[Innovative Marine Nuvo 24] April Giveaway Build Thread

[defender.TX]

You tank looks great. It's rounding out nicely. Can't wait for more

 

Thanks! Now that it's maturing I'm planning on adding corals at a quicker pace...as long as it's in the budget that is.

 

Dude how is your sand soooooo sparkling clean? What sand is it?

Yes how is that its like baking powder or snow hah

 

It's the Fighting Conch! Seriously, get one. Not only are they hilarious to watch (my wife named ours "Mr. Crowley") with their wonky eyes but they literally are vacuum cleaners. Mine spends 24 hours a day sucking detritus/diatoms/algae off my sand. Sometimes, I will get a brown patch for a few days but then I'll see him spending extra time in the patch and it will be sparkling white.

 

The sand is CaribSea Arag-Alive! marine substrate. They claim it's "live" sand, but I don't know how true that can be after packaging and sitting on store shelves dry. I did not rinse it at all since the packaging says not to. It foams up a lot when you first put it in the tank but after a day or two that gets skimmed out and subsides. I believe it's the Bahamas Oolite (0.25 - 1mm), but I can double check when I get home as I don't remember.

[Cameron6796]

Well i might just add that to my stocking list if it keeps the substrate that clean

[defender.TX]

Yea I definitely think the Conch does most of the work. I don't see the snails or hermits on the sand that much but the Conch can't climb the rock so he has to eat everything off the sand. I think that every tank with a lot of open sand should have one.

[Stussi613]

Finally, I've discovered tiny Aiptasia in the tank, quite a few - maybe 10 tiny heads. I've heard that people have had good results with Peppermint shrimp eating them when they are this small, so I'm going to give that a try. Any heads that get large enough that the shrimp won't eat them I'm going to hit with Aiptasia X. Wish me luck!

 

I fond some tiny aiptasia in my tank too, everyone said get a small butane torch type cigar lighter...pull the rock out and torch them as you see them. I didn't listen and I got a peppermint shrimp thinking hey, this thing is a natural way to get rid of them and I won't end up torching off my coraline algae. My peppermint loves stealing food from my clowns and eating my frogspawn. What he doesn't eat is aiptasia. And I can't catch the little bugger, even though he's only in a 12x12 box, because he knows awesome hiding spots in my rocks.

[sangheili]

I fond some tiny aiptasia in my tank too, everyone said get a small butane torch type cigar lighter...pull the rock out and torch them as you see them. I didn't listen and I got a peppermint shrimp thinking hey, this thing is a natural way to get rid of them and I won't end up torching off my coraline algae. My peppermint loves stealing food from my clowns and eating my frogspawn. What he doesn't eat is aiptasia. And I can't catch the little bugger, even though he's only in a 12x12 box, because he knows awesome hiding spots in my rocks.

 

I got a peppermint shrimp 3 days ago and he has already ate the tiny amount I had on two plugs. Hasn't seemed to harm anything else yet - he hides 99% of the time. Sure was happy when I gave him a mysis shrimp yesterday though!

 

Also, You should be able to trap him. Search around for how to build/buy a trap.

[defender.TX]

Well, fingers crossed that my peppermint finds the aiptasia in the tank that is growing bigger by the day...

[Cameron6796]

Just inject it will lemon juice or boilgwater

[defender.TX]

Just inject it will lemon juice or boilgwater

 

I have Aiptasia X on order, I was just hoping the peppermint would eat them up so I didn't have to worry about it. I noticed this morning he was hanging out in the right area so I might see progress when I get home.

[Stussi613]

I sure hope he eats them...

[defender.TX]

LPS

 

It's been a while since an update, so I figured now was a good time for one. I spent a good chunk of the day doing tank maintenance: glass cleaning, water change, glued some frags, and rinsed all my filter media. The Purigen already looks like it needs to be recharged even though it's only been in the tank for 3 months - makes me think I don't have enough filtration media if it has to work that hard. I'm still doing twice daily feedings of New Life Spectrum pellets and Mysis Shrimp. I picked up a new frag on Friday, a Caulastrea curvata (Trumpet, Candy Cane) for $9! It's a pretty decent size, has 3 polyps, and has a colony of unknown Zoa/Palys on the skeletal structure. It's kind of a big deal for me because it's my first LPS coral ever! Enough, enough - on to the pictures.

 

First a new full tank shot:

 

 

Here's how it looks in my new place:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I finally got the white balance down with these pictures by shooting in RAW. Most of them came off the camera as a perfect representation as what you see when you look at the tank in person, they didn't even require much post processing. It's a relief because I've been struggling to get accurate color rendition in my photographs since I started this thread. I'm linking them in Flickrs standard "Large" size to help the pages load faster, but you can see them in full resolution on my Flickr Set if you want - it's linked on the front page of this thread.

 

Also, if anybody can help identify the Zoas or Palys that came on my Trumpet frag I would appreciate it!

[Cameron6796]

Looks good time to start filling in that tank

[charlie truong]

suhweeeeet! can't wait to see you fill this thing up

[defender.TX]

Looks good time to start filling in that tank

 

suhweeeeet! can't wait to see you fill this thing up

 

Thanks! I really would love to fill this tank up with corals but two things are stopping me from going all out: my budget and the thought that I might be moving again in a year.

 

I don't think I've mentioned it but I have two kids and my wife is pregnant with a third, so my budget for this tank is a little tight right now! That's why I specifically mention the price of most of my frags, I usually only buy coral if I find one that I think is a deal too good to pass up.

 

Also, there's a 50/50 chance I'll be moving again July 2014 because my lease is up and I think the owners might want to sell the house I'm renting. I'm nervous about putting a lot of money into nice LPS/SPS if they won't make the move.

 

With that said, I am still planning to get more coral, it's just going to move at a slower pace than I would like.

 

Does anybody have any thoughts as to where I should put those Trumpets? I've got them on the bottom acclimating right now but I intend to glue them to the rocks. Where do Trumpets normally do best?

[defender.TX]

I had something interesting happen to me when dealing with Red Sea customer support the other day and I thought it was worth mentioning. I had an issue with my Red Sea Nitrate Pro test kit where the cadmium solution in the A Bottle had formed a precipitate and would not work correctly. No matter how hard I shook the bottle, I could not dissolve the precipitate back into the solution.

 

I contacted Red Sea, and they asked for a receipt. Of course I didn't have the receipt, so I sent them pictures of my kit with a sheet of paper with the date and my email. They said they would make an exception one time and shipped me a reagent refill kit.

 

Now, what's interesting is that instead of getting a reagent refill kit I got an entirely new kit. Fine, I'll just have extra glass bottles and syringe I thought. When I opened the new kit, though, it's an entirely different set of reagents and the color wheel has entirely different colors on it. It still has 3 reagents but only 1 is a liquid dropper solution; the other two are powders. Of course the instructions are entirely different and the color wheel goes from a light pink to a bright pink.

 

I guess the reason this stands out to me is that if you read the reviews on Bulk Reef Supply there are a TON of people talking about how the A bottle gets messed up. They obviously had issues with the old Nitrate Pro test kits to the point where they completely changed the test but they still felt the need to give me attitude about not keeping my receipt!

 

Honestly, it kind of pissed me off and is not the level of customer service I've come to expect from an aquarium company. All of the other companies I've dealt with (Innovative Marine, Hagen, API) have been excellent and have sent me replacement parts with no questions asked.

 

Just wanted to vent and let anybody else with a Nitrate Pro Test Kit know that they have changed the test and that you may experience issues with the A bottle - it's a known problem.

[defender.TX]

I finally got a chance to use the new Red Sea Nitrate Pro kit with the solid reagents. I figured since I haven't seen much online about the new kit I would do a little mini-review on it.

 

Right off the bat, I did not appreciate that the color wheel now only has one color on it. The previous Nitrate Pro test kit was a teal color at 0 ppm and slowly turned more and more pink for higher NO3 levels. It was extremely easy to differentiate between the levels on the color wheel. The new color wheel goes from a light pink to a dark pink and honestly it's a lot more difficult to differentiate between the levels. It's something unfortunate that I'm willing to overlook because the rest of the test kit is excellent and extremely easy to use.

 

 

I took a few pictures of the new reagent bottles because they have some harsh warnings on them - you'll definitely want to use at least powderless nitrile gloves when using this kit:

 

 

 

The upside of the new solid reagents in the kit is that it's much easier to use now. Instead of counting drops from solutions that you have to shake until your arm falls off you just measure 1 scoop full from the bottles. There is still one solution that comes with a dropper but it's very easy to get out of the bottle unlike the previous solutions.

 

 

The kit seemed to retain the accuracy of the older test as I got roughly the result I expected from doing this weekly in the past on my tank. If you want to see just how different the colors are to gauge how easy they are to read, here's a shot below of reference water form the tank and the completed test which registered somewhere between .25 and .50 ppm - we'll call it .5.

 

 

The bottom line is that I think this is an excellent test kit for the money. I've been a big proponent of the Red Sea Nitrate Pro kit on this forum and the solid reagents only make this kit easier to use. The downside is that I did not get stellar customer support with Red Sea personally. In the end, though, I have to think that they did send me out an entirely new kit for free when my old one stopped working. So, regardless of whether they heckled me for a receipt or not, I was taken care of. I just wish they didn't make me feel like I inconvenienced them in the process.

 

The chemistry involved in aquaria is one of the things that has always interested me most about the hobby - I've always been a science nerd. If this kind of stuff bores you then you probably won't be reading at this point anyway, so I'm going to go on a little more about it. For those of you who are interested in the chemistry of keeping a reef, the booklet that comes with this kit also has some very interesting sections on zooxanthelle and how Nitrate and Phosphate levels in the aquarium affect coral coloration and growth. Basically, it advises that for best coral growth you should keep Nitrate between 1-2 ppm and expect a brownish tint to the coral. For best coral coloration you should keep Nitrate at or below .25 ppm and expect slow to no growth at all. Very interesting stuff.

[Stussi613]

Hey man, looking good! That biggest head on your candy cane is fixin to split...I bet if you look close you'll see two mouths in it. It seems to be happy with the flow and light, but you might want to mount it to a disc to keep it off the sand.

 

I've heard the Red Sea kits are good, but honestly those instructions look like too much work. I use the Salifert kits and you add your water, couple drops of one liquid and a scoop of powder, shake...wait three minutes...and that's it.

[defender.TX]

Hey man, looking good! That biggest head on your candy cane is fixin to split...I bet if you look close you'll see two mouths in it. It seems to be happy with the flow and light, but you might want to mount it to a disc to keep it off the sand. I've heard the Red Sea kits are good, but honestly those instructions look like too much work. I use the Salifert kits and you add your water, couple drops of one liquid and a scoop of powder, shake...wait three minutes...and that's it.

 

Hey, thanks for the tips on the Candy Cane. It's my first LPS ever so at this point I'm just trying not to screw anything up. I only have it in the sand for acclimating it to my lights, I'm going to glue it to the rocks once I decide on a good spot. Do you have any ideas? Do they like to be near the top of the aquarium or the bottom? I think I have a good place picked out on the flat outcropping on the rock second from the left at about the middle of the tank. It's basically about 4 inches above and 1 to the left of where it is in the current FTS. That place has similar flow and just a little more light.

 

I also fed the whole tank Mysis Shrimp last night and all the heads on the Candy Cane got a piece. I still haven't seen the feeder tentacles but I'm trying to coax them out!

[defender.TX]

A quick update since my other machine is still booting up at work.

 

I am slightly concerned about the recent rash of Nuvo 24 failures. I've started a poll in another thread to try and gauge how widespread the issue is and I've contacted Stephen from Innovative Marine. We'll see what he says.

 

In other news, I'm still pushing forward on the tank. I've got the Candy Canes mounted in a great spot, one of the heads now has two mouths and is about to split, and I see great feeder tentacle extension every night. I also picked up a Torch yesterday (Euphyllia glabrescens) that acclimated almost immediately and devoured some Mysis shrimp the first night in the tank.

 

I'll have new pictures of the corals and a new FTS soon.

[defender.TX]

I've finally got updated pics. I've aded a Torch frag, glued the Candy Canes, and got new polyps on all of my Zoanthids. Next weekend I'm be buying a Firefish and replacing some of my cleanup crew that has expired. I discovered recently that I wasn't lighting the tank enough and the decrease in algae growth starved out some of my cleaup crew. I've turned the lights back up and when I see algae again I'll replace the Zebra Turbo and Margarita Snails that died.

 

New Full Tank Shot:

 

 

A Ricordea florida frag that bleached when I moved. It's slowly been getting it's color back:

 

 

New Torch frag:

 

 

 

Zoas:

 

 

These polyps were completely brown when I first bought them, now they've colored up nicely:

 

 

[defender.TX]

One of the things that I started to take for granted is that the salinity in my tank was rock solid. I was buying premixed saltwater from the LFS and it was pegged at 1.023 every time I read it. I never saw my tank deviate from that point and I top off every single night with RO. So...I got complacent. I stopped getting my refractometer out for every water change. I stopped paying attention: just siphoned water out and put premixed back in. Well, last weekend I dusted off the refractometer and read my water: 1.021! Of course, that's way too low for a reef.

 

I knew that first and foremost that I needed to fix the problem at hand and bring the salinity back up in my tank, but not too fast! Raising the salinity quickly would probably be worse than letting it linger a little longer at 1.021. So I figured the best thing to do was bring it up slowly by topping off with more premix. I've been doing this for a week and I'm back at a little above 1.023.

 

Being an engineer, I also wanted to root cause the problem and figure out why this happened. I realize now it was caused by the following environment:

1. I buy premix from the LFS in 5 gallon polyurethane jugs.
2. Sometimes these jugs sit in my store room for a week or so before I do a water change with the water.
3. I usually do a 4-4.5 gallon water change by emptying the jug right into the tank.

Basically, as the jug sat in my storage room some of the salt precipitates. I notice this when I do the water change but I always figured it was just getting mixed as I added it back to the tank and it got water flow/heat in the tank. However, because I'm not using the entire jug for the water change, the majority of the precipitate stays in the jug. That means the water I actually dump into the tank is lower salinity than I want and the water left in the jug is hyper-saline.

 

Obviously this just means I need to remix my saltwater thoroughly before water changes! It seems so obvious, and I heard that was best practice, but I didn't really see anything wrong with the way I was doing things until now. I'm recycling the 100 Watt Eheim Jager from my tank to use as a mixing heater (it was too big for the Nuvo 24 anyway) and I've ordered a Cobal MJ1200 to use as a mixing pump. I'm going to remix the entire 5 gallon jug for a few hours before the water change and anything I don't use I'll dump back in the jug for next week.

 

On the plus side, I needed a new heater for the Nuvo since I cannibalized the Eheim for the mixing bucket, so I picked up a Cobalt Aquatics Neo-Therm 100 Watt. What a cool little heater that is, a really nice piece of kit. More on that later.

[Mr. Mustache]

Good you noticed the drop in salinity when you did. Also, you had the smarts not to raise it immediately. Just found your thread and am totally inspired by your aquascape. I've heard good things about the Neo-Therm. going to pick one up this weekend.

[defender.TX]

Good you noticed the drop in salinity when you did. Also, you had the smarts not to raise it immediately. Just found your thread and am totally inspired by your aquascape. I've heard good things about the Neo-Therm. going to pick one up this weekend.

 

Thanks! My wife and I worked pretty hard on the aquascape. We come from the freshwater Nature Style aquarium camp and idolize Takashi Amano. I actually had a more minimalistic scape in mind but once I bought the rock it just came together the way you see it in the tank.

[defender.TX]

So I have a decision to make here: stick with the Innovative Marine Dimmable Dualstrip lights or move to something that I can hang and has better spectrum.

 

While I absolutely love the Nuvo 24, I have to be honest, I'm not that impressed with the Dimmable Dualstrip lighting. For one, I'm not a fan of strip lighting and prefer a puck or fixture that I can hang above the tank. Taking the light off just to remove the glass top is a big pain for maintenance. Two, I just don't feel like the spectrum is that great. No matter what I do it just seems too "blue" - the blues get washed out and the other colors have a total blue tint and don't pop at all. I've seen 16K Kessil pendants and even though the tank looks very blue the other colors pop out, so I know this light must be missing some type of spectrum. I believe it only has cool white and royal blue, which could explain what I'm talking about.

 

I've done a lot of research and I want to replace my lights with AI Hydra lights at some point. The problem is the length of these tanks - 36 inches is a lot of width to cover.

 

My question is if you guys think a single Hydra (or Hydra Fifty-Two?) would cover this tank end to end. I'm assuming I'll have a bright spot in the middle and it will taper off towards the side of the tank and I'm okay with that.

 

What do you think?

[sangheili]

So I have a decision to make here: stick with the Innovative Marine Dimmable Dualstrip lights or move to something that I can hang and has better spectrum.

 

While I absolutely love the Nuvo 24, I have to be honest, I'm not that impressed with the Dimmable Dualstrip lighting. For one, I'm not a fan of strip lighting and prefer a puck or fixture that I can hang above the tank. Taking the light off just to remove the glass top is a big pain for maintenance. Two, I just don't feel like the spectrum is that great. No matter what I do it just seems too "blue" - the blues get washed out and the other colors have a total blue tint and don't pop at all. I've seen 16K Kessil pendants and even though the tank looks very blue the other colors pop out, so I know this light must be missing some type of spectrum. I believe it only has cool white and royal blue, which could explain what I'm talking about.

 

I've done a lot of research and I want to replace my lights with AI Hydra lights at some point. The problem is the length of these tanks - 36 inches is a lot of width to cover.

 

My question is if you guys think a single Hydra (or Hydra Fifty-Two?) would cover this tank end to end. I'm assuming I'll have a bright spot in the middle and it will taper off towards the side of the tank and I'm okay with that.

 

What do you think?

 

If i was going to spend that kind of money on lights, I would do a DIY fixture that I could control with my Apex. If you read the Lighting forum on here not very many people are impressed with AI lights in terms of their LED spectrum choices. I like my reefbreeders clone and it seems to provide plenty of light for the tank (with the exception that the sides get quite a bit less I just work that into my coral placement). I have a Kessil 150 on the way for a frag tank I am setting up so I look forward to being able to compare the light output.

[defender.TX]

If i was going to spend that kind of money on lights, I would do a DIY fixture that I could control with my Apex. If you read the Lighting forum on here not very many people are impressed with AI lights in terms of their LED spectrum choices. I like my reefbreeders clone and it seems to provide plenty of light for the tank (with the exception that the sides get quite a bit less I just work that into my coral placement). I have a Kessil 150 on the way for a frag tank I am setting up so I look forward to being able to compare the light output.

 

I'm not going to do a DIY fixture because while I have the skills I don't necessarily have the desire or time to put it all together. I haven't ruled out a Kessil A360W (or two) but I'm really impressed by AI's spectrum for the price (I can get two for the price of one Radion). The Hydra specifically has UV and infrared which I appreciate. I know AI is hated on here at nano-reef but I like the look they put out.