasto
Jack-O-Lantern Lepto
Bejewled Favia
Unnamed Yellow Favia
Red Digi Monti
ORA Birdsnest
Tyree Neon Green Toadstool (Long Polyp)
Neon Green GSP
Grim Reaper Torch
Rainbow Clove Polyps
Kedds Reds Zoas
Nirvana Paly
Gobstopper Paly
Mandarin Orange Zoa
Grandis Paly
Yellow Submarine Favia



So there you go. I'm sure I've left out some things but I wanted to share my excitement and future progress of my new saltwater adventure with you all.
 
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tehSAC

tehSAC

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Ahhh sorry for the tilted photo. I'm not sure how to fix it.

I do have a question for those who are following, could I get by using Instant Ocean Sea Salt over the Reef Crystals? I have a friend who has some left over IO that he doesn't want. I'm thinking of taking it off his hands but if my corals down the road benefit better from the RC I will not go the IO route.
 
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tehSAC

tehSAC

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So this tank has been on hold for a while due to the construction of my cabinet. My father is a perfectionist and also has been ill, but I should have the cabinet soon to start adding water to this tank.

In the meantime I have purchased a Tunze Nano 3152 ATO and a Sicce .5 return pump. Other than those items I am still trying to make up my mind on a possible light upgrade. Knowing what I want to keep I have considered the Kessil A80 and the AI Prime HD. I like the look and simplicity of the A80 but there isnt much info on coral growth under this light yet.
 

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Following!
 

706Reef

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Nice cabinet !! I just made a stand for mine just your dad could've built mine lol I have the lagoon 25 and you will love this tank trust me I have a prime light on its way
 
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tehSAC

tehSAC

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Thanks! I am excited to finally get this tank going. The plan is to store my ATO container in the lower left side of the cabinet. My wife requested storage so the rest will be for her.
 
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tehSAC

tehSAC

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Yesterday I finally was able to get this tank up and running.

Setting up was a breeze except for the Tunze Nano ATO. The clamp that holds the tubing to the tank mount wasn't lining up so I used some small zip ties to attach it. I pointed the hose downward so it filled cleaner than just splashing on the back wall. Also where the return tube attaches to the pump was too small. A small chainsaw blade file did the job to trim away some of the access plastic. Lastly my 9 yr old daughter who was excited beyond belief decided to play with the float magnets. Took me 20 minutes and a small hammer to pry them apart.

Other than that, the tank is cycling using the filter sock. I am going to add a bottle of bacteria this weekend to jumpstart the cycle.

Oh and I apologize, all photos were taken with my iphone.

FTS: 2-23-17

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Cabinet and Cabinet Drawer details. Pretty proud of this piece and love that it was hand made by my father.

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Typical after water has been added photo. ;)

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tehSAC

tehSAC

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I don't want to overstock on snails or hermits. Its such a small tank I don't think I need that much. I'm thinking maybe a single Blue Legged Hermit and eliminating the Red Legged from my overall list. Do you think that would be too much when the tank is fully established? Add the single Trochus and Hermit after the initial cycle? What about adding at Porcelain Crab in the future?

1 Trochus Snail
2 Nassarius Snails
2 Cerith Snails
2 Astrea Snails
1 Blue Legged Hermit

Also anyone that is following that is running a Spin Stream with an upgraded pump, are you still running this set up or have you added a powerhead within the tank? I would much prefer to not have a powerhead in the display, but if its needed what would you suggest? Remember I am only keeping low/moderate flow corals. No intention of keeping anything that needs a strong flow. I'm just worried about deadspots.
 
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tehSAC

tehSAC

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Friday evening I dumped in a bottle of Bio-Spira to help jumpstart and shorten my cycle. As it was cloudy from the bacteria I took a look at the flow I was getting from the spinstream. Seems there is a slight deadspot right underneath it as the particles just kinda hovered there. However the rest of the tank has what looks to be plenty of flow for the corals I want to keep. I'm just going to keep an eye on that specific area and hope no detritus decides to settle there.

Tested the water this morning. Not reading any Ammonia or nitrITE this morning. Tested twice and its coming out the same. nitrATE IS just above 15 and below 20 by the looks of it. However I'm gonna wait a few more days to see if it stays there. Should I do a waterchange before adding any fish/inverts/frags?
 
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tehSAC

tehSAC

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Friday evening I checked my water parameters and everything was in check. The cycle had finished but the Nitrates were a bit too high. So I mixed up some water overnight and did a quick 4 gallon water change Saturday morning. I also switched out the filter sock that came with the tank and added the media basket. Running filter floss and chemi-pure blue now. Nitrates were in the zero range after the water change, so I was pretty happy with that. I could add frags now, but decided against it as I do not have any coral dip on hand.

Anyway, the family and I then took a trip over to the local LFS to check out the shop Saturday afternoon. We ended up grabbing some new inhabitants. A couple small Nassarius Snails, 3 Scarlet Hermits, and a Royal Gramma Basslet. I acclimated them all for an hour when I got back home, and placed into the tank. The Gramma quickly went into hiding, and I wasn't too surprised or concerned about that. The hermits and snails started to explore the tank and all seemed happy as could be. However that evening I came out of the shower and my daughter said, "Dad he's out and swimming!" I walk out to the tank and well it's not swimming, it's being pushed around the tank by the flow, with random twitches from him. His lower lip is white, fins have white along the edge and well was no longer breathing. Daughter was in tears for nearly an hour. I re-tested the water that evening hoping that I did not get any readings wrong. 0 ppm Ammonia, 0 ppm Nitrite, 0 on the Nitrate scale. Temp is at 77.8, and salinity is 1.025. I'm so dumbfounded. RIP little guy.

As of this morning all of the snails and hermits seem to be doing just great, so I'm just going to chalk this one up to a bad fish. Not going to let it drag me down, but going to be more diligent in my fish selection in the future.
 

Daniel@R2R

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So sorry about the loss. @melypr1985 could likely tell you what killed it. Hope things go better with future additions for you.
 

melypr1985

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The white edges to the fins sound like a bacterial infection. Without QT, it's always a gamble on what a fish will bring into your display. He could have had flukes, ich, velvet. Hard to tell. If you still have the body you can drop it into a cup of tap water to check for flukes.
 
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tehSAC

tehSAC

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In my last update I was dealing with a lost gramma. Since then I have been contacted by the LFS and have had the fish replaced. My daughters and I picked him up, along with a couple more snails due to the diatom outbreak, this past Saturday. I also have added 3 new frags to my tank, now I can officially call it a nano reef tank. However last evening I was checking out one of the rocks the zoa's came onto and noticed something hairy on the bottom of the rock. I placed my hand into the tank and it receded into the rock. Well not chancing anything, I decided to remove the zoa's with a scalpel and place them onto an empty frag disk. I was afraid it might be Apitisa, and it might have been, but I wasn't going to risk it. I checked on the tank before leaving for work and the zoa's were starting to open slightly, so I hope that they make it.

Anyway onto recent photos.

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tehSAC

tehSAC

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Looking good!
Hows that Sicce pump 1.0? Did it fit good on the chamber?

Thank you! Actually I am running the .5 and it fits great. The 1.0 and .5 have similar dimensions, but I think the 1.0 might be too much flow for what I want.
 
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