Nuvo Fusion 20. First Reef

[Tuffyyyyy]

Here's a recent picture of my tank. It's 3 months old today and I've been trying to take it very slow.

I made this thread because I wanted a place to keep track of my progress and to hopefully get some questions answered.

Bear is the bigger clown and he's been in there just over 2 months. The smaller one is Moose and he's been in just over a month.

 

[Tuffyyyyy]

Trying to edit on mobile app but can't figure it out.

Some questions I have are: does everything seem to be placed correctly? I think I've grown a bunch of heads on all of the smaller things in the front. I moved the big thing in the top right back a little bit so the thing in the bottom right could get some more light.

I've tried to google this but couldn't find much help. Most people have the old crappy stuff with their fusions but apparently IM made serious improvements to the socks that came with the tank. I've been using the same filter socks that came with the tank and I have chemipure blue in there. Am I supposed to be replacing my socks all the time? Do I just buy more? Can I just Clean them? If so, how?

My current plan is to keep the clowns and then add a firefish and a mandarin (one that eats pellets/my sis) after the holidays. Does it matter which I add first?

 

[Oscar47f]

Hi! Glad to know you have a lot of questions and want to keep track of your tank progress! While i can't definitively answer all your questions.. I can tell you that you can throw your filter sock in the washing machine (no detergents and such) and its always handy to have an extra sock.. but they usually do need to be replaced quite frequently i know i change mine every 3-5 days but every system is different. The easiest way to know if everything is placed in a good place is if the corals are happy (polyp extension, growth, coloration, etc..)

 

[sayitfast]

Looking very nice so far....

 

[Darth George]

Looking good!

 

[Tuffyyyyy]

Hey everyone. I could use some help figuring out where to put everything. I went to a frag swap today and picked up a Hammer, a Torch, and a War Coral.

The War coral is in a temporary spot. I was thinking about putting the torch there and moving the Green Birdsnest up and to the left, right under the pump. Then I could put the hammer where the birdsnest is right now. Thoughts?

 

[Oscar47f]

in my experience you don't want the torch coral touching anything because it will sting most of everything and both hammer and torch corals can take a decent amount of light just don't blast them with flow... where the birds nest on the far right would be good for the torch, the hammer can go maybe on the top or bottom left side of the tank?

 

[Tuffyyyyy]

Thank you for the advice, Oscar. I'm waiting on coral glue to show up before moving everything around again. Here are a couple of recent pictures taken with a non-camera phone. I'm extremely nervous about going out of town and leaving it alone all week. I have someone going to check on it every day but still so nervous about all of my hard work going away.

I was talking with a local friend (Nemo on here) about the brown thing on the left and he pointed out that I really need to be dosing for calcium so I'll need to pick that up ASAP.

Last thing, I am in Tampa for the week and, judging by their local club forum, there are 10+ stores for me to check out. Would anyone be able to comment on what I can transport home? Just coral? Anyone ever made it 10 hours in a car with other livestock?

 

[Oscar47f]

im not very good with SPS identification but its either a pocillopora or stylopora, either way you can dose calcium and other stuff but you don't definitively have to i would get a test kit and see how much calcium and alkalinity is actually used up daily then decide to dose or maintain using water changes... and this tank is coming along beautifully! and i mean shippers ship fish and it takes more than 10 hours for them to arrive and acclimate and stuff so it can be done, maybe buckets with an air stone ??