Coach Steve’s IM Nuvo 10: update 5/25

[Coach Steve]

Current FTS 2/18

 

Finally decided to start a tank journal after years of surfing the forums. 

 

It's an imagitarium 6.8 gallon AIO. It was a good price, around $50.00, so I decided to do a nano. Went with dry rock and crushed coral. The tank has been running for a few months now, starting to look fair enough to share some pictures. 

 

Original Equipment: 

Petco 6.8 AIO

Lighting: Aqua Knight LED

Filtration: Carbon, Purigen, and Filter Floss (still deciding on a skimmer and reactor)

Heater: Aqueon Pro 100

Pump: Hydor Pico Evo 300 GPH

Additives: Kent 2 part

Feeding: Reef Roids

Water Changes: Bi-Weekly Reef Crystals 

 

Updated to:

Innovative Marine Nuvo 10

Lighting: Kessil a160we

Filtration: Innovative Marine Media Basket Carbon, GFO, Filter Floss (Mangrove if that counts?)

Heater: Aquino Pro

Pump: Hydor Pico Evo 300GPH

Additives: B-Ionic 2 part on auto dose

Feeding: Reef Roids, Arcti Pods, Reef FrenzyWater changes: Constantly with Fritz

 

[Coach Steve]

Fast forwarding here since the tank has been up for a few months now. 

 

During set up I had an issue with heaters. I ended having to return 2 heaters and the 3rd one was the charm. 

 

[Coach Steve]

Night shot with the original light during cycle and the media chambers

[WV Reefer]

4 minutes ago, Coach Steve said:

Finally decided to start a tank journal after years of surfing the forums. 

 

It's an imagitarium 6.8 gallon AIO. It was a good price, around $50.00, so I decided to do a nano. Went with dry rock and crushed coral. The tank has been running for a few months now, starting to look fair enough to share some pictures. 

 

Equipment: 

Lighting: Aqua Knight LED

Filtration: Carbon, Purigen, and Filter Floss (still deciding on a skimmer and reactor)

Heater: Aqueon Pro 100

Additives: Kent 2 part 

Feeding: Reef Roids

 

Welcome to NR!

 

Thats a cute little tank. 😊

 

what are you thinking of putting in it?

[Coach Steve]

And fast forward a few months and we are up to date

[Coach Steve]

Some close ups of the corals and some post reef roid feeding shots. Currently I have no livestock other than the corals and CUC. Not sure I want to add any fish due to waste. 

[Coach Steve]

8 minutes ago, WV Reefer said:

 

Welcome to NR!

 

Thats a cute little tank. 😊

 

what are you thinking of putting in it?

Going mainly with starter corals for now. Looking into an ATO and dosing pumps before moving into the SPS department. 

[Christopher Marks]

Welcome to the community @Coach Steve, glad you joined in! Starting out with coral instead of fish is a great way to go. LPS coral are really satisfying to keep, the feeding process is fascinating, it's a neat interaction for hobbyists. How long have you had your plate coral? Those always catch my eye at the LFS.

[Clown79]

Cute little tank.

Looks good.

 

I too love plate corals. They are great and I love watching them when I feed.

 

You shouldn't need a skimmer or reactor on such a small tank, if anything both could strip the tank of nutrients.

 

How is the heater issue now? A decent controller can help with maintaining a temp of 78/79. The inkbird is great and well priced.

[Coach Steve]

2 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

Welcome to the community @Coach Steve, glad you joined in! Starting out with coral instead of fish is a great way to go. LPS coral are really satisfying to keep, the feeding process is fascinating, it's a neat interaction for hobbyists. How long have you had your plate coral? Those always catch my eye at the LFS.

Thank you! I really like my plate coral. My LFS has a great selection of corals. Thinking of getting a long tentacle plate coral as well. They remind me of a nem without the worry of it moving around and stinging other corals.

[Coach Steve]

31 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

Cute little tank.

Looks good.

 

I too love plate corals. They are great and I love watching them when I feed.

 

You shouldn't need a skimmer or reactor on such a small tank, if anything both could strip the tank of nutrients.

 

How is the heater issue now? A decent controller can help with maintaining a temp of 78/79. The inkbird is great and well priced.

Feeding is my favorite part. I would do it daily but I am worried about excess nutrients in the water. I spot feed reef roids but it ends up everywhere in the tank and I usually end up doing a water change a few hours later out of fear. Overkill? 

 

The skimmer situation was just to lower my water changes a bit but I am having great success with the bi-weekly water changes maybe ill stick to it. For the reactor I was thinking a cheato reactor since the AIO part of the tank is small and would be difficult to run a small refugium in. I have seen people using small reators with LEDs around them growing cheato. 

 

I heater issue was resolved with the aqueon pro 100, took 3 attempts to get a working one from the LFS. Tank is at 78.4 and rarely fluctuates more than .5 degrees. How does the controller work? Looks interesting.  

[Coach Steve]

I also have a large tank I have been sitting on. I picked it up at a Pet Smart for half price due to the stand being scratched from shopping carts. I painted the stand black and it looks like new I decided shortly after to hold off on filling it and start the nano first. I want to run a sump on the large tank but I am afraid of drilling it.

[Coach Steve]

Update, been a while. Been really busy with school and work, the tank has been progressing really well no issues so far. Did have a slight flatworm outbreak but they were dealt with quickly. Sticking to the bi-weekly small water changes and the corals couldn't be happier. Still running my lights at 50%, melted a nice sps frag with them, more powerful than I though I guess. Now I'm looking into a small ATO and check doser to make my life easier. Any suggestions?

[Coach Steve]

And here are some pictures from work. This is one of our maintenance accounts. FAR from a nano tank at 6,000 gallons but I thought you all might enjoy seeing it. It was built by the guys at ASM from the show Tank'd sadly the show was cancelled before this episode came out. There are two 3,000 gallon tanks that sit across from each other. Everything is automated other than feeding and cleaning (hence the wet suits). Closest I'll get to scuba diving in Iowa! 

[Coach Steve]

Here are some photos from work of the 1500 gallon reef tank we have running in the store. 

[Wonderboy]

What a fantastic little tank you've set up! Tagging along for the fun  :]   Looking forward to the big one... PS: if it's not tempered, just drill it.

[Spencer88]

Are you still running this tank?

[Coach Steve]

I actually upgraded to a Innovative marine Nuvo recently. I haven’t updated in a while so here’s some updated photos. Tank is fulllll of coral. Finally getting some good growth now that I have an auto doser and a kessil a160. 

[Coach Steve]

Some day shots. 

[Coach Steve]

Added a few new corals, mostly softies. I switched to Fritz salt after following some other aquarium journals that had good results with it. I’m seeing better polyp extension with the fritz.  I also picked up a cleaner shrimp and 2 black clownfish, they have hosted the front corner of the tank strangely and never leave it. Must have good flow for them to surf. 

[Coach Steve]

Here are some pics of the filtration media basket, dosing pump, kessil controller, and my mangrove who looks ready to produce its first leaves! 

[Xdub4314]

38 minutes ago, Coach Steve said:

Here are some pics of the filtration media basket, dosing pump, kessil controller, and my mangrove who looks ready to produce its first leaves! 

My brain read through this entire thread in a coach Steve voice and I can’t help it 🤷‍♂️😂

[Coach Steve]

A few days ago I noticed my Kenya tree had one branch that was slightly wilted and looked as though the base of the branch has been restricted as if there was a rubber band wrapped around it. I did some reading on their reproduction and realized it may be dropping a branch to reproduce. I waited and days went by and nothing happened. Tonight I was doing some maintenance (water change and stirring up detritus and off floated the branch. Sorry for the poor pictures. The lights were nearing sunset and were very blue and the maintenance made the corals angry. The piece in the back is the branch that came off. I rested it there next to it’s mom where the flow is calmer. 

I also picked up a small fuge light for some macro algae. The light is red, I’ve been seeing that will grow macro algae? I forget the spectrum exactly but it runs opposite of the main lights. Does that help keep things more stable? And any recommendations on what I should grow? Not a fan of cheato it always ends up in my display. 

On another note I picked up a small bubble tip and it looks like it might actually be a rainbow? It’s bright red/orange with purple tips and it has neon green near the base. Hard to see the green when it’s bubbled up. Anyone well versed in anemones that would know? Also I got it for my clowns as they were hosting the front corner glass and I felt bad for them. They haven’t so much as looked at the dang thing! Any advice to help get them to host it? I’ve kept both in the past but they always went straight to it and never left. 

[ColbyW]

What kind of Doser are you using?  Also how much do you dose? Awesome tank btw 😄

Edit: Also how do you keep bubbles out of your tubing?  I run a jebao doser and I always end up with air bubbles

 

Edited December 11, 2019 by ColbyW

[Coach Steve]

15 hours ago, ColbyW said:

What kind of Doser are you using?  Also how much do you dose? Awesome tank btw 😄

Edit: Also how do you keep bubbles out of your tubing?  I run a jebao doser and I always end up with air bubbles

Thanks it’s been fun putting it all together. Still need that ATO I’m adding fresh water twice a day! It’s a jebao as well. It was a real headache programming it. It’s not really meant for nano tanks. I had to set the pumps to a a really low initial number like 30 I think. That made it so the pump rotation made almost exactly one drop. Then I programmed it to run once every hour opposite dosing part A and part B. That came out to 12 drops of each (give or take) through out the 24 hours which was what I was adding by hand all at once. Seems to be working great. 
 

I still get air bubbles but rarely. The clear tubing  I had was cheap and quickly hardened and I got a ton of bubbles. The new ones are silicone based and softer and I seem to get less bubbles. I have read/ seen somewhere taking the pump off the housing and rotating the rollers to face the opposite direction fixes the bubble problem as if jabeo accidentally installed them backwards.