CWerner's IM 50 Nuvo AIO build

[cwerner]

Another tank update!

I've received some new coral Colonies, some from Saltwater Aquarium Farms, and some from a LFS here in Madison called Big Kahuna. I've also got the rest of my hydros controller setup that will be in the main part of my tank. I'm also planning on putting some sort of hole in the floor behind the tank so I can run cables down to my Mixing station and perform AWC and possibly Auto Top off directly from my reservoirs and eliminate 5 gallon buckets almost entirely.

Below are some tank shots of fish and coral.

My new Green Splatter Hammers:

My GSP back wall effort so far. It's about a 12" by 6" section. It grew straight up very quickly and has slowly been expanding to the sides now.

A new Blue Staghorn from Big Kahuna

My poor candycanes.

Some new Zoa's from SAQ:

My new Duncan's from Big Kahuna:

You cannot kill that which is unkillable:

 

[cwerner]

Made some progress on my plans tonight. Got a 30" x 72" stand from menards rated for 2000lb's. That should be fine for 2 44 gallon brute trash cans. I got some cheap Jebao pumps for mixing and a utility pump that should be up to pushing water up the roughly 9 ft to my tank. I'll be so relieved once this is done and I've got fully automated daily water changes and can do much larger water changes without having to carry 5 gallon buckets up and down the stairs.

I'll hopefully have some pictures of the mixing station once its done. I'm planning on using the Hydros top off pump for draining the water since it's all downhill and will be gravity assisted. The utility pump inside the saltwater Brute can will pump up the saltwater and for now I have my freshwater reservoir underneath my tank, but I have plans to probably use a BRS dumb doser or perhaps the Hydros kamoer peristaltic pump for ATO needs to have it pull directly from my freshwater reservoir.

 

[cwerner]

Well, had a chance to work on the mixing station tonight and made a lot of progress! The mixing and feed pump plumbing is done, and the line to the rodi complete with float valve is run. I also installed a dual anion/cation brs canister to cut down on the amount of DI resin I was going through.

Now to figure out plumbing the auto top off and the AWC pump. My plan currently is to run a data-only hydros command cable down to the basement where I can wire it up to a UPS and power an rodi shutoff valve, possible future dosing pumps, and plumb my RODI directly to my tank so it can perform ATO duties as well as feed my mixing station. This plan is still subject to change, but cutting out an additional pump needed in the basement would be pretty neat, as well as having a reservoirless auto top off, but that comes with its own set of dangers (flooding my house etc.

P.S. sorry about the mess in my basement, I have a mud pit in my yard where a brand new garage is supposed to be, so the basement became a temporary permanent catch-all for all my garage items.

 

[cwerner]

It's been about a month since I did a tank update since my electrical disaster. I've got my Saltwater mixing station spun up now, though I still have to make the tubing runs and program Hydros. I also am seeing good growth in my new corals and the old ones that survived appear to be recovered.

My Zoa's in particular are showing great growth. My Acro's are showing pretty good growth now as well. I've been keeping my water parameters around the following:

CA: 440
MG: 1350
ALK: 7-7.5
PH: 8.1 - 8.2
Phosphate - .02
Nitrate: ~15-20

I've been dosing the HydroSpace ProBio bacteria as well as Microbacter Clean since I had a GHA outbreak after my tank crash. The corals seem to be doing well with these additives, but it looks like the biggest benefactors have been my pod population which has EXPLODED these past few weeks. The glass is full of them at all times right now. Here are some updates of existing corals and ones I haven't made a picture of yet. I'm really digging Euphyllia in this tank.


Pink Frogspawn:

Acro showing good growth:

 

[cwerner]

Checking in again. Seeing some good growth for the Zoa's and Acro's. My Euphyllia seems to be at a standstill except for my duncans that are growing well the green toadstool is growing well as always. I had a pleasant surprise and found one of the arms of my previous acros was alive and had polyp extension despite the rest of the skeleton being engulfed in GHA. I will probably frag and dip it and try to place it back on the scape somewhere to dispose of the rest of the skeleton.

My GHA problem is slowly going away as my nitrates/phosphates get under control. I'm hovering around .02/20 Phosphates and nitrates. Previous to my tank crash it was around 8-10 nitrates and undetectable to .01 phosphates. This range is likely fine too, but if I can get it to the ran