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IM 20 Nano journey (1 Viewer)

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After many years totally out of the hobby I decided to gently dip my toe into reefing again. I purchased an Innovative Marine 10g AIO and a NanoBox Mini Tide M with the promise to myself to keep it simple. Here is what happened.
 
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Starting with a bunch of dry, leftover parts and pieces including an old profilux controller, dosing pump, a controllable power strip and some old mini pumps.

Before I got down to business however I decided the water supply issue had to be addressed. I have a spectrapure unit I have been using as a household water supply as well as super coffee water. This set up consists of

1 micron preflilter
.5 micron carbon block
.5 micron carbon block
90gpd osmosis membrane

Then things get interesting. After the membrane. I have an auto shut off valve. that valve connects a drinking water tank a mineral infusion block, another straight carbon block, before the water hits the top mounted faucet. It basically cleans the water and then adds minerals for a specific flavor profile. It makes super coffee. But I needed DI 0 TDS water so I was able to plumb in a straight T valve between the osmosis out and the auto valve. This allows me to manually switch flow direction prior to the mineral block and direct flow into a two block DI systems with in / out monitors to provide good, clean 0 TDS reef water. This allows me to draw reef water whenever I need it through a simple shut off valve.
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Profilux Mini WiFi
The Profilux unit I had was a Profilux II+. This unit needed to be upgraded with a pretty expensive and at this point almost obsolete, hard to find, expansion card as well as a separate WiFi card. Apart From those it also needed a new temp probe and PH probe. The cost was paramount to just getting a basic Mini WiFi unit. This is the the latest and greatest and included a new temp probe. It provides for basis parameter monitoring and control via controllable outlets. Some drawbacks are that it is supposed to act like a hotspot to connect to your phone and the GHL app. That means no online monitoring and adjustments. For that you will need to get the actual full Profilux head unit that comes with a cloud server and online access capabilities. I will add a few more picture later tomorrow.

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Profilux Dosing Pump

This slave unit also needed to be updated as it used to be a dual motor setup that was now sadly reduced to 1 working motor head In desperate need of new rubber tubing. I found a 3 head SA unit that came with nib rubber hoses. Either I can use the SA unit as a slave or I can move the heads to the original slave unit to make it a 4 head doser.


Profilux power bar
The power bar offers me controllable outlets so naturally, Even though I currently have nothing control, I wanted to build on that.. I am still unclear if I have to plug things like the dosing pump into controllable outlets as well as the PAB connection (telephone looking plug connection).

Even though I was pretty excited about firing up my profilux and connecting all my things again. I was informed that one of the major differences between the Mini Wifi and the full head unit is the ability to communicate via PAB wich apparently stands for Profilux Aquatic Bus and allows for device communication. My Powerbar is only able to controlled by the full head unit. Took an L on that.
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red lights = no bueno !

12/13/19 Update
i wound up just ordering an additional powerstrip so i can have 4 controllable outlets. let see how that goes..
 
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Nanobox mini tide M
I saw this light around on some forums and was really impressed with the colors
It produced. I found a good deal on a used one and even though the fella who shipped it was not too careful with the packaging resulting in a few nicks and the body color being the least favorite of the many options, it works pretty well and has some cool lighting options via the bluefish app. The light comes with pre loaded lighting cycles for different parts off the world, includes a multitude of lighting customization options but sadly lacks a simple, one click, on off feature which is a little annoying.

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(Yes, that is a Danny Devito Halloween mask under that package)

That’s all I have for now. I will add a few more pics tomorrow sometime.
 
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I did a little more preparation and finally received my Tunze 3152 nano ATO. BCA7FE.thumb.jpeg.c94267651525bfe161ed25fa5fee492a.jpg

Pretty complete and easy to install. I bought some storage containers from Costco and drilled the holes for RO bulk heads and the float valves. I only messed up 2 containers due to impatience and just like when you drill glass, I used too much pressure trying to hurry the drill through. The plastic cracked and I was forced to start over with a new container. I finally managed to get it all done and now I should be able to run my RO line once a week or so to refill the ATO (and make fresh SW too).

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holes had to be cleaned up in order for bulkheads to make a good seal.
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I have to add that I immediately broke the cage tabs for the ATO and had to glue it back onto the magnet. I wonder if I can just buy the little brown plastic cage as a replacement part 🙄

don’t worry.. I am just a little fanatic about cables. That mess will not remain for long. First get everything set up and running, then the cables get routed.
 
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And finally, while I’m waiting on my dosing pump and for everything to continue to cycle, I rescaped a little with some more Branchy pieces..

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Added a nano sized probe holder. There really is very little room in that back chamber. Kinda cool, it has little holders on the ends to hold 1/4 tubing as well
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Even the best laid plans are subject to reality and so it is for me.

I found myself constantly wrestling with the fact i should have bought a 25 lagoon instead of the 10g simply because i cant set up a skimmer since the nanobox light is attached to the back of the tank and is prevents the skimmer from fitting into the perfectly sized compartment. This brings a host of other issues i am grappling with such as where to keep the probes, the heater and ATO float. the first two compartments are steady
level and the third is subject to level fluctuations, that would mean Ideally, don't put the heater and probes there and you must put the ATO float there. i will also need to mount 2 if not 4 dosing lines in there somehow. Sigh.. I will get it worked out.

finally, i added a purple firefish that seems to be doing pretty well.

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Oh this is from notes that I put together when I set the tank up. As a bonus, I get to not mention the very, very many very dumb things I did when I was getting started again. I guess this was back in 2019? I dropped the 10g and switched to a 20g to make a little more room. I will upgrade at one point or another so that will be another build thread.
 
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