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Goats Nuvo 10 Aquarium Journal


ReefGoat

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TANK SPECS:

I.M Nuvo 10

Kessil A160we with spectral controller

Tunze Nano osmolator

Ghost Protein skimmer Reef Glass protein skimmer

Sicce silent 0.5

Cobalt slim heater

I.M Glass ATO 5 gallon

I.M caddy upgrade

Ikea Sektion wall cabinet as stand (reinforced the back with 3 2x4's cut to fit so you don't see them. It's rock solid) 

BRS RO/DI unit 4 stage

Vortech MP10 QD

APEX Classic System

Chill solutions Chiller

 

 

 

FTS 6/22/18

 

 

 

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My plans for media once the cycle is complete will be Poly Filter for filter floss, ROX carbon and GFO in the caddy. Still doing some research on dosing and I plan on doing the 2 part for Alk and Calc along with Carbon dosing still haven't decided on which dosing equipment to get yet. The salt that I am using is Red Sea coral pro. I will be doing 3-4 gallon water changes weekly so we will see how that keeps up with the trace elements. I plan on a mixed reef so my parameters will be crucial!

 

That's all for day one in the journal. Hopefully next time I sound off I'll have some new goodies and a nice green algae bloom. That's when I'll do my first water change and add a cleanup crew. Tonight's testing yielded 0ppm ammonia, highest spike was 3ppm. No nitrates showing yet and I don't have a nitrite test but I suspect they would be registering about now.

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Elizabeth94

This is gonna be sweeeeet! I like the list of equipment you have. And idk what it is lately, but I am liking the scapes people are coming up with.

 

 I wouldnt worry much about dosing at this stage but it never hurts to do research. Water changes alone will benifit a tank this size with a moderate amount of corals. I wasnt dosing my Nuvo 10 a whole lot even when it was jammed with corals. But I did 5gal water changes once every ten days. 

 

This is gonna be one to watch! 

 

Edit: I love that stand btw. Looks great.

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Thank you for the kind words! I appreciate the heads up on the dosing I will for sure adhere to the advice. I'm just getting back into the hobby after having a Fish and live rock only tank back in like '09. The new equipment on the market had me like a kid in a candy store. 

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Elizabeth94

Any particular corals you saw that made you want to dive back in? 

 

One peice of equipment id consider is a custom caddy. InTank has a nice one thats about $40. Deff not necessary. But maybe somthing for the future. Kind of like a fnishing touch. 

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I actually do have the I.M custom caddy. The one that came with the tank left much to be desired LOL. It's like a 3 rack really nice acrylic caddy. I have a chameleon also and I just got the bug from visiting my local Pet shop who carries Saltwater. If I had to pick one coral that would've done me in it'd be Lord Acans for sure. The rainbow one from WWC is jaw dropping. I'm going to be heading into Baton Rouge for my BDAY at the end of May and that's likely when I'll pick up the first livestock aside from the CUC. 

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Clean looking setup and great equipment selection... can't wait to see this thing stocked! I love the look of that Ikea stand with the tank.

For what it's worth, you may want to rethink the Red Sea Coral Pro salt and go with the standard Red Sea blue bucket salt instead if you're doing big weekly water changes. the Coral Pro stuff mixes up at ~12.5DKH alkalinity which is (IMO) way too high for a mixed reef. The 30-40% weekly water changes combined with that skimmer will result in nutrient levels that are consistently too low to run with a super high alkalinity and powerful LED like that. You'll likely end up with fading corals no matter how much you feed. I was plagued with issues running RSCP on my Nuvo 10 (mixed reef with a bunch of SPS up top) and couldn't get my SPS and LPS to stop fading and dying until I finally switched to the standard blue bucket salt which mixes up at ~8.3DKH and started feeding really heavily to keep some measurable NO3 in the system. The blue bucket salt with big water changes will still provide all the trace elements you need. The only thing it tends to be low on is magnesium, but that's an easy fix.

I agree that you won't have to worry about dosing for quite a while unless you start filling the tank with a bunch of SPS. Now that my nuvo 10 is increasingly filled with SPS, It'll drop 0.5 DKH per day unless I dose -- so I just use kalkwasser in my ATO and that takes care of it (and keeps the pH up at night to boot).

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Thanks Bio, I appreciate the kind words. After doing a little research on the topic you brought up. It appears that I will heed your warning...I looked at Red Sea's reef care recipes on their website and scaled them down for our tanks, as they are shown for 25g tanks. They have the ALK listed on the RSCP salt as 11.5 and the blue bucket clocking in at 8. My livestock should be pretty similar to yours with variants of SPS covering the very top rock and imagine half or more of your Zoa's swapped with Acan's, Favia's and 1 or 2 Chalices, maybe some encrusting and plating type corals for the mid section, that's my vision. I basically want the upper section to be SPS corals. The middle section to be colorful types of LPS. Then finish out on the bottom with Acan's on the left rock and Zoa's on the right rock and a mushroom garden somewhere on the sand bed. One key problem in this small tank is going to be finding a sweet spot and setting for that Vortech so that the SPS can get sufficient flow and the LPS can get moderate to low flow. I think your tank's photograph speaks for how well your system works. It's impressive.

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At this point though every thing is up in the air as far as which exact corals I get as that's probably 2 to 3 months away before I start stocking like that, I want things to stabilize and get myself into the routine of keeping stable parameters. The only thing I am 100% sure of is that I want a SPS and LPS mixed reef. The challenge begins lol

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So it's been a few days since I've updated. Since then I kinda did a thing LOL. I know that bristle worms can be a good part of a CUC. I do know that the population would've adjusted itself accordingly eventually if the food source was or wasn't there. I know there are different schools of thought on bristle worms. But, in my tank I would prefer to not have a couple HUNDRED or more colony, in a 10 gallon tank and then a GIANT die off if the population "adjusted accordingly". So around Wednesday night my daughters wanted to shine a flashlight into the tank with the room completely dark and look into the tank. I hadn't done this yet as the lighting schedule I have is tuned for our viewing hours while we are home from work and school and the lights go out at about bed time. To my amazement and eventual horror!! They were covering almost, not all but almost every square inch of the rock. Big, small and big by large, the biggest one I saw was at least 4 inches long. They were even crawling all over the sand.  It really ruined the lights out viewing experience in my opinion. After debating it back and fourth all day Thursday and doing some reading at the effects it can or can't have on a tank and convincing myself that I wasn't even that far into the cycle. I just bit the bullet and started by ordering 20lbs of Carib Sea life rock last night and spent the night preparing 10 gallons of water (Don't you hate how painfully slow RO/DI units are LOL). I did this because those bristle worms and no telling what else, absolutely came from that live rock that I bought from the LFS display and a fresh start with the Life Rock should prevent this from happening again. I could just imagine what was sitting there waiting to crop up once I thought I was done cycling and starting added my corals. I know this is going to probably fall under the category of "impatient'. But, I just really want this to be as close to perfect as possible and my idea of perfect isn't having 100's of worms infesting my display and eventual coral collection at night along with the BUNK water the LFS store sold me that was a salinity of 1.015 and no telling how long it's been since they changed their RO/DI filters (thank god I have my own now). The plan is to leave most of the sand bed because I do want to leave the few bristle worms that are probably hiding in the sand. The other things that I wasn't completely satisfied about the original set up were 1). In retrospect I thought that a more shallow sand bed would look better because of the size of the tank and a shallow sand bed would give it a slightly larger appearance 2). I didn't glue/putty the rocks together because I didn't want the live rock to be out of the water too long. By me starting over I am going to have the sand bed fixed, perfect water that I mixed myself, with salt that I KNOW is good and filters that I KNOW are clean and a rock solid display that pesky CUC members aren't going to be toppling over on the daily. This is a very disappointing set back and is putting me 15 or so days further from the first piece of coral. But I know that by this time next year i'll be glad I restarted. Plus I was sketchy about the non aquarium hobby ammonia. This time around I will cycle by adding Microbacter7 and Dr. Tims Ammonia. Next journal entry will include some pictures of the Life Rock out of the box and then the finished product in the tank. 

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Hey Reefgoat, sorry to hear about your bristle worms. They were part of the reason after a crash that I threw in the towel on my previous IM20. Some people like them but I was not a fan and my wife absolutely despised them. I went the life rock route on my new IM10 build and am right about where you are in the process. Easier to make the change now. I also dosed mb7 and have just been feeding fish food. Let me know how the Dr tims ammonia goes. I have not seen any ammonia yet while ghost feeding. 

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Oh dude. When I would feed, even with lights. They would peak out and snatch pellets on the sand bed and just come out of the rocks in flocks racing for them.

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Looks like I made a good decision! So I just got my tracking number for the Life Rock. It'll be here Wednesday and the ammonia and Microbacter7 will be here this Saturday. Also I'm still looking good to place the order for the Vortech, Apex Classic and Chill Solutions chiller haul. I'll probably be placing that order on Saturday and receiving it sometime between May 7th and 11th. I'm kind of happy to get that gear. The cycling process may seem like it's going by quicker with all the installations, tweaking and programming i'll be doing with the APEX and all that. 

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Did you order the ammonia direct from dr tims site? I may try this route instead of food breaking down... I’m in no rush but the ammonia may make for

less old food in sand bed. 

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Here's a little snap shot of how I set my rear chambers up. For those 'Will it fit' situations others may run into with the NUVO 10. This picture includes the ghost skimmer, Tunze Nano osmolator and the return hose/ bracket. The Sicce silent 0.5 pump, Cobalt 50w Neo therm and a magnetic two probe 3d printed holder....all perfectly planned out and placed accordingly LOL...Fitment issues were why I had to go with the kessil instead of the Radion...The clamp on that thing is a MONSTER. Once the chiller comes in it will be ran inline with the Sicce. That's going to have to be done carefully lol. Sometimes next year there will also be two more tiny hoses coming from dosing pumps

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Christopher Marks

Nice build so far @ReefGoat! That's too bad about the original live rock, but getting it just how you want it from the start is important, you might have spent a lot of time troubleshooting other hitchhikers on the rock too.

 

Welcome to the community!

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Thank you so much for the compliment! It's nice to know that I didn't make an irrational decision. Thanks for the welcome! This is a very great community so far. 

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So the life rock has arrived. I like it a lot, it's very pleasing to the eyes. Packaging was very nice. The only thing I don't like is that it's a gamble as to what you'll get and if you go breaking it into pieces it looks like dookie. I was kind of restricted to scape by the pieces I recieved. I prefer the first scape over this one but I am not displeased with this one in any way. I actually like it better because I know it's CLEAN and FREE of unknowns and it's not as shady as the other one, it has more light coverage over the entire scape as opposed to the first scape. I've added the Microbacter7 and Ammonia and the waiting game begins again. OH YEAH and the Apex, Vortech MP10 and Chiller arrive tommorow! 

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Christopher Marks

The new rock and aquascape looks good! Better surface area for mounting coral in this version too, by the look of it. Let the great cycle begin!

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That looks great.  Looks like you have all of the IM10 toys in there - I have the IM reservoir too (really nice looking) I like the use of the ikea wall cabinet too.

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So the rest of the parts came in this evening. I have to wake up at 5am for work so no time to finish installing everything. But there's plenty of time during the cycle to fine tune everything. I was able to install the Vortech and the controllers for the Vortech also the APEX along with the module. The remaining parts are the power bar, PH and temp probes and chiller. It's coming along pretty good I'd say. 

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