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Clown's Nuvo20


Clown79

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I lucked out to get a 10g IM with the Skyye light used for $50. It had been used for 6mnths for a freshwater tank. It was in excellent condition.

 

We made a pedestal stand for it out of 2x4's and special grade plywood used to make tractor trailers. This stand is solid and very heavy!

 

Equipment

 

10g Im

Stock pump

Spin Stream Nozzle

Skyye Light 10k 50/50

 

Caribsea black hawaiian live sand

80% dry rock/20% liverock

 

 

I cycled the tank with just the liverock, no dosing of anything. The tank took 6 weeks to cycle.

 

I had a favia brain in the tank because it had been in my 15g but was attacked by peppermint shrimp so I had to remove it. It was in bad shape.

 

After the first waterchange we added a few hermits and snails.

 

After a month we added a leather which was a carnation leather. Upon finding out the difficulty in success with this coral I brought it back to the store. I didn't want to take the chance and lose a coral in such a new tank.

 

 

My first fish was a purple firefish. it was added about 2 months after start up.  It was absolutely beautiful and such a great fish.

 

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After the first month we started getting diatoms. It wasn't very bad and within a month they were gone. I let it run it's course.

 

The stock pump was really weak so I replaced it with a maxijet 600 which although loud works very well to circulate the tanks water. The spin stream also worked better with the upgraded pump.

 

I also upgraded the media basket. The stock one was very cheaply made and quite a pain to change media. The upgraded IM media basket is great. There is much more room for media, easy to clean and change the media. It also fits better.

 

We started adding more corals to the tank within the first 3 mnths.

 

The favia brain was fully recovered as well.

 

Equipment

Maxijet 600

spinstream

Upgraded media basket

Eheim Jagger heater

 

Filter Media

 

filter floss - changed twice a week

Seachem Matrix Carbon - rinsed weekly and changed every 2-3 weeks

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around 5mnths we decided to add another fish...we didn't quarantine and it turned out to be sick.

 

I believe it had velvet because the symptoms hit within 4 days and it died within 2 days. 

My firefish started developing symptoms within the same time frame and it died within 2 days.

 

there wasn't even time to get a hospital tank set up.

 

We really hated losing the purple firefish. We loved that fish.

 

So at this time we had the tank go fallow for 8 weeks. We added nothing to the tank, just maintained it as usual.

 

this is the risk you take when you don't quarantine.

 

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after our 8 weeks of fallow we decided to go with a bicolor dottyback.

 

This fish was really cool. Super smart fish too. Very active, very responsive fish.

 

 

the downside to getting this fish meant that we couldn't do shrimp or another fish.

 

The dotty is known to be aggressive and territorial. I wouldn't advise it in a small tank with others.

 

I often witnessed it go after hermits so I decided it would be housed alone other than cuc. It seemed to not bother the pom pom crab we added.

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Decided to upgrade my light. The Skyye light was ok but not programmable, simply on and off with a timer. Not to mention the acrylic clamp busted and we had to have a friend make one from plastic.

 

We went with the Aquamaxx Nemolight which offered the ability to control the whites and blues separately as well as sunrise and sunset.

I really like this light. It's very sleek, fits well, and no heat issues. It was a great price too.

 

We also added 2 birdsnest to the tank.

 

 

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at this time we started having issues with algae, particularly within the sand bed. Nothing really on the rocks.

 

My maintenance routine

 

blast rocks with turkey baster

scrape glass

vacuum sand bed every week

scrub the back chambers every other week and siphon out

clean pump every 2 months

 

distilled water is used with reef crystals

 

To combat the algae

 

Increased water changes

siphoned out some of the sand to reduce quantity in hopes that maybe it was just to deep

added phosguard to my filteration

added a powerhead in the tank 

stopped adding zooplankton, Aquavitro fuel, and reduced coral feeding to 1 time a week

 

this seemed to help.

 

at the same time we got some sort of flatworm. Very small brown flatworms. They didn't do any harm, pretty much stuck to the tank walls. I often removed them with filter floss.

  • Like 4
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For months everything went pretty smoothly. My corals were growing. The birdsnest doubled in size, my toadstool was growing, my duncans were sprouting new heads, and my acans were also tripling in size.

 

Unfortunately, the sand issue was a constant on and off problem. There was tufts of gha spreading.

 

The black sand is a larger grain than most and it seemed to trap alot of detritus. Even with reducing the depth, vacuuming with every water change, and stirring it every other day, this did not help.

 

 

It was time to make a change. Decided to switch out the sand before the gha spread to the rocks and corals.

 

Sand switch out

 

-Made a good size batch of new SW

 

-got my buckets ready and siphoned water from the tank into the buckets. I didn't disturb any sand so the water wouldn't be polluted with crap.

- caught my fish and put it in one bucket with loose corals. This bucket had a heater and powerhead in it

- pulled my rock out of the tank and placed it in a bucket of water with a powerhead

- I then got my vacuum and siphoned the sand into an empty bucket. This took some time and I had to add some water to get it all out.

 

the crap that was in there was disgusting. the water was a gross brown, I can't imagine how bad it would be without regular vacuuming!

 

- I swiped down the tank

- placed my rockwork back in, changed the aquascape too for better water movement

- added new livesand

- filled the tank with partial water from the rock bucket

- added the fish, corals, and new water

- changed out filter media and started it back up

 

I had prime on hand but there was no need. We had no issues.

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Saved this sps. got it for $5 and within a few days the polyps started opening.

 

At this point I started using RSCP salt. I loved the salt except that the alk started creeping up. I had always kept my alk in the 8.8 range but as I continued using the RSCP it creeped up with every water change.

 

At first this didn't seem to be an issue. Things were looking great and growing for the first few months.

 

Unfortunately the alk continued to creep up. All other parameters were in a great range but the alk increase was starting to cause issues.

 

My frogspawn dropped it's head. That was the first sign something was up and then my birdsnests started acting up. Tips started going white. The alk was at 11 at this point.

 

I added additional flow to the tank, monitored my paramaters multiple times a week while dosing for consumption.

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  • Like 5
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After a few months my alk had creeped up to 12.5 and the birdsnests were just not improving so it wasn't the flow issue. My nitrates were 5 and my phos 0.03, ca was 430, mag was 1350, salinity consistent at 1.025. ph was consistent 8.2, no temp issues. steady at 80.3

 

I fed reef roids twice a week.

 

Because of the increased flow my lps was starting to close up.

 

I decided it was time to make another change. I couldn't keep the lps happy with the increased flow and the sps didn't do well without it, plus the alk was an issue.

 

I changed salts to Aquaforest. This salt was much more consistent and I really liked how it mixed. Everything was happy besides the sps.

 

I decided to trade in the sps 

 

 

During this time I lost my fish for no known reason. There were no new additions and it had no symptoms. Just up and stopped eating, then died after 2 days. No external signs.

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Tried a pink striped wrasse which was supposed to be passive but wasn't. I was losing hermits on a regular basis. when adding new ones, the wrasse would actually go after them.

 

We tried adding a tailspot with the wrasse and it harassed it to death. Dead in 2 days. Tried a YWG and the wrasse harrassed it so badly that it constantly attacked it and within 2 days it was gone. We couldn't even keep a cleaner shrimp with this wrasse. In the span of 2 weeks we had lost 2 fish and a shrimp. Any remaining hermits were never seen, my pom pom never came out.

 

So while I decided on what course to take with the fish I started adding lps and softies to the tank to replace the traded in sps. These were doing great. The new salt with consistent parameters was a good choice. 

 

We decided to return the Wrasse. It was just too limiting.  

  • Like 3
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I removed the wave maker from the dt and things really started to bloom.

 

After removing the sps from my tank, the brown flatworm issues I had seemed to just disappear. I haven't seen them for quite a while.

 

we then added a black and white ocellaris clown.

 

the clown seemed very spooked alone. He didn't swim around much, hid around the overflow, and hid behind the rocks.  so we got it a mate 2 days later 

 

when we added the orange ocellaris the other clowns personality immediately perked up. She started swimming around with its new mate, ate readily and stopped hiding.

 

We named them Rocky and Adrian - Adrian is your typical bossy aggressive female and Rocky does his submissive dance, hides when Adrian's in a mood, and he's super fast. I have never had such a fast clown.

 

 

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So the 10g has been going very smoothly since I made all the changes.

 

Rocky and Adrian get along well. Adrian has been a bit aggressive with Rocky. She's always charging at him but no damage, lip locking, more like she's just trying to keep him in an area she wants him in. He does his submission dance all the time.

 

They also host the toastool leather at night. They sleep under it.

 

 

My Maintenance routine now:

 

-weekly waterchange of 15% with Aquaforest Salt/distilled water

- turkey bast all rocks, scrape glass, vaccum sand 

- scrub chambers every other week and siphon out

- change filter floss on waterchange day and mid week

- rinse media bags

- change carbon every 2-3 weeks

- change phosguard as needed ( i use small amounts for control)

- feed every day pellets, 2 times a week frozen. enough that lasts 1 min

- feed reef roids 1 time a week

- aquavitro fuel 1x week (very small dose)

- test all parameters after waterchange

- dose 2 part esv bionic daily manually

-test mid week alk,ca, and nitrate

 

 

Tank inhabitants

 

black/white ocellaris

orange ocellaris

cleaner shrimp

pom pom

hermit crabs, snails

toadstool leather

green kenya leather

green tip torch

hammer

speckled hammer

dual colour frogspawn

xenia

zoas

green acan

blue acan

dragon favia

gsp on back wall

duncans

 

Lighting

 

Aquamaxx Nemolight

 

1pm ramp up to 2pm

2pm to 8pm peak lighting

8pm to 10pm ramp down

 

peak100% blue

        40% white

 

 

 

 

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  • Like 10
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Thanks for sharing this! I enjoyed reading it and learning what your routine is. 

I have seen your posts about your alk experience with RSCP salt on other threads and so I'm always on alert as I use it. I haven't experienced that yet - alk is always around 8 after a water change - but I always check it so thanks for the heads up. 

Also, I just got a second clown recently and my first one really livened up after the second one arrived like yours did! They are still really small so one hasn't gotten that aggressive with the other yet but I'm sure it's coming. 

  • Like 2
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8 hours ago, Clown79 said:

After a few months my alk had creeped up to 12.5 and the birdsnests were just not improving so it wasn't the flow issue. My nitrates were 5 and my phos 0.03, ca was 430, mag was 1350, salinity consistent at 1.025. ph was consistent 8.2, no temp issues. steady at 80.3

 

I fed reef roids twice a week.

 

Because of the increased flow my lps was starting to close up.

 

I decided it was time to make another change. I couldn't keep the lps happy with the increased flow and the sps didn't do well without it, plus the alk was an issue.

 

I changed salts to Aquaforest. This salt was much more consistent and I really liked how it mixed. Everything was happy besides the sps.

 

I decided to trade in the sps 

 

 

During this time I lost my fish for no known reason. There were no new additions and it had no symptoms. Just up and stopped eating, then died after 2 days. No external signs.

Do you use the Aquaforest Sea Salt, or Reef Salt?  I've been using the Sea Salt and picked it because I don't have loads of stony corals to use up the extra alk and whatnot in the Reef Salt version.

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2 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

Do you use the Aquaforest Sea Salt, or Reef Salt?  I've been using the Sea Salt and picked it because I don't have loads of stony corals to use up the extra alk and whatnot in the Reef Salt version.

I use the aquaforest reef salt.

 

Apparently the sea salt is for fish only

Reef salt for mixed reef

Probiotic salt for sps

 

I didn't want to go with the probiotic.  

3 hours ago, SeaFurn said:

Thanks for sharing this! I enjoyed reading it and learning what your routine is. 

I have seen your posts about your alk experience with RSCP salt on other threads and so I'm always on alert as I use it. I haven't experienced that yet - alk is always around 8 after a water change - but I always check it so thanks for the heads up. 

Also, I just got a second clown recently and my first one really livened up after the second one arrived like yours did! They are still really small so one hasn't gotten that aggressive with the other yet but I'm sure it's coming. 

At first everything was fine. The alk was around 10 but after weekly waterchanges it kept going up.

Some ppl luck out with rscp not having high alk but some it's gone above 13. 

Just keep an eye on it.

3 hours ago, TinyOcean said:

This tank is so lovely! 

Thank you

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16 hours ago, Clown79 said:

I use the aquaforest reef salt.

 

Apparently the sea salt is for fish only

Reef salt for mixed reef

Probiotic salt for sps

 

I didn't want to go with the probiotic.  

At first everything was fine. The alk was around 10 but after weekly waterchanges it kept going up.

Some ppl luck out with rscp not having high alk but some it's gone above 13. 

Just keep an eye on it.

Thank you

Yeah, that was the impression I got but since I had so few LPS I was worried about alk levels getting to high by using the reef salt so I went with sea salt.  The probiotic seemed like it was designed to be used with a bunch of their other products and I wasn't willing to experiment lol.  Guess I figured the sea salt version would be like an upgraded version of the Instant Ocean I'd used for years. :lol: So far I really like it though, and everything else seems to as well.

  • Like 1
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2 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

Yeah, that was the impression I got but since I had so few LPS I was worried about alk levels getting to high by using the reef salt so I went with sea salt.  The probiotic seemed like it was designed to be used with a bunch of their other products and I wasn't willing to experiment lol.  Guess I figured the sea salt version would be like an upgraded version of the Instant Ocean I'd used for years. :lol: So far I really like it though, and everything else seems to as well.

That's why I didn't do the probiotic either. I did 't want to get into all the other products. 

 

My alk is 8.4. I like it there

  • Like 1
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Question: how did you program your Nemolight to have the "blues only" on for 1 hour at the beginning of your schedule and 2 hours at the end? I have this light over a 5.5. Love the light but the programming drives me nuts. When I set the sunrise and sunset (hold thunder till it beeps, pick blue channel then + or -) it adds or subtracts equal time of blues only at the beginning and at the end. 

This tank is amazing! So glad you made journals of your tanks, I'm learning so much from them. Following 

  • Like 1
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1 hour ago, Minidoll said:

Question: how did you program your Nemolight to have the "blues only" on for 1 hour at the beginning of your schedule and 2 hours at the end? I have this light over a 5.5. Love the light but the programming drives me nuts. When I set the sunrise and sunset (hold thunder till it beeps, pick blue channel then + or -) it adds or subtracts equal time of blues only at the beginning and at the end. 

This tank is amazing! So glad you made journals of your tanks, I'm learning so much from them. Following 

Thank you so much. I really appreciate the kind words.

 

I will have to ask the hubby about the programming because he set up. I would have no patience for it. Lol.

 

the downside to the light is the programming. It's not simple. Otherwise its great.

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  • 7 months later...
On 7/25/2017 at 7:00 PM, Clown79 said:

So the 10g has been going very smoothly since I made all the changes.

 

Rocky and Adrian get along well. Adrian has been a bit aggressive with Rocky. She's always charging at him but no damage, lip locking, more like she's just trying to keep him in an area she wants him in. He does his submission dance all the time.

 

They also host the toastool leather at night. They sleep under it.

 

 

My Maintenance routine now:

 

-weekly waterchange of 15% with Aquaforest Salt/distilled water

- turkey bast all rocks, scrape glass, vaccum sand 

- scrub chambers every other week and siphon out

- change filter floss on waterchange day and mid week

- rinse media bags

- change carbon every 2-3 weeks

- change phosguard as needed ( i use small amounts for control)

- feed every day pellets, 2 times a week frozen. enough that lasts 1 min

- feed reef roids 1 time a week

- aquavitro fuel 1x week (very small dose)

- test all parameters after waterchange

- dose 2 part esv bionic daily manually

-test mid week alk,ca, and nitrate

 

 

Tank inhabitants

 

black/white ocellaris

orange ocellaris

cleaner shrimp

pom pom

hermit crabs, snails

toadstool leather

green kenya leather

green tip torch

hammer

speckled hammer

dual colour frogspawn

xenia

zoas

green acan

blue acan

dragon favia

gsp on back wall

duncans

 

Lighting

 

Aquamaxx Nemolight

 

1pm ramp up to 2pm

2pm to 8pm peak lighting

8pm to 10pm ramp down

 

peak100% blue

        40% white

 

 

 

 

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What is the purple-ish one in the dead center of the rock scape with the big bush of polyps? It's very beautiful

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That's is a long polyp toastool leather. It's very pretty.

 

We didn't know it was a long polyp upon purchase.

 

There are weeping willow toadstool too. 

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  • Clown79 changed the title to Clown's Nuvo20

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