Angry-Monkey's IM Nuvo 10 - New FTS

[Lula_Mae]

2 hours ago, Angry-Monkey said:

Tank update

Moved the acans (or is it micromussa??) And octospawn off the sand bed earlier this week and glued the acans last night. I also moved the cyphastrea out of the shade initially but the polyps didn't look as happy so I moved it back into its cave. The new rock I added 3 weeks ago I already showing some specks of corraline.

I also added a bag of carbon to the first chamber under my filter floss and ~1 lb of LR rubble into the second chamber in media bags. 

 

Went to the LFS twice this past week looking for new frags, came back today with a tailspot instead. 

I had told myself I wasn't going to get any more fish but I couldn't helpful myself. I've wanted a tailspot for 10 years now and never pulled the trigger because of all the stories of read about them starving. Crossing my fingers and hoping mine will eat pellets/flakes. 

He's been pretty active already only hours into the tank (no qt tank unfortunately, taking another risk). No aggression from either of the clowns so far and he has plenty of good boltholes available. We asked my soon to be 3 y.o. daughter what we should name it and she immediately said "octopus!". So we currently have Nemo, Nemo and octopus... May need to think about renaming in the future. 

 

 

So cute!  Love the names!

[Angry-Monkey]

Was looking at getting a better Par38 bulb to replace the cheapo chinese ebay one. Instead I bought the chinese kessil a80 knockoff, the Lumini Asta 20, after reading Vapour country's tank journal and review of the light fixture: 

 

Also read through the amazon reviews and found some information about the PAR readings:

 

"Works great for low light nano tank 
By Bob on August 31, 2017 
Color: Marine Version|Verified Purchase 
I bought this to use on a 10g Innovative Marine AIO. PAR reading was 220 directly below the light 1" under the water. Drops off considerably on the sand bed. Sand bed had a reading of 102 directly under the light. Corners of the tank had a reading of 53. Overall, color spectrum is eye pleasing, ability to control multiple channels is a nice feature on a sub $50 light. Duncan's and Zoanthids are fully open. The color blending is awesome on this light, there isn't any disco ball effect. I'll be purchasing another one to bump up the output and see how some euphyllia do."

 

I only just put the light on the tank (1-day amazon prime shipping!), but cranked up to max with the 60 degree optics it's definitely brighter than the bulb I had before. Currently have royal blues, blues and red/green/rblue/violet channels at 60% and the whites at 40% to try and match the approximate voltage output of my previous bulb.

[Angry-Monkey]

Moved coral around again. Also picked up another frag of acans (7 heads) and a single riccordea. Both currently on the sand bed.

Having trouble taking pictures with the cellphone under the new lights. And when I turn the blues down I lose the colors on the coral.

 

 

 

[Angry-Monkey]

Picked up some frags from the $10 bin today. Some zoas with a green skirt and orange center (I believe they're eagle eyes?), purplish favia with green center and a green monticap. 

[Angry-Monkey]

Octospawn

 

Favia and Monti cap (and tailspot)

 

Acans

 

FTS

[Cannedfish]

Everything thing is looking good!

[Angry-Monkey]

 

 

[VaporCountry]

Tank looks like it is coming along nicely. The stand you made is awesome, great work!!! 

[Angry-Monkey]

Been having some trouble with my red acan and nothing else, so I assumed it was my light which I had been playing around with. It wasnt opening so I thought too much light, dialed back to 50%b, 50%rb, 10%w and 20%c. Still didn't help. I decided to finally test my alkalinity and turns out I was running at 5.3 dKh. Checked salinity as well and it had dropped to 1.023. 

 

I don't usually check my salinity when making fresh SW, I just weigh out a known amount per gallon on a food scale (which I had determined several years ago on an old tank). Turns out I've been making 1.020 SW for the past couple water changes which may explain both the drop in salinity as well as low alkalinity. I did my water change with SW at 1.028 today, bumping the tank salinity to 1.024 and already the red acan is puffing up again. Salinity should continue to climb to maybe 1.025 because I overfilled the tank beyond the ATO level, once it stabilizes from evaporation I'll retest alkalinity to see if it's been corrected. 

[Angry-Monkey]

Picked up some new frags today from fragbox. Got some new zoas, another ricordea, a green toadstool (tyree I believe) and a sunset monti. Will post picks when I get a chance to take some. 

[VaporCountry]

Sweet can't wait to see some pictures. Guessing you got your salinity and alk problem worked out huh? I had salinity swing because I forgot to plug back in my ATO. Sps got a little browned out but are coming back. Still happy with the light? 

[Angry-Monkey]

Yeah I think so. Everything seems happy except the 1 colony of acans. It has good days and bad days. 

 

Stillhappy with the light. It'd be nice to be able to ramp it and I'd rather have all violets on ch4 rather than red and green. But for a sub $100 light can't complain. 

[Angry-Monkey]

FTS - November 14, 2017

 

[Reefkid88]

Let us see that new light !!! 

 

[Angry-Monkey]

4 months in and I'm on my third (final!) light fixture. Sorry @VaporCountry and @CrazyEyes but I've left the Lumini Asta 20 club

 

I bought @Reefkid88's Nanobox Tide V3 earlier this week and received it yesterday. After setting up, I'm even more impressed with the Asta 20 light! The Nanobox is obviously far more powerful (although most people max out at 60% intensity on this tank), but bang for your buck the Asta 20 is still pretty great. The main thing that it is lacking is the ability to control scheduled channel output, otherwise I really wouldn't have had any reason to switch (albeit I've had the Nanobox for <24 hours and haven't witnessed the potential effect it will have on coral growth and coloring). I like to run my tank really blue to get the fluorescent pop, but I had to compromise due to the lack of control and run my whites at 20% and green/red/violet at 50% for the sake of coral healthy (I assume). 

 

With the Nanobox I currently have it running whites at 20% (will increase this to 50% over the next month or so) during the day while I'm at work and then cutting them to 0-5% in the evening when I'm home. Looking forward to seeing how the improved spectrum affects coral health and appearance. Will post some pictures at some point this weekend when I have some time.

[teenyreef]

Congrats on the new light! I used to run my Nanobox with a 2:1 ratio of blue/cyan/violet to white/green/red/mint), which gave a nice, not overly blue spectrum. But in the last year, I've gradually gone with much higher blues, more of a 4:1 or 5:1 ratio. This has resulted in better colors not only in the acros but also my acans.

 

From what I've read from reefers with some of the most colorful corals, they've pointed out that most corals are deep enough that most of the non-blue light is filtered out by the water. So they evolved under blue light and that's why they seem to like it that way in our tanks too.

[Angry-Monkey]

13 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

Congrats on the new light! I used to run my Nanobox with a 2:1 ratio of blue/cyan/violet to white/green/red/mint), which gave a nice, not overly blue spectrum. But in the last year, I've gradually gone with much higher blues, more of a 4:1 or 5:1 ratio. This has resulted in better colors not only in the acros but also my acans.

 

From what I've read from reefers with some of the most colorful corals, they've pointed out that most corals are deep enough that most of the non-blue light is filtered out by the water. So they evolved under blue light and that's why they seem to like it that way in our tanks too.

Thanks teeny, that's good to know. I'll stick to giving them a little white for 3 hours of the day then. I'll dig through your IM10 journal because I'm interested in your lighting schedule for the tank.

[teenyreef]

49 minutes ago, Angry-Monkey said:

Thanks teeny, that's good to know. I'll stick to giving them a little white for 3 hours of the day then. I'll dig through your IM10 journal because I'm interested in your lighting schedule for the tank.

The last schedule I posted was a while ago, so I'll upload some new screen shots in my thread later today.

[CrazyEyes]

Don't blame you, I'll soon be getting rid of the light too. It's a good little light but just doesn't seem to be what I want. Probably going to go with a prime. 

[Reefkid88]

1 minute ago, CrazyEyes said:

Don't blame you, I'll soon be getting rid of the light too. It's a good little light but just doesn't seem to be what I want. Probably going to go with a prime. 

 

 Habe you looked into the Sanrise Aqua Knight ? Both channels are dimmable which I didn't know and Premium aquatics has them for $50 right now. 

[CrazyEyes]

Funny enough I almost bought that light right before I bought the lumini, but I'm not sure if it has a ramp up and down feature, or at the very least, an auto on/off feature.

[Reefkid88]

I really want to try one,sprectually speaking its not a bad light. Then when I found out it wasnt just on and off (there is a white body version and i guess thay one is only on and off) but able to be dimmed,it won me over. 

[CrazyEyes]

If it atleast has an auto on/off I'd try it but I work from 9am -6pm and if I turned the light on when I left for work I'd want to turn it off soon after I got home from work. And if I turned it on when I got home from work I'd have to wake up at 3am to turn it off. I wonder if it would be enough light for acros. 

[Angry-Monkey]

I made the mistake a couple times now trying to save a few bucks. Better to just something quality, especially if whatever you get isn't going to be a long-term solution. That being said, the sanrise looks pretty nice! I'd be interested to hear what people say who have used it for a while. 

[Angry-Monkey]

Think I lost my tailspot. I had noticed that he had been even more shy these past few days. He's had trouble competing for food with the clowns as they are such fast eaters and his mouth was so small. Moved the rocks around but no trace. I guess I'll just stick with two fish for the time being. Maybe a goby some time down the line...

 

Enjoying the new light so far, hoping it promotes some growth as so far my corals have been happy but not really growing at all.

 

Picked up a duncan and a red monti frag this weekend. Also planning on switching from IO to fritz as my LFS has stopped carrying instant ocean products.