DiscoStuart's Nyos 440 G2 Proline Build (~100 Gal DT)

[DiscoStuart]

New to the forum and considering my first reef tank. Loving the wealth of knowledge in this community, it has been great. I've been deep down the research rabbit hole to plan this thing out and (I know I'm not supposed to ) try to come up with an actual idea of real cost before I pull the trigger on this.

The plan for the tank will be softys and LPS + livestock. Full stocking plan to come.

The tank will be in my home office so will have full view of it all day every day - and I care about running noise for sure. I'm in the UK, hence the £ pricing and some limits on what we can get here (IM and Waterbox seem super hard to come by).

I'd love any thoughts and reactions to the current plan below - as well as anything I might be missing. Excited for the journey, I know it is a long one!

Category	Item	Current Plan	Price	Notes
Tank & Waterflow	Tank	Nyos G2 440 Pro - 48" x 22" x 21" (375L / 100 gal display, 62L / 16gal sump)	£2,365	Went down a few different potential tank paths, but landed here.
	Cover	DD jump guard	£90
	Return Pump	Reef Octo VarioS 4	£185 £285	Open box, new on ebay
	Powerheads	Jebao DMP-40 x2	£234	2 Jebaos for less than one MP40
Filtration/Cleaning	Filter Roller	Bubble Magus G2 Medium	£77 £125	Open box, new, on ebay
	Skimmer	Reef octupus 110sss	£159 £232	Used on ebay
	UV	D-D 20W + Jebao DCS 1200	£173
Light & Heats	Heaters	2x Eheim 250w on Inkbird 306A	£100	Inkbird + Apex failsafe
	Lights	2x Reefi Uno 2.1s	£1070	Buy once, cry once
Water & changing	RODI	Vyair 4 stage 50 GPD w booster + 220L barrel, pipe, etc.	£388	Will likely be in garage, running off garden hose then carry up stairs in jerry cans to tank
	Semi Auto WC	Reefloat 53	£280	mix salt and do water change from same unit
	ATO	Reefloat ATO v4	£125
	Salt	Instant Ocean	£250	Rough year 1 cost
Testing	Hanna Testers	Alkalinity, Phosphorous ULR, Nitrates (High Range)	£219
	Salifert	Ca, Mg, pH, Nitrite, Ammonia	£50
	Salinity	Tropic Marin + Hanna	£156	Hanna for ease
Sand & Rock	Sand	Arag Alive Special Grade	£84	1" sand bed
	Rock	Mix of Marco / D-D	£200	Assuming ~60 lbs/ 25kg.
Livestock	Livestock	TBD + softy/LPS	£1,300	Rough estimate. But not planning anything wild...yet
QT & Backups	Quarantine tank	10 gal, heater, PVC bits, sponge filter, Coppersafe, Hanna Copper checker, General cure	£200	Not planning any large fish in a 60 cube, so hoping I can get away with 10 gal here
	Return Pump	Jecod MDP 5000	£75	used on ebay
Other	Meds	Prazi, GC, H2O2	£80
	Control	Apex	£300	Used v2 w/ powerbar
Total Year 1 Damage			£8,500

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Following along! Can't wait to see what the tank looks like!

 

[DiscoStuart]

After a month+ of lots of research, I finally hit order on the tank tonight. I ultimately landed on the Nyos 440 G2 Pro. How I got here:

I was leaning toward the Cade 600 for £1,900 (60 gal 24" cube) initially (that was what I started the build thread with), but was clear pretty quickly when building out the livestock plan that 2' was pretty limiting.

I then looked to see what I could do for a 3' tank. Cade 900 is £2,700. Not ideal, but maybe I could stretch? Then came across the Nyos G2 range. The 300 Proline was the same price as the Cade 600 and looked pretty slick. Same price, another 12" of width? Sounds great.

But, wouldn't a 4' be nice? Nyos 440 Pro was £2,700 - which was feeling a bit too much for the budget. But the Nyos 440 Slimline was around £2,200. Annoyingly, no levelling feet, but otherwise, looked good.

Then came across DD Aqua-Pro Reef (UK built, which is where I am). Their 1200 (4') with metal frame is only £1,800(!). Downside: internal overflow vs. Nyos (and Cade) external. Also, black sealant / borders, which I don't like the look of as much. And I didn't love the stand as much as the Nyos. Got pretty close to pulling the trigger here though, given the cost. And given that I just couldn't get comfortable with the slimline Nyos for some reason.

Just as I was getting close to settling on the DD, I managed to get a good deal on the Nyos 440 Pro (much better stand) - so it came in around £2,350. So, nearly double the tank I started planning with for ~£450 more. And one where the stand is great, the overflow is external and there aren't any elements that are going to just slightly annoy me from the outset.

So I hit order on the tank and am just awaiting scheduling on the delivery

I've been buying up everything else as I've gone, so I should be in good shape to maybe get it set up and wet by the end of March. We'll see!

 

[DiscoStuart]

Tank is coming next Wednesday Today was starting the RODI setup and getting it plumbed and flushed. Needs a final tidy and reshuffle of the garage to get things into their permanent locations, but got it working and flushed + float valve and tap into the barrel (220L / 58 gallons) as well. The tap is placed to easily fill the Jerry Cans when the Barrel is full - I can get 4 full cans (~2 water changes) before the waterline drops below the tap and I need to use a pump to get the rest or add more RODI water.

I don't have a good location in the house for it, so will live in the garage and I'll use 25L / 7 gallon Jerry cans to get the water upstairs to mix and do water changes. Will be using the Reefloat 53L AWC unit to mix the saltwater and do the water changes at the tank side.

Also, got my foundation rock (Marco Rock) today - started with 8kg, which I think will be just about right for my 4' tank. I wanted to get a feel for the size and weight of various pieces so I could plan out the rest of the scape and how much rock I'll need. I think another 20-30kg (non-foundation) should suffice.

I couldn't find much in the way of size and weight of Marco Rock, so dropping a few examples below in case others find it useful!

 

[DiscoStuart]

Did some monitoring of RODI production and with a pumped, 4-stage 100 GPD unit, I'm producing:

• 0 TDS RODI water at the rate of 1L in 3min 20 seconds
• which equates to ~21 hours for 100 gallons (my barrel is 58 gallons), though the manufacturer says to not run the pump for more than 2-3 hours continuously, so will be a fair bit of stop and start
• Waste water I'm producing 1L in 2 minutes
• So that's 1.67 units of waste water for every unit of fresh water - which is less than I was expecting

 

[DiscoStuart]

Today (Thurs the 26th) I set up a simple Really Right Stuff plastic tub to have a ~25L clean up crew QT. Planning to run it at 82F for 45 days, so figured I'd get that going now so by the time I start wanting to add the CUC to the DT, they'll be ready.

Going to run a simple sponge filter in and drop in some nori / fish food a few times a week. Will see how we get on with that. Also using it to test out the Inkbird as well.

Eve of 27 Feb: I put in a bit of sand for the snails + ~1 kg or so of Marco Rock + Turbostart 900.

CUC arrived on Friday the 28th - 2x Nassarius, 2x Cerith, 4x Trochus (I think?) 3x dwarf blue leg hermits and one Strawberry Conch..

Had 23 L of salt water mixed and heated. Floated the bags and then put everything in. One Nassarius dove stright into the sand. The other moved a bit, but not nearly as active. The rest were a bit of a mixed bag in terms of movement. Conch and Ceriths didn't move much, everyone else was quickly mobile.

Saturday, found the lethargic Nassarius upside down. Rightened it up, and it moved some, but not much. Fed some mysis and the buried one popped up and was off to the races - pretty cool. The other one - didn't hardly move with food dropped in his face. He'd moved by the next morning, but upside down again. Didn't move all day - and looked like something might have nibbled on him.

Decided to pull him and prod - nothing at all and something had been chewing on him. With only 25L and a tank just starting, not putting him back in as it definitely can't handle the ammonia spike.

Everyone else seems to be moving around a fair bit and nori I put it was gone overnight.

Annoyingly realized that the box I thought had my Salifert tests in, did not - so I'm without Ammonia or Nitrite tests. Will pop out to the LFS tomorrow and grab them. My Hanna Nitrate test is reading 4.1, so it's definitely at least part cycled. Dosed some prime in case ammonia is spiking and mixing up some saltwater for a big change tomorrow.

Already realizing the flaws in my setup - but I suppose better to do with CUC in a QT than fish!

 

[sullee]

How did you get the deal on the Nyos tank?

 

[DiscoStuart]

How did you get the deal on the Nyos tank?

Charterhouse Aquatics is currently running a ~5% discount on the Nyos tanks and I asked if they could do a deal on the tank + a variety of other items I needed, and I saved another £200.

 

[DiscoStuart]

She's arrived!

I think the most annoying thing (at least that I've discovered so far!) is that the tank sits on top of one of the two stand boxes. I 100% understand why they did that, but it means I've got to move the tank, before I can get to the stand.

I was hoping that I could just leave the tank untouched and protected until the stand was built - in part because I'm not sure my wife and I will be able to move the tank on our own and I was hoping to only have to enlist outside help once! So it may mean I need to get someone to help move the tank off of the stand box, then move the box out of the way, then put the tank back on the pallet.

Right now the middle 90% of the tank is sitting on a styrofoam base, with the ends supported by those cardboard wrappers. They seem to slide off, so I think it is:

• Slide off ends
• Take off cardboard tank cover
• Empty tank out (it has sump and other parts inside it)
• Lift it off the base (with a third person moving the foam pad to wherever we set it down)
• then move the stand box (very heavy, might have to open it and move it piece by piece)
• then pick the tank back up, move the foam back, and set it back down and cover for the x days or weeks till the stand is built, level and in it's final home

Those are some seriously thick panels!

 

[DiscoStuart]

This thing is a beast. Had to hire a couple of guys to first get the tank off the flat pack stand. Then come back a few days later after I built the stand (which was a fine solo job) to get the tank up on the stand.

Have added a bit of water to see how it settles while I build the scape, sort out the sump config, and separately cycle some rock and polyplab block which will later go in the sump.

I’ll then drain and relevel before putting the scape and sand in and filling with saltwater.

Hoping to have it wet in the next few weeks. Won’t have fish in it till second half of May. So plenty of time to cycle.