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Cultivated Reef

Steve & Belinda's IM Fusion 10 - Oops! Now it’s a 20


Porkpie5000

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Hey Everybody! We’ve been lurking for a couple months and decided it was about time we started a journal.

 

Background - We had a 75G mixed reef about 15 years ago. It was a ReefReady Oceanic with a refugium/sump, skimmer, and metal halides. It was a lot of fun but eventually the maintenance didn’t fit with our schedules and we decided to get out of the hobby for a while. About 5 years ago we got back in with a 5G Ecoxotic EcoPico. It was filtered by a MarinePure ROCK and a Koralia 240. We eventually bumped up against the constraints of that system and decided to get something a little bigger with some more flexible filtration options… and here we are.

 

The ATO, heater, fan, and temp controller came over from the EcoPico. Everything else is new. We tried the MarinePure ROCK in the new tank but it was just really boring looking so we switched to the CaribSea Life Rock and put some MarinePure spheres in the fuge basket.

 

Equipment:

IM Nuvo Fusion 10

IM Nuvo Fusion 20

Asta 20 LED 

NanoBox Mini Tide Plus M

AI Prime 16HD

IM MightyJet Desktop return pump

IM Wavelink Desktop circulation pump

InTank Media Basket

IM AuqaShield Desktop UV

InTank Fuge Basket

IM NuvoSkim Desktop

Eshopps Nano Skimmer

Tunze Nano Osmolator ATO

AutoAqua Smart ATO Micro

2.5 Gallon Aqueon as ATO reservoir

Cobalt 50W Neo-Therm

Arctic Breeze Mobile USB Fan

Bayite Temperature Controller

VCA Random Flow Generator

IM Spin Stream x 2

CyberPower 1350 UPS

Neptune ApexEL w/Breakout Box and homemade switch box

Vertex Sensor-Mag XD Probe Holder

BRS 1.1 ml Dosing Pump

 

Dry Goods:

CaribSea Life Rock Shapes

CaribSea Dry Aragonite

Fritz RPM Salt

Tropic Marin Pro Reef Salt


Additives:

Tropic Marin ALL-For-Reef

 

Filtration:

MarinePure Cubes (in the media basket)

InTank Filter Floss (in the media basket)

Chemi-Pure Blue Nano (in the media basket)

 

Fish:

Benny the Tail Spot Blenny

Not-Nemo the Clown

 

Inverts:

Snails (whatever is left of the 5.5G Crew from Reef Cleaners)

Blue Leg Hermits

Shrimpy the Blood Red Fire Shrimp

 

Corals:

Various Mushrooms

GSP

Candy Cane

Toadstool Leather

Various Zoas

Bird’s Nest

Torch

Duncan

 

10/22/2018 - Serious disco ball in this one! I really need to glue some stuff to those rocks. Overall, everything seems pretty happy.

1280183762_IMG_0072(2).thumb.jpg.942a04ba83c6e6032d2aed06e1ece2c6.jpg

 

9/30/2018 - The giant green mushroom decided to relocate itself and the bird's nest fell over. I'll try to actually get it mounted this weekend.

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9/15/2018 - You can see the leather in the reflection back in the corner. The ramekin has a loose mushroom in it that I'm trying to coax into attaching to a frag disk.

IMG_0066.thumb.jpg.b664e0ba16cd844422a8e123db192f6c.jpg

  • Like 3
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We were having some less than perfectly clear water so I (at least temporarily) pulled the media rack and replaced it with the filter sock that came with the tank. I just dropped the Chemi-Pure pouches into the sock. The water was crystal clear in about 30 minutes. I'm going to see how long the sock takes to clog up and maybe go that route for a while. 

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35 minutes ago, Porkpie5000 said:

We were having some less than perfectly clear water so I (at least temporarily) pulled the media rack and replaced it with the filter sock that came with the tank. I just dropped the Chemi-Pure pouches into the sock. The water was crystal clear in about 30 minutes. I'm going to see how long the sock takes to clog up and maybe go that route for a while. 

Tank looks good.

 

You want to have a few filter socks on hand.

The one should be washed weekly and replaced with a clean one.

 

 

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45 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

You want to have a few filter socks on hand.

The one should be washed weekly and replaced with a clean one.

I have 2 with 2 more on the way. The first IM 10 I got from Marine Depot was shattered. They didn't want it back so I got a few extra parts!

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7 minutes ago, Porkpie5000 said:

I have 2 with 2 more on the way. The first IM 10 I got from Marine Depot was shattered. They didn't want it back so I got a few extra parts!

Wow that sucks but good you are getting extras out of it

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Marine Depot customer service was absolutely great about it. They had another tank out to me the next day with faster shipping than I ordered the first one with.

 

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  • Like 1
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Thanks!

 

The Nuvo has been running for just over 2 months but about half of the inhabitants came from my VERY neglected EcoPico. We actually just did that scape about 3 weeks ago. We had one of the big MarinePure Rocks in the EcoPico and initially used that in this one. It was really boring looking so I got some MarinePure spheres and stuck them in the second chamber for about a month to get some bacteria going in them and then swapped the big MarinePure Rock for the CaribSea Life Rock that is in there now. I'm REALLY happy with the Life Rock so far and I had to buy so much of it I have plenty left over for another tank when that inevitably happens 🙂

 

I'm going to give it another couple weeks and then go for a fish. My current plan is a Tail Spot Blenny.

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I love my tail spot blenny! It sounds like things are getting pretty well established which will be good for the TSB. I lost a couple TSBs in my tank when it was still in the first six months, and several other reefers said they'd had similar problems with them not holding up well.

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That's good to know. Is it a starvation issue?

 

We are currently fairly algae free (knock on wood). We went through a pretty good GHA/Briopsis (maybe?) phase at first. I did some fluconazole and then pulled all of it that was still around out by hand when we swapped the scape and so far it hasn't come back.

 

I don't mind feeding nori or something if he needs grazing material.

 

I certainly don't want to add a fish just to watch it die and Belinda gets bummed out when we lose a snail. Maybe I'll rethink the plan and make the TSB a second fish.

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I could never figure out why mine died. No issues with eating, just fine one day and dead the next. When I posted about it, as surprising number of people said they'd experienced the same thing. They just seem to be a little more fragile than the average clownfish.

 

I love fluco - I will never be without some in my cabinet now.

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F9AA8D8C-2096-4653-98FE-5A6957878E77.thumb.jpeg.98c7a94692f9ec5fd50330fc321c366a.jpeg

 

PolypLabs Coral View Lens came in the mail today. So far I really like it. The lights were already pretty ramped down in this one. I’m anxious to try it tomorrow with the full lighting. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
Porkpie5000

We had some bad luck with the IM NuvoSkim Desktop. I just replaced it with the Eshopps Nano. Hopefully the pump lasts longer than the 2 weeks that the IM lasted.

 

Edit: Very happy with the Eshopps Nano Skimmer so far!

Edited by Porkpie5000
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Porkpie5000

Thoughts on my new ApexEL Controller after a little over a month:

 

I'm really happy with it so far. I added the breakout box and a homemade button box. I have a button for feed and a button for water change. The do pretty much the same thing but the timeout is longer for the water change. I also connected a float switch in my topoff reservoir to let me know when it is getting low. Everything has been really reliable so far.

 

The simple one button feed mode has made it really easy to our house sitter to feed while we are out of town. I don't have to worry about them forgetting to turn anything back on and being able to see the status of everything remotely has made vacations more relaxing.

 

The closest thing to a downside I can come up with is being able to see my pH swing up and down. It is hard to watch and not try to do something drastic about it. I am thinking about hooking up a CO2 scrubber to my skimmer and see what happens. Mostly just out of curiosity. 

 

Bottom line: It certainly isn't a necessity and it certainly is pricey but if you can find it in your budget, it does make life easier.

 

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