IM Nuvo 20 gallon (First Timer) Synner Reef

wlittlefield · Dec 20, 2018

Damsels can be quite territorial, so it could have been that stress combined with a new tank(s), etc. Do you have any other saltwater pet shops you could try going to? I'm worried that you appear to be doing everything right but petco doesn't always have the best reputation for handling fish. Who knows what those fish have been going through especially if they don't even know how test/calibrate for salinity.

Stay involved though. I hate to admit it but when I got started, I had a very small 7 gallon and some bad advice from a local fish store and ended up killing several clown fish. You'll get there if you stick with it.

Synner Reef · Dec 20, 2018

Day 26: Ammonia seems to be going up just a little bit. Most likely from feeding. Ill have to cut back a tad. Everything seems to be going fine. Just some random problem the larger Damsel had. Ordered myself a digital pH tester. I think that will give me a greater control over the readings. I have a hard time distinguishing the different saturation of color there.

I have named my three hermit crabs. The Three Musketeers. ;Happy Not sure on what i want to call my 2 snails yet. Hope everyone is having a great Christmas season. Happy ReefMas!

Synner Reef · Dec 20, 2018

@wlittlefield The next closest place is a good drive . I plan on stopping there after the holidays. Its about an hour and a half away. Yea i believe i am doing my best with the little experience that i do have. We have this great resource of Reef2Reef and all the members like yourself for knowledge. Think im going to be holding off on any new livestock. I eventually want to get some clowns but i want to make sure the tank can start to establish itself a bit better. These Damsels were my experiment after i lost my Purple Goby. I went all in with that fish. He was expensive to lose in less than 24 hours. Made my heart sink. My plan is to stick around with this for the rest of my life. Not going anywhere!

And yea, i feel the same so far about PetCo. now.

Synner Reef · Dec 21, 2018

Day 27: Not much to report. All my little critters seem to be happy. Parameters look good. As i'm writing this i need to go check my salinity. So ill do that after. Only bad news i have is starting my day without coffee 2 days in a row.

On this 8th day of Reefmas my true love gave to me! Someone needs to come up with a Reefmas parody song.

Synner Reef · Dec 22, 2018

Day 28: No new changes other than i got some brown spot on the inside of the tank. I looked this morning and it seems to be gone. Maybe a snail got it. Parameters are not even coming close to changing. I must have some good filtration with the media i am using in my baskets. I never really did go over that. I will do that tomorrow. Do i even need to do a water change if my nitrates have not risen? Or is it good to replace some elements?

mwbeach · Dec 22, 2018

Synner Reef said:
Day 28: No new changes other than i got some brown spot on the inside of the tank. I looked this morning and it seems to be gone. Maybe a snail got it. Parameters are not even coming close to changing. I must have some good filtration with the media i am using in my baskets. I never really did go over that. I will do that tomorrow. Do i even need to do a water change if my nitrates have not risen? Or is it good to replace some elements?

I always do weekly to bi-weekly water changes even if parameters are good. There are many other trace elements that you are not testing.

Synner Reef · Dec 23, 2018

Day 29: Good point @mwbeach . Ill plan on doing a small water change today. All my critters are eating well. Looks like they have started to establish themselves. I haven't seen the smaller of the 2 snails. So maybe he is no longer with us. I took some cool video of them feeding but that's on my instagram. If anyone cares. Its nothing special and i'm not fishing (kappa) for followers. Its just jewelry ,archery, food and my fishtank photos. @cardinalsynner is me on IG Hope everyone has a great Christmas Eve Eve!

Synner Reef · Dec 24, 2018

Day 30: Sue & The Musketeers have been with me a whole week! Peppy i think is 2 weeks now if not more. I proceeded to do a water change on Sunday. I did about 5 gallons. The water is so crystal clear after that change. I tried sucking up some waste from the floor. I think that's how you do it. Cleaned my glass with my magnetic scrubber thing. As for the media filtration i use is follows. I have that blue floss on each of my baskets. I have 2 inTank baskets. In one baskets the water goes through the filter floss into the second chamber of Purigen and the third chamber has Chemi-Pure Blue.. In the second basket i have Filter floss then into the PhosGuard and again into the Chemi-Pure Blue. Hoping i did that right. I'm unsure how long these products last before i need to replace them. Any idea? I imagine my floss every 2 weeks? I also have a skimmer ready to use but i don't think its needed just yet with such a small amount of life in the tank. Merry Christmas Eve everyone!

Synner Reef · Dec 25, 2018

Day 31: Merry Christmas Reef2Reef family. Its been a whole month since i have had a tank going! Accomplishment achieved. Pretty standard day but one special gift. My smaller of the snails emerged from the sand to say hello. I really thought he was a goner. Starting to get more of these brownish looking spots on the power head , tank glass and rocks. I clean up the stuff on the glass. Im assuming its from feeding and light. Wonder if i should turn my light schedule down. I believe its running for about 10 hours. Pictures to follow. Not the best closeups to investigate and identify but its recorded. Hope everyone has a great day with family or friends and if not. Its ok to spend it alone too. Do something for yourself! I am.
I have a new PH tester but i need to calibrate it before i can do results. I also got some PH , UP & Down liquid drops. No idea how to proceed with that yet. No instructions were given.

Synner Reef · Dec 26, 2018

Day 32: I decided to calibrate my digital Ph reader. It showing my tank is at 8.0 PH. Is this sufficient enough or shall i try this PH UP liquid to bring it up to around 8.1 ? Seems like the tank is healthy and those brown spots are going away after i cleaned the glass as well it seems like they are fading on the rock. Could be an illusion thou. But it looks to be going away. Hope everyone had a great Christmas. I think tomorrow ill head to Vegas land and check out a fish store there. Would it be to soon for a Zoa you think? Just thoughts , nothing serious.

Synner Reef · Dec 27, 2018

Day 33: Virtually all of the brown spots have gone away. Strange how that happens. However, i have maybe started to get some green spots now which i am assuming is green algae. Nothing hairy yet. Off to the LFS today. I really want to try my hand at a Zoe. I'll talk with them and see if this would be a wise idea. If not i may consider another shrimp. We shall see. I may just get so overwhelmed and panic and walk right out the door with so much overload!

Anyhow heres some photos of my parameters and SUE! Hes a tough boy.

Synner Reef · Dec 30, 2018

Day 36: Everything is currently on the same path. No changes in water or live stock. Parameters are the same. Still doing tests. Hoping everyone has a Happy New Year!

Synner Reef · Jan 1, 2019

Day 38: Im starting to see a lot more of a type of green algae. The parameters i can check seem still very low. I feed once a day. Normally Sue eats all the stuff i give him and i squirt some to Peppy the shrimp and my hermit crabs. Not a whole lot reaches the sand bed. Im wondering if my light cycle is still to long. Runs from 10:30 to 8:30. Thinking about removing 2 hours. I'm wondering if i should add more CUC. Im running Phosguard in my media baskets so i figure that would be enough. May setup my skimmer now as well. Happy New Years!

Synner Reef · Jan 2, 2019

Day 39: I decided to order a Halloween Crab and a Tail Spot Blenny from Live Aquaria. Looking to add them to their new home soon! Ordered some larger shells for my current hermit crabs. They have molted a few times already and it freaked me out.Thought they had died. Yesterday i also added my NUVO Skim DC from Innovative Marine. So far its producing very little waste. Because i don't believe i over feed or have enough live stock. Hoping that my new additions will help cleanup the green algae issues.

View attachment hermit2.jpg

Synner Reef · Jan 4, 2019

Day 41: I have added a Tail Spot Blenny whom we will call "Pooter" And a Halloween Hermit Crab to combat algae issues. I ordered them from Live Aquaria. The packaging was outstanding! They must have done this 1 or 2 times before. When i first added them to my drip bucket i thought the Blenny wasn't going to make it. He was very weak after floating him to get them up to temperature. I followed their instructions. He would go to the top of the angled bucket and gasp for air. It was heart breaking seeing him lay on his side. But slowly he started to gain strength. And the Halloween Crab just did nothing.

Its been well over 12 hours since i have added them to my tank. When i first placed them into the tank the Blenny found a nice little hole within the rocks to hide out. The Crab just dug himself into a corner into a rock and stayed there. I tried feeding the Blenny some food and seems to take to some pellets. I hope they are good for him. I tried getting some Nori down to him but thats difficult. I need a better food delivery tool. As for the crab he didnt move all night. So i removed a rock , picked him up and placed him in front of the tank onto a rock. I turned my back to make coffee and he was gone! He burrowed into a hole into the rock with his face into it like an Ostrich. I fed "Pooter" the Blenny again this morning just to make sure he has some strength while i'm at work today. They both havn't moved much. Sue finally caught wind of Pooter and tried snipping at him in the hole. Looks like i was right to call him Sue. Little *******!

I have noticed i have started to grow some reddish type of algae now on my surface of rocks. I'm assuming this is Cyano. Let me know how ya'll feel about the Algae and the Characteristics of the Blenny and new Crab.

Synner Reef · Jan 8, 2019

Day 45: The Tail Spot Blenny and the Halloween crab are thriving i believe. Pooter (Blenny) Has so much personality. Its like watching a snake skirt across the rocks. He nips at the algae all day. I wish i could have a whole tank of these guys. Pretty amazing. Halloween crab molted already and Peppy(Peppermint shrimp) Also molted for the first time. Think i'm starting to read a bit more Ammonia in the system and i don't want that. I may do another water change. I did one this past Sunday for like 2 gallons. I may go a bit more maybe this Sunday. Nitrate is rising too it looks like. The NUVO DC Skimmer i added seems to be working good. I don't even notice the noise,so it must be quiet. Hope you all been well and Happy Reefing!

Synner Reef · Jan 10, 2019

Day 47: Still monitoring these parameters. Hoping i can make it to Sunday before i do a bigger water change. Halloween crab is really moving around now. Took him almost a week before he came out of his shell. Pun intended. Going to wait about another 2 weeks then i want to consider adding some coral. The skimmer from Innovative marine has been ok. Im guessing its a lot better than their Ghost model. They make improvements to the design from reading comments on the
Ghost.

Reef Dreamer · Jan 10, 2019

Thanks for your updates and photos. Your doing great. I've been thinking of going with one of BRS's package deals with a small tank. Not sure which one yet. I want to set up a RO system first. I'm undecided about that too. Your thread has been very informative. Thanks again.

Synner Reef · Jan 11, 2019

Day 48: I'm going to perform a water change tonight after work. I'm just starting to worry about my nitrate levels to much. I saw Peppy actually scouring about the substrate today. I have never seen him walk openly all around the tank. He normally always hangs out in a few spots. He saw me and darted so fast like Shrimp do. It was in a blink of an eye and was at the other side of the tank. ;Wideyed Pooter ( Blenny ) Is coming up to feed when i feed Sue ( Damsel ) He accepts some pellets in his diet now. Also thinking of adding a few more Hermit Crabs. This Green algae of mine is not going away. I may even do a blackout day for the tank to stop some of the growth from happening.

Thanks @Reef Dreamer Yea, i went with the BRS package deal with Innovative Marine 20 gallon. Made some other purchases to upgrade , but im loving the size. As any hobbyist learns. You always want to keep expanding on what they have and learn from. One day ill go larger for sure. But for right now , learning how to maintain a 20 gallon tank will be good for the future.

I didn't take a photo of my Parameters this morning. Just know i need to water change.

Synner Reef · Jan 14, 2019

Day 51: Things have been well and fish and CUC are well. I did do a water change on Friday night. About 5 gallons. My Nitrates dropped down but they have gone back up. I tested this morning and they are around 10 using the Red Sea testing kit. I'm hoping this is normal. The better news is Ammonia is still hovering at 0. Thank bejesus on that one. Using the API test kit i was thinking it was higher. Im so happy i picked up the Tail Spot Blenny. He is sooo much fun to watch. I wish i could upload video to show you all. I highly recommend one to anyone starting out. I think he is keeping the Green Algae i have at bay as much as possible. I was expecting more from the Halloween Hermit Crab. But he does his own thing. Hes feeding himself of course but between the two i figure they would nip at the algae much quicker. Enjoy your Monday Reefing madness!