Legal Liquid: 14G Fusion Pro Peninsula (Tank shots)

[dmw913]

Well, it took less than a year and getting rid of every piece of fish gear I owned to make me super sad and unwilling to continue to go reef-free!

 

Short backstory:  New job, new house, tank crash means no more fish when we moved.  I was sad and couldn't take it anymore so I figured out how to get a tank at my office.  

 

I just couldn't shake the desire to dig back into a small reef.  I was looking for something that would give me a break from the daily doldrums without an overwhelming time commitment.  I've had a IM Nuvo Fusion before and liked the tank but didn't really want to repeat myself with the exact same tank so I settled on the new Fusion Pro 2 14 gallon peninsula.  A little more water, a little more space for coral, and the peninsula style should fit very well with the area of the office set aside for the tank.  So here goes nothing.  Please join me as I set up some Legal Liquid! 

 

TANK:           IM Nuvo Fusion Pro 14 G peninsula. 

R. PUMP:      IM Mighty Jet 326 gph DC pump (included with tank kit)

LIGHTS:       AI Prime HD (white) w/ "L" mount as opposed to flex arm

FLOW:          AI Nero 3 + split return

ROCK:          BRS Marco dry rock (~ 8 lbs)

SAND:          Carib Sea Ocean Direct (5 lbs)

SALT:           Tropic Marin Syn-Biotic 

HEAT:           Finnex HMS 50W Titanium 

WATER:        RO/DI w/ 5 stage BRS Value Plus unit

ATO:             Osmolator Nano

BIO MEDIA:  Marine Pure Gems (1 box)

CONTROL:   Neptune Apex (hoping for a Black Friday sale!!!)

CYCLE:         Fishless with Dr. Tim's One & Only

 

Follow along and provide input if you'd like.  All feedback is welcome!

[dmw913]

Look what showed up today!!!

[dmw913]

Ok.  Here's what I got done today.  Rock arrived.  BRS sent relatively small pieces but I still needed a chisel and hammer.  Thoughts on the aquascape?  Too much, too little?  Any feedback appreciated.

[Jaren45]

looks perfect for a mixed reef, if you're looking to keep more encrusting corals I would take it a little higher to give yourself more space

[dmw913]

We have water!!!  Got the 5 stage RO/DI set up and made up my water this morning.  Using Tropic Marin Syn-Biotic salt.  Roughly 1/2 cup per gallon to get to 35 ppt.  Dissolves super easily.  Added Ocean Direct sand.  Interestingly, only used one 5 lb bag.  I didn't want a deep sand bed but I thought I'd use closer to 10 lbs.  

 

Return pump is the included Mighty Jet.  Had a couple of issues with a super weird loud noise from the pump as I was getting started but it worked itself out and is now very quiet.  Utilizing the new Nuvo dual flow nozzle.  I took most of the loc line out because it poked out too far into the tank for my liking but I do like the ability to split the return into multiple directions.  

 

Also hooked up the Nero 3.  Was as easy to set up as advertised.  Absolutely painless and it puts out some water!  Currently set at under 50% random flow. Will continue to fine tune as we get further down the road.  

 

Also installed an old iPad in preparation for my Apex system.  (See left portion of pic for the beginnings of the control panel.)

 

Letting things run, come up to temp, and get rid of all the cloudy.  Will begin Dr. Tim's fishless cycle process tomorrow.

 

[dmw913]

Good news and bad news...

 

Bad news:  Fried a heater.  Something happened and my bio media bag floated to the top of the middle sump chamber and forced the top 1/2 of the heater out of the water.  Since some of the heater was still in the water, that helped disperse some of the heat so there wasn't significant damage but it did melt a portion of the plastic safety cage around the heater.  Unplugged heater, tossed it and grabbed a new heater in the interests of safety.  Made sure to use the heater suction cups now so that if the bio filter bag has an issue again, it can't push the heater up.  Whew!  Avoided anything more serious. 

 

Good news:  Tester coral -- green striped mushroom -- in place.   Put it on an island so it can't get out of control as greenies are known to do.  

 

Other news:  Installed ATO.  

 

We're moving right along.  🙂

 

 

[dmw913]

We have fishies!!!  Went through the Dr. Tim's nitrogen cycling and all appeared well so I went to my LFS to pick up two fish from Sea and Reef Aquaculture.  I was able to get a Snow Storm and a Mocha Storm.  They are adorable, eating well, and seem to enjoy their new environment.  The Snow Storm was very interested in me trying to take a pic of him so please enjoy the silly selfie from him.  The little dot on his chin just kills me!!!  🙂

 

[dmw913]

Based on a discussion in another build thread, I took this video to show how I have set up my flow using a split return and a Nero 3. There's a shot of the water movement at the top of the tank near the end. I have set the pump at random during the day with a high of 60% and a low of 30% and the sand doesn't move (very fine grain Ocean Direct).   Night setting is about 30% constant for everything to take 5.  You can also see how I used the split return to send some water behind the aquascape and then some angled to the front to interact with the Nero.  Also of note, the Nero is angled as much as possible so it actually is hitting the front left corner of the tank and bounces back. 

 

Also, nitrates are a little higher than I would like at this point at approximately 18.  Doing a 50% water change and have ordered the new IceCap K1 NEO skimmer to help get that handled.  A little nervous as it is brand new with no reviews.  I'll let everyone know how it turns out.  Also dosing 5 drops of Microbacter7 daily to support continued biological filtration growth.  Phosphate is at .01 so no issues there but will continue to keep an eye on everything.

 

Finally, really enjoying logging everything in Aquarimate.  

[dmw913]

Well, that's not helpful at all.  Can't seem to get the video loaded.  Any hints or tips?

[Jaren45]

Youtube, or convert it to a gif and use imgur

[dmw913]

Went a little nuts on the @Zoanthids live sale and now my reef looks like it's been run over with little army of frags! They are all doing well and the tank is settling in nicely.

Things that have happened since last update:
1. Installed @synergyreef 5 gallon ATO container. As always, they do a fantastic job. They even moved the clear panel from front to side for me at no additional charge since the container is visible and has be be mounted on the side. They are great!!!
2. Set up all reminders, schedules in Aquarimate. That is helping me stay on task.
3. Dosed pink and purple coralline algae. We'll see if it works.
4. Installed K1 Neo Skimmer from IceCap. Was quite skeptical but so far it's finally broken in and pulling out some gunk. I'll take what I can get from a nano skimmer. 

Included are a few photos. I'm struggling with getting decent shots because I think the windows are putting too much light on everything. I'll keep working on it.
 

[dmw913]

11/27/2021: Received Apex this week and currently waiting for controller board. While I waited, I threw in the probes for them to be getting settled per BRS setup video prior to calibration and to see where my levels are for a starting point.

Temp was fine during the day but was dropping over a degree once the lights ceiling window and one heater could not keep up with the drop in temp over went off at the end of the business day. Tank had to be set up near a floor to
night. I would have NEVER known about this without the Apex monitoring as the tank had recovered by the morning. I added an additional Archea nano heater (50w), set them at roughly the same temp and now the tank is stable within ½ a degree even though the office is cold at night. Phew! Not sure how hard this would have been on the corals over time but fixing it can’t be bad!

[aclman88]

Been eyeing that skimmer how’s it working for you?

[dmw913]

On 11/28/2021 at 1:04 PM, aclman88 said:

Been eyeing that skimmer how’s it working for you?

I'm actually pleasantly surprised.  It took a few days to break in and the micro bubbles were terrible during that time.  The main thing that I needed to do was turn down the flow through my sump area of my tank and as it was apparently too quick to get good foam.  As soon as I did that, foam started coming and I get regular, consistent dark brown gunk.  For $80 it fits in the chamber with room to spare, it works and was cheap.  Can send pics of skimmate if you'd like.  Only downside is that it's a little noisy but nothing to worry too much about.  Tank is in my office and if it bugs me, I turn it off for a while.