Fear’s Tank Upgrade (ft. IM Nuvo SR80)

Fear · Aug 12, 2024

Hello everyone!
New member here.
I am at the very beginning stages of a tank upgrade. I have 2, (3) tanks. I started with a 32 gallon biocube. I am big on buying things from other reefers and shopping as local as I can.
I decided since I just started this journey I might as well document it and see if anyone has some good advice along the way.

Current tanks & equipment:
Tank1: 32 gallon Biocube
Lighting: kessil A360 Tuna Blue (started flickering) temporarily replaced by a Nicrew Hyper-reef 100w)
Filtration as follows: - iSeaLive 3d printed fleece roller- Green killing machine 9W- Return Pump: Sicce Syncra 1.5 - Chemi Pure Blue - Purigen
Flow: AI Nero 3 & Jebao CP-90 crossflow
Probably 20 lbs of live sand and roughly 40lbs of live rock
Stocking:
Pair of Ice Phantom snowflake clowns
1 tiger pistol shrimp (been wanting to remove and rehome it)
Halloween Urchin
Strawberry Conch

2 Colorado Sunburst Anemone
GSP - growing on the back wall, goal of covering back wall
Few zoas that were attached to rocks before I removed them all
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Tank2: 40 Gallon Breeder
Lighting: Kessil AP700
Filtration: Fluval 405 Cannister filter & Tidal 110
Flow: AI Nero 5 (turned WAY down)
Probably 40lbs of live sand, and roughly 50 lbs of live rock
Stocking:
Chalk Basslet~Serranus tortugarum (was with clowns, but was being bullied)
Nice clown fish (was with the pair in the bio cube as a trio for 3 years, then one day the pair almost killed him, he has made a full recovery now)
Bristle tooth Tomini Tang
Halloween Urchin
Strawberry Conch
Halloween Hermit crab

Mushroom collection
2 nice Welsophyllia
Couple Zoas and Palys
1 head left from my NY Knicks torch I fragged and sold to locals
1 Massive Indo green torch
1 large neon green nepthea
GSP growing on the side wall and back wall
2 duncan frags
Big R weirdo Chalice
1 Acid Wash Bubble tip anemone
4 Rock Flow anemones

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Tank3: IM Nuvo SR80
*This is the tank replacing the 40g breeder*
Tank Format. Custom acrylic frag rack on the right side of the tank with 3 acclimation boxes for mushrooms corals. on the left side of the tank will be rock scape. I'm thinking in a U shape for my Welsophyllia to be in the center. TBD.

8/4/24 - I just got this tank from a local guy was a bit of a drive but well worth it.
I have gotten the tank and a nice homemade stand for the tank. (free from a friend)
8/5/24 added 50 gallons of fresh saltwater, heater, and 2 wave pumps
8/6/24 added 30lbs of dry rock
8/9/24 added whole bottle of DrTimms One and Only and enough ammonia for 50 gallons of water

8/12/24 Today; testing and verifying no nutrient spikes. Waiting until Friday 8/16/2024 to verify the tank is ready for transfer. If the tank is not ready, I will wait another week. I do not want to rush this and lose any of my corals.
THE TRANSFER
I will me removing as much clean water from the 40g as possible (~30 gallons)
I will be moving ALL live rock from that tank and NO SAND. The new tank will be Bare bottom.
The Kessil AP700 will be brought over. (Planning on getting 2 AI Blade 48-inch lights, 1 coral glow, and 1 coral glow, keeping the Kessil for the shimmer)
All the current live stock will be transferred over.
The only addition I am currently planning to make is a nice Chicago Sunburst anemone.

Stay tuned and thanks everyone! I will post more updates as I continue to set up.

!*posting so I can type this on my computer *!
Pictures and videos coming later tonight!

Fear · Aug 12, 2024

Okay, tag a long, I was planning to edit the original post but the edit button seems to be gone.
So here is a few update, some photos and some videos.

The beginning.
My 32 gallon biocube

Cycling

Just about ready!

From there I got some more corals and an orange filter.

Well, then I did something terrible. I read my refractometer wrong and it said the salinity was 1.010 and I panicked. I mixed salter water thing it would balance out, and this learning a hard lesson. IF your salinity is low, you must raise it slowly over time. Secondly, my salinity wasn’t low, the corals were all fine and looking great, so I should have calibrated my refractometer or taken another test with a different piece of equipment. Was a tough lesson and I lost a bunch of my coral.

The PANIC!!! (I came home and my wave maker suction had come off the glass and it was blowing sand all over the tank)

Well after I lost a few things and balanced the tank back out I decided to try and anemone, and got a little addicted to them, but things were starting to look good again.

Little bryopsis to deal with, but I eventually got that dealt with.

I ended up selling off these rainbows

and as a gift received this massive black widow. I was so excited and happy

(my THREE clowns were okay for 4 days)

But then my pair decided the new anemone was theirs and didn’t want the third clown around anymore. I got home from work and found him nearly dead.

He was in ROUGH shape.
I moved him to the 40 gallon, and after he made it 3 nights, I got him his own anemone, and the first on to go in the 40 gallon! And COLORADO Sunburst!

Since he has made a full recovery!
Here he is as of 8/4/2024 with his new anemone he just found in the tank.

After about 4 months I woke up in the middle of the night and found the tank was super cloudy. Upon closer inspection I found this…

I managed to get it out of the power head, but over the next few days and week I believe it developed an internal infection and never filled recovered. It ended up shrinking each day until it died. It was very tough to deal with. Even today I’m still bothered by it. However being a newer reef keeper there is so many things I didn’t and still don’t know. That’s what’s nice about these forums. We can share and learn from each other. Stay tuned to the end of this post to see the biocube now!

The set up of my second tank. The 40 gallon breeder. I didn’t know what I wanted to do yet, I was going to get a snowflake eel from a local reefer for free, I thought about doing only rock flower anemones, I couldn’t make up my mind. But here was the day I set it up.

My chalk basslet was getting beat up by my clown fish (actually lost him for 2 weeks before doing a water change and finding him in the back of my biocube STILL ALIVE!
So he was the first thing to be added to this tank.

Well I decided to start getting some corals and I went full mixed reef. Torches, rock flour anemones, mushrooms and more.

Lighting upgrade!

Lots of things have been added and taken out of this tank.

But let me show you guys where we are today.
8/12/2024.

Both tanks are doing great, and I’m just eagerly waiting to transfer my 40g breeder into its new home!

The Biocube:

The 40g awaiting transfer to its new home:

Oh! And before I forget! The new IM Nuvo SR80 in question! Currently cycling and preparing to be great!

And here is the Frag rack I ordered for the right side of the tank

Thank you to anyone and everyone who has decided to ready through all my rambling!
Looking forward to share this journey with everyone.
Ps. I typed most of this on my phone now, so sorry if formatting is super weird, all my photos are in my phone!