RDA's IM Nuvo 10

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

After a hot minute I finally got up and running on a new nano reef tank! I'm new to this forum but not so new to the saltwater game (but still consider myself a beginner). Being that I live in a small town with an even smaller support for the saltwater hobby, I figured I could share my build and pick up some tips and experience along the way, as well as just document how my aquarium evolves.

 

The tank itself is an Innovative Marine Nuvo 10. I'm not running anything special, as far as equipment goes I have a Fluval Sea Marine Nano for lighting and am utilizing a Hydor Koralia nano 240 and Cobalt NeoTherm 50w for heating and circulation in the aquarium. I am running the stock return pump on the tank for now, as well as keeping it stupid simple with filtration; using a generic filter mesh and some ceramic media for my mechanical and biological along with some carbon just to help polish the water). Being such a small tank, my main source of maintaining water parameters and nutrient export will be good old fashioned water changes.

 

My stocking list is pretty minimal given I don't have one yet 😉 I was thinking about keeping a Tanaka's Pygmy Wrasse with a Flaming Prawn Goby, but the jury is still out on that one. What I do know is that after the tank is cycled I'll be adding some simple corals like zoathids or maybe a mushroom or two to kick things off.

 

I still have some tweaking to do, but until then I can sit back and watch my fabulously clean, empty tank 🤗 

Thanks for stopping by and I'll keep you posted. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Daveg99]

Are you going to use live rock?  I'm currently 1 week into cycling with reef saver dry rock from bulk reef supply.    It takes a while but at least it's pest free.   

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

No, I added 10 lbs of caribseas bahamas oolite arag- alive sand and about 7-ish lbs of the BRS reef saver dry rock (same that you are using). I agree, it takes longer for everything to get in it's groove, but starting with a clean slate in my opinion is worth the small wait. 

[Ckane2]

14 minutes ago, Fraktal_Blue said:

No, I added 10 lbs of caribseas bahamas oolite arag- alive sand and about 7-ish lbs of the BRS reef saver dry rock (same that you are using). I agree, it takes longer for everything to get in it's groove, but starting with a clean slate in my opinion is worth the small wait. 

Any idea what the water capacity of the nuvo 10 is after 10lbs of sand and 7lbs of rock?? Some people say it’s  more like 7 gallons than 10

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

I couldn't say exactly, but 7ish gallons sounds about right. I think it took around 8 gallons for me just because I don't have a ton of rock in there.

[Daveg99]

I have 10 lbs of reef saver dry rock  7 gallons in my tank until it was full.  With sand probably 6.5 gallons. 

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

So today I had a chance to stop by my LFS. Given it's over an hour drive one way, I took the time to browse through their frag racks to see what they had. I ended up getting a small colony of GSP and a conservative orange zoa (wasn't named so if any of you guys can give me a name based on my poor photo haha).

 

I got home and was acclimating them when I noticed the green star polyps were very.....pink. Upon closer inspection I realized that it was not GSP at all but rather some oddball pink zoa! (I have no idea what these are called either, pink zippers maybe? again if any of you know feel free to shout it out). So before someone says, "well didn't you check the bag before you left the store?" I did. But there were a few employees bagging coral at that time and my frag must have gotten mixed up in the bunch and I got someone else's zoa colony. 😂 In any other instance I would be a bit upset, however I am planning on having a zoa garden in the front of the scape anyway, so in all I thank the person for their sweet colony of pink zoas and wish them the best of luck with my super invasive colony of gsp. 😂😜

 

Story time aside, I am pleased to see full polyp extension on both frags after acclimating them and putting them in the tank. For now they are going to be the only inhabitants until I solidify what I want exactly as far as other coral, fish, and invertebrates go. 

I'll be sure to upload some better photos too. (My instagram is under "the_rainy_day_aquarium" and I post a lot more photos there if you're interested).

 

Thanks for checking in!

 

 

 

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

So here are some better photos of what I got. Any thoughts on what color morphs they are?

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

IT SURVIVED! I was in Europe for two weeks and had some friends take care of the tank while I was gone. Not much to go wrong, but these things always give me an unhealthy amount of stress thinking about my tank in someone else's hands😅

 

Well, I'm in the thick of cycling my aquarium. Even though my tank is a mess, I've had a lot of fun learning about new things as the aquarium evolves and passes through those "awkward stages" we'd all rather just not deal with.

 

Diatoms are in full bloom along with these tiny black worms that I figure are feeding off of the diatoms and misc. algae that is growing currently. What really gave me a scare is when I found some not so tiny amphipods creating havoc on my bam bam zoa (I still have no idea what the other zoas are?) I wasn't sure if they were eating it or not as Ive read mixed things about this kind of thing. I decided to keep my hands out, half expecting my prized zoathid to dissolve away, but this wasn't the case. The tiny critters still climb all over it, but have stopped pestering it. Interestingly enough, they seem to stay on, or near, that specific frag plug which I find funny. Kind of an island of amphipods. 

 

I've seen some welcome coraline growth on the blinding white rocks and having no other coral or fish in the tank keeps maintenance simple and quite fast. Preforming waterchanges biweekly of about two-ish gallons and cleaning the glass. Although I've been using a sponge and need to get a dedicated magnet scraper for this tank. 

 

Over all things are going pretty well! I'm still trying to nail down exactly what coral I want for this tank, but that will come in time. Any ideas are welcome 🙂

 

Thanks for checking in!

[WV Reefer]

On 2/18/2019 at 8:42 PM, Fraktal_Blue said:

No, I added 10 lbs of caribseas bahamas oolite arag- alive sand and about 7-ish lbs of the BRS reef saver dry rock (same that you are using). I agree, it takes longer for everything to get in it's groove, but starting with a clean slate in my opinion is worth the small wait. 

 

I like the shape. 😊

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

I was home for the weekend from a long term business trip, so what the heck, I got some new coral 😜. An Acan and a Duncan. 

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

Just a short update today. 

Everything is running smoothly, although I've been being risky and feeding my corals with no CUC. Nothing heavy, just some light target feedings of mysis and such. Water changes keep things mostly in check, but I am growing some nice algae. I'm actually moving here in a week or so, so I'm holding off on really doing anything else with this tank until my wife and I get settled in our new place (also anyone have some good advice on moving a reef tank?) but in that light I went and bought a Rhodactis mushroom on a local coral auction on fb and will be picking it up tonight. We are headed down to see my wife's parents this weekend which works out because the seller is just a few minutes away from them. Problem being now I have to figure out how to keep this mushroom alive in a bag for 3 days without it turning into a mushy mushroom of mush.  Kind of reminds me of the time where I picked up betta for my planted nano tank and ended up having to carrying it around with me at a friend's wedding. It was a great conversation piece let me tell you. 

Anyways, I'll let you know how it all turns out, fingers crossed. 

[billygoat]

How do you like that Fluval Sea Marine light? I am thinking about getting one for my 4g Waterbox but can't find very much information on it online. Is it pretty well-made? Any glaring problems or excessive inconveniences?

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

9 hours ago, billygoat said:

How do you like that Fluval Sea Marine light? I am thinking about getting one for my 4g Waterbox but can't find very much information on it online. Is it pretty well-made? Any glaring problems or excessive inconveniences?

I really like mine! It gives a good spectrum of light with decent intensity, and on a 4 gallon especially you could grow anything you wanted. The app is pretty comprehensive although it does occasionally have issues with connecting via bluetooth, but that just may be with my specific phone as I tried other devices and it has no problem connecting to them. The build quality is solid, but lacks overall "finesse" that you might find in say a Kessil A80, but again that's subjective to who you talk to. You can get them for about 80$ on amazon and for the price you can't do better IMO. I really need to do a proper review on this light as like you said there is very little about it online. But I don't think you'll be disappointed if you pull the trigger and get one.  

[RickvD]

Looks good!

[billygoat]

3 hours ago, The Rainy Day Aquarium said:

I really like mine! It gives a good spectrum of light with decent intensity, and on a 4 gallon especially you could grow anything you wanted. The app is pretty comprehensive although it does occasionally have issues with connecting via bluetooth, but that just may be with my specific phone as I tried other devices and it has no problem connecting to them. The build quality is solid, but lacks overall "finesse" that you might find in say a Kessil A80, but again that's subjective to who you talk to. You can get them for about 80$ on amazon and for the price you can't do better IMO. I really need to do a proper review on this light as like you said there is very little about it online. But I don't think you'll be disappointed if you pull the trigger and get one.  

Thanks for the information! Sounds like a pretty neat little light. I will probably end up getting one. I have a Kessil A80 on my other aquarium so it will be interesting to compare the two.

[5*Chris]

Looks great! I've been impatiently but patiently waiting to get my first coral in my Nuvo 10. Everytime I drive by the LFS, I force myself not to stop even though I know my cycle ended last week, excited but nervous lol.

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

@billygoat yeah no problem! Cool! Let me know how you like it/post about your 4 gallon 🙂

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

@5*Chris hey thanks! Haha it's not much to look at right now, but it's a start 😉 I know how you feel! Unfortunately I'm not lucky enough to have a LFS anywhere near me 😢 so when I want livestock I either have to order it or take a road trip to my "local" fish store. Excited to see what you end up doing with your Nuvo 10. 

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

And what a weekend! Spent lots of time with family which is always nice. But I'm happy to say the mushroom did not turn into mush! 🎉🎊🙌 a plastic food container and a nano pump did the trick! It's late so I just temperature acclimated it and threw it in the tank lol. Even 5 minutes later it looked wayyy happier. I'd call it a successful coral run? We'll have to do it again 😜😉

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

.....we're doing it again. (week 2 of midnight coral runs). 😜🌒🌌

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

RIP 😭

(Go check out my Lifegard4.1 pico journal for my new, but small, reef adventure!)

[billygoat]

Oh jeez... 😅 Did you decide to downsize?

[SURVEYMAN46123]

What Happened?

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

13 hours ago, billygoat said:

Oh jeez... 😅 Did you decide to downsize?

Yeah, it was a hard choice but our new apartment is much smaller howbeit just temporary. I also have some other projects in the works and just don't have the space for a "large" tank (oh goodness did I just call a 10 gallon large???) 😅