Nick’s 20G Nuvo Fusion

[Nick Steele]

Still dealing with issues with my sps corals while all my lps and softies are going great.

Haven’t found out what caused my alk to spike but I suspect I made a batch of new saltwater at a little higher salinity then usual since the tank was at 1.027. I did a water change with new saltwater at 8dkh and am hoping it will help resolve my issue. I also started dosing neophos and neonitro to help raise my nutrients again.

 

[Nick Steele]

I have absolutely no clue as to what’s going on with my tank. Alk is slowly rising over the course of the week (start at 8.3 and ends around 9 before water change) and most acros don’t seem to like it at all. The pink lemonade and Walt Disney still don’t seem effected. Pink caddy seems to have stalled with the stn. The monti cap and encrusting monti seem to have stalled as well but not too sure on these. The SSC doesn’t look good at all with bad color and losing tissue.

Full tank shot (just fed ab+ that’s the yellow tint)

Struggling sps

 

[PR_nano]

Sorry to hear about the issue. Have you consider or ran Alk test on freshly mixed water?

 

[Nick Steele]

Sorry to hear about the issue. Have you consider or ran Alk test on freshly mixed water?

One of the first things I did. 8.3 alk new water tank the day is 8.3 then slowly increase throughout the week so I’m at a loss and just going to let it run it’s course and if I lose some sps so be it I’ll make it a more lps dominated tank then.

 

[Nick Steele]

Still having issues with my sps. I did dip two of the corals that aren’t completely glued down and not much came off of them but something was seen. I seen what looked like a tiny white bug that crawled around the skin of my pink caddy. It didn’t seem to be affected by the revive dip and I’m looking at trying to get my hand on inceptor to do a full tank treatment as I’ve researched and that seems to be the only thing to help.

So far still only the pink caddy, green slimer, starburst cap and Strawberry shortcake are going downhill. The sunset monti that was the first coral to look bad is bouncing back now so maybe they just moved on. I’m slightly debating with myself about letting the sps die or overcome the bugs and just run lps/softy until I upgrade next summer.

I was just hitting cruise control with this tank and then this. Slightly discouraged now and might just let the tank be for the next year and not add anymore sps.

Everything else is doing great and might just use it as a growout tank for the upgrade next year!

 

[Nick Steele]

Little update

Sps are still doing pretty bad. Noticing tiny white bugs going in and out of polyps on my pink caddy, green slimer and SSC. I have inceptor on its way and I will treat the tank when it comes in. Walt Disney/pink lemonade and monti spongodes are still unaffected. While the encrusting monti that took the hit first is bouncing back from looking sad.

Lps are all doing good. Acans are growing new heads all euphyllia are in the process splitting so not as inflated as usual but still healthy. Nutrients are finally getting to where I want them at 5ppm nitrates and .06ppm phosphate (might still go a little higher).

 

[Nick Steele]

Well today marks the first treatment with interceptor for white bugs on my tank. Sps will hopefully bounce back now!

I completely lost my green slimer frag and my SSC only has like 3-5 polyps left so we’ll see if that can come back. My starburst monti also has very little flesh left. Pink caddy is basically back to the frag I bought it as and I lost all the encrusting it has done. The sunburst monti where this all started is actually back to normal almost no lost flesh and is coloring back up. The Walt Disney and pink lemonade still not affected at all.

All lps looks great and are growing and most softies are looking good as well with the exception of my scrambled egg zoas.

Overall I’m happy with the tank and don’t plan to add much more over the next year as we will be moving and I’ll get the chance to upgrade to a 100g+ tank then!

Sps in trouble (yes I know the cyano isn’t good. If they live I’ll be chopping them up to get most of the skeleton off of them)

This guy has made a 180 and looks nice again

unaffected Walt Disney

Full tank shot left side looks meh while right sides looking good

 

[Nick Steele]

Treatment number 2 finished

I lost the SCC and green slimer frag. The pink caddy seems to have stoped its stn and hopefully will start to regrow soon. Starburst monti looks likes it’s growing some flesh again so that’s good although it has a long road to recovery.

Everything else is doing good. I added a sicce 1.5 return pump and rfg (removed a powerhead) to the tank and this is giving much better flow and less dead spots imo although it seems to heat up the tank quite a bit. Temp runs 81-82 when the house is empty and ac is at 76 and 79-80 when we are home and ac is at 72. Hopefully this isn’t an issue but I will keep a close eye on it and will check temps twice daily for awhile.

Coral wise most things are happy. Scrambled egg zoas are looking a little meh lately. Both plate corals are also having a tough time dealing with the new flow. Trachy is nice and huge, acans growing new heads, blastos starting to get bigger polyps which I was hoping for and all euphyllia looking wonderful! My pink hammer has finally finished splitting and now has two heads (took long enough).

Anyways here’s some pictures! And yes I have a slight cyano issue that is being worked on also.

Loving this Acan (10heads now)

The euphyllia garden

Walt Disney

Full tank shot (trachy gets pushed around by the clowns daily)

 

[Nick Steele]

Finished my 3rd and final treatment and so far I haven’t seen any more bugs. The pink caddy is still receding painfully slow but I’m curious if it’s from the stress of the bugs from before. Tomorrow I’m going to remove and dip the pink caddy and then cut it at the base and remount the frag to the rock and see how it acts.

I also will be mounting all frags with epoxy and super glue in anticipation of adding a very small tuxedo urchin soon. Also added a digi from my lfs for $10 that I had to try to test out.

I also added 5 bumble bee snails to try and help out with my vermetid snail issue. Along with only feeding twice a week for now. Upon adding the bumblebee snails most moved to a dark shaded spot of my rock but one did go right up to a vermetid snail tube and stuck its probosic down into it so I’m hopeful!

I also ordered a black widow baby acro and blow pop cyphastrea from WWC due to be delivered on the 14th of this month.

Overall I’m hoping the tank is much more hands off over the next year and I don’t have any more issues and can just let everything grow in.

Stock images of WWC frags ill

The new digi (not fully acclimated yet)

Full tank shot.

 

[Nick Steele]

Just a quick update

Still dealing with cyano and some gha but cleanup crew is doing wonders and slowly cleaning the tank up nicely. I think not feeding so much is helping the cyano as it isn’t coming back as strong this week.

The bumblebee snails seem to be eating away my vermentid snails which is wonderful!

All corals are doing good. I haven’t gotten around to clipping the pink caddy yet but will soon. I epoxied my Walt Disney down and might have been a little rough with it and had some die off of flesh but polyps are still out and looks to be recovering nicely hopefully it’s easier for it to encrust my rock work now.

Picture of a bumblebee doing what it’s supposed to!

Full tank shot during my blue period

 

[Nick Steele]

Tanks been doing somewhat good.

Alk still rises between water changes and I’m debating if doing water changes twice a week (2-3 gal each) to help alleviate it somewhat. Also ph seems to have dropped and is now 7.8 while it’s been a constant 8.1 the last few months.

Pink caddy and my two montis don’t seem to be appreciating the alk swings and are in decline again (no bugs this time at least!). The pink lemonade is hanging in there like it always has and zero growth or decline. The Walt Disney is actually doing really good. The spots where it lost color due to me epoxying it to the rock has already regained color and is growing again (the one sps doing good). All lps are doing great as my pink hammer is now 3 heads and frogspawn is 7+ heads octospawn is still just 2 heads but is definitely much bigger and hoping it will split soon. Acans are doing well and slowly growing new heads (these seem to lay dormant for me for a few months then pop out a few heads then go back dormant)

I also received my black widow and blow pop cyphastrea. The black widow didn’t look so good when I received it (missing flesh) but it hasn’t lost any more flesh and has grown slightly in the two weeks I’ve had it and polyps are out. The cyphastrea on the other hand looked amazing when I first got it and has been on the decline since. I’m trying to nurse it back in very low light to see if that was the issue. I’ve never had good luck with cyphastrea and I don’t know why but suspect too much lighting.

Black widow with flasglight (day I got vs last night)

Black widow under blues (can see cyphastrea in lower left)

Walt Disney under blues and full spectrum

Full tank shots (love the lps side not so much the sps)

 

[Nick Steele]

Quick update

Tanks doing pretty good. Cyano is still lingering around the middle of the tank and I have to work on upping the flow in this area somehow. Most all corals are doin well but some are having issues. My two plates are acting weird and the orange plate is losing tissue (not a huge worry as I pray if they die they reproduce). My pink caddy is fading away somewhat slowly. I tried to frag it and it worked for a day then right back to stn so now I’m chalking sps to a loss on this tank and will probably not add anymore until I move next year. All other lps are doing wonderful and growing nicely. Also the black widow baby is slowly regrowing tissue that was lost during shipment (2-5 branches are now complete

Also want to report that while I still have vermetid snails they are definitely in decline as I’m seen less and less mucus webs while feeding. Bumblebee snails seem to be working nicely and am seeing one or two on a vermetid snail tube each night.

Sorry for the dirty glass

 

[boomeraudio]

Quick update

Tanks doing pretty good. Cyano is still lingering around the middle of the tank and I have to work on upping the flow in this area somehow. Most all corals are doin well but some are having issues. My two plates are acting weird and the orange plate is losing tissue (not a huge worry as I pray if they die they reproduce). My pink caddy is fading away somewhat slowly. I tried to frag it and it worked for a day then right back to stn so now I’m chalking sps to a loss on this tank and will probably not add anymore until I move next year. All other lps are doing wonderful and growing nicely. Also the black widow baby is slowly regrowing tissue that was lost during shipment (2-5 branches are now complete

Also want to report that while I still have vermetid snails they are definitely in decline as I’m seen less and less mucus webs while feeding. Bumblebee snails seem to be working nicely and am seeing one or two on a vermetid snail tube each night.

Sorry for the dirty glass

You running a doser? I’ve heard people have insane success with Aquaforest 1.2 & 3.

 

[Nick Steele]

You running a doser? I’ve heard people have insane success with Aquaforest 1.2 & 3.

No doser or additives on this tank at all. Just weekly/biweekly water changes and I can keep somewhat stable parameters (sometimes alk will rise).

 

[boomeraudio]

No doser or additives on this tank at all. Just weekly/biweekly water changes and I can keep somewhat stable parameters (sometimes alk will rise).

Gotcha. Might speed up overall growth if that’s what you’re looking for. Tank is looking awesome!

 

[Nick Steele]

Gotcha. Might speed up overall growth if that’s what you’re looking for. Tank is looking awesome!

Thanks man!

 

[Nick Steele]

Some sad news for the tank

All my sps are going downhill now and everything now has stn and I’m going to try and see if any lfs want them tomorrow.

I’m going to transition this tank to lps dominate tank within the next few weeks. It won’t see any more sps additions until after the move next year. Going to let me get into some torches before the move.

In preparation for an lps dominated tank I lowered both lights to 70% intensity. This seemed to tick off my trachy and it was upset for at least two weeks by is slowly opening back up now. I also added the second powerhead back into the tank to help with dead spots.

Full tank shot

Euphyllia are all doing well at least.

 

[PR_nano]

Sorry to hear about the SPS issue. I'm sure the tank will look great with more LPS. The ones in your tank have done really good and grow nicely. Have you thought about doing IPC water test to try and see if you could figure out the SPS. I remember you mentioned the ALK raise a few times which was weird since you weren't dosing. Might have been related to the swings or maybe there something else going in the water chemistry.

 

[Nick Steele]

Sorry to hear about the SPS issue. I'm sure the tank will look great with more LPS. The ones in your tank have done really good and grow nicely. Have you thought about doing IPC water test to try and see if you could figure out the SPS. I remember you mentioned the ALK raise a few times which was weird since you weren't dosing. Might have been related to the swings or maybe there something else going in the water chemistry.

Thanks I did send out an icp test awhile ago when the issue started and there was nothing off at all. I also around the same time did stop using redsea AB+ and just started to use it again to see if that helps.

More sad news today I came home from the woods to find m orange plate completely dead. Yesterday it was about 60% flesh and then today probably 1-2%. The tailspot and the female clown where both picking on the dead plate tonight so I’m not sure what happened here. Hopefully the stories I hear about them popping out babies in a few months come true. I’m going to stick the skeleton into a med flow spot to help keep detritus off of it and go from there.

Once opening hunting weekend is over with I plan to add sand back into the tank along with a torch or some other euphyllia

 

[Nick Steele]

So I believe I might have found out the issue with my tank and I feel like a complete idiot. So while doing tank maintenance I looked in the rear chamber and the water level was above the light mount completely submerged. I took both lights off to clean them and low and behold there is a pad to protect the tank and it moved some and exposed some sort of sticky material to tank water. I have since raised the mounts to the very top of the tank so that they won’t become exposed to water ever again.

Hopefully this along with water changes and running some carbon will help to bring the tank back to life (very upset I didn’t find this out sooner).

On to other news!

It’s finally cold down here in sunny Florida so windows will be opened as long as it isn’t raining and we are home! This will help being my pH up.

This is the part that is outside the tank but you can see where it stuck in place and moved the protection p

Here you can see the water line about 1/3 of the way up the bracket.

This is how I have them mounted now to keep water off of them. Not sure if this will cause issues with the lights though (will email AI and also make a thread asking).

Time to head back into the woods for hunting season now!