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Innovative Marine Nuvo Int 200 (1 Viewer)

I’m not sure if this is what you were thinking, but if you’re thinking of setting up a simple AIO to grow them out in the back room, I have 2x BioCube 14s that I would part with for a reasonable price. Let me know.
I am trying to stay away from the AIO. I would like to tie into/add to my total system. Not sure if I will ever see benefit from it but it keeps down on my maintenance.
 
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Not that this has anything to do with my saltwater tank, but this is my 75 gallon freshwater. It is about 4 years old at this point. Just use tap water and besides feeding the fish it requires very little maintenance. Thought I would share anyway.
 
Any interest in a hang on the back refugium to grow the mangroves in?


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Not sure they made it. All the leaves died off. Still looking at doing another add on refugium tank. Just have not had time to do it yet.
 
Not sure how many people out there use the Reefmat, but I was wondering how much daily usage people are seeing. I replaced my original roll after 6 or 8 weeks. Think I averaged about 28 inches a day. With second roll I am only averaging about 11 inches a day and I have not changed anything and water clarity seems about the same. Been that way for about 4 weeks now. If anything I would have expected it to use more since I have added a few fish.

So the question is, if you use one, what is your average and is it pretty constant from roll to roll?
 
I don’t have a reef mat but do have an AFR from another brand. How much used depends on if I leave the bypass hole open a bit or not. With it fully closed the roll lasts a little over a months. With it open a bit a get almost double the time.

Tldr I think 6-8 weeks is normal. I don’t know how your sump is fully setup but there may be other factors impacting mat use (feeding more/less, different food, less/more water changes, etc).
 
I don’t have a reef mat but do have an AFR from another brand. How much used depends on if I leave the bypass hole open a bit or not. With it fully closed the roll lasts a little over a months. With it open a bit a get almost double the time.

Tldr I think 6-8 weeks is normal. I don’t know how your sump is fully setup but there may be other factors impacting mat use (feeding more/less, different food, less/more water changes, etc).
My understanding is everything is running the same as it did before. Sump picture on first page of thread is how it remains today. Pretty basic, main return to reefmat. That chamber has some bio balls and some live rock. Second chamber has skimmer. Third is return.

Feeding is unchanged, maybe more frequently even. Doing daily water changes with the Dos.

Only thing that happened between rolls was I drained the first chamber of the sump to really clean it. Had a bunch of gunk built up since some of the live rock wad from previous tank. I am also assuming I installed the roll correctly. It keeps advancing without issue.

If my average stays the same (~11 in/day) this roll will last me almost 4 months. Maybe I need to host a meet and everyone can point the errors of my ways. :)
 
Feeding Noodle. Not the best quality but got the size down enough to upload it!
 

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So I bought this 40 gallon acrylic cube awhile back. Been waiting til it was finally nice enough to make a sturdy stand for it in the garage. I was planning on running a pump from my sump and letting the overflow drop back down into the sump. This is quite a bit bigger tank than I was expecting but it has in internal overflow and was only about $120 used. I just need to run the plumbing for it. Planning on doing a separate pump from my main return.

I figured I would post this and see if anyone might have any concerns or suggestions before I do this. I was planning on using it as a refugium. I have a bunch of left over rock that I was also thinking of throwing in the bottom.
 
This is awesome! I’m just about to pull the trigger on an IM ext 150, upgrading from Red Sea 350. Would you still recommend? Does the lip make it hard to clean the glass since it seems you have you reach around it?
 
This is awesome! I’m just about to pull the trigger on an IM ext 150, upgrading from Red Sea 350. Would you still recommend? Does the lip make it hard to clean the glass since it seems you have you reach around it?
My experience is limited so take that into consideration. I went from a Biocube 32 to the Rea Sea 250 to this one. So far, I am extremely satisfied with my purchase. The stand is nice however something I had not expected was a slight wobble when trying to clean the ends of the tank. I wasn't sure if it was just me or that it is on carpet, but I remember seeing @H2OHOH mention something similar on the IM170. Not overly concerning, I just was expecting the aluminum stand to be rock solid.

I think the lip / euro brace is great. I bought a Flipper Max Float to clean the glass. I do not splash water over the sides while cleaning. It does show condensation though. I generally do not reach my hands in the tank so it not an issue for me. I have automatic water changes set up so I don't even stick a syphon in, but I can't imagine it would be difficult. The major issue I had with the euro brace is mounting my lights. The int's have a small section where the overflow is but the ext will have the euro brace all the way around. Expect to hang lights or get creative.

PM me is you want to ask any specific questions if you don't want to post them here. I am more than happy to go into detail.
 
I love the euro brace

80% of the time clean glass with magnet without scrapper blade. 15% use magnet with blade and 5% use hand scrapper.

I like the euro to keep water in when using magnet. I am aggressive with magnet movement, so euro is awesome
 
Thanks for the perspective. The splash prevention feature seems nice for that. I tend not to use the scraper on the magnet so I just manually scrape a bit more than most. Interesting about the stand. Mine would also be on carpet, I suppose one could brace it into the wall with an anchor or something if they were bothered by it. I love the dimensions and the quality from what I’ve seen. Also love the versatility for a diy sump. For $2G right now I don’t see anyone competing with that value.
 
So I finally bought everything I need to plumb in the refugium tank. I was curious if people had a strong suggestion on where to plumb it in. I am pretty sure I have room to do either option in regard to pump placement. At some point I plan on adding a UV sterilizer on the 'In' line of either option. The pump I am planning on using is either a varios 2 or varios 4. It has two return line options though I am currently only planning on using one with 1/2" nylon braided hose. If I need more flow in the future, I can make the return line bigger and 'T' to both the return lines. The return lines plumb from the top so this is actually really easy. There is an additional E-drain that will be plumbed with refugium drain but I did not draw that in. Both drains are 3/4" nylon braided hose.

I might hard plumb this in the future, but the routing is complicated since it is behind the wall of the main display tank.

refug opt a.jpg
I was originally planning on doing option A. There is defiantly more room in the main return section to add a pump. This would be pretty similar to the Triton method however obviously all the water would not flow through the refugium tank. The benefit of this way is that the refugium would get more nutrients. I am a little nervous that the ReefMat does too good of a job at removing waste for the refugium to thrive. Also not sure if the skimmer removes anything I want to keep. I want to keep the refugium return going back to the same section it came from.

refug opt b.jpg

After seeing @MNReefster sump design for his soon to be IM150, I was wondering if option B would be better. I have seen this design style before, so I know people do this as well. I debated just adding a 'T' to my main return, but I would rather have individual control. I guess I just don't know if there is an advantage of option B over option A.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 
The only thing I’m aware that my suggested configuration has is the ability of the refugium to hold more volume when it’s not in the middle with a higher wall. That wouldn’t apply for you though since it is separate. But now you’ve got me thinking about my setup. Why not separate them? That makes the most sense, especially with the extra room available in the stand I would have. If you had plenty of flow you can use a T and a gate valve to calibrate flow.
 
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I do mine like A with a dedicated pump. Either way I think is fine. I did mine the way I did because I had more room for additional pump…not to much behind my reasoning
 
I already opened my big mouth to comment on something else today so, I'll comment here, too 😏. I run my chaeto chamber similar to your 'option A', with similar reasoning as yours. I don't consider doing 'option B'. When I had no choice when I had my 55 gallon tank set up, it was set up similar to 'option B'. The problem with that was I would find tiny pieces of chaeto here and there being sucked into the tank. Maybe your setup is different and you might be able to avoid that isssue, but at least that was what I experienced. So, I'd prefer to have the water from the chaeto chamber filtered out through some mediums first before being returned to the main tank.
 
I will be doing option A. I have more room for the pump in that section. I have a little concern of my return line causing micro bubbles that get pushed into my display. I just turned my skimmer on after treating my tank. Skimmer went crazy and bubble made their way through the two baffles with the screen and shot into my display. I just shut it back off until I can raise it. Figured a couple more days of AWC will help dilute the treatment. FYI everything survived!

I watched some videos and read some things on UV lights and decided I wanted to go with a 3/4" line from the pump. I also ended up buying the VarioS-4 to give myself more flow options. I won't be adding a UV right now as I have just spent enough on this tiny addition, and just planning ahead. This also forced me to buy all the fittings to route in the second return line of the tank. So now I will be doing 3/4" line to a 1/2"x1/2"x3/4" T fitting with a foot or so 1/2" tubing to each return. The drain and E-drain will remain 3/4". Should go in rather quickly once everything shows up.
I already opened my big mouth to comment on something else today so, I'll comment here, too 😏.
Everybody's experiences will differ and the more knowledge that we share together, the more successful we can all be. I won't speak for everyone, but I appreciate and welcome all comments and suggestions. It is the reason I joined the forum!
 

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