Normang Fusion 20 Build

[Normang]

Hello All,

 

For the past year I have been an active member here on Nano-Reef, although I do not have a tank set up at the current moment. I have been purchasing used products from members from this site to try and help save costs for my build. During the 2014 Black Friday Sale I purchased my tank from MD and media baskets from InTank. You guys all know I need to keep my water as wet as possible. I post every once in a while and as of now I will be documenting my new tank build with this thread.

 

A little bit about me. I grew up in San Juan Capistrano, CA where I spent my days mountain biking, spearfishing, being a surf bum, playing sports and taking care of our 150g Lee-Mar FOWLR. My reefing experience has been with Blond Nasos, Triggers, and Angels so I'm pretty excited to start the adventure into the Nano Reef world. I plan on keeping mostly LPS with some softies, and a few frags of SPS in the top center of the tank. I have always had a love for the Ocean and the Sky. I lived in CA from birth to age 19, where I left to go live just south of Buenos Aires, Argentina for two years. After the two years, I went to college in Eastern Idaho along the Grand Tetons (Beautiful Mountain Range). I've lived in the state of Idaho since 2010. In Dec 2013 I graduated college in Recreational Management and made the move to Boise Idaho where my wife is from. I'm in flight school working on my instrument rating and work as a ramp agent for SkyWest Airlines. My wife is a Pre-School Special Ed teacher, and we have one 9 month old boy. We have been living with the In-Laws saving money for a place to live and for flight school loans. My Father in law is a fire fighter so he's gone for 2 whole days and home 4. My mother in law loves having us at home to give her company and she helps out a lot with the grand kid but its time to move on and get our own place. We will be moving into our townhouse tomorrow so it is time to start documenting the build.

 

Here is my equipment list.

 

Tank: IM Fusion 20

Stand: Custom built Maple Stand

Light: AI Prime (White)

Filtration: 2 InTank Nuvo 16 Media Baskets and 1 Fuge Basket. I will be running FF, CPE, and Purigen

ATO: Tunze Nano

Heater: Neotherm 75

Skimmer: IM Desktop Ghost Skimmer

Powerhead: MP 10

Sand: Tropic of Eden Miniflakes 20 lbs live

Rock: Something similar to life rock or reel reef

Spectre RODI unit

Salt: Red Sea Coral Pro

Red Sea Master Test Kits

 

I have bought the light, heater, skimmer and ATO used from this website, so I want to thank you guys for helping me out. My Brother also just tore down his tank so he is letting me use some of his old hardware and he wants me to sell his other gear. He still lives in SJC, CA and we met up for Christmas in Park City where he brought me the gear. I will try to sell it all local first, but if nobody bites I will put it up for sale on here. He has a ton of nice equipment that was on his Elos 20 gal. If anyone is living in So California and wants an Elos it is up for sale. Contact me and I'll give you his info.

 

Anyways, thanks for all of the support of everyone here on Nano-Reef. When I ran our 150 gallon the forum that I used was Saltwaterfish. It was a pretty fun community back then, and I hope to gain that same feeling here. Now I need to figure out how to post pictures on this site

[Normang]

A few weeks ago I started the DIY stand. I went with a guy from work who is pretty handy and he helped me pick out the material and helped with the build. This is as far as we have gotten. The build got put on hold for awhile because we have been busy moving into our new place and this week I have been studying like crazy for my written instrument exam I have tomorrow.

Next week I hope to get it stained and coated. For the skin we ended up using maple, it has a sweet grain to it and I'm excited to see what it looks like all stained up. We still need to figure out how to mount the door on, and where to put the shelf inside the stand.Here as some pics

[Normang]

_{Today I am going to finish the stain and seal. We are also going to try and get the front door mounted. Anyone have any suggestions on how to do so?}

[Balix]

You could do magnets for the front to mount.

[Admonition]

_{Today I am going to finish the stain and seal. We are also going to try and get the front door mounted. Anyone have any suggestions on how to do so?}

Like already suggested, you could do simple magnets if the wood isn't too heavy. What's the front look like at the moment?

[Normang]

You could do magnets for the front to mount.

 

 

Like already suggested, you could do simple magnets if the wood isn't too heavy. What's the front look like at the moment?

 

 

The wood isn't heavy at all, since its not very thick. The front looks the same as the picture. I do like just using magnets to mount it, and being able to take the entire thing off for better access to the inside. We didn't get to staining the stand due to my friend being super sick. Hopefully we can get it done soon since I just purchased my rock and I'll get my RODI set up soon.

[Normang]

Photo Update. I purchased my rock the other day. I went with Carib Seas Life Rock. It looks way different than the original life rock, and I love it. Looks a lot more realistic.

 

 

 

I was just messing around with the rock and liked this aquascape. I like the trench style with a stand alone island. Lets hope it fits in the tank

 

[Normang]

Tropic of Eden Mini Flakes

 

Some hardware

[tk-it-ez]

Looking good so far. Good luck.

[Normang]

Looking good so far. Good luck.

 

Thanks I appreciate that. So far its going well.

[Normang]

Update

 

I got my tank wet about 2 weeks ago. I used Bio-Spira and Im taking the stocking slow. Right now we just have 1 green chromis in it.

Enjoy the pics.

FTS

 

 

 

close up of the Aqua Scape

 

Wood Grain

[spectra]

Looks good and is the stand just for the tank only? Any storage? Looking at it I say no but you never know.....

[captainruiz]

Hows the biro spira + live sand working out in regards to the cycle?

[Normang]

Looks good and is the stand just for the tank only? Any storage? Looking at it I say no but you never know.....

 

The 4 screws that can be seen are used to take the front panel of the stand off. Its not the most efficient, but with how thin of wood we used for the skin we couldn't figure out a better way with hinges. Inside the stand there is just enough room for a 5 gal jug for the ATO. There is room in the top section for a shelf, which I might add, but being that it takes forever to open and close the door I might not add it,

 

I hope the ATO works well as I am away from since Thursday and won't get home until Monday. It was working fine before I left but those things always worry me.

Hows the biro spira + live sand working out in regards to the cycle?

 

 

You know what, I am really impressed. The combo of Life Rock, Live sand by tropic eden, and the bio spira has worked wonders. I added the green chromis 40 hours after the bio spira. I waited a few days to run my CPE, Purigen, skimmer, and to run my lights on their normal cycle. Its been running like normal for about a week and a few days now and I have yet to have any diatoms bloom or any type of algae show up, but yet the tank has gone through a quick cycle. The rocks have that painted coraline algae on them and Im sure that helps impede algae growth. Ammonia and nitrite still at 0 and my nitrate is now up to 10, that was right before I did a 15% water chance. My LFS adds a good amount of corals and fish right after adding bio spira, but I'm taking it a little slower than them, but as of now all seems to be going great. I just hope the green chromis can last 3 days without food, it shouldn't be a problem tho.

[captainruiz]

Glad to hear it! And im sure the green chromis will be ok, though they are somewhat "fragile" after going a few days without eating. By the way beautiful rockscape, it has that simplistic look

[spectra]

 

The 4 screws that can be seen are used to take the front panel of the stand off. Its not the most efficient, but with how thin of wood we used for the skin we couldn't figure out a better way with hinges. Inside the stand there is just enough room for a 5 gal jug for the ATO. There is room in the top section for a shelf, which I might add, but being that it takes forever to open and close the door I might not add it,

 

I hope the ATO works well as I am away from since Thursday and won't get home until Monday. It was working fine before I left but those things always worry me.

 

 

You know what, I am really impressed. The combo of Life Rock, Live sand by tropic eden, and the bio spira has worked wonders. I added the green chromis 40 hours after the bio spira. I waited a few days to run my CPE, Purigen, skimmer, and to run my lights on their normal cycle. Its been running like normal for about a week and a few days now and I have yet to have any diatoms bloom or any type of algae show up, but yet the tank has gone through a quick cycle. The rocks have that painted coraline algae on them and Im sure that helps impede algae growth. Ammonia and nitrite still at 0 and my nitrate is now up to 10, that was right before I did a 15% water chance. My LFS adds a good amount of corals and fish right after adding bio spira, but I'm taking it a little slower than them, but as of now all seems to be going great. I just hope the green chromis can last 3 days without food, it shouldn't be a problem tho.

 

You could always glue on a piece of 3/4 stock and run the hinges off of that.

 

I am doing a temporary tank and used the bio spera and it works well. I did Tims on my 20 but did not want to wait for shipping and the bio is at Petsmart. I have dosed ammonia and it is clearing out quickly so things are happening.

[Normang]

Glad to hear it! And im sure the green chromis will be ok, though

they are somewhat "fragile" after going a few days without eating. By the way beautiful rockscape, it has that simplistic look

Thanks for the comment. Having a bridge was just too much and I like the open look to it. I wish some of the rocks were a little smaller but it works. I'm going to adjust the rock on the right side to get more of a channel look through the middle.

 

You could always glue on a piece of 3/4 stock and run the hinges off of that.

 

I am doing a temporary tank and used the bio spera and it works well. I did Tims on my 20 but did not want to wait for shipping and the bio is at Petsmart. I have dosed ammonia and it is clearing out quickly so things are happening.

Yeah I might try to do the hinges in a few weeks.

How long did your tank take to complete the cycle?

[spectra]

Thanks for the comment. Having a bridge was just too much and I like the open look to it. I wish some of the rocks were a little smaller but it works. I'm going to adjust the rock on the right side to get more of a channel look through the middle.

Yeah I might try to do the hinges in a few weeks.

How long did your tank take to complete the cycle?

 

I think it was a little over a week with the Tims.

 

The one I am doing now with bio spera is still showing a small sign of ammonia today as I dosed some more last night as it was zero. It is getting there and has almost been a week.

[Normang]

Yeah that seems about right with the ammonia.Did you use base rock?

[R3rueda]

How's the tank coming along?

[Normang]

How's the tank coming along?

 

Its doing great. I am honestly very impressed with all of the material that I used to start up the tank.` About 2 weeks ago I would get a very minor diatoms bloom after leaving the lights on for 3 days in a row, so I would black out the tank for a day and it would remain stable for another 3-4 days. Its been about 2 weeks where I have been running the lights on 60%, with acclimation mode. During that time I added a CUC and started adding some corals. No deaths so far with CUC, green chromis, and the corals Ive added since.

Here are some pictures.

Rainbow Pocillopora

Bottom left is a pulsing xenia

Hollywood Stunner chalice

red/green favia

GSP

Feather Duster

 

 

On a cool side note, the pocillopra came with a trapezia pocillopra crab.

[Normang]

I need to thank cruZie for the awesome Chaeto that I got him from. You guys should jump on it when he has more.

 

I also had a great experience buying pods from Keydiver. The bottles came full of pods and I am very happy with it. I hope to see them crawling over the sand and rocks in a week or so.

 

Favia

 

Hollywood Stunner up close

[Normang]

I am very impressed with the Ghost skimmer. I bought it used from a member on here. It had micro bubbles for the first week and now they have gone away. Im running it in the 2nd chamber on the right. It's producing a good amount of foam and the skimmate it's pulling is a very light tea colored, probably because of my light bioload. When it gets heavier I'm sure it'll pull some darker thicker stuff.

 

Im using the InTank media baskets. On the right I'm running it with FF, CPE, and purigen, the left one has FF, CPE, and cheato in the 3rd chamber. I have the Intank fuge on the 2nd left chamber, whith cheato in the middle and top section. I bought the in water fuge light you can get from their site. It's growing the cheato well and its a good place for the pods to populate.

 

I was going to add our Clowns this week but none of the fish stores are getting then in stock. My wife likes the normal dark orange percs, but I am more of a designer clownfish guy. I was going to go with 1 black ice or pretty snowflake and 1 perc. Maybe we might just end up doing a normal pair. But since none of the stores have them or will get them this week, we will add our Yasha Goby with candy cane pistol shrimp and a yellow corris wrasse. Im pretty pumped to get the Yasha, Ive never seen one in person but they look incredible in all the vids and pics I've seen. Our LFS says its his favorite fish.

[Normang]

an Update. The tank is going well. I got a bunch of frags last week from a local reefer, and I also added more pods. Since then, I have crazy pod growth in my Fuge and on the glass. These also are appearing on the glass, anyone know what they are? Ive been researching and I can't find it.

 

 

I got all the following for $30

 

1 head hammer

1 head tricolor hammer

2 head frogspawn

4 head candy cane

Idaho grape monti

1 green slimmer frag

7 zoo frags, Amor of Gods, blue tubes, and some orange ones.

pipe organ

[Normang]

Does anyone have an ID on the critter I previously posted?