Innovative Marine Nuvo 38 Gallon Mixed Reef

[BillHicks]

Hello to all,

Long time (years) lurker, first time signing up. Not my first tank, but thought it would be interesting to post my setup and theory, and see what you experienced members have to say. I also thought it'd be nice to have somewhere to catalog the changes over the next few months.

25 years of Freshwater experience, but I've only been in saltwater for about 6 years. I started with a Nanocube 24, then upgraded to a 75, and now that I've moved I'm downgrading to a nano-38 gallon.

I tried to attached a pic of the setup, so we'll see how that works since I'm a new member...

The equipment:
1)Innovative Marine Dual-Strip LED Replaced with AI Prime (Non-HD) LED Fixture
B)Hydor Koralia Slim-Skim Nano Protein Skimmer (right-rear chamber)
3)Ecotech MP-10 Wireless Powerhead
D)200 Watt Heater
5)Custom media tray (left-rear chamber)
F)10-watt Underwater light (arrives this week) for refugium in bubble-trap chamber next to skimmer.

Starting theory for this setup:
Because I'm not as experienced with saltwater tanks, before I started initially I gathered knowledge from all over, and I think that's where I went wrong. Instead of typical startup advice, this time I'm going to grow my bio-load as the tank grows with livestock. Rather than 60 pounds of live rock, I started with 4 pounds. Instead of live sand, I started with dry sand. Instead of going crazy with 30 of each clean-up crew member, I'm starting with no more than 1 per 10 gallons.

Results so far:
Tank cycle was started with urine, sounds gross to some, but I wanted to start this tank as cheap as possible just to experiment. With my 4lbs of live rock and 19 pounds of dry rock, my spike started in 24 hours, and params went back to 0 within 48 hours. Tank cycle was initially started on June 19th.

Funny Story about this tank:
Because I moved to an apartment, I was initially going to sell this setup because I didn't want to lug water from the fish store constantly. But then I saw a spot in my kitchen where I could easily setup my own RO/DI and mix my own water, so I thought I'd give it a shot. After about 12 hours of my filter being setup, I got a knock on my door from my downstairs neighbor, she was telling me something in my kitchen was dripping through the light fixture in her kitchen downstairs. It immediately clicked that I probably had a leak on my RO system, and I invited her in while I investigated the leak. She saw my tank, and then told me she has a RedSea 120 (I think) downstairs. She has been a great help so far, and donated a lot of my initial livestock for my tank, which included:

• Red and Green Macro Algae (with pods)
• Wall Hammer Coral
• Acan (not sure what kind)
• 2 Blue-leg hermits
• 1 Astria Snail
• Ghost Shrimp
• Another coral I can't remember the name of right now

So having a filter leak has introduced me to a great neighbor, and we've found out we have a lot in common. Very grateful that my plumbing error allowed us to meet.

I will post more updates for this tank later, I'm still trying to gather all the pics so I can post them in order as the tank as grown so far.

 

[BillHicks]

Alright...so some picture updates.

Better pic of what I started with:

The back chambers. Left will be my mechanical filtration (custom-caddy) and right will be protein skimmer (IM Slim-Skim Nano). Just to the left of the right chamber will be a micro-fugium with micro algae and some pods:

I started with dry sand, 4 lbs of live rock, and 10 lbs of dry base rock. After running the system for 2 days my params had spiked and returned to near 0. The third day I was testing 0 on all params, so I decided to add a small Bicinctus Clownfish:

I found a great deal on Craiglist for a nice Rainbow Bubble-Tip Anemone, so I added that the same day I found my clownfish:

This tank is going to be mixed LPS/SPS, high-flow, and I plan to overstock it just a little bit with fish (I plan to upgrade with a year or so). As far as my aquascaping, I'm just finding pieces I like and re-designing as I add rock. So far this was my aquascaping as of 6/25/16:

 

[BillHicks]

Alright, so on 6/18/16 I added some coral livestock, and my neighbor from downstairs with a gorgeous Red Sea 120 Gallon Reef donated a bunch of pieces.

First I got a really good deal on this rock with a large zoa and green star polyp colony on it. Their was a pink-ish mushroom on the rock to begin with, but it eventually detached from the rock and I haven't seen it since. I really don't think it like the flow - even on the sand bed:

I also added a Neon-green Digitata Monti and Neon-green Birds Nest:

6/18 was also the first day my Clown seemed to take an interest in the Rainbow Anemone, but he still wasn't "hosting" in it. He would just touch it a little and then swim away from it:

 

[BillHicks]

At this point the tank is still under the IM Skyye Dualstrip LED light, which really isn't strong enough for SPS.

On 6/26 I added about 10 more pounds of dry base rock. I've decided to make as many caves, crevices, and arches as I can. Eventually both rock piles will be connected with an arch at the top, but I haven't found the right piece for the top yet.

Corals and livestock in this picture:

• Purple Pocillopora (middle, far-left, hard to spot)
• Neon-Green Birdsnest
• Neon-Green Digitata
• Red Macro-algae top left, attached with rubber band.
• Some sort of long-spined urchin donated from neighbor.
• Wall Hammer Coral (donated by neighbor, it was struggling in her tank)
• Unknown Acan coral bottom-left sand bed. (donated by neighbor, also was struggling)
• Miami Hurricane Chalice (I think?) Very hard to spot in this pic. (donated)
• Only fish so far is the Bicinctus Clown

CUC at this point is only:

• 2 Blue Hermit Crabs
• 2 Nass. Snails
• 3 Trochus Snails
• Urchin
• 1 Astria Snail
• Various Pods and Macro donated by neighbor

The clown was hosting only over the zoa/star-polyp colony at this point and didn't seem to interested in the nem anymore.

Another angle of the digitata: