Weston's - Innovative Marine Nuvo 14 Peninsula Build

[dmw913]

Thats awesome! What percent power are you running it at ? Does it kick up sand or anything ?

I have it on 30% for several hours at night on standard flow for a rest and then I have it at 50% during the rest of the day on random flow. Not moving the sand at all but with it juxtaposed with the split return, I really feel like I'm getting some good solid flow with no observable dead spots so far. My lens for my phone gets her on Monday. Would be happy to take you a video if you'd like to see how it's working out.

 

[WestonNanos]

I have it on 30% for several hours at night on standard flow for a rest and then I have it at 50% during the rest of the day on random flow. Not moving the sand at all but with it juxtaposed with the split return, I really feel like I'm getting some good solid flow with no observable dead spots so far. My lens for my phone gets her on Monday. Would be happy to take you a video if you'd like to see how it's working out.

Yeah I would love that! My concern is the euphyllia in my tank... Even with only the return pump with 2 nozzles, I have to be very careful about where I aim them.. Even slightly too much flow directed at them and they seem to just shrink up (mainly my frogspawn) Currently I have the nozzles pointed at the front glass so that it bounces and hits them with some pretty broad and soft flow.

 

[dmw913]

So, here's a quick video of the setup with a shot of the movement at the top of the tank near the end. Nothing in the tank yet but I have set the pump at random during the day with a high of 60% and a low of 30% and the sand doesn't move (very fine grain Ocean Direct). You can also see how I used the split return to send some water behind the aquascape and then some angled to the front to interact with the Nero. Also of note, the Nero is angled as much as possible so it actually is hitting the front left corner of the tank and bounces back. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Also, are you running a skimmer?

 

[WestonNanos]

So, here's a quick video of the setup with a shot of the movement at the top of the tank near the end. Nothing in the tank yet but I have set the pump at random during the day with a high of 60% and a low of 30% and the sand doesn't move (very fine grain Ocean Direct). You can also see how I used the split return to send some water behind the aquascape and then some angled to the front to interact with the Nero. Also of note, the Nero is angled as much as possible so it actually is hitting the front left corner of the tank and bounces back. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Also, are you running a skimmer?

Thanks for taking the time to do that video! I am not running a skimmer... With a nano i find it so easy to export nutrients and also import trace elements with simple water changes. I personally do a weekly 5 gallons which comes out to roughly 35%. My inspiration comes from a guy on instagram called @Benanoreef13.5. He has an incredible reef in an eva 13.5 gal and never tests, never doses, doesnt run a skimmer.. just does consistent moderately sized water changes weekly and has amazing success. I really like the simplicity of his approach. check out this post he put on reddit!

 

[dmw913]

Ok, that is just super cool. I admire the dedication to such significant, regular WCs and I am certainly trying to do the same although not quite at the same amount. I hope to get an Apex setup for AWCs with roughly 20% or 2.5 gallons per week. I like the idea of daily water changes with the benefit of only having to mix salt roughly every two weeks as I anticipate having at least 5 gallon containers for the process. With that said, I had a pico a while back and if you did the WCs on it and watched the evaporation, it was a solid little system. WCs fix so many issues, pretty amazing actually.

The no testing makes me too nervous. Lost some important things in my previous tanks that way so I'm pretty solid on my testing so far. Everyone gets LARS at some point or another though. My nitrates were climbing this week and I wasn't sure if I was overfeeding or if I started amino dosing too early (at 3 drops per day). I did a 5 gallon change yesterday and stopped the aminos and today the nitrates are solid at about 10 so I'm feeling much better. Phosphate hasn't come off of .01 so I'm good there. I'm using Tropic Marin Syn-Biotic salt. What did you go with?

I did end up ordering the IceCap K1 Neo skimmer. We'll see if it's worth anything. Often nano skimmers are more of a pain than they are worth. If it's too much of a hassle, I'll up the WCs and get rid of the skimmer. It was only $80 so I thought it was worth a try, at least.

 

[WestonNanos]

Ok, that is just super cool. I admire the dedication to such significant, regular WCs and I am certainly trying to do the same although not quite at the same amount. I hope to get an Apex setup for AWCs with roughly 20% or 2.5 gallons per week. I like the idea of daily water changes with the benefit of only having to mix salt roughly every two weeks as I anticipate having at least 5 gallon containers for the process. With that said, I had a pico a while back and if you did the WCs on it and watched the evaporation, it was a solid little system. WCs fix so many issues, pretty amazing actually.

The no testing makes me too nervous. Lost some important things in my previous tanks that way so I'm pretty solid on my testing so far. Everyone gets LARS at some point or another though. My nitrates were climbing this week and I wasn't sure if I was overfeeding or if I started amino dosing too early (at 3 drops per day). I did a 5 gallon change yesterday and stopped the aminos and today the nitrates are solid at about 10 so I'm feeling much better. Phosphate hasn't come off of .01 so I'm good there. I'm using Tropic Marin Syn-Biotic salt. What did you go with?

I did end up ordering the IceCap K1 Neo skimmer. We'll see if it's worth anything. Often nano skimmers are more of a pain than they are worth. If it's too much of a hassle, I'll up the WCs and get rid of the skimmer. It was only $80 so I thought it was worth a try, at least.

Totally! For me at least, the no testing is not an ignorance is bliss kinda thing. Its more so that I dont find myself chasing rainbows in the sense that I want every parameter to be in the perfect range and dealing with inaccurate test results... No dosing simplifies my experience reef-keeping, i feel that if i were to dose i would spend too much money on additives, reactors, dosing pumps and reservoirs... In my past, it made the hobby much less enjoyable for me. I focus more on the basics of good reefing husbandry, keeping my hands out of the tank, not over reacting to issues , preventative fail-safes with electronics and WATER CHANGES.

 

[WestonNanos]

wow! hit 1000 views on this thread. Thanks to everyone for your input and support!

 

[WestonNanos]

Took some photos yesterday!

 

[WestonNanos]

Story TIme....... So I have two hermet crabs and they seemed to be fighting... I assumed the smaller one was trying to steal the larger shell... so the next time I went to the fish store, I bought a couple of slightly larger shells thinking it might allow for less competition... anyways, they seemed to stop fighting but every morning we would see what looked like a hermit crabs body!!! Come to find out, both of them molted multiple times and then yesterday morning they were both in the new shells that I bought from the fish store a couple weeks ago!! Not sure if this is super common in aquariums but I thought it was awesome and wanted to share!

 

[WestonNanos]

A little top down shot after feeding some AB+ and TDO pellets to fish / corals.

My monti cap seems to be having some tissue recession from where it is glued to the rock work... bummer.... but I have been noticing it for the past week or so and my guess is that it is lacking in the flow department. From this angle you can see how my return nozzles seem to wrap around it... maybe need a nero 3?? any input would be appreciated.

Also, today I downloaded the AI prime preset by Karen Vasquez and I have to say the colors in my corals are seeming to pop out more... I picked her preset because looking at her tank it was closer to the size of my tank and was composed of mainly LPS/softies. But i did modify her preset slightly by adding in some royal blue lights as it did not use any... (my torch was a little ticked off at the drastic change in lighting ;Nailbiting;Nailbiting;Nailbiting)

 

[WestonNanos]

Update - Have been seeing some solid growth in my GSP as well as zoanthids! Everything seems to be happy in the tank at the moment and I think I will let it be for now and watch it grow Here are some before's and after's

 

[Imaburch]

Your tank looks great. How did you mount your Zoas?

 

[WestonNanos]

Your tank looks great. How did you mount your Zoas?

I appreciate it! My LFS grows them on shells and pieces of rock rubble so there are no ugly frag plugs! But other than that I just use a ton of glue lol

 

[mike89t]

Looking fantastic!

 

[WestonNanos]

Looking fantastic!

Thankyou sir!

 

[WestonNanos]

Turned on the white lights the other day (which I rarely do...) and I realized that my entire rock scape is covered in the neon green algae that will over time, turn into coraline algae! As you can see, there are small specs of purple coraline. Super exciting considering this is the only "algae" in the tank. Not a single strand of hair algae, diatoms , cyano, ANYTHING!

 

[WestonNanos]

Update - one of my zoa frags had some sort of sponge growing between the polyps. I took the frag out, removed as much as I could and then dipped it in hydrogen peroxide.. I think I did a good job and the zoas are back open after less than 24 hours... but I dont think I killed all of the sponge...

BEFORE DIP....

AFTER DIP...

 

[WestonNanos]

Update, got a few new corals....

Could someone ID this new coral (below) for me? Is it some type of branching monti?

Also a couple things to note... I added a small powerhead for some more flow after seeing my red monti caps start to bleach/ tissue recession.... It has grown back over the skeleton considerably!! Everything seems to be a bit more happy with the added flow.

Fungia coral doesn't seem to be thriving... the coral has some brownish tint on parts of it and the tissue doesn't seem to be completely expanded...

I got a big candy cane colony with 6 heads on it... 2 were completely dead (Just skeleton) 2 were awesome looking and 2 were just ehhh... I fragged the coral, threw away the dead heads, mounted the good heads and put the "ehhh" heads on a plug. I have a frag rack coming on monday and am excited to start healing and propagating corals

 

[WestonNanos]

I think the green monti is a "confusa montipora" from a bit of research, can anyone confirm?

 

[WestonNanos]

This is the funniest thing ive seen in a while.......

Disclaimer... I do not have any visible aiptasia in my tank lolol