Fluval Spec V Project - Orbit Marine Pro Setup

[mrjohn]

Hey guys! My name is John, and this is my first post on this site. Pretty excited to be part of the online reefer community for the first time. I've had two reef tanks in the past, the first one crashed from being me just being dumb, the other I retired because my old job kept me away from home quite a bit.

 

But now was the time for me to get back into it, as my girlfriend and I agreed it'd be a fun thing to get into together now that we live together.

 

I normally dive into the research about every single aspect about a hobby before I actually get started. And I feel like I did a pretty decent job. The reefing community changed quite a bit since I had last seen it, and in a good way! So many new cool products that can make reefing easier.

 

Any who, I had snagged a Fluval Spec V as this size tank fit our apartment perfectly, plus it looks awesome. I had a Coralife t5 10k/actinic fixture from an old tank I did, so I used that right off the bat. I also had a Hydor Koralia Nano, and an Aqueon 50w Heater from my old tank I was excited to put in.

 

I had seen posts about the stock Fluval pump just not being enough flow for a reef tank, and rightly so. So I had snagged a Hydor Pico 180. I had to mod the living heck out of it to get it to fit into the stock pump section of the tank. I had also chose to get InTank's media basket right off the basket, with filter floss at the top along with Seachem Matrix. Below that was Seachem Purigen, and then below that was Chemi-Pure Elite. InTank's basket skimmer also helps with the filtration and this tank can look crystal clear about stirring things up in about 20 minutes!

 

Here's a rundown of what I've got:

 

Equipment:

 

Fluval Spec V

InTank Media Basket

Hydor Pico 180gph Pump

Hydor Koralia Nano Wave Maker

Coralife Salinity Scale

Coralife Temp Probe

Aqueon 50w Heater

 

Filtration:

 

InTank Media Basket

Filter Floss

Seachem Matrix

Seachem Purigen

Chemi-Pure Elite

 

Current Tank Residents:

 

Tropic Eden Live Reeflakes Sand 20lb

Live Rock from Fiji - Uncured

Random(?) Coral Skeletons - Cured

2 Hermit Crabs

4 Mexican Turbo Snails

 

And now! The photos!

 

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The tank has been cycling for almost a month now. It has just got passed a brown algae bloom, and is looking really good. The turbo snails really did a good job.

 

My next item I got my sights set on is USA Current's Orbit Marine PRO Led Light. It'll be the perfect match with my tank, and right after I'll be snagging some frags.

 

I have Red Sea's Reef Test kit, and everything has passed with flying colors, however I have not testing the other parameters, I do need to do that soon.

 

 

Let me know what you guys think! Anxious to hear some feedback! Thanks for your time!

 

 

[YaBoyLaj]

sick scape! Nice, clean and simple, look forward to seeing this grow!

[makingfilms]

looks Real gooD! Great tank. I just took down my spec this weekend (well sort of). One suggestion get an ATO if you can swing it i got the smart micro ATO for 99 bucks it really helps keep tank params in check. I have had some crazy swings in my tank in a mater of hours caused by evaporation.

[Cichlidrookie]

Yes get an ATO as soon as you can.

Great start and seems like you have done your reading.

Just a heads up on your scape. Eventually you will have to clean your glass and you want to make sure your magnet cleaner can fit between your rock and glass. Hard to tell from pictures how close your rockscape is to glass.

Will be following along.

[mrjohn]

Thanks guys! I really appreciate the love! And a big thank you on the advice. I guess I'll need to get an ATO as soon as possible!

 

looks Real gooD! Great tank. I just took down my spec this weekend (well sort of). One suggestion get an ATO if you can swing it i got the smart micro ATO for 99 bucks it really helps keep tank params in check. I have had some crazy swings in my tank in a mater of hours caused by evaporation.

 

If you don't mind, could I see how yours was set up? That ATO looks absolutely perfect for these tanks. And I would be using Distilled Water with Instant Ocean Reef Salt as the top off water. Would I be correct in that line of thinking?

[makingfilms]

here is a old fts that shows my ato set up. This tank was retired last weekend. My corals outgrew this tank too quickly and I found it too narrow to do good maintenance. The blue light is the optical ATO sensor. The pink sticker was the water line i was trying to maintain. the one gallon bass jug is my reservoir. The ATO fresh water entered behind my power head. You should keep the line into your tank above the water line so you don't create a siphon. Ato water should be 100% fresh water unless you are dosing something into your tank like kalk. I don't dose this way but a lot of people do. I have since drilled a hole in bass jar top and ran the wires cleaner.

 

[NewbReefer316]

Great looking start, I'm getting ready to do a Spec V as well. let me know how the Pro light works for you. I'm interested in seeing if the difference between the pro and regular is significant.

[mrjohn]

Hey guys! Sorry for not posting in so long. I've been so busy with work. But I have indeed been busy with the tank!

 

I was fortunate enough to meet a guy who works at a reef shop that frags out corals himself and sells them on the side, so I've been kinda hanging out with him lately and getting some frags from him. Been learning quite a bit too!

 

Snagged a Duncan, a Sunset Montipora, Star Polyp and an Emperor Polyp.

 

Also decided to get a black ocellaris his name is Charlie lol.

 

Annnd I actually got my marine pro yesterday, and WOW what a difference. It's almost as if the light was designed solely for the Fluval Spec V. It's crazy. I took some shots of how precise the measurements are on the tank.

 

Now....pictures!

 

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As you can see, the Marine Pro is PERFECT for this tank. And I recommend it to everyone with the spec V.

 

Let me know what you guys think!

[YaBoyLaj]

WOW! It's Looking great!

[Kakarot]

Wow.. Is that how light look in person too?

[Cichlidrookie]

Really like your new addition, that clown looks soo small.

[mrjohn]

WOW! It's Looking great!

 

 

Wow.. Is that how light look in person too?

 

 

Thanks guys! And yes, that light is literally how it looks in person too. I was gifted with the ability to replicate real world lighting with my camera haha.

 

 

Really like your new addition, that clown looks soo small.

 

Thank you so much! Yes he's a tiny little thing. Which was what I wanted lol.

[mrjohn]

So a couple things have happened since I got the new light unfortunately.

 

I am being hit hard with algae blooms as well as a subtle bubble algae bloom. Over the weekend though, I plan to tear down the tank and do a full cleaning of it, and a full scrubbing of the rocks, as well as removing the top layer of sand. I've had to turn down the brightness of the light because it's slightly too much I think for the tank. Which is a good problem to have I think. Luckily I'm able to turn down the intensity. Also next week I am snagging the Micro ATO. I definitely need that ATO now, with the stock fluval cover gone and the light putting out more heat than the old one. Evaporation is real now.

 

I almost forgot to mention that I snagged a Cherub Pygmy Angel! Got it for an amazing deal at a local store, and she might even be smaller than my clown. AND they are best friends. No aggression whatsoever. So I am very thankful for that.

 

Here she is!

 

[MrNanoReef]

Nice pico so far!

 

This may come in handy for you

 

http://oceanboxdesigns.com/product/lightmaxx-stands-current-orbit-marinepro-led/

[YaBoyLaj]

I love pygmy angels! I used to have one in my 30gal bio cube and he was the funniest thing to watch

[mrjohn]

sad news last night. out of NO where, my little clown Charlie died. I'm so bummed about it. That being said, his fins had tears beforehand. But his energy was just fine. He would swim around no problem, seemed strong. Had no signs of Ich or anything like that. And my pygmy angel has remained unchanged from when I saw her at the store, lots of energy, super hard to catch (which is a good sign). My corals are doing very well too. Kinda stumped on what it could have been, other than him maybe having clownfish disease before I bought him.

[Cichlidrookie]

Maybe your Pygmy angel attacked/bullied him to death. From liveaquaria.com it says that Pygmy are SEMI-AGGRESIVE, so who know maybe he attacked him while he was sleeping or something.

Their compadability chart says it is okay but who knows with fish in such a small tank.

[mrjohn]

We have thought of the Pygmy attacking or bullying but we had been watching both of them soo much and they loved to hang out and swim around together, and not once did the Pygmy attack the Clown. We would really like to believe it was simply sick when we got him.

 

So last weekend I decided to tear down the tank, do a full scrub down cleaning, and then re-scape the rocks. Took about 3 hours but I got rid of so much bad stuff in the tank that I'm sure was contributing to the algae buildup.

 

Here as an after shot:

 

 

 

I am really liking the scape much more than before. I had taken the small rocks out that we're slowly developing bubble algae. I didn't want to try scrubbing them and potentially have it come back. So I just completely removed them, which is nice because I honestly think it looks a lot cleaner than it did before.

 

Today though I had decided in the middle of the day that I wanted to make a protein skimmer. I love me a good project and a protein skimmer definitely couldn't hurt the tank. In the past when I was still putting the tank ideas together, I wanted to snag a Meme Protein Skimmer, seeing as it is the cleanest one around, it's super simple and it's SMALL. Most "nano" skimmers aren't actually that small at all. Definitely not meant for a 5 gallon tank lol that's for sure.

 

So I literally looked at a few photos of the Meme skimmer on google, and decided today that I would make my own. And I did.

 

It helped already having an air pump in the storage unit from my freshwater tanks back in the day. So I went and snagged a turkey baster, some air line male to male connectors, and a wooden air stone. I had to wittle the wooden air stone down small enough that it'd fit in the baster, as well as cut the baster a little, but that wasn't too much of a hassle. I tapped a small hole for the drip line at the top, ran the air lines and it was pretty much good to go in about an hour. It cost me only about 12 bucks.

 

Here are some photos

 

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I'm actually pretty excited about it. I've been reading that it takes about a week for a normal skimmer to break in, and in the mean time it will suck up water faster than normal. That's fine, I'll just have to watch the water line. Too bad the ATO I was going to buy literally upped in price the day I went to order it. So lame. I'll wait until it drops. It makes no sense that it went up after being out for so long. Let me know what you guys think! Have a good weekend!

[D Z]

Tank looks great. That little skimmer is badass...probably the best diy mame copycat ive seen....may have too try this myself.

[Cichlidrookie]

Yes I agree BADASS skimmer. What are you going to use for a collection cup?

[tsouth]

Love the creativity in the skimmer. Minimalism at its best

[mrjohn]

Tank looks great. That little skimmer is badass...probably the best diy mame copycat ive seen....may have too try this myself.

 

Hey thanks man. I say do it! I actually made a second revision skimmer after posting the one on here lol

 

Yes I agree BADASS skimmer. What are you going to use for a collection cup?

 

Thanks dude! And it's honestly just going to a used 1 gallon distilled water jug. I have the collection hose going in the top cap with a small vent hole on the cap as well. Easy and super cheap.

 

Love the creativity in the skimmer. Minimalism at its best

 

Thank you! I appreciate it. Funny that you say minimalism because my next post isn't quite as minimal haha.

[Cichlidrookie]

Can you take picture. Would like to see it all, including collection cup

[mrjohn]

Hey guys! I appreciated all the comments about the skimmer. I was really stoked on it myself lol. That being said, I made a second revision skimmer, this time with a taller baster. With the old design, the dump line was tapped at a lower point than it should have been. Because of that, the return line was taking in a lottttt more water than it should have been. In the three days I had it running, it had sucked up about a gallon of water. Pretty ridiculous, but it was also a good way to do top offs with some nice fresh reef salt water lol.

 

The second revision is about 2 inches taller, with the return line right at the top. This way, the bubbles accumulate more before being sucked in thru the dump line. Another pain was tuning the air pump just right. Too much air, the bubbles forced their way out of the skimmer and into the tank. Too little air, and the air block didn't pump out enough to skim. But over the weekend, I successfully got the revisioned skimmer tuned correctly.

 

There was also another "modification" I wanted to try out with the tank, and this was fueled by the very slight brown algae growth that would occur every day on the glass, even after I changed the lighting schedule. The skimmer essentially stopped the algae growth, and for that I am so happy about. But I wanted some more assurance that the tank was getting a more solid filtration circulation.

 

I decided to add another filter on the tank. The Hydor Pico 180 is great and all, and I had cleaned out the media basket to get rid of any detritus that had built up under the basket, and I believe that helped out the stock location filtration, but to me, it just wasn't enough. Even if the Pico says it's 180 gph, it sure doesn't feel like it when I put my finger in front of the outlet nozzle.

 

Decidedly, I wanted another form of filtration and flow.

 

Over the weekend, I had read about a 20 gallon tank build log on here that had 100 different corals, all with a Marineland Bio-Wheel over hanging filter....and that was it. And the tank was doing amazing.

 

I had read about bio-wheels in the past not being so great for reef tanks as it functions as an ammonia/nitrite reducer only by taking them and converting to nitrates. Essentially dumping nitrates into the tank. And that is all from the bio-wheel functionality. Well, I decided to take a chance. I decided that maybe that so called process would be slowed down if the bio-wheel itself spun slower than normal.

 

 

I snagged a Marineland Bio-Wheel 100 and filled the filtration chamber with filter floss and Seachem Matrix, two layers of each. When the filter would output the water back into the tank, microbubbles were everywhere. But I already had a plan for that. I covered the outlet channel with filter floss, and it completely eliminated the microbubbles, as well as slowed the bio-wheel down drastically.

 

It seems to be working great, as the tank looks cleaner than it's ever looked. And not a single spot of algae growth on the glass or rock, even after changing the lighting cycle back up slightly.

 

 

I know, that was a lot of reading, so here are some photos!

 

Revisioned protein skimmer:

 

Marineland Bio-Wheel 100:

 

Filter floss eliminating microbubbles:

 

Tank as it sits currently:

 

 

 

I need more corals now!

Can you take picture. Would like to see it all, including collection cup

 

I'll post a picture of the collection cup when I get home!

[D Z]

All really cool diy upgrades. Just be careful not to run the tank too clean. As your collection of corals grows you may start to see a slow down in growth due to this. I usually aim to have to clean the glass every 2 to 3 days as then you know that there are available nutrients in the water column for the corals to consume. You just want to find a balance where you are not getting the unwanted algae growth like gha on rock etc.