Nick’s 20G Nuvo Fusion

[GlfFxtrtYnky]

Looking good! I know you have some rubble in the back, but do you have any macro algae back there? That may help out compete the algae in your display for nutrients. My 18G AIO is still just sitting with CUC, sand, and rock. I added a refugium in the back with chaeto and an IM 18W LED light. Pods are hoping around throughout my tank. Again it is looking good and I am enjoying the progression of your tank.

 

[Nick Steele]

Looking good! I know you have some rubble in the back, but do you have any macro algae back there? That may help out compete the algae in your display for nutrients. My 18G AIO is still just sitting with CUC, sand, and rock. I added a refugium in the back with chaeto and an IM 18W LED light. Pods are hoping around throughout my tank. Again it is looking good and I am enjoying the progression of your tank.

Wow I’m so sorry I didn’t see this before.

I do not have any macro algae in my tank whatsoever. I didn’t want to mess with a refugium in this AIO as I was sure I could keep up with maintenance and keep algae at bay. I believe I just had a decent algae bloom after doing the rip clean because of all the surface was cleaned of other organisms and gave way to algae plus I had higher than usual nutrients .1 phos and 10 nitrates.

 

[Nick Steele]

Tank update

Dino’s came back for whatever reason I have no clue as to why because I was at .05 phos and 5 nitrate at my lowest point and was testing everyday. I only seen the Dino’s on the bare bottom and glass seams so wasn’t too worried they never got to how it was before. I switched my uv filter to the right side overflow and I believe this has helped.

As for corals most are doing much better!


Trachy is still doing awesome! It’s fat and happy although the clowns will sometimes go and rearrange where it is. One day it’s diagonal and the next day it is parallel with the front glass. It doesn’t seem to mind the aggression.

All the acans are growing and both new frags already have 2 and 3 new heads forming. The two older frags are sprouting new heads to but hard to see how many. Thinking about trying to find a 3x3 tile for my rainbow Acan to give it room to grow as it’s almost off the plug it’s on now.

Sps seem to be doing good as I have decent polyp extension and two out of the 5 pieces are growing visibly each day. The spongodes I broke off about 2 months ago has grown over that broken spot and the stick is already encrusting more. I also picked up a pink caddy frag from a local guy and so far it’s doing great and growing!

Blastos seem to be doing fine but haven’t seen any new growth since the rip clean. But they were doing horrible when I had Dino’s before so I expected a rebound time for them.

Zoas are hit or miss. I believe I’m getting some bacterial infection on them. I try to blow them all with a turkey baster every day. My blue eye blondes have started to melt and I’m about to pull them and see about a peroxide dip before I lose the last 3 polyps.

Plate corals are doing pretty good orange one is still happy and fluffy. Older green one isn’t receding any more but it’s not getting better yet.

Hammer and frogspawn are still hanging in there and will open about 50% of pre Dino and they are gaining flesh so I’m very excited about that.

Rock nems are being weird and have been on constant move around the tank up and down the rocks not really knowing what they are doing. I haven’t seen one in about a week so I don’t have what happened might have to go look for it on night.

Also I have added the tailspot blenny to the display tank last weekend and he is settling in nicely. He eats algae like a pig and cleaned a whole rock of gha overnight the first night he was in there. Him and the clowns seem to respect each other’s places in the tank. They will chase each other sometimes.

I did a time lapse of my light turning on this morning and I added it to YouTube

 

[Nick Steele]

Well tank is doing much better!

I believe Dino’s are gone once again. Once I switched the uv to the right side overflow and increased my temp to 81f they quickly went away so not sure as to which pushed them out.

Hammer and frogspawn are now happy as can be and opened up all day and are growing flesh again thankfully.

Some cyano go around the tank covering some zoas, Superman digi and starburst monti. I am working on fixing this but haven’t taken drastic action yet due to not wanting Dino’s back.

My missing rock flower showed up and parked his happy behind in the left rock structure in a pretty cool spot so I’m happy. The other chose to hang out with the acans on the right side (hopefully won’t get killed).

The pink caddy frag has went through a color change and has browned out but is starting to get green coloring again. I believe this was due to me dosing phosphate and nitrate at higher levels then I usually keep. It’s still growing well so I’ll take it.

Full tank shot

Hammer and frogspawn

Acan garden (can see the one rock flower below the red/green blasto)

Sunset monti growing happily.

Pink caddy before and after shot these are a month apart. Good growth in my eyes for an unstable system atm
Before

Today

 

[Nick Steele]

Been awhile since I’ve updated but I will try and keep updates coming at least every other week from now on.

Tank is still doing great. I’m still having some algae issues but I really need to up my cleanup crew that died off due to my battle with Dino’s. Cyano is slowly starting to fade away but it comes back if I don’t do a water change for a week.

Everything is growing well and I have acquired a couple higher end sps at RAP Orlando. I picked up 4 frags from RAP. A splatter hammer, pink/orange octo spawn, Walt Disney acro and I believe a strawberry shortcake acro.

Behind and in between the hammer and frogspawn

These have been in the tank for a week and everything is doing great. Polyp extension is wonderful and is adding some movement amongst the sps side.

I also added a utter chaos zoa frag on a snail shell that a hermit crab moved into and now I can’t find it.

My sunset monti is growing pretty good and has covered the frag plug and is starting to grow onto the rock itself now

Pink caddy is growing good but is still green in color. Hoping it goes back to original colors soon. Also the starburst monti there has made a complete 180 and is doing well and has recovered all of its dead flesh and is growing onto the rocks too!

My euphyllia garden. Still need to decide placement of the splatter hammer. The octo was placed lower to give something to look at from the side.

My plate corals are doing much better as well and the purple one that started dying on me is starting to recover and looks better then before can see it in the full tank shot below. There is also a nice chunk of green monti cap I have to figure out a spot for as well.

So far I’m starting to really enjoy the tank again after my battle with Dino’s now it’s time to sit back and let all the coral grow in.

 

[boomeraudio]

Been awhile since I’ve updated but I will try and keep updates coming at least every other week from now on.

Tank is still doing great. I’m still having some algae issues but I really need to up my cleanup crew that died off due to my battle with Dino’s. Cyano is slowly starting to fade away but it comes back if I don’t do a water change for a week.

Everything is growing well and I have acquired a couple higher end sps at RAP Orlando. I picked up 4 frags from RAP. A splatter hammer, pink/orange octo spawn, Walt Disney acro and I believe a strawberry shortcake acro.

Behind and in between the hammer and frogspawn

These have been in the tank for a week and everything is doing great. Polyp extension is wonderful and is adding some movement amongst the sps side.

I also added a utter chaos zoa frag on a snail shell that a hermit crab moved into and now I can’t find it.

My sunset monti is growing pretty good and has covered the frag plug and is starting to grow onto the rock itself now

Pink caddy is growing good but is still green in color. Hoping it goes back to original colors soon. Also the starburst monti there has made a complete 180 and is doing well and has recovered all of its dead flesh and is growing onto the rocks too!

My euphyllia garden. Still need to decide placement of the splatter hammer. The octo was placed lower to give something to look at from the side.

My plate corals are doing much better as well and the purple one that started dying on me is starting to recover and looks better then before can see it in the full tank shot below. There is also a nice chunk of green monti cap I have to figure out a spot for as well.

So far I’m starting to really enjoy the tank again after my battle with Dino’s now it’s time to sit back and let all the coral grow in.

Looking awesome!!!!

 

[Nick Steele]

Looking awesome!!!!

Thanks man!

Still a lot to grow in and need to figure somewhere to make an Acan island.

 

[Nick Steele]

I just hate when a trip to the lfs yields unexpected corals!!!! I went just to restock some snails.

Picked up another rock flower nem. More pinkish in person

 

[Nick Steele]

What a difference a year makes!!!

Hammer wasn’t too happy last year but has bounced back and looking good again. I believe this was a low magnesium issue that was fixed with brightwells magnesium.

 

[Nick Steele]

Tanks doing well this week!

I added 3 trochus snails 8 cerith snails and 2 limpets to the tank to round out my cuc. So far they are definitely making a difference! They have just about cleaned the whole bare bottom and have started working on the sides and back wall. I want to say it was the trochus snails that went to town on the cyano that I had on my rock work. It was getting bad I dropped the 3 new ones onto the left rock and within a day or two it was 90% gone! They haven’t ventured to the right side rockwork yet but in time they will hopefully!

Everything seems to be happy and growing! The octospawn opened up once I placed it in much lower flow so it’s a focal point for the side view of the aquarium now. Also the Walt Disney frag is growing in just two weeks! This really excites me as it’s a frag I wanted to get for the wife since it’s purple/yellow.

Oh and I still haven’t glued some frags onto rocks and this morning I seen my green cap was resting on my rainbow acans and seemed to burn a little bit of flesh :mad: the Acan looks fine now but I need to glue the cap to the rockwork

I won’t get an update next week as we are going on vacation and tank will be left on its own but hopefully will have some update when I get back!

Walt Disney growth (it’s only been two weeks but I see growth and a few more polyps!)

Acan damage (right in the middle of the skirt on the bottom)

Full tank shot and top down shot

 

[boomeraudio]

Looking really good! Have a great vacation.

 

[Nick Steele]

Looking really good! Have a great vacation.

Thank you sir!

 

[Nick Steele]

Vacation was great! Tank did wonderful on its own for the most part but did get a quick feeding on Thursday night when we made a pit stop. Sometimes it’s good to just step away for a little.

Everything is doing well except I finally had my blondie zoas completely melt on me so I’ll be on the look out for another frag soon. I also want to get rid of a few frags (spongodes, green cap and GSP) which I’ll take to a lfs this week.

Snails are doing a bang up job keeping the cyano and algae in check. They cleaned 90% of the back wall but left a few really dense spots that I’ll get during my next water change. Plus I’ve already seen 4 different egg clusters so maybe one day I’ll get some babies!

The tailspot blenny is also finally starting to be a little more adventurous and is out and about cleaning the rocks a lot more now. Glad to see him more.

Now for pictures
Here is my Walt Disney still growing very well and I hope it keeps it up. Not the best colors but it’s still small.

Strawberry short cake really likening this frag too. I have already pulled much more pink/red out of it since it was introduced

My euphyllia garden coming together nicely.

Sps side of the tank

A frag I picked up from WWC on vacation that died. Keeping it around to see if any little bit is still alive.

Hospital section of tank. Lepto had some bleaching spot that are starting to grow back. Acans lost all color and starting to come back.

 

[PR_nano]

Nick you been adding some really nice frags to the tank.

Did your Blondie frag fully opened prior to melting? I have a frag with two polyps and it partially open then I moved it but closed up in the new spot. I might need to dip and place back on the original place.

 

[Nick Steele]

Nick you been adding some really nice frags to the tank.

Did your Blondie frag fully opened prior to melting? I have a frag with two polyps and it partially open then I moved it but closed up in the new spot. I might need to dip and place back on the original place.

Thanks! Trying to adventure into some higher end stuff to make sure I can do it before an upgrade to a 100G when we get a house.

It’s always been a fussy frag for me. Was pretty for a few weeks then got zoa pox. Got rid of zoa pox and it opened for another few weeks. Did a long battle with Dino’s were it would peak open once in awhile. Honestly I forgot about the frag till after RAP Orlando which is when I placed the last 2 polyps on a frag disk and did a peroxide dip. And it then died sometime this week.

 

[Nick Steele]

Most things are still doing great but I’m seeing two of my monti’s are losing color. So I’m on the track trying to find the cause. Ran a round of test and they are as followed.

Alk 8.5
Mag 1350
Calc 420
Phos .01
Nitrate 2
Salinity 1.025
Temp 80
pH 8

Maybe it’s low nutrients but these are normal results since I got rid of Dino’s although I’m trying to get to .05 phos and 5 nitrate to help color up some of my sps. I also just started dosing aminos and redsea AB+ so maybe that’s it too but I doubt it.

Other then those two montis everything is looking great actually. I believe my octo spawn is splitting and my rainbow Acan has 3 more new heads since I last noticed.

here’s my encrusting monti from last week and then today.

Here’s the monti cap in question too

And here’s my Walt Disney and shortcake acro still doing great and growing.

Full tank shot

 

[Nick Steele]

Not much has changed the past week. Montis still aren’t doing well and are looking really bad pics below. Haven’t seen any nudis or anything so I’m still at a loss to what is up. All other corals are looking awesome so if I lose these montis I’ll open up some room for more acros.

I did happen to see that my breeding mysis population is still around even after doing a complete rip clean. Looked in at night and they were everywhere I siphoned a few out and looked under my scope to confirm it was mysis.

I did get around to fragging my zoas and am trying to sell them here before taking them to my lfs for credit.

Thought I was going to add sand to the tank this weekend but I have to pick up an extra shift at work so I won’t have time and will do it next weekend.

Struggling montis

Walt Disney and Strawberry short

pink caddy starting to get better coloring (always have some PE)

Frags of zoas I made

 

[PR_nano]

Hey Nick could the Monti bleach be too much light or them getting stung by other corals. Maybe move them to less light and further away from other corals if you can.

 

[Nick Steele]

Hey Nick could the Monti bleach be too much light or them getting stung by other corals. Maybe move them to less light and further away from other corals if you can.

Haven’t changed any lighting/flow in the tank for many months.

The monti cap is far away from all corals and has been mounted for a few months in the same spot with the same light intensity etc and I was getting good growth before this started.

The encrusting monti might be due to the splatter hammer I mounted a few weeks ago but it didn’t start to recede from the edge closest to the hammer it started in the middle and has spread around. Plus have never seen any sweepers from any of my euphyllia ever.

I’ll try and move the encrusting monti to lower light and away from hammers tonight I haven’t thought to try that yet. As for the cap it’s staying and if it dies it dies.

Thanks for the help!

 

[Nick Steele]

Everything is doing decent. Ran some test and I’m not too happy about the results.

Alk 9.2,9.3 (2 Hanna test 9.2 salifert tested 9.3)
Calc 430
Mag 1350
Phos 0
Nitrate 2-5 (salifert hard to read)

Alk is high and I’m not sure why. I haven’t really tested alk for a two weeks but I was running steady at 8.3-8.5 before. Also phosphate has disappeared again and no clue as to why. I overfeed (half a cube of frozen and dose redsea AB+ daily) and started skipping water changes once a week but I’m thinking I’m going to go back to weekly changes again.

I am toying with the idea of adding another fish or two to the system to help increase phosphate and nitrates. Not quite sure what but maybe a possum wrasse and some more sexy shrimp should do.


Montis are still effected and it looks like maybe my pink caddy is starting to take a hit too I’m keeping a close eye on this one as I’m really like the coral.

All the LPS and soft corals are doing great though so I’ll just keep a close eye on everything. Will be doing a water change on Thursday night to try and lower my alk a little.

Also I finally got around to buying a frag rack so I can make zoa frags to sell as they grow.