NBurg's SPS Dominant Innovative Marine 170g EXT

[Nburg's Reef]

Current FTS (Jan 2023):

Intro
So this tank move occurred in May 2023, and took a few months to get everything in place and I am actually still finalizing a few things. Having a baby really slows down progress! So, I am going to update the basics in this initial post and will keep it up-to-date from here.

My Red Sea Reefer 450 was transferred successfully to my new tank, an Innovative Marine 170g EXT tank, which is 59" long, 21" tall and 30" front to back. The glass is 3/4" thick, so that really gives me a little over 150g of water volume in the tank. I transferred over everything to this tank, all the rock, all the livestock and all the equipment, but I changed the scape so it looks significantly different and I love it! I only added one smaller rock from my 20g cube that I held on to, otherwise the extra room in this newer tank is just to make it not feel so crowded.

This might be my last FTS of the Red Sea:

Some of the equipment changes from my last tank:

• I now am using 3 ATI Straton lights instead of 2
• I added a Tunze Stream 3 along the back wall and a Tunze 6105 for extra flow
• I got a bigger sump, but the setup is very similar - bigger frag section, yay!

Here's the rundown on equipment:

• Tank: Innovative Marine 170 EXT with white aluminum stand
• Sump: Turbo Aquatics 55g sump (meant for a turf scrubber, but provides a big open chamber for my frags)
• Lights: ATI Straton LED (x3)
• Flow: x2 Vortech MP40qd, Tunze Stream 3 and a Tunze Turbelle Stream 6105
• Heat: x2 150w Eheim Jager heaters
• Return: Current eFlux 3170gph DC pump
• Skimmer: Deltec 1000i with CO2 scrubber in line
• UV: AquaUX 57w
• In-Sump Frag 'Tank': Noopsyche K7 gen 2 for lights and AI Nero 3 for flow
• Controller: ApexEL, Trident tester, DoS for 2 part
• Dosing: ESV B-Ionic 2 part (switch from BRS)

As with my last tank, I don't really run mechanical or chemical filtration, so no filter floss, GAC or GFO. I have the ability to run these if I need to, but not something I run 24/7. Also, like my last tank, I am a firm believer in water changes, so I change about 15g per week using good old fashioned Instant Ocean salt.

My goal is to keep the following parameters:
Alk: 8-9
Calcium >400
Mag: whatever it lands at?
NO3: 5-10
PO4: 0.2 - 0.2
pH: try to keep it's lows above 7.9 and try to get it up to 8.3, but its been hard so far on this bigger tank.
I don't really test anything else.

I didn't have a lot of extra time to document the moving of the tank fully, but had 4 other locals help me move it.

Building the stand was extremely easy and I was able to fully assemble it my self in under an hour

The tank was really heavy, but there were five of us and 6 suction cups and 3 moving carts and we made it work! Thank god there were no stairs to deal with.

First Accupant:

Just Before Filling:
Side by side transfer made it so easy

I documented the actual transferring of my old tank to the new tank on video and uploaded to YouTube. They're longer form videos from actual transfer, scaping the tank, rescaping and pruning, etc. so quit a bit there in this playlist:


and here's the first one of actual transfer:




At about about 6 weeks and the tank was doing much better than I could have hoped for. I lost 2 frags, which were nice frags, and my pink lemonade colony. Not sure if it was one of three things or a mix of all: 1) the tank move was likely stressful, 2) found out my refractometer calibration solution was off, so I was keeping my salinity at 37% instead of 35% and my NO3 and PO4 dropped to zero while on vacation. Also doesn't help that I probably cranked the lights up too high. Once I finally got my PAR meter out, the third light really increased the intensity much more than I could have imagined. Other than those, I did have to trim some burnt tips, but otherwise, 95% of my acros have never looked better!
June 2023:

July 2023

Future Changes: not a lot, but I am going to start dosing Kalk at night to keep my pH up more and maybe get rid of the CO2 scrubber. Also, I have a Radion G5 XR15 that I will put over my frag sump area as the single noopsyche creates a lof of shading on some of the bigger SPS frags. I may eventually swap the Nero 3 for a gyre style pump as some point too.

I am fragging a piece of the milka stylo and then getting rid of the colony to a local reefer. Its gotten so big that it really crowds the space. Its probably 12" in diameter and about 9-10" tall. Grows so fast in my tank. I need to kill some encrusting SPS and a bunch of discosoma shrooms. Luckily, I can take out the rock that the shrooms are on so I can remove them much easier.

 

[tzabor10]

Looks great. Nburg as in Newburgh? Or north Pittsburgh? I definitely will look into that sump

 

[Nburg's Reef]

@tzabor10 : Nburg is an abbreviation of my first and last name, first initial and first syllable.

I did a vid of my sump if interested:

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Your tank is looking great!

 

[Nburg's Reef]

Some recent colony shots (iPhone 15 pro)

WWC Shark Attack


FF Red Robin


JF sector 001 Favite


Yellow submarine


Golden Rod


WWC Hello Kitty Milli


WWC Pink Passion


BC Flamethrower Table


WWC Banana Peel (doesn’t look like it tho)

 

[Nburg's Reef]

Vivid Confetti


Upscales Microclados


Boom’s blueberry stag


Ultimate stag


Holy grail micromussa

 

[Nburg's Reef]

I posted a new video update on my tank if anyone is interested:

 

[Nburg's Reef]

So, I may have found a source of some of the acros that have been giving me issues: I was cleaning my Nero 3 that I was going to remove from the Frag Tank to the new 25g tank and found the magnet casing around the motor cracked and rusted in several spots. I think its been that way for a while which is probably why it was clicking and loud for the past several months. I cleaned it often, but usually just scrubbing the outer shell and not inside the pump. For now I will keep a better eye on all the magnets/pumps in the tank.

I'm going to try an AI Orbit 2 in the frag sump to see how it does, but might be too strong for the sump, but we'll see!

 

[alpenreef]

Great thread, also love your youtube content. I just stood up the same tank, therefore very interested in your equipment choices. I haven‘t pulled the trigger on lights yet, but 3 Stratons aren‘t an option pricewise at 2K a piece. Yikes! I am considering 2 XR30s but the 30 inch width may be a problem.

 

[Nburg's Reef]

Yeah the OG Stratons were 1100 which isn’t that bad when comparing how many radions or other fixtures would be needed. Not sure why gen 2 Stratons are so pricey!

I bought my 3rd Straton used for 700… so there’s always that route.

 

[X-37B]

Great thread, also love your youtube content. I just stood up the same tank, therefore very interested in your equipment choices. I haven‘t pulled the trigger on lights yet, but 3 Stratons aren‘t an option pricewise at 2K a piece. Yikes! I am considering 2 XR30s but the 30 inch width may be a problem.

Take a look at reefbreeders. Im running 2 over the same tank.
Alot of light for the money, imo.

 

[alpenreef]

nice, what’s the mounting solution. Is it diy?

 

[X-37B]

I used 8020 and set it up to run the t5 hybrid fixture. It was designed to slide back on the 8020.
Now the RB's hang from it and can also be slid back out of the way.
My 8020 cabinet is 12" from the wall.
You get hangers to hang from the ceiling and tank mounts that dont work on euro braced systems.

 

[Nburg's Reef]

Nice, I just built a stand for a 25g AIO tank using the same 4040 aluminum bars - should have a vid up soon on how I did it.

I just had a thought - I like getting all kinds of corals to grow out and see what they do, whether in a display tank, or just in my frag sump. As my DT fills up, I want to remove some acros so the ones i like better can grow larger but I don't want to get rid of anything. I am thinking of going custom sump route and getting the biggest sump that will fit under my tank, which would be a 48-52" long, 24" wide by 16" tall tank and just a small return section at one end, otherwise completely open like a true frag tank. I would have my overflow go into a roller mat, or just a container to act as a bubble trap/settling chamber, then have my skimmer next to that instead of in my frag area. Then the whole center would be racks for corals and frags.

Right now, my frag section is 19" x 24" with a 10x8" section for my skimmer, so about 2.6 square feet. The proposed setup would give me 36 x 24" or about 6 square feet.

 

[X-37B]

This was my old 80g growout system, 48×24×16.
40 breeder for the sump.
Worked well for me and is easy to work on with the 36" stand.
The IM 170 is actually 135g's display volume. Sump at 7" gives me another 25ish gallons so around 160 total.
Inside dims are 57.5×28.5×19 so 135g's.

 

[Brian W]

@tzabor10 : Nburg is an abbreviation of my first and last name, first initial and first syllable.

I did a vid of my sump if interested:

I love this. Going to have to try this in my sump.

 

[Nburg's Reef]

I love this. Going to have to try this in my sump.

I have thoughts and plans to swap this sump for something a little bigger and more flexible so I can max the frag space from about 2 square feet to 6 square feet. Maybe later this year.

 

[Nburg's Reef]

Had to kill off some pest corals recently including a bunch of orange discosoma mushrooms and encrusting rainbow montipora. Used a mix of manual removal, super glue/epoxy putty and kalk paste/F-aptasia.

I documented in a new vid!

 

[Nburg's Reef]

I was going through some old videos and found one I did exactly a year that was a top down tour of my tank. Since then, I upgraded that Red Sea Reefer to this Innovative Marine tank, but have a lot of the same corals. I thought it would be cool to do a follow up to show how much some of my colonies grew and how some didn't grow all that much.

Here's and example of my FF Red Robin from March 25 2023 to March 23 2024 - this on exploded!


While others didn't grow so much. My PC Rainbow grew, just not as much as one might expect.



I thought it was cool to reflect on the difference in growth in corals. I also noticed some really took off when moved to better spot while others slowed when moved to a spot I thought would be better.

Here's the video for those who are curious!