Vo's MAX NANO - Sid

phuong.nhat.vo · Feb 12, 2022

Sharing the progress of my little tank and hoping this type of post can help someone out there in some way. It's like my personal reef journal, ramblings and crazy moments, made public to the world. Booo. And then everyone will know the secret to my success or lack of. Enjoy.....

The tank is a Red Sea MAX NANO (purchased and set up on 10-05-2021). It's a 20 gallon AIO (all in one) tank. There is no sump, but I wish it did everyday. I've been tempted to drill for overflow/sump but it is what it is.

It's quite expensive for what it is, since I'm a DIY kind of guy. It's a nice tank. If you're a busy person that doesn't have the time to build a system from the ground up, I would highly recommend this tank. All you need is a heater (I regret saying this, it's not "all you need").

Equipment:
1x Finnex HMH 100 Watt Titanium Heater.
2x Hagger mini wavemaker 1600
2x Jebao SLW-5 wavemaker
2x Jeboa SW-2 wavemaker

One month cycle using20 lbs of CaribSea Arag-Alive Fiji Pink sand and reef saver dry rock. Epoxy and unknown plastic chopsticks to aquascape.

Nothing fancy about this tank. Flow (random and current) is this most important in my opinion.

Daily Manual Dosing:
9ml All-for-reef
1 ml Microbacter7
3ml Red Sea Reef Energy plus AB+

Test kits:
Hanna Calcium
Red Sea Pro Calcium
API Calcium (my choice for ease of use, price, and accuracy)
Hanna Alk
Hanna Phosphate
Salifert Magnesium
Old API Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, PH

Break incase of emergency:
*Dino X - by Fauna Marin
*Chemiclean - Boyd Enterprise
*Revive - by Two Little Fishies
*F - Aptasia, by Frank's Tanks

Fish:
Little neon goby (I think)
Leopard Wrasse (Hardly ever see it, but it's alive and eating something)

Corals:
Mixed reef

Food:
Concoction of blended expired reef food (Zooplankton, dry phyto, fish flakes, rod's reef, LRS), and fresh frozen brine shrimp.

Some photos of the tank and close ups of some corals. Taken on 2-12-2022

phuong.nhat.vo · Feb 14, 2022

Well, guess I don't need the factory skimmer? Or any skimmer period? Was cleaning out the rear chamber and then....why not. Turn the rear into a fuge or usable space for reactors and my UV sterilizer? But right now? Yes.... But what about all the carbon dosing and skimming out excessive bacteria? So what? Inbalance? Rapid increase in "bad" nutrients? But what about the PH and alk drop from decreased oxygen from running the skimmer? Bro! Calm downs. It'll be fine. I've been doing this for a long time. Trust me.

Proceeding to go to Walmart at 9pm to buy supplies...

Looks so weird with all that room.

Maybe light the back and let hair algae start growing? Better back in the rear than the main diplay?

phuong.nhat.vo · Feb 15, 2022

So there's a silly dark transparent smoky black glass pane that separates the rear chamber from the main display. Don't get me wrong, it looks good, if you're not fingering everything like me. I ghetto rigged my LED fill light I use for photography. The light does a good job shinning right through that separator pane. I thought it was opaque black but it's actually transparent smoke black. It's Transparent! Why Jesus why? Why would you alow Red Sea to make "dark" transparent glass????? I'm going to have to block it off with something opaque. I plan to run the lights in the rear chamber at night to help reduce ph swings. Theres no algae "yet", but it'll show up, trust me, it'll be there! In the meantime I can't have light spill into the main display. It's quite bright. Not enough to burn algae though, but enough to bother corals, I think.

I have a few options to cover the light leaking through and into the display. Was going to maybe make a fancy custom laser cut cover with pre-cutouts to fit "perfectly". But ah what the heck, too much work. I have a tank to finish doing maintenance still god d** it.

El cheapo but not so cheapo plastic black folder. It's "opaque" I keep telling myself while standing at the store holding up to the light to check for "opaqueness". Definitely not weird, and definitely opaque.

Turns out the Cricket sheet has tacky adhesive on the green side. Well...what do I know, it looked like a cutting sheet for arts and craft. I don't know what Cricket is or what it does. Glue degradation, leaching death onto my corals? Risk it for the biskets? I don't even like biskets.

Sigh, decisions decisions, I ended up using the black folder. It's a hack job but the deed is done. But is it reef safe? What's the plastic symbol? Nothing...just a made in China sticker. But what kind of plastic is it?? And what purity? How bad can it be? Leaching "all kinds"...of chemicals and killing stuff, possibly... Somebody slap me please.

phuong.nhat.vo · Feb 17, 2022

UV and a diy upflow algae scrubber to try out. No more skimmer. The MarinePure ceramic balls were put in a month ago. Nitrates are undetectable with my cheap test kit.

I currently have no visible algae of any kind after 4x treatments of DinoX (Algaecide). I'm sure they be back eventually. Had zero fatalities from the treatments. Overall, everything was healthy and spreading/encrusting. What I had before worked, so now I'm just trying something else.

Cable routing is a little uninspiring. Just some zip ties, no fancy conduit or ducts.

Algae light is temporary and on battery power. I haven't decided what LED to use for long term algae growth. I do have a few grow lights for plants and might be worth trying as well.

phuong.nhat.vo · Feb 22, 2022

I've replaced the Tupperware scrubber with a slightly better 3D printed version (PETG). I designed it on Solidworks. I put in an intake feature and optimized the flow channel as well as a better air nozzle. The designed air nozzle causes the bubbles to grow larger before separation, pushing more water upwards, requiring a smaller and a more quite air pump. The suction from the bottom intake is significantly better. A few puffs with a turkey stick to see how ditritus flows through the new version, I think it'll grow algae. It's held in place by filter floss and still needs a few iterations.

I was debating on using the bubble splatter guard, and glad I ended up using it. Does a decent job covering the splatter after the bubbles pop.

I'm seeing hair algae start to grow on the mesh already. I'm certain algae growth is a function of flow (nutrient delivery) and lighting. Too much flow and the algae just rips off the mesh, too much light and it burns. The trick is to push for growth until it stops or dies. Don't worry, if it dies, you can dial it back and get growth again. There's an abundance of algae spores everywhere so I would't worry about killing off the precious hair algae when pushing for growth.

phuong.nhat.vo · Feb 23, 2022

Looks like the custom algae turf scrubber is starting to grow nicely. It's been 4 days since installation.

I'm curious if seeding the mesh would yield better results? And by seeding I mean plucking algae and gluing it to the mesh. The only problem is that I don't have any algae in my display. Might be a cool marketing idea for someone interested, to sell pre-algae grown mesh, ready to drop in. The really thick and nasty algae stuff I've seen other successful reefer have.

phuong.nhat.vo · Feb 24, 2022

Not the best slowmo, but enough to demonstrate the bubble growth.

A lot of work just for making bubbles. It's just a nozzle with a throat and expansion area. I'm sure a simple hole would've worked too

phuong.nhat.vo · Mar 1, 2022

Scrubber is growing.

Some gnarly hair algae also growing on the back (display side).

I really want to see where this goes. Will install a second scrubber (10 hr print job). Will scrub off all hair algae in the display and try to force growth in the back. If it gets out of control, I have algaecide ready.

phuong.nhat.vo · Mar 16, 2022

I "had" to put the factory skimmer back. It's really cluttered and I wish everyday I had a sump. Currently feeding twice a day with my sludge concoction and had a gnarly patch of hair algae growing on the back wall. Currently doing a 4 gallon water change every two weeks using redsea coral pro salt. No mechanical filtration and I'm worried Vermetid snails will explode. So far haven't seen too many, and the ones I can see is quickly smashed.

Since I've started using the UV sterilizer, there's no visible signs of Dinos or cyano. Also the glass is much cleaner too.

Also running two custom upflow algae turf scrubbers and cleaning mesh weekly.

The Tupperware style upflow algae scrubbers I've used in the past had lots of bubble splatter. These 3D printed versions have a splatter trap and hardly any bubbles escape.