Ratsark's Nouveau Nuvo 16

[ratsark]

Greetings fellow reefers, and welcome to my small piece of the ocean.

 

 

Current State

• Cycle finished, attempting to reduce nitrate to good levels for inverts

Bill of Materials

• Tank: IM Nuvo Nano 16
• Lighting: (2) 8 Watt IM SkkyeLight LED lights - Stock (6 x 1W 14K White & 4 x 1/2W 456 nm Blue)
• Heater: Eheim Jager 75W
• Pump: IM 211 GPH Return Pump - Stock
• Flow: 1x Hydor Koralia Nano 425GPH and 1x Hydor Koralia Nano 240GPH
• Automation: Neptune Systems Apex
• ATO: SpectraPure Ultra-Precise Level Controller II

Filtration

• ~20 lbs live rock from gulfliverock.com
• Stock sponges in filter baskets (mechanical filtration only while cycling)

Livestock

• ​Hidden cup coral

• Not yet identified (Yellow sponge?)

• Unidentified algae (upper middle right may be Caulerpa Prolifera?)

• Coralline algae

• 2 Astrea snails
• 2 Blue-legged hermit crabs

[ratsark]

Hi everyone! I love this site and have been reading for quite a while, so now that I'm getting a tank started I figure it's time to start posting. I'm a week into the cycle, and interesting things are starting to show up. There's a ton of beautiful coralline algae that seems to get more colorful the more light it gets. There's something that looks like a yellow sponge and doesn't seem to be rotting (hopefully meaning it's alive). And there are three hidden cup corals I just discovered today.

 

I did a water change on Monday after painstakingly blowing all the detritus off the rocks and gathering it in the corners for siphoning. This seemed to really bring things to life - the algae seems to be growing rapidly and the hidden cup coral seemed to appear out of nowhere. This may have also been related to moving the rocks around to their current configuration.

 

I have a few questions for anyone reading this thread:

• What kinds of algae are growing in my tank? Should I be concerned?
• Are my powerheads set up in a good place for proper flow? Should I set up the Apex to turn them on and off for increased variation?
• Any other suggestions? This is my first foray into aquarium keeping of any kind, so any thoughts or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading!

[ratsark]

Wow, I just did my API Saltwater Master tests and they came out better than expected. I last tested on Saturday, when I found pH ~7.8, Ammonia > 8.0 ppm (max for the test), Nitrite > 5.0 ppm (also max), and Nitrate 0. This time I got

 

pH: 7.9 (seems slightly low - should I look into increasing this?)

Ammonia: 0

Nitrite: 1.0 ppm

Nitrate: 30 ppm

 

Perhaps this would explain why I'm starting to see so much algal growth. Not bad for eight days in. I may get to add creatures sooner than I thought!

[ratsark]

I siphoned out all the detritus and added substrate on Monday. Ammonia and Nitrate hit zero and have stayed there since last week, so on Tuesday I added a couple of Astrea snails and a couple of blue-legged hermit crabs. I'm having a bit of trouble finding a good LFS in San Francisco; I may have to expand my search to the whole bay area.

 

Shortly after adding them, I realized that my nitrates may be too high for inverts at this point (~30 PPM) so I started taking action to reduce nitrates. I'll likely do another water change today, increase the hours the light is on (to promote algae eating the nitrates), and I added purigen to the filters.

 

Also, I think I have a couple of Aiptasia on my rocks... I'm waiting to see them move or get confirmation from someone more senior before killing them, but perhaps I should just hurry up and do it.

 

First possible Aiptasia:

 

Second possible Aiptasia:

 

Can anyone confirm that these are or are not Aiptasia?

[skyzpop]

I am a newbie myself with a Nuvo 16 so I can't help identify anything for you yet, sorry.

 

I am not sure what you plan on having for fish but keep an eye on the gap that the stock Nuvo glass lid creates. I personally lost a clown fish, not sure if he jumped through a gap on the edges or if he jumped through the finger holes in the glass lid. Other than that, your tank is looking good!

[ratsark]

Thanks for the warning, Skyzpop! I'm planning to start with a tailspot blenny, which from what I've read may jump. Do you know of a good way to cover up the gaps in the lid?

[ratsark]

A bit of an update: I got an order from Blue Zoo last week with a hairy mushroom, two emerald crabs (though I only ordered one), a tailspot blenny, and a couple more blue-legged hermit crabs.

 

From the moment I dropped them in, one of the emerald crabs was chowing down on algae like a kid in a candy store. The blue-legged hermit crabs adapted quickly too. The other emerald crab seemed a bit slow, just hanging out instead of eating. The blenny seemed to be in really bad shape at first - he just sat in the algae where he'd fallen when I first put him in.

 

After another day or so, the blenny was starting to use the algae as a home base from which he'd occasionally venture out to violently attack some algae. It was amazing to see watch his colors change to be solid when he went out to eat and go back to being striped when he returned to the algae. At last I saw him start to use a hole in the rock the way a blenny should - darting out and backing in with just his head sticking out. He seemed quite happy (no stress colors) to watch everything from there.

 

But then he disappeared, and I haven't seen him since. I've been feeding the tank optimistically, but it's been about 5 days at this point. I checked the sump, and I checked around the tank to see if he'd jumped out.

 

A couple other things happened that make me wonder if there could be a mantis shrimp hiding in my rockwork. The second emerald crab - the one that wasn't doing very well - lost one of his claws pretty quickly. This may have happened before shipping (I thought he had two claws on arrival but I'm not sure) or could have happened in a scuffle with the emerald crab. Either way, he ended up dead three days after arriving.

 

Also, I'm not able to find one of the larger blue-legged hermit crabs, and I saw something floating around that looked like a couple of blue legs attached to a bit of viscera.

 

I haven't heard any clicks and I haven't seen anything that looks like a mantis shrimp. I'm going to get a couple of tank-raised clownfish and see if anything else disappears - if not, I'll chock it up to poor acclimation.