Denise's Nuvo Fusion 20 Build

[dmw913]

Good afternoon, all!

You know the point in your reefing where it looked great, then it didn't (due to your fault or circumstance) and you're fighting your way back or wondering if you should just go all mushrooms???

Cad Lights skimmer hasn't been producing foam at all. Took out custom stand from @osiviper and tried it at different depth. Still no foam. Put stand back in because @osiviper is smart and it made depth exactly manufacture optimal amount - still no foam but I could feel the inside of the skimmer was getting slippery.

Decided I was staying home from work this afternoon and was going to clean tank and change out return pump. Return pump replacement is Eheim and must be metric because hoses didn't fit by the slightest margin possible. Grrrrr. In the meantime, I've torn apart my other return and have lost one of the pieces - now worried the dog ate it (not ultimately true . . .). Go to Lowes to see if I can find a different hose now that I've gotten this far deep into the project. Nope. But I did get replacement for hose piece I had misplaced. Start putting original return pump back together and break off a piece of my ATO which slides into a spot nearly unrecoverable . . . find ATO piece and get things back together. Turn back on return pump - I kid you not, it doesn't fire up. Take return pump back out and reseat seal, rinse and repeat. At least in this process, I have now stirred up junk in the back sump area so that's good to get that gunk cleaned out. Return pump now back to work but I have a brand new Eheim still unused.

Restart skimmer: Get it readjusted as it is a finicky little unit. Inexplicably, skimmer now producing absolutely perfect foam as well as microbubbles from hell. Who knows?!?!?! Isn't part of the fun figuring some of this out? I'll continue to update.

 

[Esper]

Nitrate issues can be very frustrating. It sounds like you have the right equipment, so check your habits and the quality of the water you are adding.

Reef tanks are about inputs and outputs. You either have too much nitrogen coming in, or not enough coming out.

Here's some thoughts:

1) Water flow is important for coral health, but it is also important for keeping detritus in suspension so it can be removed by your skimmer and water changes. Sand makes it hard to have enough flow to do this. Seriously consider going full barebottom: this way your flow can be adjusted according to the needs of your corals, rather than the needs of your sand bed. My rocks shed detritus for YEARS, and this is expected. The key is to get it out of the tank quickly and easily.

Blasting rocks with a turkey baster/powerhead helps, but you don't want to be sticking foreign objects in nano tanks that frequently. Better to have the tank take care of itself than require constant intervention.

2) Have you thoroughly checked the Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) of your freshwater, and the nitrates in your fresh saltwater used in water changes? Perhaps you are introducing nitrogen and not even realizing it.

Good luck, you have a great setup! I'm sure you'll get everything dialed in soon.

 

[rjkrejci]

Did you run vinegar through the skimmer to break it in? That helps speed the process. But if you're starting to produce foam, then I'd leave well enough alone. I ran into issues where I had some crud partially blocking the skimmer pump intake, so it kept getting lower and lower. I cleaned the whole thing out, reamed out a little of the air intake with a drill bit to make it a little less block-prone and it's been running very stable for a few weeks, producing some nice dark skimmate and not requiring adjustments every other day.

The stand you have assumes a certain water level. What is you pump/suction cup bottom to water level distance?

You'll get there as Esper says...you have the right equipment. If it were perfectly plug and play, the hobby would be quite as , let's say, "interesting".

 

[dmw913]

Thanks to both @esper and @rjkrejci! Good points!

I'm seriously considering at a minimum, removing some of the sand so that it at least isn't as deep and can't hold quite so much gunk. I don't need it as deep as I have it to look nice and I can remove it in stages and ultimately just go total bb if I like it better.

I thought @esper's point about water movement was really excellent so I reviewed my Vortech program and upped the percentage on my nutrient export mode that runs each morning in an effort to ramp up water movement and get that detritus exported. Additionally, the foam in the skimmer has slowed back down to a near stop which leads me to believe that when I was fussing in the tank, I stirred up enough DOCs to get good foam and when things settled, it died back down - at least in theory proving @esper's point about the potential need for more water movement in my system.

@rjkrejci, from suction cups to water level for the skimmer is 6 inches which is slightly lower than the recommended 5 from CAD Lights but well within range. Unfortunate that I don't have a way to be more flexible with it but so it goes.

Any other thoughts about why the foam started and then died down again which differ from my analysis above? I'm interested in going home to see how things are progressing today.

 

[dmw913]

Forgot to add that after the whole return pump debacle, I just ordered a Cobalt Maxijet 1200 which has already been a proven fit as a replacement pump for this tank. Should up my return volume by 30-40%

 

[jkimball7]

Hey I enjoyed reading your thread!
i just set up a fusion 20 at the beginning of the week I too had trouble with finding a skimmer I have a tunze 9002 that rips but it's in the display tank thinking about going skimmerless and 3 gallon changes a week to off set the nitrates.

 

[dmw913]

Fascinating discovery: Skimmer hasn't been producing foam all week. Some light skimmate, but no foam to speak of. Did my weekly water change of 4 gallons and the rest of my regular maintenance. Turned on my skimmer and just like before - FOAM! Fast forward to this morning - a rock fell and I put my hand in the tank to fix it. Foam immediately collapsed. Nothing to worry about, right? Happens all the time. Oil from hands can cause the foam to fall. Should be back in a few, right? NOPE - no foam for over 10 hours and I could see the column of bubbles was a little thicker like it wanted to foam but couldn't. This, of course, is my new passion, chasing fractionated protein foam . . .

This continues to annoy me over the course of the 10 hours and I think about how to get the oil residue out of the tank - it must be wildly small but just enough to preclude foaming - So I try just replacing the filter floss. Let the skimmer sit for 15 minutes and turn the skimmer back on - IMMEDIATE FOAM. Freaky! Let the foam chase continue!

 

[saahilrtrivedi]

Nice Tank!

 

[rjkrejci]

I was finding the Cadlights skimmer a bit finnicky as time went on as well. One part was I don't have any mechanical filtration between it and the skimmer input, so crud would occasionally get stuck on the input, changing the levels a little. The other issue I found, when looking at a forum thread somewhere, is that the airway into the pump is quite narrow and can clog a little, causing random overflows. I followed the recommendation to bore it out a tiny bit with a snug fitting drill bit. Now that I've done these things it's been running far more consistently. I also loosened the black plastic screw opposite the adjuster a lttle since I was seeing the levels change when I'd tighten the adjuster knob.

So far, knock on wood, it's now running far more consistent and pulling out dark crud. I also put an air adjustment valve on the input allowing me to fine tune the levels better.

It's still one of the better nano skimmers I've had. I've found they all have issues of one sort or another, even the much touted Aquamaxx HOB-1. I'm not sure why you're seeing such a difference after power cycles, maybe dislodging a piece of debris?

 

[dmw913]

@rjkrejci, it's not the power cycle. It's gotta be the floss. Current cycle: new floss = foam production for about 15-20 hours. By the time I wake up, foam has collapsed. Take out floss, wait 15 minutes, foam comes back - and I'm only replacing the floss nearest the skimmer (there are two floss sections on the Fusion 20. Who the hell knows . . .

 

[dmw913]

The floss saga continues but I'm happy to report I've adjusted my maintenance program as well and came home to LPS looking better than it has in 3 weeks. I have also added Purigen and Aquavitro Fuel to help perk things up.

 

[Corona007]

Nice tank!
So your still trying to get your nitrates under 4-5?
From what I have experienced and read is that you want some nitrate for your corals. Maybe your water is to clean and the corals are hungry.

I used to run my skimmer 24/7 and my nitrates were below 5 and my corals looked ok but not great. Also The skimate was really lite didn't seem to be pulling out much.
Now I run it 12/12 and My nitrates are around 8 consistently, tested after finished run at same time. Now my corals (LPS) look like before but with lights out and resting and when they wake up they get huge (softball size) all day long.
I have a couple of montis, seratosa, and a green slimmer that have actually grown and colored up more since I changed the routine.
I have a 20 also but don't dose anything and do a 10% w/c every 2 weeks and top off ro/di. No floss, sponges, carbon, gfo. Just a home made skimmer rock and sand for filtration. And a decent led.
Hope you get it sorted out.

 

[spectrascott]

Do you have an updated photo with the new skimmer? I am setting up a 20 also and trying to decide what skimmer to go with.

 

[OsiViper]

Denise, the PLS50 takes some adjusting, but once you get it right the thing works like a dream (as long as you dont bump it). Using the acrylic stand I've been getting near black skimmate and it fills up in about a week.

You need to adjust it so the top of the bubbles are just at the very bottom of the collection cup (The actual cup, not the neck). Thats where I get best skimmate, if you want it a little wetter you can go about 1/4 inch up from that.

As for the microbubbles, yes.. It produces a lot, generally when you just start it up. I turn my skimmer off when my pumps and everything go off for feeding (otherwise waterlevel in back would be too high and it would overflow). When it goes back on it puts microbubbles into the tank, but they only last around an hour or so and then they don't happen again until I have to restart skimmer.

 

[rjkrejci]

I just started a 29g FOWLR and got another PLS50 for that tank. When I was putting it together, I looked into the pump input and noticed the air input stem looked different than my other one. I seemd to remember reading something about this, and it turns out the angled end of the stem inside the pump input volute was facing away from the pump body...I could see the hole and angled cut looking into the pump input.. I found the written instructions from the thread linked below that, under the troubleshooting section, indicate the angle should be towards the pump body...you shouldn't be able to see it. I turned it around before I ran vinegar through it to break it in.

So if you are seeing microbubbles, then I would check into that, since they apparently do sometimes put them in turned the wrong way.

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/350250-official-pls-50-elite-q-a-thread/

 

[dmw913]

I'm getting the PLS50 worked out. As my nitrates go down and I use the new maintenance plan I unabashedly stole from a local reefer with nearly an identical build for a longer period of time, things continue to move in a positive direction.

Pic from today.

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[ReefWreak]

Lookin good, nice and colorful!

I'm curious as to your super secret stolen maintenance plan I'm always looking to learn something new!

 

[dmw913]

lol @reefwreak! I pinched @neurotivity's maintenance program for his IM Fusion 20 from my local board (utahreefs). He is changing 1600 ml daily with a DOS unit. This is .42 gallons. Prior to investing in a DOS, I just marked a container at 1/2 gallon and do a daily 1/2 gallon change. So far, it's such a minimal amount of work, I can't justify the DOS at this point although I'm a sucker for new gear and I have a perfect shelf right behind the tank for placement. Right now, I make up enough water for a week and go from there.

Additionally, decommissioned media reactor and went back to Chemi Pure Blue - one in each middle chamber of the media rack. One switched out every two weeks meaning the each run for a month. Also added Purigen in the bottom section of media rack.

Started dosing Aquavitro Fuel (2ml every other day) and Vibrance (1/2 ml once per week).

Increased flow from MP10 by approximately 10-15%

I continue to stir my sand daily quite aggressively as well to get that detritus up and outta there! I change filter floss on both overflows daily due to weird skimmer issues (won't foam without newish floss).

Nothing fancy and not a ton more than I was already doing but the water changes every day instead of once per week seem to really improve things along with the other additions have the tank moving in the right direction.

 

[dmw913]

Of note: Just figured out due to errant mushroom frag that my media racks were letting water get past them and thereby missing the filter floss. I wedged a piece of tubing behind the rack to force it forward. I'll report if there's any measurable difference. The piece of 'shroom went straight past the filter floss, bypassed skimmer and back out the return pump into the main tank again. This can't be good under any circumstances if water is missing contact time with filter media like that.

 

[OsiViper]

I had a small mushroom somehow get into the back part of my 40 gallon, and it got sucked up and chopped into pieces by the pump. About 2 months later I am seeing mushrooms pop up all over from the pieces