TeenyReef's 10g Fusion - ATO Disaster

[teenyreef]

Murphy got burrito'd the other night. He loves being wrapped up in the blanket.

 

Jasper wasn't sure what to think about it, though...

 

[Couesfanatic]

The green and purple acan in the front is awesome. Have you shared your Nanobox light settings? Curious to see what you have them running at. 

[Wherrey]

Hey teeny I’m sure you’ve been asked before but if you wouldn’t mind sharing. how do you have your KPS set up I wanna shoot for a mixed reef and get into the SPS world

[teenyreef]

5 hours ago, Wherrey said:

Hey teeny I’m sure you’ve been asked before but if you wouldn’t mind sharing. how do you have your KPS set up I wanna shoot for a mixed reef and get into the SPS world

It's nothing fancy - I set it to "random" from 60-100% all the time. Good luck!

[teenyreef]

On 5/19/2020 at 1:15 AM, Couesfanatic said:

The green and purple acan in the front is awesome. Have you shared your Nanobox light settings? Curious to see what you have them running at. 

That's actually a favites but I agree, it's one of my favorites in this tank. I'm running the Nanobox Mini Tide at 75% royal blue, 17% white/lime, 75% violet, and 90% cyan at the midday peak. In the morning and evenings the royal blues are higher than anything else.

 

The sps would probably benefit from a higher level at midday but I'm trying to get the colors back in the acans by running the light a little lower.

[teenyreef]

Now that the tank has had a chance to settle in after I cut the corals back a few weeks ago, I'm really happy with how things are going. Still waiting for the ricordea to get puffy again, but everything else is showing steady improvement. Even the acans are getting puffy and coloring back up.

 

2020-05-26 IM10 FTS:

 

Some pretty coral shots... 🙂

Blasto Merletis aka Teenlyletis:

 

 

The zoa and lps garden:

 

Zia's no name blue acros that are always sorta brown in my tank:

 

Jason Fox Brain Freeze montipora recovering from some minor bleaching:

 

Katropora looking nice like Katropora always does:

 

Since I cut the corals back, the blue chalice is getting just the right amount of light and I'm loving how it looks now 

 

[debbeach13]

Looks fantastic. Such a variety and the colors do really pop.

[teenyreef]

On 5/23/2020 at 11:29 PM, debbeach13 said:

Looks fantastic. Such a variety and the colors do really pop.

Thanks, Deb!

[teenyreef]

The ATO overfilled the tank AGAIN today. The timeout function worked so the tank didn't overflow, so that main result is that the skimmer starts to fill up too fast and salinity goes down by about a point. 

The problem is the Tunze Nano is an old float valve design. So any time a snail or, in this case, a limpet, gets up on the float or the float shield, the float can get stuck in the down position, making the ATO run until it times out. This has happened every few months or so as long as I've had it. After over five years, I finally decided not to deal with it any more.

 

I'll be the first to admit that the optical sensor systems can have their own problems, especially if they are exposed to direct light, or get too dirty. But both optical systems I have in my other tanks (the full-size Tunze in the IM40) and the Auto Aqua Smart ATO Micro (in the DB30) have never gotten stuck on. I don't like the big Tunze because it's, well, big. And the AutoAqua works fine but tends to siphon into the sump when I fill the reservoir all the way to the top.

 

So I decided to try something new. The design of the JBJ Nano ATO looks pretty much like the Auto Aqua micro, but it was on sale for about $50 less. So it's on the way and I'll let everyone know how it works when I get it.

[debbeach13]

I have never had a problem with the micro. I have the water level below the hose just barely. I will be interested in how the new ATO Does

[teenyreef]

13 minutes ago, debbeach13 said:

I have never had a problem with the micro. I have the water level below the hose just barely. I will be interested in how the new ATO Does

My problem is that the water siphons from the ATO container into the sump. It just happens because the ATO container is fairly tall, so it's higher that the water level in the sump.

[debbeach13]

That is a problem. Well hopefully the new one works better.

[second_decimal]

2 hours ago, teenyreef said:

My problem is that the water siphons from the ATO container into the sump. It just happens because the ATO container is fairly tall, so it's higher that the water level in the sump.

I’m sure it’s not possible but Just in case, run the hose so it has a higher point than the water level of the sump? 

[ninjamyst]

Got rid of my tunze nano loong time ago.  They should have recalled that junk.  I have smart micro and aquaXP now.  Both have been great.

[teenyreef]

13 hours ago, ninjamyst said:

Got rid of my tunze nano loong time ago.  They should have recalled that junk.  I have smart micro and aquaXP now.  Both have been great.

Good to know! I'm taking a bit of a chance on the JBJ Nano. Hopefully it works out.

[teenyreef]

The JBJ Nano came today. @Marine Depot shipped it super fast!

 

 

Hookup was fast and easy. The only change I had to make was to drill a bigger hole for the fill tube in my ATO container because there's a bigger hose than the Tunze Nano had. I turned it on, it filled up until it hit the high water mark, and then it turned off. So far so good 

[spectra]

Looks like they copied the smart sensors ? its been a while since I needed a nano ato................

 

 

Love my spectrapure ato..............if it will fit would never go another rout.............

[dferrari13]

On 5/26/2020 at 8:36 PM, teenyreef said:

The ATO overfilled the tank AGAIN today. The timeout function worked so the tank didn't overflow, so that main result is that the skimmer starts to fill up too fast and salinity goes down by about a point. 

The problem is the Tunze Nano is an old float valve design. So any time a snail or, in this case, a limpet, gets up on the float or the float shield, the float can get stuck in the down position, making the ATO run until it times out. This has happened every few months or so as long as I've had it. After over five years, I finally decided not to deal with it any more.

 

I'll be the first to admit that the optical sensor systems can have their own problems, especially if they are exposed to direct light, or get too dirty. But both optical systems I have in my other tanks (the full-size Tunze in the IM40) and the Auto Aqua Smart ATO Micro (in the DB30) have never gotten stuck on. I don't like the big Tunze because it's, well, big. And the AutoAqua works fine but tends to siphon into the sump when I fill the reservoir all the way to the top.

 

So I decided to try something new. The design of the JBJ Nano ATO looks pretty much like the Auto Aqua micro, but it was on sale for about $50 less. So it's on the way and I'll let everyone know how it works when I get it.

For this reason, I have my tunze nano on a plug in digital timer and can only run twice a day and each time for only one minute. And I also soak the float valve once a month..... Never have a problem since. But I will admit, for my new tank I have purchased the micro ATO.

[teenyreef]

Today I hung the Radion XR30 Gen 5 Blue light over the IM10! This is part of getting ready to set up the UNS 60U in place of this tank (coming soon...). I wanted to get all the parts for the hanging bar in place to make sure it was going to work before doing the eventual tank migration. 

 

@Cannedfish this light over the IM10 makes the dual AI Pros look like a couple of candles. 

After playing around with the Mobius app for a while, I found that setting the light to about 9% intensity gives about the same PAR I had before. 

Here's a quick cell-phone shot with the lights set to the classic AB+ setting.

 

[Cannedfish]

12 hours ago, teenyreef said:

Today I hung the Radion XR30 Gen 5 Blue light over the IM10! This is part of getting ready to set up the UNS 60U in place of this tank (coming soon...). I wanted to get all the parts for the hanging bar in place to make sure it was going to work before doing the eventual tank migration. 

 

@Cannedfish this light over the IM10 makes the dual AI Pros look like a couple of candles. 

After playing around with the Mobius app for a while, I found that setting the light to about 9% intensity gives about the same PAR I had before. 

Here's a quick cell-phone shot with the lights set to the classic AB+ setting.

 

So what your saying is I need need to add two more Primes...

 

... can’t wait to see the hate comments when I do that...😂

[mitten_reef]

49 minutes ago, Cannedfish said:

So what your saying is I need need to add two more Primes...

 

... can’t wait to see the hate comments when I do that...😂

DO ITTTTT!!!  

 

12 hours ago, teenyreef said:

I found that setting the light to about 9% intensity gives about the same PAR I had before. 

Here's a quick cell-phone shot with the lights set to the classic AB+ setting.

I am impressed, but not too shocked by the 9% findings.  XR30 runs 100 individual LEDs chip, that makes 13 led's on the Tide measly by comparison.  feels like I need to step up my lighting game to the big boy league.  

[teenyreef]

On 5/31/2020 at 12:55 PM, Cannedfish said:

So what your saying is I need need to add two more Primes...

 

... can’t wait to see the hate comments when I do that...😂

It would look like the alien spacecraft in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (dating myself to an embarrassing degree...). So do it!

[teenyreef]

On 5/31/2020 at 1:51 PM, mitten_reef said:

DO ITTTTT!!!  

 

I am impressed, but not too shocked by the 9% findings.  XR30 runs 100 individual LEDs chip, that makes 13 led's on the Tide measly by comparison.  feels like I need to step up my lighting game to the big boy league.  

Yeah, same here. I guessed I would only need about 20% even over the future 20g, so about 10% seems about right over this tank, especially since I was only running the Nanobox at about 75 or 80% to avoid turning the acans orange.

 

I think the really big difference is there will be much smoother coverage over the entire tank, so the PAR may go up near the edges of the tank. And of course it's hard to match the photoperiods exactly so that will be a change too.

 

So far, after two full days, nothing has bleached, died, or radically changed colors. #winning

[teenyreef]

Well, the new 20g is set up and cycling. Verrrrryyyy slooooowly. I put the old Nanobox light back over this tank while waiting for the new tank to get going.

 

I probably won't have this tank up and running too much longer once the 20g is established. I'll move frags and chunks of stuff from this tank into the 20g and then shut it down. I'd guess maybe another month or three for the new tank to get established and mature enough to move finish moving things over.

 

In the meantime, the tank is doing fine, except for the ricordia florida. They're slowly getting smaller and smaller for no apparent reason. That's disappointing because I've always loved them, but it just seems like there's always just that one coral that won't do well in every tank.

 

Here's a updated FTS and top down:

2020-08-04 FTS:

 

2020-08-04 Top Down:

 

[OldManSea]

14 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

Well, the new 20g is set up and cycling. Verrrrryyyy slooooowly. I put the old Nanobox light back over this tank while waiting for the new tank to get going.

 

I probably won't have this tank up and running too much longer once the 20g is established. I'll move frags and chunks of stuff from this tank into the 20g and then shut it down. I'd guess maybe another month or three for the new tank to get established and mature enough to move finish moving things over.

 

In the meantime, the tank is doing fine, except for the ricordia florida. They're slowly getting smaller and smaller for no apparent reason. That's disappointing because I've always loved them, but it just seems like there's always just that one coral that won't do well in every tank.

 

Here's a updated FTS and top down:

2020-08-04 FTS:

 

2020-08-04 Top Down:

 

 

Still the most inspiring nanoreef.  I will miss it when it goes.