BeardedMcG
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Dude you're making me want to get clowns for my 40.
IM Nuvo40 AIO budget reef tank build
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Patrick Fox
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Haha they have been the best fish I've ever kept. They are fun to watch and great eaters. I'm really loving taking care of them. But they were pretty pricey. Worth it.
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Patrick Fox
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Ok, time for another update!
Corals have been moved over for a couple weeks. Most of them were pretty easy to just move over and glue the corals or plugs to the rockwork. I managed to take care of the orange encrusting coral that I was worried about and it's moved over and looking better than ever. A hacksaw and some patience did the trick. Matter of fact, all of my corals are looking better than ever since moving them. (it did take the green toadstool leather about a week to stop being a drama queen and perk back up though.)
I've been keeping super busy doing little and often maintenence. Saturday water tests, and water changes. All is looking great.
I've been growing tons of cheato and my phosphates and nitrates are good and low. Water is Chrystal clear.
I installed the aquatic life protien skimmer. Its been going for about 2 weeks and making all kinds of nasty junk in the collection cup. Still making a small amount of micro-bubbles, but it's way better now than when I first set it up. Overall, I'm really happy with it. It's basically dead silent too. (I did the standard airline mod to the air intake)
The fish are pretty happy. I'm pretty sure the larger one (Rhonda) has officially turned female. She's gotten pretty aggressive and territorial. And she's been basically pinning the smaller guy (Fez) in the corner and limiting what he gets to eat. (but I've been sneaky about that to make sure he gets to eat too). Fez is learning to submit and I think it'll all work itself out eventually. There hasn't been too much bullying that I feel I need to separate them. Just gotta run it's course.
I've been perfecting the code that controls the white and blue channels on my custom made light. There's an Arduino with a wifi chip outputting pwm to the lights and it's on the wifi to get the current time, which it uses to decide how to set the lights throughout the day. I've got a nice smooth ramp up starting at 2:30 and peak power for a few hours. The. A slightly less smooth ramp down to a nice blue chill feel at night until it shuts off at 10:30. There's still a few bugs to work out of the code, but Id say it's 80% there.
I also caved in and ordered another custom caddy for the other side of the return. I'll be using it for the cheato and putting a filter pad on top to catch leftover food and things. (ive been rinsing that junk out of the cheato every couple days currently to prevent nutrient buildup. ) it'll be worth the money to keep things clean.
Also I sold off the last coral that I didn't want to move over to the Nuvo and shut down my Fluval 5g Evo tank. It's up for sale now as a pretty-much plug and play setup. No takers yet, but I'm just glad not to have to worry about it anymore.
Overall, I couldn't be happier! I'm loving having this tank in my living room and I could sit and watch it all day! I've been feeding the two clowns and they are fat and happy. I'm thinking I may add a cleaner shrimp, a goby and a wrasse at some point in the future. I really like the yellow silverbelly wrasse... [emoji41]
Corals have been moved over for a couple weeks. Most of them were pretty easy to just move over and glue the corals or plugs to the rockwork. I managed to take care of the orange encrusting coral that I was worried about and it's moved over and looking better than ever. A hacksaw and some patience did the trick. Matter of fact, all of my corals are looking better than ever since moving them. (it did take the green toadstool leather about a week to stop being a drama queen and perk back up though.)
I've been keeping super busy doing little and often maintenence. Saturday water tests, and water changes. All is looking great.
I've been growing tons of cheato and my phosphates and nitrates are good and low. Water is Chrystal clear.
I installed the aquatic life protien skimmer. Its been going for about 2 weeks and making all kinds of nasty junk in the collection cup. Still making a small amount of micro-bubbles, but it's way better now than when I first set it up. Overall, I'm really happy with it. It's basically dead silent too. (I did the standard airline mod to the air intake)
The fish are pretty happy. I'm pretty sure the larger one (Rhonda) has officially turned female. She's gotten pretty aggressive and territorial. And she's been basically pinning the smaller guy (Fez) in the corner and limiting what he gets to eat. (but I've been sneaky about that to make sure he gets to eat too). Fez is learning to submit and I think it'll all work itself out eventually. There hasn't been too much bullying that I feel I need to separate them. Just gotta run it's course.
I've been perfecting the code that controls the white and blue channels on my custom made light. There's an Arduino with a wifi chip outputting pwm to the lights and it's on the wifi to get the current time, which it uses to decide how to set the lights throughout the day. I've got a nice smooth ramp up starting at 2:30 and peak power for a few hours. The. A slightly less smooth ramp down to a nice blue chill feel at night until it shuts off at 10:30. There's still a few bugs to work out of the code, but Id say it's 80% there.
I also caved in and ordered another custom caddy for the other side of the return. I'll be using it for the cheato and putting a filter pad on top to catch leftover food and things. (ive been rinsing that junk out of the cheato every couple days currently to prevent nutrient buildup. ) it'll be worth the money to keep things clean.
Also I sold off the last coral that I didn't want to move over to the Nuvo and shut down my Fluval 5g Evo tank. It's up for sale now as a pretty-much plug and play setup. No takers yet, but I'm just glad not to have to worry about it anymore.
Overall, I couldn't be happier! I'm loving having this tank in my living room and I could sit and watch it all day! I've been feeding the two clowns and they are fat and happy. I'm thinking I may add a cleaner shrimp, a goby and a wrasse at some point in the future. I really like the yellow silverbelly wrasse... [emoji41]
Last edited:
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Patrick Fox
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Update:
Things are still going smoothly with the tank for the most part. Ive been doing weekly 3-4 gallon water changes, and testing all of my params every Saturday. Everything seems to be in line.
recently I purchased a few frags form a local person on a FB group. I was really excited to buy an utter choas Zoa frag, a small Blastomussa, and they also threw in two other mystery zoa frags since they seemed to be shutting down a tank and needed to get them out. The utter chaos is looking great! super good colors and everything. unfortunately, they mailed these frags to me, and the Blasto didnt exactly make it. it was mostly just a skeleton when i got it, but i left it in the tank to see what would happen, and i think its going to make a very slow comeback. anyway, these frags were a nice addition - I got a small bit of dryrock and drilled a hole in the center for the Utter chaos frag plug - i want to be able to easily propagate it when it eventually spreads onto that dedicated rock.
Also, for memorial day weekend, Reef systems had a sale, and my wife and I ended up picking up a Biota tank-raised coral beauty dwarf angel. I was warned that they can nip at corals (SPS especially) but I was also told that the tank-raised ones really don't bother much. We decided to take a chance. We decided that the coral beauty is a girl, and my wife named her Lola. she already seems pretty at home in the tank and has established her territory as a little cave in the rockwork that the clowns never bother with - so that's good. they get along pretty well - i like to watch Lola swim around and peck things off the rock. every now and then she will get to close to the clowns and my female will scare her off back into her cave, but they all seem pretty happy together. We will be keeping a very close eye on her though just to make sure corals don't start disappearing or that the clowns aren't fighting her too much. overall, shes been a good addition to the dynamic in the tank - the female clown seems to be bullying the male clown much less now since her attention is divided.
We also brought home a nice orange Ricordia form the sale, as well as a small single-head Purple Hammer coral. They are looking better and better every day and im excited for my Ricordias to eventually split.
Other than that, my tank has definitely hit the ugly stage - there has been a lot of typical brown algae growth on all of the rockwork, and its starting to get onto the sand as well. We got a handful of Trocus snails, Astrea snails, a couple more Nassarious snails, and a pair of Striped Mexican Turbo snails, and they have been hard at work cleaning up the rockwork and sandbed. I have to say that the striped mexican turbo snails are the true champions. I can sit and watch them just absolutely clean the bajeezes out of my rockwork - they move fast and are incredibly effective compared to all of the other lazy-butt snails. i may pick up a few more of them next week depending on how things are looking.
We added another light-pod to the DIY light setup. and ive been slowly increasing the intensity a little every week. My friend, @nickkohrn was nice enough to come over with his Seneye PAR meter, and we learned that my tank was really lacking light intensity, so thats what prompted me to add the additional puck and start increasing power. The corals responded with improved colors and greater polyp extension, so i think its a step in the right direction. also, I ordered a set of lenses for the LEDs - currently, a lot of light is leaking out over the top of the tank since the leds are just wide open - a 45 degree lens should help get even more light back in the tank and help with getting greater par for the same power level. We still have more improvements to make to the light fixture in the future, but for now, its baby steps. Ive been working on the code to make it reliably fully autonomous. so now, it comes on at 2:30 pm and ramps up from very blue/dim to a more white peak power level for several hours. then it ramps down to mostly dimmer blue again late at night, and shuts itself off at about 10:30 pm.
The skimmer and refugium have been hard at work. And my wife and I recently planted a veggie garden out back, so I've been using the skimmate as fertilizer, and i think its really doing a lot for the growth of our plants! who would have thought? haha.
also, one upsetting bit of news is that my wife caught the female clown swimming around with a long white stringy poop hanging on to it. So in the interest of protecting my fish, ive been feeding medicated food to treat for intestinal parasites. It might have been nothing, but id rather be safe than sorry. We have been mixing up medicated food as per the instructions that Humblefish has on his post here on R2R. Saturday will be day 10, and then im going to stop feeding the medicated food and go back to normal stuff - the angel fish has been a bit irritable since i started the meds and i suspect its because she doesn't much like the taste of the meds in the food and thus hasnt been eating very much. Ive been making sure to toss her some pellets every day to help fill her up.
Things are still going smoothly with the tank for the most part. Ive been doing weekly 3-4 gallon water changes, and testing all of my params every Saturday. Everything seems to be in line.
recently I purchased a few frags form a local person on a FB group. I was really excited to buy an utter choas Zoa frag, a small Blastomussa, and they also threw in two other mystery zoa frags since they seemed to be shutting down a tank and needed to get them out. The utter chaos is looking great! super good colors and everything. unfortunately, they mailed these frags to me, and the Blasto didnt exactly make it. it was mostly just a skeleton when i got it, but i left it in the tank to see what would happen, and i think its going to make a very slow comeback. anyway, these frags were a nice addition - I got a small bit of dryrock and drilled a hole in the center for the Utter chaos frag plug - i want to be able to easily propagate it when it eventually spreads onto that dedicated rock.
Also, for memorial day weekend, Reef systems had a sale, and my wife and I ended up picking up a Biota tank-raised coral beauty dwarf angel. I was warned that they can nip at corals (SPS especially) but I was also told that the tank-raised ones really don't bother much. We decided to take a chance. We decided that the coral beauty is a girl, and my wife named her Lola. she already seems pretty at home in the tank and has established her territory as a little cave in the rockwork that the clowns never bother with - so that's good. they get along pretty well - i like to watch Lola swim around and peck things off the rock. every now and then she will get to close to the clowns and my female will scare her off back into her cave, but they all seem pretty happy together. We will be keeping a very close eye on her though just to make sure corals don't start disappearing or that the clowns aren't fighting her too much. overall, shes been a good addition to the dynamic in the tank - the female clown seems to be bullying the male clown much less now since her attention is divided.
We also brought home a nice orange Ricordia form the sale, as well as a small single-head Purple Hammer coral. They are looking better and better every day and im excited for my Ricordias to eventually split.
Other than that, my tank has definitely hit the ugly stage - there has been a lot of typical brown algae growth on all of the rockwork, and its starting to get onto the sand as well. We got a handful of Trocus snails, Astrea snails, a couple more Nassarious snails, and a pair of Striped Mexican Turbo snails, and they have been hard at work cleaning up the rockwork and sandbed. I have to say that the striped mexican turbo snails are the true champions. I can sit and watch them just absolutely clean the bajeezes out of my rockwork - they move fast and are incredibly effective compared to all of the other lazy-butt snails. i may pick up a few more of them next week depending on how things are looking.
We added another light-pod to the DIY light setup. and ive been slowly increasing the intensity a little every week. My friend, @nickkohrn was nice enough to come over with his Seneye PAR meter, and we learned that my tank was really lacking light intensity, so thats what prompted me to add the additional puck and start increasing power. The corals responded with improved colors and greater polyp extension, so i think its a step in the right direction. also, I ordered a set of lenses for the LEDs - currently, a lot of light is leaking out over the top of the tank since the leds are just wide open - a 45 degree lens should help get even more light back in the tank and help with getting greater par for the same power level. We still have more improvements to make to the light fixture in the future, but for now, its baby steps. Ive been working on the code to make it reliably fully autonomous. so now, it comes on at 2:30 pm and ramps up from very blue/dim to a more white peak power level for several hours. then it ramps down to mostly dimmer blue again late at night, and shuts itself off at about 10:30 pm.
The skimmer and refugium have been hard at work. And my wife and I recently planted a veggie garden out back, so I've been using the skimmate as fertilizer, and i think its really doing a lot for the growth of our plants! who would have thought? haha.
also, one upsetting bit of news is that my wife caught the female clown swimming around with a long white stringy poop hanging on to it. So in the interest of protecting my fish, ive been feeding medicated food to treat for intestinal parasites. It might have been nothing, but id rather be safe than sorry. We have been mixing up medicated food as per the instructions that Humblefish has on his post here on R2R. Saturday will be day 10, and then im going to stop feeding the medicated food and go back to normal stuff - the angel fish has been a bit irritable since i started the meds and i suspect its because she doesn't much like the taste of the meds in the food and thus hasnt been eating very much. Ive been making sure to toss her some pellets every day to help fill her up.
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Patrick Fox
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.
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Patrick Fox
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More
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Patrick Fox
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Time for a quick update! sorry its been so long - life has been out to get me lately, but i wont let it get my reef tank. haha.
Here is a quick shot of the tank as it was sitting just yesterday.
It is 6 months and 7 days old as of today. Parameters are pretty stable, and its growing corals! GHA is mostly under control, coraline algae is finally popping up everywhere and ive got my lighting dialed in.
I recently picked up an Apex Jr. used from a fellow reefer here on R2R. Ive only had it setup for a couple of days so far, but i already see the value in temp and PH monitoring around the clock. im liking it!
I recently also put together a more serious salt-mixing station. its a 20 gallon brute can set up on some cinder blocks. I put a heater and powerhead inside it and installed a valve/spout at the bottom. Now i can mix up more than 5 gallons of water at a time without having to buy more heaters and powerheads for individual buckets. This will make larger water changes much easier since i can jsut put a bucket under it, let gravity do the work and repeat as needed.
As for livestock - im glad to say that my two clownfish are still doing well! they have been fighting a bit lately about who is the boss (even though Rhonda is 3x the size of Fez, so clearly she is the boss) but i think thats about leveled off this week. hopefully Fez's torn fins will get a chance to heal now.
Also, i setup a QT tank in the basement a little over a month ago and special-ordered a Canary blenny (Woodstock) and a Ruby longfin Fairy Wrasse (Remus) from Live Aquaria. They have been in QT for 4 weeks now with no signs of parasites or disease. I fed medicated food for 10 days to clear out any intestinal parasites and they appear to be clear.
The blenny is looking great and im ready to transfer him to my DT as soon as i get the salinity up to 35ppt (ive been doing frequent small water changes using water form my DT - the QT was at 25ppt so ive got a little more to go - currently at about 27ppt)
The wrasse however took a sad turn just a couple of days ago. i was over by the QT tank and must have done something to startle him and he darted right into the glass. i heard a nasty "Thunk" sound and he hasnt been swimming right at all since then. I think he gave himself a spinal injury. He is still eating/breathing normally, but he just cant seem to control how he swims anymore. He often seems to be swimming head-up and tail-down, or he will sometimes lose control altogether and spin out of control. It makes me feel terrible because i was working so hard and being as careful as i could to keep these two fish healthy. they are beautiful animals and i truly do care for them. Im going to probably kepe the wrasse in the QT tank for a while and see how/if he recovers. as long as he is eating i want to give him a shot at recovery instead of going straight to euthanizing him.
Overall, im still loving my Nuvo 40 reef tank. More pics to come later. Im at work right now.
heres a few macro shots of my corals though:
Here is a quick shot of the tank as it was sitting just yesterday.
It is 6 months and 7 days old as of today. Parameters are pretty stable, and its growing corals! GHA is mostly under control, coraline algae is finally popping up everywhere and ive got my lighting dialed in.
I recently picked up an Apex Jr. used from a fellow reefer here on R2R. Ive only had it setup for a couple of days so far, but i already see the value in temp and PH monitoring around the clock. im liking it!
I recently also put together a more serious salt-mixing station. its a 20 gallon brute can set up on some cinder blocks. I put a heater and powerhead inside it and installed a valve/spout at the bottom. Now i can mix up more than 5 gallons of water at a time without having to buy more heaters and powerheads for individual buckets. This will make larger water changes much easier since i can jsut put a bucket under it, let gravity do the work and repeat as needed.
As for livestock - im glad to say that my two clownfish are still doing well! they have been fighting a bit lately about who is the boss (even though Rhonda is 3x the size of Fez, so clearly she is the boss) but i think thats about leveled off this week. hopefully Fez's torn fins will get a chance to heal now.
Also, i setup a QT tank in the basement a little over a month ago and special-ordered a Canary blenny (Woodstock) and a Ruby longfin Fairy Wrasse (Remus) from Live Aquaria. They have been in QT for 4 weeks now with no signs of parasites or disease. I fed medicated food for 10 days to clear out any intestinal parasites and they appear to be clear.
The blenny is looking great and im ready to transfer him to my DT as soon as i get the salinity up to 35ppt (ive been doing frequent small water changes using water form my DT - the QT was at 25ppt so ive got a little more to go - currently at about 27ppt)
The wrasse however took a sad turn just a couple of days ago. i was over by the QT tank and must have done something to startle him and he darted right into the glass. i heard a nasty "Thunk" sound and he hasnt been swimming right at all since then. I think he gave himself a spinal injury. He is still eating/breathing normally, but he just cant seem to control how he swims anymore. He often seems to be swimming head-up and tail-down, or he will sometimes lose control altogether and spin out of control. It makes me feel terrible because i was working so hard and being as careful as i could to keep these two fish healthy. they are beautiful animals and i truly do care for them. Im going to probably kepe the wrasse in the QT tank for a while and see how/if he recovers. as long as he is eating i want to give him a shot at recovery instead of going straight to euthanizing him.
Overall, im still loving my Nuvo 40 reef tank. More pics to come later. Im at work right now.
heres a few macro shots of my corals though:
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Patrick Fox
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oh, i also forgot to mention - Lola the coral beauty got rehomed to a friends tank. We caught her nipping at corals more than we would like after having her for about 3 weeks. so shes off to a bigger tank.
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Patrick Fox
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Thank you! i really love the scape - but it does create some challenges for producing proper flow for all of the various corals. Im giving some thought to adding another gyre pump on the opposite side of the tank soon. that way i can better randomize the flow and hit everything properly - less dead-spots.
