Pastey's Office 20g Nuvo

After having been tankless for ~5 months, I've finally returned to the saltwater realm. I lost everything in my 200 save for my breeding Occ. clowns and a blue chromis. A local reefer has graciously been caring for them while we sorted out our home, belongings and lives. My wife and I are fairly certain that we will wish to relocate in the near future and the idea of going through the work to make the 200 viable gain only to tear it back down just didn't make sense so I will be selling off my 200g and subsequent equipment. In it's stead, I picked up a 20g setup from a local that will be going in my new office once the building is complete hopefully in a few weeks.

The tank is a 20g IM Nuvo Fusion that came with:

AI Prime
IM ATO Hydrofill
IM Ghost Deskstop skimmer
Jebao WP10 powerhead
MJ1200 return pump

The ATO and Jebao I will not be using so I'll sell them to recoup some of the money spent. I'll be using my Smart ATO and my MP10 that I already had.

I'll also be using my Advanced Acrylics 20g ATO reservoir and Apex that I had as well.

The tank didn't come with a stand so after some consideration, I went with a Better Homes and Garden 4 cube organizer (gloss black) from Walmart to the tune of ~$40. I ordered some full extension drawer slides and will add to sliding doors to the front to cover up any mess I may (will) keep in the stand.

I went ahead and set the tank up in our temporary/rental home to get the rock cycling and will move it once the office is ready. I didn't set the Apex up because it's a hassle and not really needed to cycle the tank...I'll deal with that when it's set up for good.

I test fit the rock scape once I had the tank and gave the rocks an acid soak, followed by bleach, then RODI with Prime.




How the doors will work (not my tank):


Stand put together:


Coming together:


Getting wet:








Made a screen top out of my old ones so I don't have any fish jerky. The notch is for the Apex AFS....the loose netting at the corners was fixed:


I ordered a few things after setup that I can see me needing. Some new refractometer calibration fluid...my bottle is old. I might spring for a Milwaulkee salinity meter in the near future though. Also ordered a long turkey baster to siphon out detritus from the bottom of the tank without needing to drag out a hose or pump.

My ultimate goal is to get my fish back but I plan on making a real effort and keeping SPS / LPS in this tank. I've been looking at dosing setups and trying to mimic those with nanos that have a lot of growth. Once I get some of my large tank equipment sold, I'll spring for more stuff Until then, I'm just keeping the living room blue and tank wet.

 

Added an APC battery back up to my MP10. One of the huge concerns I have with a tank that's not in my home are the random power outages. I just won't always know when those happen so even a few hours in a small tank would be enough to kill everything without some circulation. The backup should be enough to get it through a few hours. Hopefully Apex's new Heartbeat feature will be online soon so I will get a warning if the tank goes offline. In the meantime, this will buy me a little peace of mind.

 

I like your thinking! peace of mind is a must in this hobby, better safe than sorry...

 

Used a day off to get started on the doors for the stand. I intended to paint them but I really dig the contrast and it will actually match my desk...black with raw wood desktop.











Couldnt finish mounting up the left side door because there is no room to slide it so that'll have to wait until I move it.