Proteus Reef: 10g SPS Nano Tank [As seen on YouTube!]

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discchord

New member
Hello Chicagoland!

I've been on the periphery of the hobby for over a year now. As soon as I stumbled into it I was hooked. The combination of science, art, and living pets inspired me deeply. I instantly went from not even knowing about the hobby to suddenly wanting to know everything! To make sure I didn't jump into anything to hastily I gave myself a solid year to seriously contemplate things and do my homework. I mean seriously doing my research, not just masturbating to coral porn. Members here like [MENTION=189]trackfast[/MENTION] were even kind enough to invite me into their homes to get some real world experience with home systems.

Build a 10g Nano Reef for JUST $275
Then a few months ago I saw a YouTube video from Marine Depot that was something like, "Build a Nano Reef for just $275." They built a bare-bones system with an IM Nuvo 10 that would probably be fine for the easiest softies. I don't care for softies. I know everyone starts with them, but I'm just not even interested in bothering. My favorite corals are Montipora (digitata) and Acropora (vermiculata, tenuis). I like a lot of LPS too. Zoas are the closest thing to soft corals that I have any interest in, but even they would languish under their light.

But this Marine Depot build got me thinking about getting off the fence. I loved the form factor of the Nuvo 10, since that would fit perfectly next to my desk. So let's do it right, and start by adding a zero to the budget.

Build a 10g Nano Reef for JUST $2,750
I despise conspicuous consumption so please do not take me for some rich kid showing off. I'm a grown man who will make rational investments for personal edification. See that shit? I just used "edification" correctly in a sentence. Grown man!

If I want to learn to keep SPS, I need to make the investment in keeping these critters alive and healthy. So forget all that piddly nonsense Marine Depot was trying to sling, here is the package I put together:
View attachment 21733

Hardware
Tank: IM Fusion Nano 10
Lighting: Kessil A80
Skimmer: IM Ghost Skimmer
Return: Sicce Syncra Silent
Main Powerheaad: Aqamai KPS
Controller: Neptune Apex 2016

Hardware Regrets
The IM SpinStream nozzle was hugely unnecessary in this tank with a powerhead. And ****ING LOUD!

Hardware Extravagances
I wrestled for a solid week on whether or not I should get the Apex 2016; or any of the much cheaper options. I think it is over-priced by about $300, and I hate getting bilked. I want to keep this all as stress-free as possible, so I ultimately decided it would be an insurance policy for the tank and a sleep aid for me. The ORP is probably the only thing on here I won't use. I'm comfortable with coding and was instantly coming up with my own schemes in the controller. I also really like the features in the upgraded EB832 powerbar. With such a small water volume I need to know the second something fails. I really want to keep this hobby as stress free as possible.
 
First Month
I'm primarily going to be documenting my experiences on my YouTube channel, but I'll use this thread for supplemental stuff. If you like what you see, please subscribe! I'm nearing 5,000 subs and want to hit that milestone! Let's find out if a newbie can just show up and pull off a SPS Nano Tank if he's done his homework!
 
The Duncan is loving my tank! He's already sprouting 5 new heads!

Quick everybody, do the Duncan Dance!

C0f70o3.gifv


WTF? Why is that not working?

Here is the raw link:
http://i.imgur.com/C0f70o3.gifv
 
Second Month
In August I finally got to add stony corals to my stony coral nano tank!
[video=youtube;MBoew5Fb7Nk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBoew5Fb7Nk[/video]
 
Third Month
Despite having no fish in my fish tank, I had a very eventful September in reefing! This video also includes reviews for the Aqamai KPS powerhead (an affordable programmable powerhead) as well the Seneye Reef ammonia & pH monitor.
[video=youtube;ryhl-u1QpCc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryhl-u1QpCc[/video]


Forth Month
Things are doing great in the tank this month! No coral deaths! I didn't even lose a single Zoa polyp! My parameters are all stabilizing nicely. In this month's video I complete my review for the Seneye Reef Monitor, and talk about how I supplement with Kalkwasser and Vodka.
[video=youtube;x9gmgjWo2gc ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9gmgjWo2gc [/video]


Fifth Month
It's happening! It's all finally coming together for me. I've got the water chemistry stabilized to the point that I think I can start adding Acros to the tank!

[video=youtube;ryhl-u1QpCc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqDzsm3GOQk[/video]
 
So is it going to stay a no fish system? So its gotta be low on nutrients right? Or are you adding some manually? Plus your dosing vodka whats reason for that? Sorry for the questions always like to pick peoples brains and always wondered how people keep some corals in coral only systems. Im usually over stocking fish to keep nutrients in the tank. Anyways like i said just asking questions to get ideas and see if i can out them in my arsenal of tricks to keep the reef growing. Btw nice set up you definitely invested deeply in this hobby .
 
Nice build! Looks like you definitely have done your research and bought some good equipment. Only thing I would echo is please don't mess with carbon dosing unless you absolutely have to. Having some PO4 and NO3 is definitely necessary for overall coral health and you will find that some of the biggest names in SPS like Battlecorals and Jason Fox don't even test or care about theirs. All of the ULNS gibberish that you will find is extremely dangerous because your corals will always be teetering on the edge of death to get maybe 5% better color. I learned this the hard way and destroyed my tank twice trying to achieve the ULNS goal. My best anecdotal advice would be that your Nitrate needs to be at least detectable and PO4 as well. Good luck!
 
How do you like the A80? Been looking at getting one for my nano that I'm doing

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk
 
bryman said:
Nice build! Looks like you definitely have done your research and bought some good equipment. Only thing I would echo is please don't mess with carbon dosing unless you absolutely have to. Having some PO4 and NO3 is definitely necessary for overall coral health and you will find that some of the biggest names in SPS like Battlecorals and Jason Fox don't even test or care about theirs. All of the ULNS gibberish that you will find is extremely dangerous because your corals will always be teetering on the edge of death to get maybe 5% better color. I learned this the hard way and destroyed my tank twice trying to achieve the ULNS goal. My best anecdotal advice would be that your Nitrate needs to be at least detectable and PO4 as well. Good luck!
Click to expand...

I was thinking same thing about the carbon dosing . From what i know it was always a last resort thing to control nutrients but if its only coral shouldn’t be any nutrients if the tank is cycled already. Hence the question about why the dosing vodka.
 
Oh wow, I forgot to update this thread and I missed a lot of comments. I'm sorry about that. Life got busy!

With regards to my carbon dosing, this is a hold over from the way the tank was started. I used the Red Sea method, which naturally gets you on carbon dosing by day 2 with their NoPox. I didn't want to pay for NoPox, so I switched that out for vinegar. The vinegar was pushing my pH below 8, so I switched that out for vodka. The carbon dosing kept my nitrates very low. And because I use kalkwasser my phosphates have never been above 0.05! All of my dosing was managed conveniently through my ATO.

For a few months anyhow... You know how people say vodka is 8x stronger than vinegar for carbon dosing? I think that number may be pretty far off. My guess is it is in the 20-50x range. I suddenly got a massive batch of white slime taking over my back chambers. So much so that the return chamber wasn't getting much of the overflow... causing the ATO to kick in... causing my TANK TO NEARLY FLOOD.

Long story short... this happened twice, I couldn't keep up with the white slime removal and didn't immediately identify that the carbon dosing was the cause of the slime. I lost a couple of corals because the ATO kept kicking in to dump my salinity, while raising my Alk. But the fish survived because I stayed on top of my testing and didn't let any of the levels get dangerously out of balance. I'm now curbing the carbon dosing back to about 1/10th of what I had before and will continue to monitor the back chambers to see if any more white slime shows up. I'm strongly considering dropping the carbon all together, but I really like having a clean display and the low nutrients are providing that.

I missed posting my video from November... I finally got fish!

[video=youtube;EqDzsm3GOQk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqDzsm3GOQk[/video]

And here is my video for January!

The tank has been going for 6 months now, and I managed to keep the fish alive! I talk about my water chemistry woes in this video.
[video=youtube;J0BNVyx0OSU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0BNVyx0OSU[/video]
 
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