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Mirya's Floridian Flower Garden - All kinds of new things!


Mirya

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FTS (8/11/15):

FTS%20florida_zpse0ilbve0.jpg

 

History:

I've been having a blast with my Nuvo8 which I initially set-up to be a rock flower anemone tank. It has been getting increasingly hard to limit myself to just the nems though, even with as colorful as they are. But happily, just as my 8 started bursting at the seams with softies and nems I got some really good job news. After living on short-term contracts for a year and a half, I finally will be signing a one year, renewable contract. To reward myself, I'm setting up a second tank! This tank will be a Florida biotope, partly inspired by this dive video from one of my favorite RFA vendors, VIP Reef:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQCjSMFMgyQ

 

Tank Established: July 19, 2014

Aquarium: Innovative Marine Nuvo 24

Media Basket: InTank media basket with filter floss and Chemi-Pure Blue

Protein Skimmer: PicO Skim 2.0

Refugium: InTank fuge basket with Chaeto, lit by IM MagnaFuge Light

Heater: Cobalt NeoTherm 100W

Circulation: stock pump

Flow: Gyre130

ATO: Autoaqua Smart ATO

Lighting: NanoBox Quad (with the Lime array and moonlights)

Controller: Apex Jr.

Substrate: CaribSea Aragonite Reef Sand and Crushed Coral mixed

Rock: KP Aquatics aquacultured rock

Salt: ESV B-Ionic

 

Livestock (Fish & Inverts):

Yellowheaded jawfish

Neon cleaner goby

Swissguard basslet

Royal gramma

Rock flower anemones

Clean-up crew

 

Livestock (Octocorals & Hexacorals):

Palythoa grandis

Ricordea florida

Rhodactis sanctithomae (St. Thomas mushrooms)

Discosoma neglecta (Umbrella mushroom)

Manicina areolata (Rose corals)

Phyllangia americana (Hidden cup corals)

Photosynthetic gorgonians

 

Livestock (Macroalgae):

Halimeda sp.

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The tank arrived today! It was a bit tricky to unbox solo as my husband is currently out of town. The 24 is dwarfing my 8! The matching stands are kitchen carts from Bed, Bath & Beyond. Cherry veneer with black granite countertops. I still need to install the doors on the stand for the 24, but I'm waiting until after I have installed all the "brains" in the cabinet.

 

I love the look of the IM Nuvo line. The curved corners are either a love it or hate it aspect, but I am firmly on the side of love it! I haven't found them to be too much of a PITA to clean on my 8. When I decided on setting up a second tank, at first I thought about the 16 because of some of the horror stories I've read about the 24. But, it seems like ever since IM upgraded the glass thickness on the 24s, cracking hasn't been an issue. IM has discontinued the 24s in favor of their new 30L though, so it was pretty challenging for me to find this tank. (There was a lot of Googling and e-mailing random aquarium stores around the country.) The 30L is a nice tank, nearly the same dimensions as the 24, just a little deeper. It even has Starfire glass. Unfortunately, it has black silicone seams which I absolutely hate so that is why I searched hard for a 24.

 

unboxed_zpsdcef62c4.jpg

 

I've been slowly accumulating gear as I've been seeing sales or used items pop up on eBay. I still have a few things I'm waiting on though. One of the items I am most excited about is getting on the NanoBox bandwagon. Dave is building a Duo 24" for this tank and a Mini to upgrade my 8's light. He is going to use those sexy new Lime LEDs and add in some moonlights for me. *swoon*

 

I still need to decide on filtration. I did order some ChemiPure Blue to use instead of the ChemiPure Elite & Purigen I run in my 8. I still need to decide on a skimmer though. Tunze 9002 or the new IM Ghost or something else entirely? And should I run a reactor? I don't know much of anything about reactors to be honest.

 

Once I finally get all the equipment gathered, I'll need to figure out my source for rock. I went with Reef Cleaner's rock in my 8. I'm happy with it. It is nice and porous and interlocked nicely. I could play with the scape to my hearts content, epoxy everything together, and didn't have to worry about hitchhikers. However, the thought of going with Florida aquacultured live rock is tempting, since this is a Florida biotope tank. Of the Florida aquacultured rock vendors I've searched for, I found:

KP Aquatics (Sea Life Inc)

Tampa Bay Saltwater

Gulf Live Rock

Florida Live Rock

Any opinions on which vendor has the most porous rock?

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FlowerMama

Love that video. I have watched it over & over before. and those beautiful blue zoas that are everywhere that you can get from KP Aquatics!! You have to have those!!!!

 

I just know the KPAquatics rock I have is very porous. Actually, all those grapefruit size pieces I asked for my rock flower tank, they have more pores than the rock in my 34 that were larger pieces. I just love it all.

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Polarcollision

The tank arrived today! It was a bit tricky to unbox solo as my husband is currently out of town. The 24 is dwarfing my 8! The matching stands are kitchen carts from Bed, Bath & Beyond. Cherry veneer with black granite countertops. I still need to install the doors on the stand for the 24, but I'm waiting until after I have installed all the "brains" in the cabinet.

 

I love the look of the IM Nuvo line. The curved corners are either a love it or hate it aspect, but I am firmly on the side of love it! I haven't found them to be too much of a PITA to clean on my 8. When I decided on setting up a second tank, at first I thought about the 16 because of some of the horror stories I've read about the 24. But, it seems like ever since IM upgraded the glass thickness on the 24s, cracking hasn't been an issue. IM has discontinued the 24s in favor of their new 30L though, so it was pretty challenging for me to find this tank. (There was a lot of Googling and e-mailing random aquarium stores around the country.) The 30L is a nice tank, nearly the same dimensions as the 24, just a little deeper. It even has Starfire glass. Unfortunately, it has black silicone seams which I absolutely hate so that is why I searched hard for a 24.

 

unboxed_zpsdcef62c4.jpg

 

I've been slowly accumulating gear as I've been seeing sales or used items pop up on eBay. I still have a few things I'm waiting on though. One of the items I am most excited about is getting on the NanoBox bandwagon. Dave is building a Duo 24" for this tank and a Mini to upgrade my 8's light. He is going to use those sexy new Lime LEDs and add in some moonlights for me. *swoon*

 

I still need to decide on filtration. I did order some ChemiPure Blue to use instead of the ChemiPure Elite & Purigen I run in my 8. I still need to decide on a skimmer though. Tunze 9002 or the new IM Ghost or something else entirely? And should I run a reactor? I don't know much of anything about reactors to be honest.

 

Once I finally get all the equipment gathered, I'll need to figure out my source for rock. I went with Reef Cleaner's rock in my 8. I'm happy with it. It is nice and porous and interlocked nicely. I could play with the scape to my hearts content, epoxy everything together, and didn't have to worry about hitchhikers. However, the thought of going with Florida aquacultured live rock is tempting, since this is a Florida biotope tank. Of the Florida aquacultured rock vendors I've searched for, I found:

KP Aquatics (Sea Life Inc)

Tampa Bay Saltwater

Gulf Live Rock

Florida Live Rock

Any opinions on which vendor has the most porous rock?

 

How have I never seen your tanks???!!! Congrats on the Nuvo 24, too! I absolutely love mine. Best. tank. ever. Too bad they're discontinued, but I guess their reputation was broken with the early design failures. The only PITa is the green coraline that grows in the corners. I can't get in there to clean it off anymore. Other than that, it's been a fantastic investment. You'll love what it opens up for fish options, too. I did the same as you with the chemical filtration in my nuvo 8, but the Tunze 9002 is all that you need, even heavily stocked like me. No nitrates or phosphates once it finally dialed in. I bought one media basket from intank for carbon and backup, but it runs empty most of the time. It has me thinking to get Tap Plastics to make a mold to fit a custom filter sock for the returns and ditch the filter floss entirely. We"ll see.

 

What are your stocking plans?

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How have I never seen your tanks???!!! Congrats on the Nuvo 24, too! I absolutely love mine. Best. tank. ever. Too bad they're discontinued, but I guess their reputation was broken with the early design failures. The only PITa is the green coraline that grows in the corners. I can't get in there to clean it off anymore. Other than that, it's been a fantastic investment. You'll love what it opens up for fish options, too. I did the same as you with the chemical filtration in my nuvo 8, but the Tunze 9002 is all that you need, even heavily stocked like me. No nitrates or phosphates once it finally dialed in. I bought one media basket from intank for carbon and backup, but it runs empty most of the time. It has me thinking to get Tap Plastics to make a mold to fit a custom filter sock for the returns and ditch the filter floss entirely. We"ll see.

 

What are your stocking plans?

 

Thanks Polar! I've been a quiet admirer of your tanks thus far. In fact seeing your 8 before you flipped it to temperate helped me decide on getting the 8 for myself! Thanks for the info on the filtration. I had been thinking about doing floss and Chemi-Pure Blue in one inTank meda rack and floss and Chaeto in the other and skipping the inTank fuge box altogether. I like hearing your positive feedback on the Tunze 9002. Seems like that skimmer is an oldie but a goodie. I think the IM Ghost Skimmer is too new for me to jump on that bandwagon.

 

As for stocking plans, the only fish I know for sure I will be getting is a yellow-headed jawfish. I had one in my old 75g I had years ago and loved their personality. I haven't decided yet if I will build a PVC house for the jawfish or if I will add a (camouflaged) bowl with 4-6" of sand since the rest of the tank will have <1" sand. Beyond that fish-wise, I'm not sure. I would like to get a Pederson's shrimp or two, so the other fish need to be shrimp safe. I like Royal Grammas though I never had luck with them in the 75g. Zooman has a whole school of them in his 40breeder gorgonian tank. It looks amazing, so that is tempting. Otherwise I'm open to other fish stocking ideas!

 

As for corals/inverts, I'm going to have one island for RFAs. Then there will be another island for Caribbean zoas, St. Thomas mushrooms, and Florida Ricordea. In the background and foreground I'll have gorgonians, sponges, and macroalgae like Halimeda and Mermaid fans. I don't have any plan for stony coral -- other than what I may get hitchiking on the aquacultured live rock. Im open to coral/invert suggestions too. I've also been looking over other Caribbean biotope builds on the site for ideas.

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BeardedReeferLLC

Congrats on the Nuvo24. This is something I'll be following for sure. Keep us updated. :D

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Polarcollision

Thanks Polar! I've been a quiet admirer of your tanks thus far. In fact seeing your 8 before you flipped it to temperate helped me decide on getting the 8 for myself! Thanks for the info on the filtration. I had been thinking about doing floss and Chemi-Pure Blue in one inTank meda rack and floss and Chaeto in the other and skipping the inTank fuge box altogether. I like hearing your positive feedback on the Tunze 9002. Seems like that skimmer is an oldie but a goodie. I think the IM Ghost Skimmer is too new for me to jump on that bandwagon.

 

As for stocking plans, the only fish I know for sure I will be getting is a yellow-headed jawfish. I had one in my old 75g I had years ago and loved their personality. I haven't decided yet if I will build a PVC house for the jawfish or if I will add a (camouflaged) bowl with 4-6" of sand since the rest of the tank will have <1" sand. Beyond that fish-wise, I'm not sure. I would like to get a Pederson's shrimp or two, so the other fish need to be shrimp safe. I like Royal Grammas though I never had luck with them in the 75g. Zooman has a whole school of them in his 40breeder gorgonian tank. It looks amazing, so that is tempting. Otherwise I'm open to other fish stocking ideas!

 

As for corals/inverts, I'm going to have one island for RFAs. Then there will be another island for Caribbean zoas, St. Thomas mushrooms, and Florida Ricordea. In the background and foreground I'll have gorgonians, sponges, and macroalgae like Halimeda and Mermaid fans. I don't have any plan for stony coral -- other than what I may get hitchiking on the aquacultured live rock. Im open to coral/invert suggestions too. I've also been looking over other Caribbean biotope builds on the site for ideas.

 

I definitely thought the 9002 was not going to work the first few weeks. Nitrates spiked to over 20 and all kinds of bad things happened. BUT I got help dialing it in and suddenly everything is happy as can be. Skimmate is getting darker and darker as the months progress, too. Not sure if that's the tank or the skimmer or both. I get away with water changes about every 3 weeks just to re-balance ions for the SPS. Can't imagine life without it now!

 

Pederson's shrimp is soooo cool looking! I had sexy shrimp in the 8 thinking they were the perfect little creatures to keep. After they nibbled on my expensive zoas it was over for me. Love zoas too much to offer them as food! Shrimp sure can be gorgeous and interesting though. I'll have to read up on the Pederson's. It will look amazing with your plans. Tank sounds like it will be stunning! Looking forward to seeing it come together.

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Yeah, I've decided that Sexy shrimp are cute, but jerks!

 

So, is it bad that 30 minutes into the Saltcritters.com live sale I have already bought 3 zoas, another RFA (I know wtf), and I nabbed that St. T mushroom I had been drooling over. There are still 9.5 hrs to go and I still want Ricordea...

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Wish I had extra $$$ laying around to join you on this shopping spree :(

:flower:

 

Been using the coupon codes they are posting on Facebook, so the total damages are only $57 (before shipping) so far. Just nabbed a $2 Ricordea.

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Saltcritters live sale is over, but if you go to their Facebook page they have a code for 50% off that is good until morning. I bought more than I should have... Though I have plans for some of the items to go to someone else. Anyway, here are a few teasers of items that are destined for this tank once it is set-up.

 

Cool RFA I got for $5:

NewRFA_zpsd43e4328.jpg

 

The two St. Thomas shrooms I picked up:

NewStTMush_zps9e726ec8.jpg

 

And the start of a Ricordea garden:

NewRics_zpsad1fe53b.jpg

 

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nice score...i been following on facebook the entire day and it took all my willpower to NOT buy anything. I went on the website multipe times and picked out all the corals I want but no checkout...*sigh*. But I will live vicariously through you and other reefers that got in on the sale =P.

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FlowerMama

Nice pics Mirya!

 

I just got home at midnight from my parents house and it was bothering me I didn't to check the sale out so I went on there and saw they were doing the 50% off til morning but I was like, nah, they won't have any bubbly St. Thommies left but luckily, they did so I picked up one bubbly and one that had yellow polyps. I'm so surprised they were still there.

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Everything I ordered from Saltcritters is settling nicely in my Nuvo8. I can't wait til I have this tank running though since the 8 is beyond crowded. I've been mentally trying to picture how I will want to scape this tank. I think one RFA island with a nice flat top for them to sit on top of and snuggle. Then a second long island for other corals, Rics, shrooms, etc. The jawfish home can go in the "valley" between the two rock outcroppings.

 

I have also been trying to decide if I want to build a PVC house for the jawfish or if I want to have a camouflaged container with a 4-6" of sand for the jawfish to dig his own home. From an environmental enrichment standpoint, letting the jawfish build his own home would be better. I'm just wondering what the impact on tank params of a small DSB would be. I'm thinking it won't be too bad since the jawfish will be constantly moving it around so it shouldn't ever get too anaerobic.

 

The last thing I am mulling over atm is how to run the media baskets/fuge. I scored 2 used inTank media baskets and 2 used inTank fuge baskets off of eBay. I'm planning on filterfloss at the top of both media baskets. For filtration I am planning on using ChemiPure Blue and a protein skimmer. The 5.5 oz bag of ChemiPure Blue says it is good for up to 35 gallons. So what I'm wondering is if I can get by with 1 bag of ChemiPure Blue in one media basket, just put Chaeto in the other media basket, and skip the fuge baskets all together. Sound reasonable?

 

Today I'm going to work on drilling access ports in the stand and doing wiring. If I get that finished I'll get the tank wet to leak test it. Last night I was assembling the screen top for this tank. Managed to run the spline tool right over one of my fingers and give myself a blood blister. OWIE.

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FlowerMama

Yey, sound like you're busy. I am too. Working on my plumbing. I'll try to be careful as I use that tool sometime too when I do the screen top for my 34. No more ouchies!

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One of my St. Thomas' looks great. Has been super bubbly and inflated. The other one which came on a frag plug... not so much. It doesn't inflate as much as the other and has its guts out most of the time. :( The Meringue Nem is still on 'roids. :) Has been eating greedily! The Ricordea are 50/50. Half of them look super bubbly and fluffy, half look ok but not as super. They are all smaller polyps though so maybe that is part of it.

 

I left on a business trip today, so we will see what things look like when I get back home on Saturday. The husband is kinda terrified of being responsible for the tank all by himself, but I know he will be fine.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I know this build has stalled out... Mainly because work has been keeping me ridiculously busy, but also because I've been waiting on my light. However, it looks like I shall be getting it sooooooooooon.

 

nanoboxes_zps0c6a5de2.jpg

 

Dave posted an update on his Nanobox builds. This picture includes both of my lights. The top is the Quad for this tank and the bottom is the Mini for my 8. Can't wait!

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