Daniel's Nano Setup - Need Tips/Tricks

[Daniel91]

Hi Reefers,

 

My name is Daniel and I just realised that keeping a Saltwater Aquarium is a hobby, that I have been missing out on and need in my life. After spending more time reviewing, browsing and reading up on this hobby than I did on homework in college, I have decided to potentially move forward with the build below. Please bear in mind, that I am new to the hobby and while I am very dedicated, there is nothing better than tips/tricks from other rookies and veterans. 

Gear:

Tank: Innovate Marine 10 Gallon NUVO Fusion

Light: Kessil A80 Tuna Blue
Heat: 50w Eheim Jager

Pump: Sicce Syncra Silent .5

Powerhead: Hydor Koralia Nano 425 (maybe not needed with return pump?)

Media: InTank Basket: Floss, Purigen, Matrix/Chemipure

Rock:  5-10 lbs Reef Saver Aquarium Dry Live Rock

Sand: 10lbs Nature's Ocean Bio-Activ Live Aragonite Live Sand

Misc:

Thermometer

Api Master Test Kit

 

Future Purchases:

Skimmer

ATO

RO/DI Buddie

Livestock:

Two Clowns

One Goby

Nassarius Snail/Pistol Shrimp?

Corals:
So many that I find interesting and beautiful... I will definitely be looking forward to browsing your suggestions.

Again, take it easy on me but fire away with comments, notes, suggestions etc.

 

Thank you and happy reefing!

Daniel

[Zeal0201]

Bigger is better, bigger the tank the harder it is to mess something up. IMO go bigger

[Daniel91]

Zeal0201 - def something I wanted to do, however I do not have room for a much bigger tank in my apartment. 

[tdannhauser30]

Rodi buddy should be next purchase IMO. Saves trips to store and hauling water, is cheap, and gives you peace of mind about whats going in your tank. Buy salt and filter stuff in bulk, you'll end up using it. Not sure on how flow is for Nuvo 10s but if you want to randomize the flow a bit without a powerhead in the tank, look into the innovative marine spinstreams, use them on my nanocube and am happy with them. If it were me I might just do carbon in 3rd chamber instead of the Chemi pure, but your fine either way. Carbon just cheaper I think. Skimmer will be a nice luxury but the general consensus seems to be they are definitely not a necessity on small tanks like yours.  Anyway those are my drunk unorganized thoughts lol. take it for what its worth, and enjoy the hobby!

 

 p.s. Some will say your pushing the limits with two clowns. Ill stay out of that one as i have seen clowns on this site in 10 gals before but that doesnt necessarily mean they loved it .

[Zeal0201]

IMO no clowns, Do the pistol and Goby and maybe something else small?

[coryscritch]

I have the ro buddies for my IM 14 gallon. It’s a great little system. 

[Clown79]

Hello and welcome

 

I have the 10g nuvo. Great tank.

I have 2 clowns in it, its 3yrs old now. 

Pretty simple system of upgraded pump, media basket, a heater and light.

 

As much as bigger is better in a lot of cases, it's not necessary to have success and fun.

 

I prefer my little nano's to the 55g I had.

 

You may not need a powerhead in the 10g with an upgraded pump and the 425 is big for the tank size wise. 

That would be 42 times turnover just with the powerhead- too much flow for lps and softies with upgraded pump.

It will depend on the corals you choose to keep.

 

Skimmer isn't necessary on a 10g. Do weekly waterchanges and don't go crazy with fish stocking.

 

Manual daily to up is fine until you want an ato.

 

For rodi. Ro buddy is ok. Not the greatest. You have to use their filters and depending on your water quality, the ro buddy may not be suitable.

 

Getting a unit that you can use any 10" filter is a better option.

 

Allows you to buy filters from anywhere, allowing you to save by using generic.

 

Allows you to use filter media of choice 

 

You can get refurbished spectrapures which is a great unit.

 

As for coral. Everyone has their favourites. Mine are Lps and mushrooms, I love ricordea.

[Daniel91]

Tdann - good drunk tips, lol.

 

Zeal - thought about it, however clowns are some of my favorite fish.

 

Corey - nice, I hear good things.

 

Clown - Thanks! Big fan of ricordea as well. 

 

Keep them coming everybody - they are really useful!

[Sissy]

I would go with the Kessil A160 instead of A80 on the IM Nuvo 10. I had one on my old Nuvo 10 and it wasn't quite powerful enough. Even my mushrooms were reaching that were near the sandbed. I have my A80 on my 3 gallon and it is perfect for that. The spinstream is fantastic, but does make a low clicking noise as it oscillates, so be prepared for that, but it does keep extra equipment out of your small tank. I'm going to fiddle with my tank to see if I can retro the spinstream onto it this weekend. Definitely get the media basket upgrade from IM.

I don't think you need to go bigger. 10 gallons is fine, as long as you keep a close eye on everything. I test salinity and fiddle with various tank components daily in my 3 gallon, and that's on top of having a temp controller, light controller, and ATO system. Get a refractometer.

For corals, take your time and figure out what you would like and where it will go. Mushrooms and Zoas are a good start, giving you a lot of color for a small investment.

I won't comment on fish, as I don't have any, just inverts. I like clowns as well, but have never had any that didn't pick on my shrimps of any variety, so your critter options will be limited.

For water supply, I buy my water pre mixed and RODI from my LFS. I did the same when I had my Nuvo 10, and it was no hassle.

[Genie382]

Welcome to hobby!

 

I have a 14 gallon Nuvo and love it. It’s the perfect size for quick maintanence and monitoring. 

 

I say just just have a good cleaning and water change schedule, start out with the best equipment you can afford (seriously, it may seem more economical to start off with trying to get something cheaper but you’ll end up wanting to upgrade eventually), don’t over stock and quarantine.  Oh and the next bit of equipment I would recommend is an ATO, esp if you travel a lot.

[tdannhauser30]

One of my two spinstreams made the clicking as it went around for maybe 24 hrs before getting a good slimecoat and stopping, first one didnt even do that. I heard lots of people saying that before I bought mine but did some research and found it seems to most always go for most people so dont let that scare you away from them. They are a cheap way to get a bit better random flow without cluttering up your display. As for RObuddy just being ok, my experience has been awesome. Water comes out at 160 ppm and goes down to 0 ppm. made probably like 200 gallons of water so far, and is soooo much cheaper than spectrapures or anything else it definitely is best bang for your buck IMO.

[Euphylin me]

16 hours ago, Daniel91 said:

Zeal0201 - def something I wanted to do, however I do not have room for a much bigger tank in my apartment. 

dont worry about going bigger until the clowns are bigger lol....i have an IM 10 gallon fusion as an office tank and i love it. My suggestions/ tips. I have a nitrate remover pad that i set on top of the filter sock. I run 2 small bags of chemipure blue along with biomax and gfo. I would recommend getting a few lps and a bunch of soft corals to help keep the nutrients in check. since it is a small nano tank, i would FORE SURE do your weekly water changes. frequent, smaller water changes are better than infrequent larger water changes. As far as your livestock....you should be OK...just dont over feed in this small of a tank. feel free to check out my thread...also upgrade the pump...i have a 165 gph pump and i am considering upgrading again

[Cannedfish]

IM10 is a great tank! Welcome, good luck, and don't forget to post pictures!

[Daniel91]

Sarah - Solid advise! I had checked out the A160 - some people say it's not necessary but I'll be doing some more research this week. Let me know how your spinstream project goes!

Tdann - Def noted!

Euphylin - Weekly water changes already put on the calendar! Good comments.

Canned - Oh boy, I will. Love being able to look back at an ongoing and big project such as this.

 

Thanks guys!

As a random question - during my cycling, do you recommend cycling with Dr. Tim's one and only/something else or?
 

 

[Euphylin me]

15 hours ago, Daniel91 said:

Sarah - Solid advise! I had checked out the A160 - some people say it's not necessary but I'll be doing some more research this week. Let me know how your spinstream project goes!

Tdann - Def noted!

Euphylin - Weekly water changes already put on the calendar! Good comments.

Canned - Oh boy, I will. Love being able to look back at an ongoing and big project such as this.

 

Thanks guys!

As a random question - during my cycling, do you recommend cycling with Dr. Tim's one and only/something else or?
 

 

tbh some reefers swear by stuff like that but products will cause crashes if you stop dosing it weekly. If i was going to recommend one, go with microbacter 7. NOTHING will give you an instant cycle unless you are a magician (even all live rock and live sand will have die off and need time to process ammonia albeit the time for the cycle is much much less). Just dont do any water changes during your cycle and keep the lights off (the nitrogen cycle doesnt require any photosynthesis. keeping the lights on will just cause algae problems. Hope this helps

[Clown79]

1 hour ago, Euphylin me said:

tbh some reefers swear by stuff like that but products will cause crashes if you stop dosing it weekly. If i was going to recommend one, go with microbacter 7. NOTHING will give you an instant cycle unless you are a magician (even all live rock and live sand will have die off and need time to process ammonia albeit the time for the cycle is much much less). Just dont do any water changes during your cycle and keep the lights off (the nitrogen cycle doesnt require any photosynthesis. keeping the lights on will just cause algae problems. Hope this helps

Established cured liverock will not necessarily have die off. Rocks take quite a while to dry out and that's how the bacteria dies leading to a mini spike.

 

You can buy cured liverock and have no cycle because the beneficial bacteria is established.

[Euphylin me]

17 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

Established cured liverock will not necessarily have die off. Rocks take quite a while to dry out and that's how the bacteria dies leading to a mini spike.

 

You can buy cured liverock and have no cycle because the beneficial bacteria is established.

i guess it depends on what was in the rock to begin with (bristle worms, brittle stars, microfauna...etc.) if there were still things residsing in the rocks there may be some die off. i guess what i really meant is that i wouldnt recommend dropping in rock (cured or not) into a tank and adding fish/corals the same day bc of the unknown. I do agree with you, i guess i should have worded my post differently

[Daniel91]

Euph - I am in no way interested in pushing an "instant" cycle, I would want to make the tank as independent of dosing as possible. Gonna look into micro7 for sure.

[Clown79]

4 hours ago, Daniel91 said:

Euph - I am in no way interested in pushing an "instant" cycle, I would want to make the tank as independent of dosing as possible. Gonna look into micro7 for sure.

What do you mean independent of dosing?

[Daniel91]

Clown79 - I was replying to the note from Euphylin “tbh some reefers swear by stuff like that but products will cause crashes if you stop dosing it weekly. “

 

I am fully aware that maintaining a healthy tank may require various dosing but what I meant with my comment is that I do not wish to make my tank dependent of a specific product JUST caused I rushed or used it during the cycling. I hope that clarifies it.

 

Thanks

[Euphylin me]

49 minutes ago, Daniel91 said:

Clown79 - I was replying to the note from Euphylin “tbh some reefers swear by stuff like that but products will cause crashes if you stop dosing it weekly. “

 

I am fully aware that maintaining a healthy tank may require various dosing but what I meant with my comment is that I do not wish to make my tank dependent of a specific product JUST caused I rushed or used it during the cycling. I hope that clarifies it.

 

Thanks

this is your first tank and you're already thinking clearly! I love it when new people in the hobby start out by doing tons of research. I've been in the hobby for like 6 years now and am still learning stuff everyday, especially on the forums.

[Euphylin me]

oh and by the way.. i don't mean to discourage you in anyway but keeping a nano tank can be pretty challenging when you get to more intermediate/delicate animals, i have the same tank as an office tank and what i can say is don't add too much at once

[Sissy]

I think that the hardest part about being new and having a small tank is that you (not YOU, but general you, as in us, all of us), get excited and start cramming things in, without the volume to buffer any parameter changes or anything. 

My rank has been up for almost three years, with almost no new additions until recently, and has been super stable. I actually have a 2.5+ year old sexy shrimp. Lol. You don’t need to take that long, obviously, but I was waiting until my tank location was firm and committed to automation gadgets before really adding much. 

It seems like you’ll do great!

[Daniel91]

Euph, Sarah - I can see you are both on the same page in regards to stocking the tank. Rest assured, I am a patient man and will take one slow step at a time. My mindset is that I obviously want a beautiful and well established tank as soon as possible, but patience is key and I will be making any additions accordingly. With that being said, would you recommend getting the fish or “beginner” corals first? (After the potential cleaning crew)

[Euphylin me]

go light on the clean up crew....there are so many misleading articles that tell you " x amount of snails/crabs per gallon" its bs.... for the im 10 i would get 2-3 hermits (blue legged) 3 nassarius snails and maybe 1 or 2 astreas. And i would always do fish before corals....when you add fish they add to the bioload so i would get a fish first and then let the bacteria build and then go for easy corals. i see on your wish list you want two clowns. if you get both of them small you can keep them in that tank for quite awhile before it starts getting a little cramped....since you are keeping fish i would recommend getting some soft corals because they can really help improve the water quality by consuming nitrates and phosphates. they also need other nutrients as well so after you add the softies, get some good coral food (i like reef chili)