Nick’s 20G Nuvo Fusion

[Nick Steele]

Turned the powerhead off last night so they could hopefully venture around the tank and It worked!

They have been cruising around all morning and I decided to turn the powerhead back on and they aren’t getting blown around anymore! They still like the back right corner which I’m fine with because that’s where I plan to have a euphyllia garden that I hope host them.

 

[Nick Steele]

Well seems like the Xenia is growing quite well. Within a week I have noticeable growth and it makes me happy! It’s basically covering the whole frag plug now.

Tomorrow I’m going to some lfs looking for some corals to add.

A week ago

Tonight

 

[Nick Steele]

Had a day off today so I cleaned up under the stand and got the cords situated. Could still use some work but it’s better than what it was!

Also made a trip to my LFS and picked up two corals (candy cane and a scrambled egg zoa).

The candy cane was more teal looking in the store but is green when I got it home.

Will get a picture of the zoa later when it opens up.

 

[Nick Steele]

Here is a picture of the freebie zoa I got yesterday.

Scrambled eggs!

Also I noticed my first little bit of algae on some rocks.

 

[PR_nano]

The tank is coming along real nice. Good looking fish and corals, reminded me to clean my cable web.

 

[Nick Steele]

Thanks @PR_nano

 

[Nick Steele]

Today I found a new zoa head growing already! It’s super tiny but it’s visible!

Little hard to see in picture but it’s on the bottom left corner.

 

[Nick Steele]

The tank uglies have begun and within 2 days brown is everywhere on the rocks and sand nothing on glass yet!

That frag plug the zoa on was bright white before!

Was able to feed the candy cane tonight! TDO pellets from @Reef Nutrition crushed up slightly

 

[Nick Steele]

I added 3 trochus snails on New Year’s Day and totally forgot to post! They have gone to work on my diatom bloom and I can see where they travel at night due to the rocks being white in the morning haha.

I also added 3 nassarius snails today. Little bigger then I thought they would be but seem to plow the sand just like I wanted!

Trochus snails

Nassarius snails right when added.

 

[Nick Steele]

Yesterday I did a water change so I ran some test today!

pH 8
KH 10.9
Calc 470
Mag 1200 tested twice
Ammo 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0-2 (salifert is somewhat hard for me to read)
Phosphate .015

The low mag is weird the new water had 1320 but maybe I have some coralline growing that I don’t quite see. I heard that can lower mag. Plus didn’t test tank before water change.

 

[PR_nano]

That's weird indeed, maybe monitor Mg more closely going forward. It's nice to see your CuC went to work on the algae right away. How are you liking the trochus snails?

 

[Nick Steele]

That's weird indeed, maybe monitor Mg more closely going forward. It's nice to see your CuC went to work on the algae right away. How are you liking the trochus snails?

I like them a lot! They go nuts on the diatoms. I was thinking of getting more but don’t want them to starve after the bloom goes away. Two have stuck to the rock work mainly on the left side and one stays on the back glass.

Still need some more snail cuc but can’t find any locally at the moment.

 

[PR_nano]

I got 2 Nassarius and 2 Nerite, the lfs were out of cerith. I found another place that might have so need to check them out later this week or weekend.

 

[Nick Steele]

Grabbed a few frags tonight from a buddy.

1 frogspawn (Never seen one like this)
1 green star polyp
1 Montipora spongodes

Full tank shot

 

[mookle12345]

Looking great. I may be picking up the same tank this month. Will be following along with this thread and learning things on the way.

 

[Nick Steele]

Looking great. I may be picking up the same tank this month. Will be following along with this thread and learning things on the way.

Thanks! Yeah there will be a lot of learning on my end. I’m good with freshwater but salt is a new one for me.

Tank glass seems to get dirty every 3-4 days and needs wiped not like if that but I rather see the few corals and fish then algae.

 

[Nick Steele]

Planning on picking up some hermit crabs today and maybe an acan if they have one my fiancé likes. So I did some testing and I’m proud to say everything seems stable over the past week.


KH 10.5dkh
Calc 490
Mag 1320 (user error on last test I guess) I checked it twice today and got the same each time.
Phos 0-.03 (slight blue tint but not quite .03)
Nitrate 2
pH 7.7-8 (color between these two numbers)
Salinity 1.0255

 

[Nick Steele]

Picked up a rock flower anemone and a nice rainbow acan today. Also added 4 blue leg hermits that are going to town on algae and diatoms


Rainbow acan

Rock flower anemone (much better color under blues have to figure something out about that)

This one hermit has cleaned this rock from dusted in brown diatoms/algae to sparkling white in a matter of 3 hours or so.

 

[Nick Steele]

Well fiancé didn’t like the shells the hermits were in so we added a handful of empty shells for them to pick from yesterday. Today one of them switched to a new shell and two others are fighting over his old one.

 

[Nick Steele]

Got my order of reef roids today! Didnt feed any today since I feed on Monday night but I will feed tomorrow or Friday!

Rock flower has found his home and is settling nicely. He is always looking for food and usually get a mysis or something during feeding time.


Some updated shots of corals
Rock flower nem and zoas (closed due to dipping for algae)

Acan coral with feeders out and a really nice top down shot