Ante's Return to Reefing with an IM Nuvo Fusion Pro 30L

[kove.ante]

Hi Everyone!

I hope your day is going well. I'm Ante and I lurked on Reef2Reef years ago, but recently started browsing around the forum again now that the itch (not to be confused with ich) to get back into reefing returned! During law school I kept an IM Nuvo 20. I had the Nuvo 20 up and running for a few years, but studying for the bar, traveling, and moving resulted in the Nuvo 20 being torn down. It's been almost 3 years since I torn down the Nuvo 20 and now that I've settled into a home I don't see myself leaving for several years, I'm jumping back into reefing.

The Nuts and Bolts
A few weeks ago I thought about purchasing another Nuvo 20 and starting over again, but I couldn't help but think how often I wished I had more space to work with in the tank. Eventually, I talked myself, and my fiance, into getting a Nuvo 30L instead! I'm beyond thrilled to have the extra space. I kept some items from the Nuvo 20, but had to order some new items (because who doesn't love receiving reefing related packages??). By next Tuesday I should have everything I need to get the tank up and running minus the rock and sand. So, here's what's arriving next week:

• Nuvo Fusion Pro 30L with Black APS Stand;
• 4 Stage RODI System;
• Booster Pump;
• MP10;
• Auqa Gadget CustomCaddy x2;
• Prefiler Pad & Aquamesh Blue 3;
• Heater; and
• Thermometer.

In terms of lighting, I'm reusing the EcoTech Radio XR 30 I had over the Nuvo 20. Not a clue what generation it is, but I think I bought it back in 2017/2018? I am also reusing an ATO that I used on the Nuvo 20. The ATO was an absolute lifesaver, especially with how difficult it was to determine if water was evaporating from the main display in the Nuvo 20. So, highly recommend an ATO if you haven't pulled the trigger on one of them.

Tank Occupants
I'm wanting to take a more calculated approach to filling the tank with fish, inverts, and coral compared to my "OH THAT LOOKS SO COOL; I NEED IT" attitude that I had with the Nuvo 20. I took a lot of inspiration from uwdanno (who I hope is doing great; haven't checked on his set-up in some time now) and I'm hoping to have a similar aesthetic. So, I'd like to focus on picking corals that have complimentary colors as I start filling up the tank.

So, in terms of corals I want to have essentially three major groups: (1) an acan garden; (2) a euphyllia garden; and (3) a few hearty, colorful SPS. So, I'm hoping to cater the tank to the needs of those corals and arrange the rocks in a way that'll let me really showcase each of the corals but give plenty of swimming room for the fishes.

Speaking of fishes, I'm honestly a little torn here. I'd like to be rather selective with the fish and stick to a few, active and interesting fish that'll each add some personality to the tank. For example, I've always loved the goby/shrimp pairing and their home building antics. So, any recommendations on unique fish would be greatly appreciated!

That should about wrap things up for this post, but there'll be plenty of pictures and updates come next week once things start to arrive. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Ante

 

[SPR1968]

We definitely need pictures Ante and Welcome to R2R!!!

 

[kove.ante]

We definitely need pictures Ante and Welcome to R2R!!!

Thank you for the warm welcome! Soon as equipment arrives the pictures will start flowing!

 

[jazzfisher]

Welcome to the 30L club. I love mine!

 

[kove.ante]

Welcome to the 30L club. I love mine!

Thank you for the warm welcome! Thrilled to be part of the 30L club. I'll have to check yours out, if you've posted pictures of it!

 

[kove.ante]

Hi Everyone!

I have good news and bad news today. First, the bad news... Given the horrible weather we've been experiencing in Chicago I received everything I ordered except the stand for the 30L. Slightly disappointing, but it's a good lesson in patience. In any event, there's always more good than there is bad so, onto the good news... PICTURES!

Here's the 30L and all the fun stuff I received and pulled from storage. From left to right we have: the RODI system, assorted filter floss and filter media, Radion hanging kit, thermometer, Radion XR30, MP10, top off reservoir that needs a serious cleaning, and ATO inside the reservoir.

I was also hoping someone could provide some guidance. As I was taking the Radion XR30 out of storage, I noticed that one of the black metal fittings that receives mounting screws was loose. I looked further and found that the screw that held the black metal fitting in place was missing! Does anyone know if those can be ordered from EcoTech? Or, is the screw a standard size screw that I can just pick up from a hardware store?

In any event, I love the build quality of the Innovative Marine tanks. I'm also thrilled at two changes I saw compared to the IM 20 that I had a few years back.

First, I am thrilled the screen no longer requires those plastic clips to be held in place. Instead, the screen includes a lip that extends to just about the midpoint of the thickness of the glass. As you can see from the picture below, it's a nice touch that I think makes the tank look just that much sleeker.

​

Second, as you can see in the picture below, I love that "Innovative Marine" is written in the glass in the upper left hand corner. I seriously doubt any corals will be that high in the tank, so no concerns about the text getting in the way of viewing the inhabitants of the tank.

To close things out, the stand is supposed to arrive tomorrow so hopefully I'll be able to build the stand and have the tank in the position where it'll be making its home! Other than that, I'm planning on picking up some live rock and sand later this week. If all goes to plan, the tank should be set up with rock, sand, and water by the end of the week!

Hope you all have an awesome evening and phenomenal week!

 

[jazzfisher]

Thank you for the warm welcome! Thrilled to be part of the 30L club. I'll have to check yours out, if you've posted pictures of it!

Heres a recent pic. I have AI Primes so can’t help with your lighting.

 

[jaganshi066]

Hi Everyone!

I have good news and bad news today. First, the bad news... Given the horrible weather we've been experiencing in Chicago I received everything I ordered except the stand for the 30L. Slightly disappointing, but it's a good lesson in patience. In any event, there's always more good than there is bad so, onto the good news... PICTURES!

Here's the 30L and all the fun stuff I received and pulled from storage. From left to right we have: the RODI system, assorted filter floss and filter media, Radion hanging kit, thermometer, Radion XR30, MP10, top off reservoir that needs a serious cleaning, and ATO inside the reservoir.

I was also hoping someone could provide some guidance. As I was taking the Radion XR30 out of storage, I noticed that one of the black metal fittings that receives mounting screws was loose. I looked further and found that the screw that held the black metal fitting in place was missing! Does anyone know if those can be ordered from EcoTech? Or, is the screw a standard size screw that I can just pick up from a hardware store?

In any event, I love the build quality of the Innovative Marine tanks. I'm also thrilled at two changes I saw compared to the IM 20 that I had a few years back.

First, I am thrilled the screen no longer requires those plastic clips to be held in place. Instead, the screen includes a lip that extends to just about the midpoint of the thickness of the glass. As you can see from the picture below, it's a nice touch that I think makes the tank look just that much sleeker.

​

Second, as you can see in the picture below, I love that "Innovative Marine" is written in the glass in the upper left hand corner. I seriously doubt any corals will be that high in the tank, so no concerns about the text getting in the way of viewing the inhabitants of the tank.

To close things out, the stand is supposed to arrive tomorrow so hopefully I'll be able to build the stand and have the tank in the position where it'll be making its home! Other than that, I'm planning on picking up some live rock and sand later this week. If all goes to plan, the tank should be set up with rock, sand, and water by the end of the week!

Hope you all have an awesome evening and phenomenal week!

I love how the im30 is not too big but it’s still long, and I love the shallow look!

 

[kove.ante]

Heres a recent pic. I have AI Primes so can’t help with your lighting.

Tank looks fantastic! Looking forward to when I can have that many coals in mine.

I love how the im30 is not too big but it’s still long, and I love the shallow look!

Agreed! I like how much room there is for fish to swim back and forth.

 

[kove.ante]

Hi everyone!

I hope you all had an awesome weekend. Last week ended up being a much busier week than I expected, so I was not able to set up the stand as I had hoped. Nonetheless, I was able to find some time over the weekend to put together the stand and get things going on the tank.

Assembly of the APS stand was a bit confusing at the beginning, but once I assembled the first two legs things started to move along nicely. I wasn't too fond of how much metal on metal scratching was going on when certain components were being put into place. But, once the stand was assembled I placed it in its final resting place.

The stand is incredibly sleek, but I'm having an incredibly difficult time removing the brown protective covers. They keep ripping as I get a small portion off, so any advice on how to get the covers off with as little commotion as possible would be greatly appreciated. Otherwise, I'll be using a razor and some Goo Gone to try and remove the covering as neatly as possible.

In any event, I made sure the stand was level and placed the tank on the stand. With the stand in place, I filled the tank with sand. I went for a bit of a deeper sand bed (a little deeper than I had anticipated) because I want to eventually have a sand sifting goby. They're incredibly entertaining to watch, keep the sand bed nice and clean, and, if I'm lucky, pair with a shrimp and have one of the coolest symbiotic relationships.

I always spill water everywhere while I'm filling the tank, so this time I was determined to spill as little water as possible. So, I used a little gravity and a syphon to get the water into the tank.

Advantageously, the water didn't agitate the sand as much as it normally does when I go with my far less patient "just dump the water into the tank" method. Once the tank was filled I went ahead and connected everything to make sure we everything was working properly. Luckily no issues!

The pictures are a little cloudy, but here's how the aquascape turned out. I really wanted to have two islands so that I could have a spot for euphyilla, acans, and some easy to keep SPS. For the time being, I'm thinking of using the left formation for the euphyilla and acans and the right formation for the easy to keep SPS. I'm considering keeping a few acans on the bottom of the right formation just to fill out the rock.

Unfortunately, I couldn't hang my Radion last night. I'm missing some anchors to secure the screws to the ceiling, so I'm going to put that on hold. Instead, I'm going to just mount the Radion to the tank and attach it to the ceiling at some point in the future.

I know this was a bit of a long update, so I'll end things here. Looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts on the aquascape!

 

[kove.ante]

We have light! The Radion mount arrived and I took a late lunch break to install and mount the light. Pretty happy with where it's sitting and how it looks, but the light coverage is a little less than I expected. Nothing trouble as there's nothing in the tank, but might need to consider supplemental lighting further down the road for more even coverage.

I have the Radion XR30 Gen 4, which will require that I upgrade the RF chip from it's current version to the Mobius enabled one. Has anyone ever made the upgrade? The videos and descriptions make it seem easy enough, but curious if anyone ran into any issue after they upgraded.

Also finally managed to get all the that I needed to hook up the RODI system and we're filtering water. With the RODI system working, I was able to fliter enough water to fill the ATO reservoir. So glad to no longer be replacing the water by hand.

I'll try and take some pictures tonight once it gets dark to show the tank with the light.

 

[kove.ante]

I still need to get a hang of photographing the aquarium with the Radion turned on, but a little post processing helped clean up the overly blue hue. Looking forward to playing the waiting game until I can finally stock the tank... not!

 

[ReeferJay86]

Heres a recent pic. I have AI Primes so can’t help with your lighting.

I have this exact tank myself w/AI primes HD. What settings are you using?

 

[jazzfisher]

I have this exact tank myself w/AI primes HD. What settings are you using?

I’m using the BRS recommended AB plus settings. They have a whole video on the AI Primes. I do a 2 hour ramp up.

 

[harley32907]

Welcome to R2R!

 

[MacdaRippa]

Welcome to R2R! It’s nice to see other IM30L owners and their reefs. Here’s my 15week old 30L. I love these tanks. I’m really excited to see your progression, I will definitely be following your journey! —R2

 

[Azedenkae]

Heyyyy! Fellow Chicagoan Nuvoist here. Loving how your tank is looking so far. I have a Nuvo20 and it is working for me atm, but not gonna lie, I do feel like I should have gotten the Nuvo30.

Re: the brown paper, don't even try ripping it off normally. It won't work. I tried that with my aquarium and it just tore into a million tiny pieces all over, which makes it so much worse. Yeah I'd recommend another way to rip it off.

I love the NuvoAquariums, but I just hate the stand. Like you, I do feel odd that the metal scrape against each other, though I had other issues, like the end cappers not fitting, or some of the planks or whatever you want to call it not exactly the same length. Luckily it seemed like I managed to get it to work, especially thanks to the flat protective piece that you place between the tank and stand.

Never again. XD Once I decide to buy another Nuvo, I'll just find a different stand.

Great choices on corals too, I think that should work. Though curious - what are your plans for the areas where light does not quite reach to to either side?

 

[ScottyDoesntKnow]

Ante! Any updates? Pics? I’m just getting my Nuvo 30L going and I’m looking for some inspiration!

it’s been a few months since you last posted, so I’m wondering if you’ve got some fish or corals and, if so, which ones? I’d love to see your progress...

thanks, Scott

 

[kove.ante]

Hi Everyone!

Wow, I can't believe the last time I updated this thread was nearly a year ago! Okay, so quick explanation on the absence. Not long after my last post work really picked up and I threw myself into a horrible mental state. I ended up leaving my job after I realized my "lack of motivation" was actually serious case of depression. I cannot stress how important it is to listen to your body and put yourself first. Nothing is worth your physical and mental health.

Since leaving my job I really worked on myself, pulled myself almost out of the depression, and started a new job. I've been at the new job for almost four months and couldn't be happier in the role. There was a considerable learning curve (i.e., new area of the law, new company, etc.), but I feel like I'm finally in a solid groove. In any event, thank you for listening to my rant and onto fish tank updates!

In short, the tank is still up and running but has been stuck in cruise control. Let me explain. When I started this reef journal, I told myself I'd post regularly and honestly. I always appreciated when people were honest, candid, and raw in their reef journals when I started coming to this forum at the beginning of my reefing journey many years ago. I didn't stick to my promise, but that's okay. Life's all about getting back on the horse after you fall, right? So, I'm going to do what I first set out to do with this blog.

To catch you up on what's happened in the past year, it'll take fewer words than you might think. After the tank cycled, I put in a single clown fish named Daniel Ricciardo (any F1 fans?) and a clean-up-crew ("CUC"). Since that day I haven't add anything to the tank. I was literally on a faulty cruise control. I say "faulty" because water changes weren't regular, avoidable algae blooms were common, and, ultimately, I wasn't very attentive to the tank. Thankfully, I was attentive enough to maintain a high enough water quality to sustain the life that was in the tank.

That being said, I've been a more responsible reefer since the end of December now that life is back on track! Regular water changes, maintenance, and testing replaced the irregular water changes, maintenance, and testing. But, even with the regular maintenance, I'm dealing with some annoying green hair algae that came about because of my irregular maintenance. The algae stopped growing, however, so with a little patience and a refresh to the CUC, I'm hoping the algae will be gone in a relatively short amount of time. Water quality looked good this week, so I added a yellow watchman goby yesterday. I was hoping to put in a watchman goby that was paired with a pistol shrimp, but my local fish store ("LFS") didn't hair a mated pair. So, once the watchman goby settles into the tank, I will look into getting the pistol shrimp.

I'll post some pictures tomorrow once the lights come back on! I know this was quite a wall of text, so thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings.

 

[kove.ante]

Heyyyy! Fellow Chicagoan Nuvoist here. Loving how your tank is looking so far. I have a Nuvo20 and it is working for me atm, but not gonna lie, I do feel like I should have gotten the Nuvo30.

Re: the brown paper, don't even try ripping it off normally. It won't work. I tried that with my aquarium and it just tore into a million tiny pieces all over, which makes it so much worse. Yeah I'd recommend another way to rip it off.

I love the NuvoAquariums, but I just hate the stand. Like you, I do feel odd that the metal scrape against each other, though I had other issues, like the end cappers not fitting, or some of the planks or whatever you want to call it not exactly the same length. Luckily it seemed like I managed to get it to work, especially thanks to the flat protective piece that you place between the tank and stand.

Never again. XD Once I decide to buy another Nuvo, I'll just find a different stand.

Great choices on corals too, I think that should work. Though curious - what are your plans for the areas where light does not quite reach to to either side?

Great to see another Chicago Nuvoist on the forum! I had a Nuvo 20 for a few years before tearing it down and the entire time I had it, I always wished I had the Nuvo 30. I'm not sure if the itch to have a slightly bigger tank than what you have will ever go away, but I'm very content with the Nuvo 30!

I found that a very patient fiancé was the best solution to getting all of the brown paper off the stand LOL.

In terms of the lighting spread, I'm planning on placing the corals in such a way that they "grow" into the edges of the rock/tank instead of placing them in the low light areas purposefully. In theory, the corals should continue growing into the low light areas until they reach a point where they aren't getting enough light. If the tank looks off balanced or empty as a result, I'll look into getting supplemental lighting or hanging the light to widen the spread of light.

Ante! Any updates? Pics? I’m just getting my Nuvo 30L going and I’m looking for some inspiration!

it’s been a few months since you last posted, so I’m wondering if you’ve got some fish or corals and, if so, which ones? I’d love to see your progress...

thanks, Scott

Hi Scott! Thanks for much for checking in. I actually just finished looking through your thread! You tank and inhabitants are looking great!

The TL;DR of my post immediately above is that I have the following inhabitants:

• a clown fish;
• a yellow watchman goby;
• an emerald crab; and
• a plethora of crabs and snails that make up the CUC.

Unfortunately, no corals right now but hopefully there will be some in the tank soon. I'll post some photos of the tank tomorrow!