nano_izzy IM nuvo 10

[nano_izzy]

Hey guys, just wanted to give a start my aquarium journal with a little info on what im running and hope to keep this updated pretty frequently. i setup my tank yesterday after purchasing 10lbs. of live rock from my LFS. now just playing the waiting game of letting cycling run its course. hopefully ill be able to snap some pics of the tank tonight that dont look terrible. 

 

Tank- IM nuvo fusion pro 10 

Stand- DIY from 2x4 cause im cheap 

Pump- stock(mightjet 326)

Filter- media basket with filter floss & carbon

Heater- eheim jager 50W

Flow- koralia nano 425(upgrade to mp10 in future)

Light- nanobox mini tide but dave has been having lots of setbacks so i also ordered an AI prime hd 16. for now just running an old starkLED strip until i decide what light i will actually be setting up. 

 

like i said i will try to snap some better pics tonight with the rockwork in! 

 

[nano_izzy]

ecxuse my noobness. how the hell do i change my thumbnail to not be sideways? 😂 

[nano_izzy]

heres a few photos to get started. im planning on entering the contest. dont hate on my bleu cheese...and a shot of my live rocks i picked up yesterday. 

[Pjanssen]

. Nice. Good luck in the contest

[nano_izzy]

35 minutes ago, Pjanssen said:

. Nice. Good luck in the contest

thanks! 

[nano_izzy]

so a quick update and question. sorry i still haven’t posted a picture as ive been busy lately. 

so come to find out the “live rock” that my LFS carries now isn’t rock but “real reef rock” i was sort of thrown off at the name alone or i may have waited to research other options. i bought 10lbs and put it in the tank on friday. 

if anyone is using  “real reef rock” could you chime in and let me know how you like this stuff? also, im wondering how my cycle will look with this as my only other tank was cycled with actual live rock and live sand. 

as of now my params using red sea test kit

salinity- 1.025

temp-80
ammonia-0.3~
nitrite-0.3~ 

havent tested anything else 

[Growerguy]

I'm pretty new to the new rock also but my understanding is it is seeded with dry bacteria so it is suppose to boost the cycle as opposed to using dry rock. 

I used dry rock in my newish 40g and used Microbacter 7 to cycle. That has a blurb about not using if you have seeded real reef rock because they use different bacteria. 

All in all I think the cycle should be similar to live rock just with out the little critters. I dont have experience with it however, it showed up during my reefing hiatus haha.

[nano_izzy]

2 minutes ago, Growerguy said:

I'm pretty new to the new rock also but my understanding is it is seeded with dry bacteria so it is suppose to boost the cycle as opposed to using dry rock. 

I used dry rock in my newish 40g and used Microbacter 7 to cycle. That has a blurb about not using if you have seeded real reef rock because they use different bacteria. 

All in all I think the cycle should be similar to live rock just with out the little critters. I dont have experience with it however, it showed up during my reefing hiatus haha.

thanks for the input 👍🏼 

yeah i was sort of thrown off by the name of it. ive done plenty of research just making sure i remembered most stuff from my only other tank i had setup years ago. however, i didn’t read up on rocks because i figured that would all be the same and my LFS would have similar stuff as in the past. i called and asked about live rock pricing and went and scooped 10 pounds. 115 dollars later i do some research and run across what it actually is haha. 

im sure there’s people on here with hands on experience with it that may be able to point out some pros and cons with it. 

btw, hope everything is going smoothly with your tank! 

[Growerguy]

Sure thing! I have tons of dry rock from old tanks. Went on a BRS binge a couple months ago when I setup my main tank again, so saw them talk about the rock you got. Things have changed so much from even 4 years ago.

Thank you! Got the tracking today so should have water in it by the end of the week as long as UPS is nice. Hope the rest of your cycle goes smooth!

[mitten_reef]

On 2/8/2020 at 2:59 PM, nano_izzy said:

heres a few photos to get started. im planning on entering the contest. dont hate on my bleu cheese...and a shot of my live rocks i picked up yesterday. 

Looks like nice pieces. As long as they’re kept wet, you should be ok and should behave like any live rocks when it comes to cycling.  It’s just man made mineral deposit vs dead corals skeleton, with splash of colors. Dare I say it might be better than the stuff people mined out from the ground, and sell as reef-safe dry rocks.  

[nano_izzy]

so a quick little update and i finally got around to taking some pictures. the tank seems to be cycling just fine! params checked tonight with red sea test kit. 

temp: 81

salinity: 1.027 

Ph: 8.2

ammonia: 0.8

nitrite: over 1 (color was super dark)

nitrate: 10~ 

 

i have some old starkLED strips that weren’t being used so ive been running 1 marine blue one here and there cause i hate looking at a dark tank. it was too blue to take good photos so i dug out a marine white one to get some decent pics. i will not be running these for good. i have an AI prime 16 in the box and an order for a nanobox tide that im still dealing with dave to figure out what the deal is. so either one of those will go on after cycling. will post pics below. 

 

also i know the temp and salinity is a bit hight right now. im not too worried at the moment as no livestock is in the tank. i’ll slowly adjust it during cycling. 

[nano_izzy]

sort of looks like one big rock 😂 i promise its not. theres one big one about 5lb. thats in the middle and i built around it with several smaller pieces. 

[Smurf]

I love the natural scaping and amount of Live rock used! I am a live rock and sand whore.

 

Everything looks well thought out. I was so excited when I first got my new tank wet. Congrats and best of luck in the competition!

 

Happy reefing!

[nano_izzy]

 

21 minutes ago, Smurf said:

I love the natural scaping and amount of Live rock used! I am a live rock and sand whore.

 

Everything looks well thought out. I was so excited when I first got my new tank wet. Congrats and best of luck in the competition!

 

Happy reefing!

thanks for the kind words! haha i guess i am too with this build. i went with 10lbs sand and rock even though the display is probably closer to 8 gal of space. i am satisfied with the look of it for now but who knows what may come about down the line. 

 

thats the damn truth...i have pretty much had all my equipment and everything sitting for a month now and finally got it setup about 4 days ago. it was very satisfying putting everything together! thanks, and good luck to as well if your participating. 

[nano_izzy]

i haven't given an update in a while so here we go...my tank ended up cycling with no troubles other than the expected diatom bloom. still have a bit of remnants left from that but no biggie. the tank took right around 3 weeks for ammonia and nitrite to zero out and i gave it a few extra days before adding anything just to be safe.

 

i purchased a jar of 5280 pods and ocean magic phyto from algae barn during the second week of the cycle and introduced the pods on 2/26. very pleased with the quality of how they shipped and the quick arrival of them. i also started adding around 2ml. of phyto per day since the same night the pods arrived. i know i could run into some troubles from adding too much phyto so i have since slowed down. im sure it also wasn’t necessary to spend money on pods but the live rock i got had very little to no life on them so i wanted to speed up the process of seeding the tank with some pods. 

 

i purchased my first livestock from my LFS last friday(2/28). consisting of 1 skunk cleaner shrimp, 5 blue legged hermit crabs, and 1 smaller turbo snail. they all acclimated with no problems and are doing great! a few of the hermits seem lazy but the biggest of them all is a boss and is working not stop. the skunk cleaner hasn’t been shy at all and is very entertaining to sit back and watch. i woke up this morning to find out he had his first molt overnight and seems to be doing well. the 1 turbo sleeps most of the day in a small shaded crevice in the rocks then becomes very lively right before the lights go out and proceeds to munch on algae all through the night. 

 

i am still waiting on word from dave to see if he's still going to ship my nanobox out. he emailed me about 10 days ago saying it was getting packed up but thats the last i’ve heard from him. i ordered an ai prime 16hd when i originally thought the nanbox route may fall through. its been sitting in the box for about a month because i didn’t really need to use it since i had no livestock and was hoping to get good news from dave and i would return it back to BRS. in the mean time i had been using an old starkLED strip just to have some sort of lightning over the tank....well last night my impatience got to me. i said f*** it and decided to mount up the ai prime. god what a pain in the ass it was to try and figure out how to get everything working with the shotty instructions they send with it. after around an hour of messing with it she was finally working. 

 

i have heard alot of good things about the ab+ lighting schedule for the prime but after getting so frustrated with the setup and not being able to find it anywhere i decided to just go with the saxby settings for now. after searching and searching i finally found a clear cut way to load the signature settings onto my prime through the myAI app. so for now im using the saxby settings turned down to a bit under 50%. i also pushed back the times to better work with my schedule and put the lunar setting to 5%. 

 

thanks to anyone who took the time to read this wall of text 😂. if anyone has any input or constructive criticism please feel free to share and i will take it all in. oh, i will also try to upload some photos or video of the tank inhabitants later tonight(if i dont get to drunk at the bar) 

[nano_izzy]

im thinking i may go to another LFS tomorrow and get a pom pom crab! ive read just about everywhere that pom pom crabs and skunk cleaner will do fine together. can anyone else confirm this or deny and wouldn’t advise housing them together? 

[nano_izzy]

its been over a month now since ive given an update(been lazy during quarantine) so here we are...in my last post i noted that i wanted to pick up a pom pom crab. i ended up pulling the trigger on one and she’s awesome! she was teeny tiny when i got her but has molted twice since then, in turn she has gotten a bit bigger. shes also pregnant at the moment too! ive never had one before so idk if they lay eggs that aren’t fertile from time to time or if every pregnancy is a fertile one. either way there’s something going on because the red sack under her abdomen is getting bigger by the day.

 

ive also been slowly picking up some coral frags from my LFS and one online order from saltcritters. i ordered a 3 pack of ultra rock flower anemones, a small acan lord, florida ric, and a hammer coral and put them in the tank on 3/13. i also picked up 2 unnamed zoa frags, a 3 polyp frag of utter chaos zoas, a green candy cane coral that my gal talked me into and an orange acan frag.....why is it so hard to walk into my LFS to fill up my freshwater jugs and then just leave with nothing else 😂😂. the most recent thing i talked myself into buying is small a rainbow bubble tip anemone. i picked it up last saturday. hes moved about 2 inches from where i originally put him but other then that no problems. 

 

got my first and probably only fish on 3/20. a pair a orange snow clowns that have been doing awesome and eat like pigs. 

 

ill post some pics below from oldest to newest. thanks for looking! 

[nano_izzy]

[nano_izzy]