Tibbsy's 10g IM tank

[Tibbsy]

Hi folks, I'm Tibbsy and I figured I'd put my 10g IM Nuvo build up here as a first post. I've had it up and running for about 8 months at this point, I guess. I tend to take my tank builds very slowly. I'm a microbiologist and so I tend to get really into the microbial ecology and interactions of the reef. I hold fast to the idea that the basis of a great reef system lies in a great microbial foundation. Anyways, enough nonsense. Here's my tank build.

FTS 5-1-15

Tank:
Innovative Marine Nuvo Fusion 10 gallon

Lighting:
NanoBox Tide with Storm controller

Mechanical/Chemical Filtration:
Filter floss
Seachem Matrix carbon
PicO Skim 2.0 airstone skimmer

Biological Filtration:
7lbs dry rock
1/2" of sand, CaribSea Arag-Alive Special Grade (~2lbs)

Other Equipment:
Cobalt Neo-Therm 50W Heater, 78 degrees
Rio 50+ 69gph

Salt:
IO standard. All the science labs I know use IO and nothing else, including my lab, even the coral biologists here at the University I work at.

Stand:
Custom Expedit Stand, Ikea

Fish:
Mocha clown (Hermie)
Maybe a firefish (I've always wanted one)
Maybe a tank-bred goby?

Inverts:
Various CUC snails
Sexy Shrimp (Beyonce)

Corals:
Zoas
Ricordea florida (these and yumas are my favorite corals)
Shrooms
Hammer coral
Kenya tree
Nephthea
GSP
Gorgonian
Palys
Pulsing Xenia
Cespitularia

Macro:
I would like to put some kind of macro in the tank at some point. I think a few bits of green and red macro really give the tank depth and beauty.

Maintenance routine: 10-20% weekly water change, gravel vac sand. I scrape the glass weekly with an old credit card or something to remove algae/diatoms. I feed daily or every other day with a mixture I make of LRS Reef Frenzy, Brightwell Phytochrom, Omni flakes, and Thera A+ pellets.

That's about it. I try to make my tank clean, simple, and elegant. Nothing too fancy. Thanks for stopping by

 

[clem1975]

Looks great.

 

[Tibbsy]

Looks great.

Thanks. It's got a lot of growing out to do, and I've added things pretty slowly but I like it.

 

[Tibbsy]

Took out the skimmer last night. The newer IM tanks were designed to pretty much only use the Ghost Skimmer series, especially these IM 10 and 20 Nuvos. The PicO Skim 2.0 just doesn't sit low enough in the water to actually work. It's just wasting energy for no benefit.

 

[brandon429]

Tibbsy its shockingly good color, free of algae, health. we'd expect that from you man.
B

 

[brandon429]

Your marine bacteria article was great its a read that makes us await the next round. I had a question about the second round
that neon kenya is really eyepiece wow

 

[Tibbsy]

Tibbsy its shockingly good color, free of algae, health. we'd expect that from you man.
B

Thanks B. I appreciate that, especially coming from you! you've got a lot of experience and knowledge in nanos and picos, and I welcome any and all feedback

Your marine bacteria article was great its a read that makes us await the next round. I had a question about the second round
that neon kenya is really eyepiece wow

Glad it was ok. The second piece is on the way, but it's a good bit more complicated to apply to our reefs - in terms of what happens in the oceans, what reefers need to know, etc. I'm working on figures and stuff now. I'm happy to attempt to answer any questions, though. Feel free to ask them here I also really like the green tree coral.

 

[brandon429]

Tibbsy one of the most interesting things I think about regarding our bacteria is how strictly we interpret tested results, res publica w take a reading and not question it against known biological timeframes and activities, and depending on the accuracy of the reading we commonly get across threads and forums for years:

-my cycle has stalled, its been four months at .25
-i had a cycled tank and now it shows .25
-my di, distilled, city tap, drinking water and tank water all show .25- why is that? do i need to add a rotten shrimp to redo the cycle for the tank?
-i brought home cured live rock from the pet store, 10 min drive, underwater it was never in air, right temp, added it to my tank, and am getting .25 ammonia (triggers the 100% and never 99% response "you had die off from the transfer")

these threads persist on every reef forum in at least one place, and they come at a minimum 1x a week if not many more...to me that is outstanding as a repeating and predictable issue that needs discussion (eventually- perhaps not for v2 lol but its always on my mind). Consider that many of the test kits beginners use are a certain type, always reads same increments to indicate that type even when the name brand isnt disclosed, and this brand penetrates the market to comprise the totality of nearly every free ammonia reading posted questionable or not posted by reefkeepers...so if any aspect of the tests are wrong on a consistent basis, we have literal mass confusion on cycling basics and by extrapolation bacterial science (when they die, when they suppress, when they dont, how long they take to register)

 

[brandon429]

wanted to add that yes several of the test kits do work, showing 0 (colorimetric interpretations = subjective) on test waters like RODI and .25 on aquariums where true dry cycling was in its end phases. that adds confusion as strong supporters for accurate readings also exist in the threads.

I wouldnt claim 100% of entry level ammonia kits are off, just enough that massive, massive search returns attaching a name brand and a questionable reading exist and it seems to be the single most impacting thing a new keeper has to get past in reef starting, maintaining, or aging. for sure this might not be for second installment lol but i hope one day in some arrangement a formalized approach is taken to remedy this!

 

[Tibbsy]

You are referring to the API kits, I assume? I'm going to cover nitrates primarily and ammonia in our tanks. I'm going to talk about the cycle itself, where each of the processes occur (sediment, etc), and why some of it is totally irrelevant to our tanks. I won't be mentioning any kits specifically, but I am going to stress how important the bacterial balance is. The only way we can really know what is going on in our tanks is to test, but the accuracy of many kits is not great.

 

[brandon429]

excellent way to make that concise! w be a good read yes

 

[brandon429]

I can also tell from your pic details that you have a little of that nice LED shimmer/color wave going on and it looks all tropical. by comparison, my ballasts are PC ballasts from 1999, they are cracked and have spiders in them, and they output boring pc light which is no shimmer and some algae every 7 mos unless i replace bulb. i am possibly the last power compact holdout in our genre man and I can see by that laser detail above it might be time to get the par 30

 

[Yachtguy]

nice tank show us new pics

 

[Tibbsy]

I can also tell from your pic details that you have a little of that nice LED shimmer/color wave going on and it looks all tropical. by comparison, my ballasts are PC ballasts from 1999, they are cracked and have spiders in them, and they output boring pc light which is no shimmer and some algae every 7 mos unless i replace bulb. i am possibly the last power compact holdout in our genre man and I can see by that laser detail above it might be time to get the par 30

Actually the labs here on campus us white/blue PC lights for their coral experiments They aren't interested in the best looking coral colors, though. They simply want the best growth.

nice tank show us new pics

Thanks - working on a slightly new rockscape right now. I want it to be a bit taller and narrower to allow me to get some better glass cleaning going on. I also may try and move the rock with the green nepthea and palys to a higher position. I'll take pics as soon as I can.

 

[brandon429]

agreed i have not ever had growth trouble on the old standbys...in the earlier days of led the keepers were experimenting with which ones worked and it was always nice to have a guarantee growth with ranging intensity just by raising or lowering the light. they sure do run hot, ill never miss that in pc's

 

[Tibbsy]

agreed i have not ever had growth trouble on the old standbys...in the earlier days of led the keepers were experimenting with which ones worked and it was always nice to have a guarantee growth with ranging intensity just by raising or lowering the light. they sure do run hot, ill never miss that in pc's

There is a great article on some aquarium myths, and lighting is a BIG one http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2014/2/myths Very good read.

 

[Rybren]

Link to Tibbsy's article?

 

[brandon429]

http://blog.marinedepot.com/2015/05/aquarium-bacteria-for-beginners-part-1.html?m=1

you are right, where was the link lol
well done Tibbs

 

[Tibbsy]

New fts:

Glass is dirty because I added the firefish relatively recently and it's really skittish so I've been doing tank maintenance slowly so as to not startle it any more than it already is

Swapped out the Rio+ for the RW-4, using a 12v power supply instead of the 24v supplied with the pump normally. Many people have reported doing this to success and so far the tank loves it.

Most of the corals are doing great, but the ricordea just won't extend anymore. I am not sure why they are so unhappy. They are some of my favorites and I really want them to get back out and puffy. My hammers are splitting so soon I will have 4 heads instead of 2. Shrooms have taken over. Zoas are pretty happy, except the ones to the far left on the sand - they have hydroids in between the polyps and haven't been able to eradicate them yet.

 

[malira]

Swapped out the Rio+ for the RW-4, using a 12v power supply instead of the 24v supplied with the pump normally. Many people have reported doing this to success and so far the tank loves it.

Why did you swap out power supplies?