65 gallon mixed reef upgrade

[Sqwertyl]

July 7, 2020:

Came across a post in my local reef group and snatched it up. I’ve been wanting to upgrade from my 20 gallon Nuvo and this will be it. Included was the following for $200.

Deep Blue 65 gallon drilled tank and stand/canopy
20 gallon long sump
Eshopps psk75 in sump skimmer
rio 2100 return pump

 

[Sqwertyl]

July 10

Spent a few days painting the stand, scraping Cyphastrea Skelton off the tank and ordered another Noopsyche k7 for coverage. Finished plumbing and ready to transfer everything over to the new tank.

 

[Sqwertyl]

July 11
Today was the long awaited transfer over to the new tank. Took all day to run RODI water to fill it up, but everything is transferred over and Running smoothly!

 

[Sqwertyl]

July 16
Was really unhappy with how Little Rock there was, and definitely just felt like I had extra water and sandbed. 40lbs of base rock and about 6 hours of playing with it I came up with an aquascape I was happy with!

 

[Sqwertyl]

July 17
I let the dry rock sit over night to cure and it went in the display today. I’m really happy with it! There’s a ton of room for more corals now. Half of my live rock from the Nuvo went into the sump where I plan to eventually turn into a refugium or maybe use for a frag tank.

 

[revhtree]

Nice job! Looking great!

 

[nashvillian]

Nice. How bad did the bloom get with all that rock added? I’m going from a 40 to 65. I precycled my rock (about 20 lbs Marcos) in some water change water (from AWC). I’m thinking of going au natural and ditching my skimmer.

200 is a heck of a deal lol

 

[Sqwertyl]

Nice. How bad did the bloom get with all that rock added? I’m going from a 40 to 65. I precycled my rock (about 20 lbs Marcos) in some water change water (from AWC). I’m thinking of going au natural and ditching my skimmer.

200 is a heck of a deal lol

I haven’t experienced any diatom bloom or anything of the sort. I had roughly 20~ lbs of rock that was in my Nuvo for about a year that went into the tank.

 

[Sqwertyl]

August 16

Didn’t like all the electronics near the sump so I built an end table to hide them and my ato reservoir outside the tank. Also redid my RODI system outside so that it’s a little neater.

Everything is doing well and I’ve been able to add a lot of zoas and a torch to my little collection.

 

[Thrashed]

Beautiful setup. I recently had a blowout on my old 65 and could only find a corner flow to replace in quickly. So I see your powerhead placement, my main question is. How are you fighting film on top? I've got 2 rw8 in mine and can't seem to get rid of the film without having to turn my pumps off for about 30 mins 3 times a day

 

[Sqwertyl]

Beautiful setup. I recently had a blowout on my old 65 and could only find a corner flow to replace in quickly. So I see your powerhead placement, my main question is. How are you fighting film on top? I've got 2 rw8 in mine and can't seem to get rid of the film without having to turn my pumps off for about 30 mins 3 times a day

I actually had that issue as well with the film on top. I just used a small hob filter That I can’t see with the canopy on and reduced the flow of it just enough to send the surface water into the water column.

 

[hockeyhead019]

How do you like the sizing of this tank? I know you got it at a heck of a deal but I'm looking to upgrade from a 20g long and am curious about generating flow in a tank this size and dimension.

 

[Sqwertyl]

January 9, 2020:

Tank is still running. I've since added an inkbird controller and backup heater to the system set to 77.5-78.

Added new power strips that have individual switches per outlet.

Added a USP backup power supply to my powerheads.

Added a eheim surface Skimmer to reduce my biofilm.

Added a lot of new tank inhabitants like 6 chromis, a bicolor blenny, and a carpenters flasher wrasse.

Got some new corals like a JB mushroom, red goni, an orange Yuma, a huge Rbta, a long tent plate coral and some others.

I'm currently just planning out my smaller upgrades for this year and hoping that I can move everything into a much larger system in 2022.