Second Try at Reefing with an IM 20 gal Nuvo Fusion

[stayjejune]

Originally Posted by rockhead51

I THINK it is at the bottom. To test, just slide the magnet up until it kicks on... Remember, there will be a slight delay between when the light starts to flash and when the water gets there.

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Interesting. I'll have to give that one a try. I haven't tried to pull it all the way until it reaches the bottom. Thanks for the advice, rock!!


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[Anthony357]

Originally Posted by stayjejune

That is great news. Luckily the nose isn't as bad as I thought. Haha the ol' protein skimmer!! I'm pretty disappointed that IM made such a noise maker. I'm trying to go as long as I can without a skimmer. Hopefully 10% weekly water changes will do the trick.

I'm think about throwing in a media basket to run some carbon. Water is pretty clear, but I want it CRYSTAL clear. Are you running carbon or any sort of media on your tank?


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Im not running any media right now, just the two sock filters in the corners and the protein skimmer, but i have been thinking about that 3 level media basket to replace the protein skimmer, im pretty religious with water changes, and its not hard considering i have a 90 gallon fowlr so i already have the pre made water and everything for water changes for that, so whats a littke 2-5 gallon change on the 20gallon while im at it lol. I might just try turning the protein skimmer down so that it doesnt make much noise at all, although it might hinder its skimming capabilities that way...my water params are good so im not sure what i should do lol, "if its not broke dont break it" LOL

[stayjejune]

Hi everyone,

Just a little updated. I've added some new tank inhabitants! I put in two Benggai cardinals (Kevin and Dwight) and a cleaner shrimp (Jacques). So far they seem to be loving everything. I'm also considering putting in an order for an Aquamaxx HOB-1. Water changes haven't been as regular as I want them to be so I'm hoping the skimmer will help keep parameters in check.

My goby seems to be doing better! Still have yet to seem him eat though and he doesn't hangout in the front of the tank much. He seems to like to toy with the idea of going into the Pistol Shrimp's cave, but refuses to do so. The pistol shrimp seems to only like to go out when I feed. You would think that would be a perfect time for the two of them to meet, but the goby hides whenever I put food into the tank

THE PISTOL SHRIMP IS LITERALLY RIGHT UNDER THE ROCK WHERE THE GOBY'S TAIL IS

Corals are doing great as well! Everyone but the torch coral as of today. One of the heads has lost its color and only inflates a minimal amount. Not sure what is happening there. Otherwise, everything is going great!

[Anthony357]

tank is looking great! love the coral choices!

[stayjejune]

Originally Posted by Anthony357

tank is looking great! love the coral choices!

Thanks! I can't wait until they cover the plugs a little better so I can mount them

[stayjejune]

Just thought I'd post some ideas and see if I could get some feed back in regard to livestock. I know I'm pushing the upper limit of fish/inverts that I should responsibly have in my tank. I currently have two Benggai Cardinals (kind of regretting putting two of them in), an orange spotted goby, pistol shrimp, and cleaner shrimp. With weekly 2.5-3 gallon water changes I feel comfortable enough adding in one snowflake clownfish. The reason being is that I'd like to eventually put in some sort of anemone to get the clown to host in.

In terms of corals I'm starting to put together a list of what I'd like to put in for my next order. I'm set on another zoa or two and two more acans and/or blastos. I'd like to have one rock on the bottom right side as my zoa garden and put the blastos/acans on some island in the middle or glue them to the larger rock on the left side of the aquarium. Any input on just how high I could place them would be greatly appreciated.

I've never had Favias or Echinatas, but I think they're beautiful corals. I have my eye on a few that I'd like to put in the tank, but I'm not sure how difficult they are to care for or their placement. Do these corals encrust the rock they're placed on or do they grow a large calcium base? Further, other than these corals does anyone have any recommendations as to what I could put in my tank next?

Finally, I've been doing some research on whether the Aquamaxx Nemo light can provide enough light to sustain growth of SPS. After reading many reviews, it seems like it is possible. After seeing a few tanks much deeper than mine sustain healthy growth of SPS I'm considering getting an easy to keep SPS or two and place them at the highest point in my tank. I'm considering getting two from the following group: (1) ORA Neon Birdsnest; (2) WWC Mint Green Stylophora; and (3) Tyree Rainbow Stylophora. Any input before I begin the experiment is more than welcome.

In preparation for the experiment, I will be doing weekly tests to determine just where my nutrient levels are at with weekly water changes. Here are yesterday's test results:

• Salinity - 1.025
• Ammonia - < 0.2 ppm
• Nitrates - 0 ppm
• Calcium - 450 ppm
• Alkalinity - 7.8 dKH
• Magnesium - 1200 ppm

This is the first time I've used the Red Sea test kit so my results might be off, but everything seems to be in an okay range. Feedback is more than welcome on any of the above!

[bdare]

Just my .02 here....

On 1/12 you posted that a few days ago you put a piece of raw shrimp in your tank. Unless you packed your tank with fresh live rock from another tank which had no die off and was packed full of bacteria, I can't see how you would possibly be cycled by 2/10.

I suspect this is the reason your clown fish died and why you are still showing ammonia i your tank.

I'm sure you've heard this a thousand times, but "nothing good in this hobby happens fast" are words to live by. It appears things are simmering down, but I would S L O W down.

I also don't see what your nitrites are at. I suspect if you have ammonia in the tank you'll also have nitrite.

[stayjejune]

Originally Posted by bdare

Just my .02 here....

On 1/12 you posted that a few days ago you put a piece of raw shrimp in your tank. Unless you packed your tank with fresh live rock from another tank which had no die off and was packed full of bacteria, I can't see how you would possibly be cycled by 2/10.

I suspect this is the reason your clown fish died and why you are still showing ammonia i your tank.

I'm sure you've heard this a thousand times, but "nothing good in this hobby happens fast" are words to live by. It appears things are simmering down, but I would S L O W down.

I also don't see what your nitrites are at. I suspect if you have ammonia in the tank you'll also have nitrite.

Hi bdare,

Thanks for you input! After rereading my post about the shrimp I realized it was rather vague and unclear. Prior to that post I already had live rock and live sand that was sitting in the tank.

The live rock came from my LFS and went directly into my tank within two hours of purchasing. The shrimp that I put into the tank was to spike the ammonia and test the biological filtration after the live rock, sand, and water were in the tank for a few weeks.

I'm not sure why, but my last post didn't include my ammonia reading when I thought I put it in there. As of yesterday, when I tested, my ammonia reading was zero.

[stayjejune]

Hi Everyone,

Just wanted to post a little update. Tank is doing great. Corals all seem to be doing well as are the fish. Finally saw the goby eat quite a bit of food yesterday so I'm pretty happy to see him eating again. For valentine's day my girlfriend surprised me with an order of coral -- winning her the girlfriend of the year award

In other news, thanks to a dank tax return I placed an order for a Radion XR30 G4. Along with that I placed an order for a coral propagation kit so hopefully some time this week I can get the coral off the sand bed and onto the LR. Here are some updated shots of the tank

[stayjejune]

Can someone help ID this coral? I think it's a Jason Fox Limelight Hydnophora, but I'm not 100% sure.












And FTS

[stayjejune]

Well, finally got some goodies in a few days ago. The Radion is up and running. I played with the light settings and just set up one of the predefined settings. I'm afraid to ramp it up too quickly and either bleach the coral or have an algae outbreak, so I'm using the acclamation timer to slowly see how the corals react the to the light.

I also got a propagation kit from BRS and mounted some frags. I'll post pictures of the now mounted frags once the lights come on later today. In other news, I unfortunately lost one of my cardinals. Something was picking on him and it looks like it just became too much. But, here are some pictures of the tank now with the Radion

[stayjejune]

Unfortunately nothing exciting to update other than the start of some algae on the sand and rocks and it seems that my cardinal and clown have picked up ich - both have some small white spots on their fins. This is the first I'm seeing it so I'm hoping it's just starting. I haven't added anything to the tank in a few weeks and have just been focusing on keeping water changes regular and mounting my existing corals to the rocks so I'm confused as to where it came from.

I placed an order for NO-ICH Marine hoping that it'll be able to take care of the ich without much trouble. I'm pretty bummed ich peaked its ugly head into my tank. Any suggestions on getting rid of it and keep it away would be greatly appreciated!

[soeminpaing]

What made you change lighting to radions? Is nemolight not strong enough? I aquascaped my nuvo 20 into island style with two tall rocks and there is a lot of shadowing from single AI prime LED so I am kinda interested in fixture with LEDs spread out all over. Kinda like T5 fixtures. Both Hydras and Radions are in pucks which probably will cause a lot shadows and dont want to change bulbs every 6 months too.

[stayjejune]

Originally Posted by soeminpaing

What made you change lighting to radions? Is nemolight not strong enough? I aquascaped my nuvo 20 into island style with two tall rocks and there is a lot of shadowing from single AI prime LED so I am kinda interested in fixture with LEDs spread out all over. Kinda like T5 fixtures. Both Hydras and Radions are in pucks which probably will cause a lot shadows and dont want to change bulbs every 6 months too.

I'm loving the Nuvo 20 so far. However, I'm already itching to upgrade to a bigger tank haha. I like the idea of an island style aquascape. I actually just rearranged my rocks to have more of an island look. The Radion XR15 is a single puck, but the XR30 has two sets of LEDs. I switched to the Radion from the Nemolight for a few reasons.

First, automation. With the Nemolight you're not able to get individual LEDs to turn on and off without playing with the button on top of the fixture. The Nemolight has a 12hr feature that I, regrettably, never used. To the best of my knowable, you had to press the 12hr button on top of the light every day to get it to continuously turn off after 12 hours. With the Radion I'm able to set it and forget it. My schedule doesn't allow me to turn the light off and on as I would like it to. I know a timer could've solved that problem, but that was just another part I didn't want to get into.

Second, the color spectrum. The Nemolight had wonderful coverage across the tank; very little to almost no shadowing throughout the tank. However, the color spectrum wasn't what I liked. It had a bit more of a yellow tint to it than I would've liked. The Radion gives me a beautiful color spectrum and great coverage. I'm still in the acclamation period so I don't have the lights up to the 40% I'd like yet but everything in the tank seems to love it. Further, the new HEI optics seems to give a really nice spread and cover of the light.

Finally, all my corals seems to be expanding more then when I had the Nemolight - the Stylophora I have towards the top has had great polyp extension since I put the Radion on. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the switch. However, I don't think I gave the Nemolight a fair chance to really determine the efficacy of the Nemolight. I didn't have any complaints other than the ones I mentioned above. I think it would be a great light to use to get great coverage over a tank and will be able to easily keep almost all LPS. I think you could even grow SPS if you place it high enough in the tank.

Hope that helps!

[Malign Reefer]

Tank looks great!!

[stayjejune]

Originally Posted by Malign Reefer

Tank looks great!!

Thank you!

[stayjejune]

Just a small little update now that I've finally glued all my corals down. Unfortunately Ich tore through my tank like wild fire. I lost both my Goby and Benggai Cardinal by the time the Ich treatment arrived. Thankfully NO-Ich seems to have gotten rid of all the parasites from my Clownfish. I'm sure the parasites are still floating around in the tank, so I'm going to continue treating for a bit just to be on the safe side. In the mean time I got back to my water change schedule and everything in the tank seems to be much happier now.

Also, I noticed green hair algae ("GHA") today on the bottom of some of my rocks and a more reddish type of hair algae on the sandbed. I thought weekly water changes would help keep the algae at bay, but seeings as I've only gotten back to regular water changes the past three weeks maybe it will go away in a few weeks. Part of it might also be that fact that I tend to feed heavy no matter how hard I try not to. Especially since I started feeding the Clownfish twice a day to help get his strength back now that the Ich has left his body.

Because of that, I'm thinking it's time to pull the trigger on a skimmer. Any ideas on whether I should continue with the rigorous weekly water changes and if things don't improve with the GHA, only then buy a skimmer?

Anyway, here are some quick pictures I snapped with the ol' iPhone. I'm thinking about buying a starter DSLR so I could take some proper pictures to post. So, camera and macro lens recommendations are appreciated















I took this with my phone and put on a yellow filter through Photoshop - I thought it looked pretty cool

[Ritten]

Tank looks nice! I like the way you re-did the aquascape and glued your corals down.

[stayjejune]

Originally Posted by Ritten

Tank looks nice! I like the way you re-did the aquascape and glued your corals down.

Thank you! I'm pretty happy with the way the re-scape turned out!

[stayjejune]

So I tried my hand at taking a decent picture and editing it. Thanks to the video d2mini has on his editing I think I can finally put up a decent picture of the coral in my tank. However, I took the picture with my phone so not the solid base photo you'd have to play with if taken with a real camera. Let me know what you guys think! And thank you d2mini for the awesome tutorial you put up!

[malady]

Tank looks good.

Keep in mind that your tank still has Ich present unless you run it fallow for 6-8 weeks

[stayjejune]

Originally Posted by malady

Tank looks good.

Keep in mind that your tank still has Ich present unless you run it fallow for 6-8 weeks

Thanks for the heads up! I was hoping to get the clown into a five gallon tank this weekend to fun the tank fallow, but just didn't have the time. Hopefully some time this week I will be able to get him into another tank to get rid of the Ich.

[stayjejune]

Anyone have experience with the Aquamaxx HOB-1? I'm thinking about putting in an order for the HOB-1 to remove organic matter from the water column to try and get this hair algae under control -- the weekly water changes aren't having an impact on the HA.

[hamsterman]

very nice selection of coral! The zoas will look pretty amazing once they fill in.

[stayjejune]

Originally Posted by hamsterman

very nice selection of coral! The zoas will look pretty amazing once they fill in.

Thank you! I'm hoping that once they start to fill in that little zoa garden will look pretty great.