Aoi fluval flex marine 32.5 gal

[whoasked]

New to R2R but been using for info for a long time. Here's my story with my current tank. I have the flex 32.5 gallon tank. I see a lot of people asking about upgrading this tank. I required a lid because my cat likes to go fishing. Learned that when I met my wife back in 2015 when I started in freshwater. I will also add that I have a 3d printer so I do add things that I need as time moves on. I upgraded to this tank from a biocube 16 gallon. The upgrade taught me a lot about this tank. My nutrients bottomed out immediately and the stock filter can't keep up. It crashed after 1 death. A fish died, bacteria bloomed, o2 went to nothing and everything died... except hardy rhodactis mushrooms. You can upgrade though. It's thriving now, even have breeding trochus snails. That's a blessing and a curse. Have diatom bloom still working through from dino battle. If anyone wants actual science on dinos and not forum misinformation, please ask. They are not all toxic and won't kill your cuc all the time and they CAN be beat. Some of what I did to upgrade was 3d print new media baskets for left and right, they work like the common ones you can buy online. Second is I modified the brackets that come with the tank to hold an ai blade light bar. Fits like a charm, you just have to dremel out a wider fit. Much better coral light, runs a little warmer but I haven't had any problems with that. I added a cheap auto doser on a timer with is just a peristaltic pump from Amazon with tubing. I did print a clip for the back of the tank to sit nicely. I will try and remember to post updates on this as time goes on. Starting over was heartbreaking...but I do get to buy more corals!

 

[Tahoe61]

Welcome to R2R. :)

Which blade are you using?

 

[whoasked]

Welcome to R2R. :)

Which blade are you using?

It's the ai blade grow 30 inch

Same/similar size to the fluval light

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Following along!

 

[aquaantelope369]

Following. I also have a 32 flex tank.

 

[whoasked]

While I was feeding my coral I thought I'd post a picture of my ai blade to show the modified brackets. The blades are just a little wider so you really just need to widen the bracket a bit. The only annoyance is the blade button sometimes gets pushed when I open the lid. But all you have to do is go into the mobius app and hit resume schedule.

 

[whoasked]

This is really an update for a giveaway, but I'm posting a picture to show a few things. Biodiversity is way up, what you can't see is the pods all over. In first pic there is lots of diatoms, and they are gone, water clearing, nutrients are stabilizing. I had an explosion of trochus babies which I need to find sources to get rid of. I still need to get pics of my cheaper easy diy doser too, but for now here is the tank.