AJ_Tsin's NUVO 10 Studio SPS Mixed Reef

[AJ_Tsin]

C U R R E N T F T S

H I S T O R Y
After leaving the hobby ~10 Years ago, I finally decided to set up a small reef in my work from home office.

I used to run a Zeovit 47 Gallon Shallow Reef that made Nano Reef TOTM years ago. It was loaded with high end Reef Raft Canada SPS that experienced a crash while I was on vacation. I ended up leaving the hobby but kept a little FOWLR tank at my office.

A few months into the COVID lockdown in Canada I decided to set up a 10g all in one at my home office to keep busy, but also for my toddler to discover and learn about ecosystems and the ocean.

The goal this time around was a low maintenance all in one mixed reef, with a focus on SPS.
I operate a film/video company so this is officially named the NUVO 10 Studio Reef.

L I G H T I N G

• AI Prime HD Running BRS AB+

E Q U I P M E N T

• 1st Chamber: IM AQUA Shield 9w UV + Filter Floss
• 2nd Chamber: Marine Pure Spheres
• 3rd Chamber: Bag of Carbon, Eheim Heater, IM Mighty Jet 326 GHP
• VCA Random Flow Generator
• Neptune Apex
• AutoAqua Smart ATO Micro

L I V E S T O C K

• Black Ice Clownfish
• Blood Red Fire Shrimp
• 5x Hermits
• 4x Trochus Snails
• 6x Cerith Snails
• 1x Nerite Snail

C O R A L
SPS

• RRC Shazam
• RRC Orange Passion
• RRC Holy Grail
• RRC Rainbow Twizzler
• RRC Wowzer
• RRC Pink Cadillac
• RRC Wolverine
• Cornbred's Birthday Cake
• TSA Princess Peach
• JF Solar Flare
• Mystic Sunset Montipora
• Rainbow Montipora

LPS

• Dragon Soul Torch
• RRC Hell's Gate Cyphastrea
• Polkaroo Lepastrea
• Peach Lobophyllia
• Yellow Nugget Acan
• RR Spicy Lemon Favia

ZOAS / PALYS

• Vampire in Drag
• Blue Hornet
• Rainbow Incinerator
• Pineapple Express
• Utter Chaos
• Lunar Eclipse
• Nirvana
• Purple Death
• Mickey D's
• Pinwheel
• Red People Eater
• Purple Monster
• Scrambled Eggs

M A I N T E N A N C E

• 10% Weekly Water Change
• Vacuum Sand at Water Change
• Change Filter Floss when full
• Blow off rocks periodically

F E E D I N G & D O S I N G

• Frozen PE Mysis/Calanus occasionally
• PE Mysis Pellets
• Spectrum Pellets
• Reef Roids/Coral Frenzy Occasionally
• Dose All For Reef
• Dose Brightwell NeoPhos and NeoNitro as needed
• Brightwell MicroBacter Clean w/Water change

I will get into some info and keep things updated on here again but for now here are some progress shots.

May 24th, 2020

May 28th, 2020

September 11th, 2020

June 20th, 2021
~ 1 Year after first corals added. (Also moved tank to another room in house)

Current FTS, Jan 17th 2022

 

[AJ_Tsin]

And here's a random top down shot of Reef Raft Shazam and Reef Raft Orange Passion.

 

[MartinM]

I like it, lots of growth! Im also a fan of feeding a lot.

 

[AJ_Tsin]

I like it, lots of growth! Im also a fan of feeding a lot.

Thanks, yea my growth has really taken off the past several months.

I actually had a pretty tough time keeping nutrients up in this system even with no skimmer and basically no chemical filtration but passive carbon. I seem to have found the balance that is keeping Zoas, LPS and SPS growing, wasn't sure if one would suffer over the other.

I also rented a PAR meter from a local shop and dialled everything in a few months ago. After that step things started really taking off. ALK, and Nutrients started dropping rapidly while corals were taking it all in and I upped all doses to compensate. It was surprising how far off I was on PAR even with extensive research and setting percentages seen on other forums.

 

[chipchipbro]

Can you let me know PAR levels?
Im curious as I do have the same light (just HD) over a 18“ cube.

Plus why do you feed Live Phyto nightly?

 

[AJ_Tsin]

Can you let me know PAR levels?
Im curious as I do have the same light (just HD) over a 18“ cube.

Plus why do you feed Live Phyto nightly?

So I was mistaken. I do have the HD, just not the newest 16HD. So you might be able to confidently replicate.

I started with BRS AB+ and then adjusted blue and white power based on par.

Light is exactly 8” off the water. The spread and par readings were fairly even at each depth.

These settings gave me:
~320 par at about 4 inches depth
~250 half way down.
~180-200 on the sandbed

Here’s my percentages at peak photo period:

Re: phyto, I actually used live phyto to help beat amphidinium dinos and the added biodiversity jump started a whole bunch of life. It also has brought along what seems like improved coral health so I have just kept up with it. When my bottle expires I dunno what I will do lol.

​

 

[chipchipbro]

thank you brother!
Sounds awesome.. well, dont you fear that the power could burn the lenses? Especially the UV... Ive read about burt lenses for AI Primes lately.

Did you ever experience algae growth when running whites that high?
If I go over 10% I always have algae somehow..

 

[AJ_Tsin]

thank you brother!
Sounds awesome.. well, dont you fear that the power could burn the lenses? Especially the UV... Ive read about burt lenses for AI Primes lately.

Did you ever experience algae growth when running whites that high?
If I go over 10% I always have algae somehow..

I saw something about burnt lenses. Didn’t realize that was a common thing?

I have had this light for years so I guess if it burns, it will just give me an excuse to upgrade to the 16HD. I have some frags that cost as much as the light so I’d rather they get the par they need.

I do get some daily film algae growth on the glass and some diatoms on the sand but my clean up crew gets it quickly. I think it’s worth it to get a few hours of strong light to the SPS.

 

[chipchipbro]

I saw something about burnt lenses. Didn’t realize that was a common thing?

I have had this light for years so I guess if it burns, it will just give me an excuse to upgrade to the 16HD. I have some frags that cost as much as the light so I’d rather they get the par they need.

I do get some daily film algae growth on the glass and some diatoms on the sand but my clean up crew gets it quickly. I think it’s worth it to get a few hours of strong light to the SPS.

Sounds good! Have you ever had a Dino problem?
I mean the problem with Dino is, to almost black out and turn down the intensity of lights dramatically. I always fear to get a Dino issue therefore wow...

I might just Increase my intensity then and see if my SPS do send positive vibes after increasing intensity.
Actually I am at around 105% royal and 95% blue and 85% violet and 75% UV and 10% whites.
Guess its the whites which is increasing PAR level right?

 

[AJ_Tsin]

Sounds good! Have you ever had a Dino problem?
I mean the problem with Dino is, to almost black out and turn down the intensity of lights dramatically. I always fear to get a Dino issue therefore wow...

I might just Increase my intensity then and see if my SPS do send positive vibes after increasing intensity.
Actually I am at around 105% royal and 95% blue and 85% violet and 75% UV and 10% whites.
Guess its the whites which is increasing PAR level right?

I had an amphidium dino outbreak right at then 1 year mark. It has been a long time since I set up a reef so I came into this with the old school 0.00 nutrients goal.

At 1 year my system got really stable and really clean. Everything was growing well and water was pristine… but my SPS were fading and even showing a little STN at the base. So I started dosing a conservative amount of Red Sea Reef Energy AB+.

Within a week or two I had a Dino explosion just limited to the sand bed thankfully . Seems like this was the perfect recipe. 0 nutrients + amino acids.

IMO lighting doesn’t really make a huge difference on Dinos. You can do a blackout to coax them to swim depending on the species but it doesn’t deal with them unless you solve the underlying issues they will come back just as fast when the lights come back.

In my case I had to dose PO4 and NO3, Phyto and cultivate a more diverse algae flora. In fact all I have done is steadily increase my PAR since that initial outbreak and it didn’t impact my fight.

 

[chipchipbro]

I had an amphidium dino outbreak right at then 1 year mark. It has been a long time since I set up a reef so I came into this with the old school 0.00 nutrients goal.

At 1 year my system got really stable and really clean. Everything was growing well and water was pristine… but my SPS were fading and even showing a little STN at the base. So I started dosing a conservative amount of Red Sea Reef Energy AB+.

Within a week or two I had a Dino explosion just limited to the sand bed thankfully . Seems like this was the perfect recipe. 0 nutrients + amino acids.

IMO lighting doesn’t really make a huge difference on Dinos. You can do a blackout to coax them to swim depending on the species but it doesn’t deal with them unless you solve the underlying issues they will come back just as fast when the lights come back.

In my case I had to dose PO4 and NO3, Phyto and cultivate a more diverse algae flora. In fact all I have done is steadily increase my PAR since that initial outbreak and it didn’t impact my fight.

Sounds good!

Well i've heard that red sea reef energy is fuel for dinos. Dang!

I do have a slight showing of Dinos in my sandbed.. I had my po4 and no3 bottomed out due to a fallow period.. so I now need to dose po4 and no3 to bring them back up.

I will increase my lighting then slowly

 

[AJ_Tsin]

Sounds good!

Well i've heard that red sea reef energy is fuel for dinos. Dang!

I do have a slight showing of Dinos in my sandbed.. I had my po4 and no3 bottomed out due to a fallow period.. so I now need to dose po4 and no3 to bring them back up.

I will increase my lighting then slowly

Yea I am not sure if its Red Sea specifically, rather adding any amino food source when your nutrients are bottomed out is going to feed the most opportunistic species. Seems like Dinos are really good at thriving when nothing else can.

I beat Dinos by getting NO3 stable at 10 and PO4 stable at 0.10 while dosing phyto. Under a scope I noticed I had some Ostreopsis and Amphidium, I installed a UV filter which took out the ostreopsis basically overnight but did nothing for the Amphidium. After many weeks of keeping things stable one day I noticed the brown on the sand was a little more golden and less reddish brown and my snails were on the sand munching away instead of hiding or recoiling. I pulled out the scope to find diatoms finally winning the fight!

Keep up with the dosing and you will beat them. Remember you are trying to alter the entire ecosystem slowly and have other organisms take their place. In theory it will take as long to get rid of them as it did to provide the conditions that allowed them to take over.

 

[chipchipbro]

Hey man!
Yeah I do keep up the dosing and also dose some H2O2 during night.. I think the tank looks way better already after a few days (ok must say the dinos were really not that bad, just a tiny tiny bit on the sandbed) I think I tarted in the right moment with dosing after I saw po4 is 0.

I will also add some Siporax in the back chamber the next days as I do not have alot of rock. Hope this also helps establish a nice biology.

I am in the process of ramping up the light intensity. So far it looks good! I am @ 110% now for royal, 100 for blue, 100 violet and 75 UV. Going higher slowly

 

[AJ_Tsin]

Right side perspective under blues:

 

[AJ_Tsin]

A few SPS Shots:

Reef Raft Canada Wowzer

Reef Raft Canada Shazam

Reef Raft Canada Holy Grail

 

[Steven Garland]

Yes,I love nano sps tanks. Everything looks amazing so far.

 

[AJ_Tsin]

Some coral warfare going on last night before a weekly water change.

Yellow Nugget Acan got a little too close to peach Lobophyllia.

 

[AJ_Tsin]

Yes,I love nano sps tanks. Everything looks amazing so far.

Thx. Glad these corals are taking off in here. Wasn’t sure how stable I could keep 10g

 

[Steven Garland]

Its insanely easy people just complicate it. I have kept acro's in sub 5g for YEARS. I once had a 2g cube SLAP FULL of Acro's and kept it going for over a year before an experiment went wrong

 

[AJ_Tsin]

Its insanely easy people just complicate it. I have kept acro's in sub 5g for YEARS. I once had a 2g cube SLAP FULL of Acro's and kept it going for over a year before an experiment went wrong

Yea I kinda agree. Ironically the most destabilizing thing I do to my tank is water changes and that’s only because I still have a bucket of Coral Pro and I really should be using the Red Sea blue bucket based on the parameters I keep.