Nuvo 20 SPS Dominated Nano Reef Tank - My First Attempt at Reefing

[sotoreef]

Hi reef2reef,

This build thread dedicated to my future self (Yeah look back at all the mistakes you made ya fool ), my supportive wife, family, friends, and everyone in r2r who following along.

This is my first attempt at reefing, recording all the ups and downs till God knows when. Hopefully I am committed enough to update the thread weekly.

Intro​

I am from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A third world country in Southeast Asia. I love the reef/saltwater aquarium. Like most people, I fell in love with this hobby after watching the symbiosis between clownfish and anemone at my LFS display tank. The view give me a piece of mind and I can watch it for hours! This is how I get into the hobby. Hoping everyone here kind enough to guide me in this hobby.

After longtime lurking in r2r, reading tons of articles online, and watching lots of YouTube videos, here comes...

The Build Plan​

I plan to minimize the cost as much as I can by buying used equipment.

Display: IM Nuvo 20 (23.62" L x 15" W x 13" H) - Used. Got it for fraction of the price
Cabinet: Custom made
Water: RODI water - 90 cents (MYR) per liter. So expensive!
Rock: Dry Rock 5kg (11 pounds) from nearest LFS
Sand: Caribsea Special Grade
Lighting: China LED A7 (90W)
Heater: None
Chiller: Hailea HS-28A - Used. Still Expensive
Skimmer: None. Too expensive for now. Let the future me figure out.
Filtration: Media: Socks, Floss, Carbon, Purigen (Maybe?), Chaeto (Maybe?)
Dosing: All For Reef if needed
Top Off: Auto Aqua ATO
Salt: Aquaforest Reef Salt

Stocking Plan​

I want fast growing corals. My Plan is to stock the tank with lots of easy SPS, few LPS, and lot of Zoanthids. Will strikethrough the livestock once I have them in my tank later.

SPS Plan:
Birdnest - Radioactive, Pink
Digitata - Forest Fire, Green
Monticap - Green, Orange, Purple, Chili Pepper, Sunburst
Encrusting Monti - So many choices!
Stylophora - Purple
Poccilopora - Any colour
Acropora

LPS/Softes Plan:
Blasto
Acans
Mushroom
Zoas

Fish Plan:
Watchman Goby
Pistol Shrimp
Clownfish
Firefish/Wrasse

Inverts Plan:
Electric Blue Hermit Crab
Trochus Snail
Clam - must have

Current Livestocks:

Forest Fire Digitata
Green Monticap
Chili Pepper Monticap
Red Monticap
Purple Monticap
Pink Birdnest
Bali Shortcake Acro

2x Electric blue hermit crab


Full Tank Shots:

31-Jan-2022

 

[sotoreef]

Saved for coral growth progression. Hopefully to update monthly later on summarizing the coral growth photo here.

Forest Fire Digitata:

31-Jan-2022:

Pink Birdnest

31-Jan-2022:

Green Monticap

31-Jan-2022:

Chili Pepper Monticap

31-Jan-2022:

Red Monticap

31-Jan-2022

Bali Shortcake Acro

31-Jan-2022

 

[sotoreef]

Saved for coral growth progression. Hopefully to update monthly later on summarizing the coral growth photo here.

 

[sotoreef]

Last weekend I made a trip to nearest LFS, 30km from my house to buy some rocks. Decided to buy more rocks which add up to 5kg (11 pounds), more than I would need for my 20 gallon tank. More rocks mean more ideas of rockscaping!

The rocks actually sit inside the LFS big sump tank, so I assume it is live rock. Here's the pic of the rocks I bought.

 

[sotoreef]

Currently waiting for my tank to arrive by delivery. I found the seller online on Facebook. He is letting go a used Nuvo 20 for a fraction of the price. He used it only for 6 months and decided to upgrade. Good deal since it is in fairly new condition. Should arrived by this weekend.

In the meantime, my cabinet has arrived few days ago. It is premade by freshwater vendor near me so the cabinet designed for freshwater tank in mind. Since I do not have sump tank, it should be okay. Looks real sleek!

 

[sotoreef]

Made some scape tonight. Pretty happy with the overall outlook.

 

[sotoreef]

Tank finally arrived last weekend. So happy with the condition of the tank even though it is used. Can see the previous owner made an effort cleaning it thoroughly. Looks new to me!

Trial fit the scape I made in the tank. Looks better when placed inside the tank

 

[sotoreef]

After surveyed all the lighting options out there, I have decided to order china LED due to my tight budget. The LED is a Kessil A360X copy with the price of half the AI prime 16 HD / Ocean Revive cost. The seller said it is produced by the same company, only different is the brand name. We'll see the quality once the item arrived. It should take around 2 weeks to deliver from China to Malaysia.

I choose this LED because I like the looks of the tank with Kessil from watching BRS Lighting Showdown videos. Hopefully, this LED have the same shimmer quality as Kessil. Since it is 90W, the par should be enough for my easy SPS tank. Might need to supplement with led bars in the future though.

 

[sotoreef]

Most expensive equipment currently for my tank is the chiller. Managed to install the chiller and now the back chamber have 2 pumps. 1 dedicated for chiller and the other is for the return flow. Currently keeping the water temperature at 26 C.

It is officially up and running now!

I use microbacter quickcycle together with microbacter start xlm to get the cycling process started.

 

[AnotherReefHobbyist]

Tank looks good! I am curious to see how the lights work out, as I looked into something similar a while ago but decided it was to risky.

Following along!

 

[sotoreef]

Tank looks good! I am curious to see how the lights work out, as I looked into something similar a while ago but decided it was to risky.

Following along!

Definitely will write a short review for the lights once arrived! Thanks for following along

 

[Nebunu]

Following bro. Looks good.

 

[sotoreef]

Following bro. Looks good.

Thanks for following

 

[sotoreef]

The lights already arrived in Malaysia. Faster than I expected. Will arrive at my door in next 2-3 days I believed.

Meanwhile, I have placed online orders for some coral since some of them are currently on discount for CNY (Chinese New Year). I know its quite early since the tank is still cycling. However, I already notified the seller to ship the corals at certain date. By the time the corals arrived, the tank should already completed cycle.

Corals that I ordered:
Bali Shortcake
Pink Birdnest
Forest Fire Monti
Purple Monticap
Green Monticap
Orange Monticap
Chili Pepper Monticap

I have no intention on buying the Bali SC frag in the first place, but the seller suggested to me and said it is a very easy and hardy acro. And since I bought 6 corals, the seller gave huge discount on the Bali SC and ask me to try . Well, cannot say no to that haha.

 

[CrimsonTide]

Did your lights arrive yet? How's the cycle going?

 

[sotoreef]

The light finally arrived. I spent some hours already on the lights and made some personal rating. Here's my take on it:

TLDR:
Pros: Build quality, LED, Shimmer
Cons: Control
Worth the money: Yes
Recommend others to buy: No.

1. Out of the Box:
- LED
- Power cable with adapter
- Manual
- Mounting Arm (come separately)

2. Build Quality (9/10)
The appearance is identical to Kessil A360X. I am impressed! It has some weight and feels very solid in my hand. Excellent surface finish. Knob can be smoothly turned. Fan is working as intended. Not even one defect I can find. Hardware wise, it is exactly the same as Kessil A360X. The only difference is that Kessil slap some branding on this thing.

3. The LED (8/10)
The number of LED is exactly the same as Kessil. It has the same dense matrix array of LED. The ratio of LED colour also almost if not exactly the same. Not sure if the LED has the same quality as Kessil though.

4. Shimmer (8/10)
The shimmer is awesome. The colour blending is very nice. No disco ball effect at all. However there is some dome reflection on the wall, which the individual colour can be seen. Picture below does not do any justice to this light. My camera is a potato. I try to take better photo next time on the shimmer.

5. Control (3/10)
Honestly, the control is so bad. Period. This is where I think Kessil worth all the money. The Kessil logic make sure the colour is blend properly no matter how what settings. However, for this LED, the 'colour' knob only let me choose LED colour, not blend them all together. The knob is basically unusable.

However, the unit came with in-built WiFi. The software can be downloaded from app store. The cons is, the app is mainly in Chinese! All the menu, notification, setting, etc. are in Chinese. Thank god for google photo translate. It is difficult to connect the LED with phone app at first and very difficult to maneuver the app. However, once I spend number of hours with this app, I finally able to set the LED the way I want it to work. Unless you able to read Chinese, trust me it is a nightmare to configure this LED settings.

6. Mounting (9/10)
There are 3 options of mounting, and the price differs for all three.

1. Kessil type mounting arm
2. AI type mounting arm
3. Gooseneck type mounting arm

I went for option 2 since I want a rigid mounting, and the price is much cheaper than mounting option 1. Option 1 is exactly the same look as the original Kessil mounting arm. People can actually save a lot of money buying the A360X with Chinese mounting instead of Kessil original mounting arm.

Here's the picture of option 2 mounting arm. Look very sleek imho:

7. Conclusion
Overall, for what its worth, I think this is a decent LED. You get what you pay for. Honestly, I do not recommend others to buy this, better save some cash and buy AI prime. Or if you have some money, go for the real Kessil.

What do you think of this light?

 

[AnotherReefHobbyist]

The light finally arrived. I spent some hours already on the lights and made some personal rating. Here's my take on it:

TLDR:
Pros: Build quality, LED, Shimmer
Cons: Control
Worth the money: Yes
Recommend others to buy: No.

1. Out of the Box:
- LED
- Power cable with adapter
- Manual
- Mounting Arm (come separately)

2. Build Quality (9/10)
The appearance is identical to Kessil A360X. I am impressed! It has some weight and feels very solid in my hand. Excellent surface finish. Knob can be smoothly turned. Fan is working as intended. Not even one defect I can find. Hardware wise, it is exactly the same as Kessil A360X. The only difference is that Kessil slap some branding on this thing.

3. The LED (8/10)
The number of LED is exactly the same as Kessil. It has the same dense matrix array of LED. The ratio of LED colour also almost if not exactly the same. Not sure if the LED has the same quality as Kessil though.

4. Shimmer (8/10)
The shimmer is awesome. The colour blending is very nice. No disco ball effect at all. However there is some dome reflection on the wall, which the individual colour can be seen. Picture below does not do any justice to this light. My camera is a potato. I try to take better photo next time on the shimmer.

5. Control (3/10)
Honestly, the control is so bad. Period. This is where I think Kessil worth all the money. The Kessil logic make sure the colour is blend properly no matter how what settings. However, for this LED, the 'colour' knob only let me choose LED colour, not blend them all together. The knob is basically unusable.

However, the unit came with in-built WiFi. The software can be downloaded from app store. The cons is, the app is mainly in Chinese! All the menu, notification, setting, etc. are in Chinese. Thank god for google photo translate. It is difficult to connect the LED with phone app at first and very difficult to maneuver the app. However, once I spend number of hours with this app, I finally able to set the LED the way I want it to work. Unless you able to read Chinese, trust me it is a nightmare to configure this LED settings.

6. Mounting (9/10)
There are 3 options of mounting, and the price differs for all three.

1. Kessil type mounting arm
2. AI type mounting arm
3. Gooseneck type mounting arm

I went for option 2 since I want a rigid mounting, and the price is much cheaper than mounting option 1. Option 1 is exactly the same look as the original Kessil mounting arm. People can actually save a lot of money buying the A360X with Chinese mounting instead of Kessil original mounting arm.

Here's the picture of option 2 mounting arm. Look very sleek imho:

7. Conclusion
Overall, for what its worth, I think this is a decent LED. You get what you pay for. Honestly, I do not recommend others to buy this, better save some cash and buy AI prime. Or if you have some money, go for the real Kessil.

What do you think of this light?

Wow! Thanks for the review. It actually arrived and works, so that seems like a win in my mind!

can’t wait to see the tank progression continue!

 

[griffinsreef]

I’ll be following this! Cant wait to see the progress!

 

[sotoreef]

Wow! Thanks for the review. It actually arrived and works, so that seems like a win in my mind!

can’t wait to see the tank progression continue!

Thank god it works. So no complain on that. The way I see it, I just want to set it once and forget about it Hope the LED last for some time.

 

[sotoreef]

Update from yesterday post, a better shimmer photos and videos of the LED