mikeCSU Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 My first tank. Equipmunk Tank: Innovative Marine Nuvo 16g AIO Lighting: (2) Innovative Marine 8 Watt 14000K Skkye Light(Included w/ tank) Heating: Hagen Fluval E-Series Electronic Aquarium Heater Controller: Apex AquaController Jr.(controls lighting and heaters) Powerhead: Factory 11W /211gph Powerhead(Included w/ tank) Hydor Koralia Nano Circulation Powerhead Filtration: Media Baskets w/ mecanical, activated carbon and phosphae sponges Purigen SeaGel Filter Floss Misc: ATO system from AutoTopOff.com (2) Tom Aquatics Aqua-Lifter Dosing Pump(for ATO) Innovative Marine Spin Streams JBJ Nano Cube MSS Livestock Fish: (2) B&W Ocellaris Clownfish Tailspot Blenny Tanaka's Pygmy Wrasse Corals: Frogspawn Galaxea Various Zoas (More details to come..) Inverts: (More details to come..) Tank Customizations Aside from getting crafty with arranging additional filtration and the ATO, the only customization I did was adding two JBJ Nano Cube MSS over the built in overflows to raise the water level. By default, the waterlevel in the tank sits around 1.5" from the surface. With the two skimmers, it is < .5" from the top. Additional Information Tank Started 10/26 Used live rock from liveaquaria.com Substrate is Agro-alive Oolite Tank temperature sits between 77.5 and 80 Pics 10/29 Pics 11/28 Pics 12/17 Update 1/28 -->> <<-- All future photos in replies Link to comment
siwelk Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Buck Foulder Edit: You should embed your image. Link to comment
Ezsharkman Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 I love these tanks! The one I saw had a panorama module/strip mounted between the two skkye LEDs and it looked amazing. Will be following this for sure and It looks like you are off to a great start! Link to comment
mikeCSU Posted December 21, 2011 Author Share Posted December 21, 2011 Buck Foulder Edit: You should embed your image. Didn't even notice the embed sadly enough. I'll clean it up. Link to comment
siwelk Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Didn't even notice the embed sadly enough. I'll clean it up. Thanks. I didn't want to fox with our firewall just for you. Link to comment
siwelk Posted December 22, 2011 Share Posted December 22, 2011 Lookin' good from home mayne. Link to comment
Hinesassociates Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 How your corals were doing? I am looking into picking up one of these tanks, but I havnt seen anyone doing corals with stock lights on these. I am mostly interested in softies, but I figured I would ask you since you are using stock lights and had some similar corals. Link to comment
derek121760 Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 Your tank rocks! I just ordered one and one extra 8w/14,000 led. Could you suggest I list of things I will need to make my set-up awesome like yours. I have not had a saltwater tank since 1972 and the technology has advanced a great deal. Would really appreciate any input you can give me. Thanks Link to comment
jgpico Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 I want one of the innovative marine tanks so bad! Your tank looks awesome. How are the skye lights doing so far? We just set up one of the 8 gallon innovative marine tanks at the lfs I work at and I really like the color mix of the light. Link to comment
mikeCSU Posted January 28, 2012 Author Share Posted January 28, 2012 Hey guys, sorry i've been slow to get back to you, have had a rather busy month, so hopefully I'm not too late. I really appreciate all the compliments. It feels great to get such positive feedback on my first tank. How your corals were doing? I am looking into picking up one of these tanks, but I havnt seen anyone doing corals with stock lights on these. I am mostly interested in softies, but I figured I would ask you since you are using stock lights and had some similar corals. My corals have been doing great. I bought a 3rd light(same as the 2 that come with the tank) but the corals were doing just fine even before it. I think the lights would handle med-high light corals pretty decent, though I doubt you'd see much growth for something requiring high light. For softies it should be plenty sufficient. I've got a green gonipora coral in there which was supposed to have high lighting requirements and it has done just fine, Your tank rocks! I just ordered one and one extra 8w/14,000 led. Could you suggest I list of things I will need to make my set-up awesome like yours. I have not had a saltwater tank since 1972 and the technology has advanced a great deal. Would really appreciate any input you can give me. Thanks Hey derek, hopefully I'm not too late. The items I used are all listed above. Is there something in particular you'd like to see and I can try to go into further detail and snap some photos? I also added an extra LED and it was a great purchase. Just makes the tank feel bigger since I can light up the edges more evenly. I'd also really recommend the spin streams to create a more turbulent flow. In the back I'm running the mechanical filtration that comes with the tank, along with carbon that I insert where the water overflows out of the heater chambers. I basically cut it to the width of the lip of that overflow and insert it so the carbon filter pad sits about .5" above the lip. Then if the carbon gets too filled with gunk, the water will just overflow it and I don't risk clogging the chambers and flooding my room. Sometimes I'll add in some filter floss in the heater chamber to further clean the water. Especially if I know i'm gonna be stirring it up while rearranging. Lastly, I'd highly recommend getting a controller. I got the aqua controller jr(entry level for neptune systems) which allows me to monitor and control my systems from my computer/tablet/phone etc. Let lets you set your lights on timers, shut off heaters if your tank gets too hot and so forth. Sure, it costs a bit more, but after buying individual timers and such, you'll be over half way toward the cost anyways. Let me know if there is any other specifics I can provide for you. I want one of the innovative marine tanks so bad! Your tank looks awesome. How are the skye lights doing so far? We just set up one of the 8 gallon innovative marine tanks at the lfs I work at and I really like the color mix of the light. The lights are pretty good for what they are. It certainly wouldn't hurt to upgrade if you're wanting to do some corals that require pretty heavy duty lighting(sps) but even those might be alright(probably wouldn't see much growth though). Just about every coral I've placed into the tank seems to double in size from what it was at the LFS's. As I mentioned above, I've got a green gonipora coral in there which was supposed to have high lighting requirements and it has done just fine. I haven't even had to target feed it so far. The biggest thing I've noticed from the high quality LED's is the high quality LED's bring out the coral colors better. I think they are sufficient for this tank, but if I were going to upgrade to tablet light, I probably wouldn't go with the innovative marine ones. I'm adding some new photos now so you can see it's status. It looks a bit cluttered currently because I have a lot of frags in the sand that I've been letting acclimate for a few weeks before I work them into there spots. Let me know what you guys think! Link to comment
derek121760 Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 Mike thanks a ton for the input. Great idea to raise the water level, i'll have to do that and look into the ATO as well. I started putting soft corals in mine about 4 days ago along with a couple of true perc's. Maybe i can figure out how to post a pic or two Link to comment
derek121760 Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 Hi Mike, i think i'm gonna buy the controller. Are you able to plug in all 6 ballast-like plugs into the apex junior or did you have to buy additional hardware? Also i'm interested in the ATO/doser system. Can you give me more details about that? I still haven't figured out how to upload a pic but the tank is starting to look killer, particularly the soft corals when only the blue LED's are on. Link to comment
mikeCSU Posted January 30, 2012 Author Share Posted January 30, 2012 Hi Mike, i think i'm gonna buy the controller. Are you able to plug in all 6 ballast-like plugs into the apex junior or did you have to buy additional hardware? Also i'm interested in the ATO/doser system. Can you give me more details about that? I still haven't figured out how to upload a pic but the tank is starting to look killer, particularly the soft corals when only the blue LED's are on. Derek, to fit the plugs, I just used 2 power strips. Then I hooked all my day lights into 1 outlet, and my moonlights into another so that I could set the timer on them independently. As for the ATO, I'm using dual nano float switches from http://autotopoff.com. Going off this picture: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/53830/innovative_marine_16.jpg I basically have 1 switching hanging above the Y-return tubes. Then the other switch hangs below. The one hanging above is basically a back-up should the lower one fail. I also am using 2 seperate brackets for the switches to give me more flexibility, though you may be able to get away with 1. You'll want to email them to have them set both float switches on the same power switch box to eliminate unnecessary cords. I then used two Tom Aquatic Aqua Lifter Pumps to pump the water from my reservoir in my stand below. The nice thing about those pumps are they are cheap, and they can run dry so you don't have to worry if the top-off water runs out. Let me know if you need me to draw it up further. P.S. You might look into getting a photobucket.com or dropbox.com account to share your photos. You'll just need to place the photos on one of those accounts and then post the links on here. Link to comment
Seiryoku Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 Great looking tank ^^)b Was curious how loud the system is overall and specifically the spin streams. Considering one of these as my new night stand tank. Only problem is it will be a couple of feet from my head while sleeping and erratic noises/water trickling may as well be breaking glass (while trying to sleep). Link to comment
derek121760 Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 Mike, what are you using as a reservoir for your topoff system? Link to comment
mikeCSU Posted February 2, 2012 Author Share Posted February 2, 2012 Great looking tank ^^)b Was curious how loud the system is overall and specifically the spin streams. Considering one of these as my new night stand tank. Only problem is it will be a couple of feet from my head while sleeping and erratic noises/water trickling may as well be breaking glass (while trying to sleep). Thank you! I never thought the spin streams were loud, but then I put my head near my tank last night and they could very well be an issue at night. I noticed that one of them seemed to make a slight grinding noise when it got to the same part of its rotation each time. Nothing I would have noticed in my living room normally, but up really close it was noticeable as it would be in your bedroom. Otherwise, the tank seems very quiet. This is my first though, so it's hard for me to compare. Mike, what are you using as a reservoir for your topoff system? Derek, I just use the 5 gallon jugs that my RO/DI water comes in from the local LFS. They look like this: I just swap them out ever few weeks. Link to comment
derek121760 Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 Thank you! I never thought the spin streams were loud, but then I put my head near my tank last night and they could very well be an issue at night. I noticed that one of them seemed to make a slight grinding noise when it got to the same part of its rotation each time. Nothing I would have noticed in my living room normally, but up really close it was noticeable as it would be in your bedroom. Otherwise, the tank seems very quiet. This is my first though, so it's hard for me to compare. Derek, I just use the 5 gallon jugs that my RO/DI water comes in from the local LFS. They look like this: I just swap them out ever few weeks. Thanks Mike, I bought some similar containers to buy R/O and saltwater from lfs but they don't fit in the cabinet my tank sits on. Today I bought a 2.5g fish tank from PetCo that fits nicely out of site. Still working on a photo upload Link to comment
derek121760 Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 Hi Mike, I'm having a little trouble figureing out how these floats mount for my ATO system. I bought everything you used. Can you post some pics how everything is arranged so I'll be able to tell if I've got the correct components. Thanks Link to comment
derek121760 Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 Hi Mike, I'm having a little trouble figureing out how these floats mount for my ATO system. I bought everything you used. Can you post some pics how everything is arranged so I'll be able to tell if I've got the correct components. Thanks Also would you mind sending me an email and I can email back pics of the things I've got and we can figure out if I have what I need derek121760@yahoo.com Link to comment
derek121760 Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 Derek, to fit the plugs, I just used 2 power strips. Then I hooked all my day lights into 1 outlet, and my moonlights into another so that I could set the timer on them independently. As for the ATO, I'm using dual nano float switches from http://autotopoff.com. Going off this picture: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/53830/innovative_marine_16.jpg I basically have 1 switching hanging above the Y-return tubes. Then the other switch hangs below. The one hanging above is basically a back-up should the lower one fail. I also am using 2 seperate brackets for the switches to give me more flexibility, though you may be able to get away with 1. You'll want to email them to have them set both float switches on the same power switch box to eliminate unnecessary cords. I then used two Tom Aquatic Aqua Lifter Pumps to pump the water from my reservoir in my stand below. The nice thing about those pumps are they are cheap, and they can run dry so you don't have to worry if the top-off water runs out. Let me know if you need me to draw it up further. P.S. You might look into getting a photobucket.com or dropbox.com account to share your photos. You'll just need to place the photos on one of those accounts and then post the links on here. Mike could you send me some pics of where you positioned your floats and pumps for the ATO. Link to comment
Mufflerfist Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 Good day everyone... I've started to follow this thread as i'm very interested in the 16.... Just to let you know that I contacted "inTank" to see if they had plans to make their product for this tank. They told me that they had just picked up a Nuvo 16 and currently working on it. He will email once they are done. One problem down and one more to go... I live in Newfoundland Canada and getting my hands on one is proving harder then i thought.... Awesome job on the tank so far ... Link to comment
derek121760 Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 Mike, can you post some pics of your ATO? Link to comment
mikeCSU Posted February 19, 2012 Author Share Posted February 19, 2012 Mike, can you post some pics of your ATO? Yeah, sorry I've had a very busy past few weeks. I can't get a great view of the back of my tank, so I attached a photo from above and will explain it to you. Both float switches are set to turn the pumps ON if they are not floating. This means the 2nd one is ALWAYS ON, since it never touches the water(it's the backup if the first one fails). Meanwhile, the 1st one(which hangs below the Y-return pipe, will handle the day to day water level. Basically, whenever water evaporates and the 1st one stops floating, it will turn on and pump RO water into until it is floating again and it shuts off. Should it get stuck in the bottom position, the water will fill up until it hits the second switch. And I can easily tell that I need to look into what's causing that first one to fail. If both were to fail, you're gonna have a wet floor. Your best bet is to set it up in a 5 gallon bucket and just test it out.. Set both of them on the edge of the bucket, then just try adding and removing water to make sure it works. And check that your back up works as needed. Hope this helps. Link to comment
Seiryoku Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Still love your tank Ordered one for myself yesterday (along with two spin streams to try and a third light). Did you ever attempt to raise the water level by doing something to the back of the overflow? I like what you did, but would prefer to not alter the cleanliness of the inside of the tank at all. Any other advice for a new Nuvo setup? Link to comment
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