AmateurAlchemist's Final Upgrade... For Now

[AmateurAlchemist]

No kidding. I plumbed a cube to replace my failing red sea yesterday. Took much longer than expected

Always the way! Thankfully I had a few days off work so could ignore the clock.

 

[AmateurAlchemist]

I added two valves and a union for each UV so they could be isolated for servicing. My original plan was to use the sump extension and have them in water, hence no valves originally, but something, something plans.

Then designed and printed these pipe supports in TPU.

Turns out the nuts securing UV bulbs were excessively tall, so much so that the UVs wouldn't fit in the cabinet. So it was back to CAD and the 3D printer for some ABS substitutes that are juuuuust the right size.

 

[AmateurAlchemist]

Small fish, CUC and corals were acclimated and moved from the 425 to 850 along with some live rock and sand on Friday. 5 female Lyretail Anthias were added at the same time. The Regal Angel is still very small unfortunately, so is staying in the nano for now. Introducing that later should be... interesting.

 

[AmateurAlchemist]

Then on Saturday it was time for the big bois.

Zebrasoma Flavescens

Zebrasoma Rostratum

Zebrasoma Gemmatum

Siganus Magnificus. The second I put the net in the 425 to grab this guy he went full send, cleared my head by some margin and made it about 7 feet across the room. Thankfully he seems to okay. At least it made him easier to catch....

A little video shortly after introducing the tang gang

 

[AmateurAlchemist]

and now I get to work out how to fit a square thing in a round hole. Hard to believe I've already spent two afternoons on this...

 

[mjszos]

Well, I'm scared to comment here because on your last thread the post following mine was the teardown... Lets hope I'm not the kiss of death.

We'll try this again; looking great, following along! :rolling-on-the-floor-laughing:

 

[AmateurAlchemist]

Well, I'm scared to comment here because on your last thread the post following mine was the teardown... Lets hope I'm not the kiss of death.

We'll try this again; looking great, following along! :rolling-on-the-floor-laughing:

So this is your fault! :rolling-on-the-floor-laughing:

I pinky promise I'll take more photos and do updates this time :grimacing-face:

 

[mjszos]

So this is your fault! :rolling-on-the-floor-laughing:

I pinky promise I'll take more photos and do updates this time :grimacing-face:

Jokes on you, now that I'm here you need to get a bigger tank. Hope you know how to scuba because your desk is going to end up inside of it soon.

 

[Featherweight]

Looking fantastic

 

[AmateurAlchemist]

Jokes on you, now that I'm here you need to get a bigger tank. Hope you know how to scuba because your desk is going to end up inside of it soon.

I've had to retire the words "bigger", "tank" and "I need a" for fear of divorce :p

Looking fantastic

Thanks bud!

 

[mjszos]

I've had to retire the words "bigger", "tank" and "I need a" for fear of divorce :p


Thanks bud!

Hah! When my tank needed replacing last year, my wifes first words were "guess it's time to get a bigger one" - needless to say I picked a good one.

And no, she is not single.

 

[AmateurAlchemist]

Hah! When my tank needed replacing last year, my wifes first words were "guess it's time to get a bigger one" - needless to say I picked a good one.

And no, she is not single.

Sounds like you're on to a winner :)

Gotta give my OH some credit on this one- I originally ordered an S-700 but after ~6 weeks Red Sea couldn't provide an ETA and offered to apply black Friday discount to a bigger tank. It was her that suggested we lick the stamp and send it. For context, this is the woman that, until relatively recently, thought a 120L tank was too big.

And yes, she probably wishes she was single :p

 

[AmateurAlchemist]

Managed to snag some funky Alveopora from DeJong. There is a stunning pink one at the back left but apparently it’s feeling shy today

 

[AmateurAlchemist]

More 3d printing as I attempt to organise the mess that is the cabinet…! The back wall on the S-850 isn’t structural, so is made from a thin enough board that I can’t send screws into it and expect them to hold. So I made these little brackets, drilled some holes in the rear of the cabinet and attached them with cable ties.

 

[AmateurAlchemist]

Random photo dump!

Everything is settling in quite nicely. I have one goniopora (the fanciest one, of course) that just won't open, a slightly sad devil's hand, one random acropora frag that fell into a bubble and my pink tipped catalaphyllia is showing signs of stress, likely due to too much light, but otherwise, everything is looking fantastic.

I've been slowly removing the "seeding" rocks from the old tank so it's looking better by the day.

Gemma the gem has maintained tank boss status. The yellow is a feisty little git and can hold it's own against the bigger tangs. The black is surprisingly shy and mostly sticks to the right half of the tank.

I picked up an algae blenny and some turbo snails for the (now quite sad looking, oops) regal angel nano. The regal is getting bigger and braver but it's got a long way to go!

 

[Featherweight]

Looking beautiful

 

[AmateurAlchemist]

Doing some shuffling and decided to move the candy cane colony. Good news: it’s been moved. Bad news: into three different locations

I lifted it by the frag rock but still got to watch it fall apart. Guess I can tick “frag candy cane” off the TODO list…

One of (the nice one, of course) the new alveopora hasn’t been looking too hot, then I noticed this…

Pretty sure it’s an alveopora eating nudibranch. 5 minutes of Reef Primer had it falling apart. I did dip before putting these in the tank but must have missed some eggs.

I’ve just been pottering and letting the tank settle in. I’ll take some proper photos soon, but in the meantime I couldn’t resist a quick snap of this handsome chap

 

[AmateurAlchemist]

I'm still running the same Reef Octopus Elise 150-int that came off a RSR 425. It's rated for 800L, so I was assuming I'd need to upgrade once the 850 bedded in but uhhhh, this is the thickest, darkest, paste I've ever seen. Think it's safe to file this one under "dialled in". Nom nom nom!

I finally got around to doing a bit of under-tank cable management. It's nowhere near as tidy as I'd like but not terrible considering the amount of equipment!

I put two leak sensors under the tank during the build and finally got around to wiring and programming them. I've setup an integration with Home Assistant that will set off alarms through Sonos if they're ever tripped :D

Then with the help of my favourite assistant and my assistant's assistant, built a little shelf for dosing bottles from some scraps.

I'd love for everything to be perfectly cable managed but it's basically impossible with so much kit in such a small space. That'll have to wait for the S-1000 upgrade.... ;)

 

[AmateurAlchemist]

The algae gang are looking awesome (the corals aren't hating life either, FTS coming soon!)

 

[Featherweight]

Gorgeous fish