My 40 gallon reef

fidojoe

Fish Addict
After six and a half years out of the game, I am jumping back in. Quite a bit has changed in my life since the last time I had a reef tank... I finished college, have an awesome career, and now that I don't work retail, I have regular hours (and income) to allow me to do things better than I did last time I was in the hobby. Thankfully I did save some of the better/more expensive equipment that I had from the last time.

So, here's my new 40 gallon breeder reef-

It's still dry at the moment, but I am trying to contain my excitement and start things in the right order.

Equipment:
Aqueon 40G Breeder
Steel frame stand w/ custom (DIY) velcro-on upholstered skins & matching hood
36" Current USA Orbit Marine Pro LED lighting
Ocean Motion wave maker (old school, but I loved this thing when I had it on my old 90)
2x Hydor Koralia 3rd Gen 1350gph pumps (on OM wave maker)
Aqua C Remora Skimmer
Aqua Clear 110 (using it for an HOB 'fuge and place to run carbon)
Coralife 2x9w PC light (over HOB 'fuge, still debating on using this)
Aqua Medic Niveaumat ATO feeding thru a kalwasser reactor

First pic- tank and stand the day I bought them.
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Next pics- I painted the back of the tank, and finished stand and canopy with my DIY upholstered skins. I still have to re-do the front panel. As you might see, the printed decals on the board show through the fabric. The front was the first panel I did, the rest I painted black after discovering this issue.
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fidojoe

Fish Addict
As far as plans for the inside...

I have 60 lbs of aragonite sand. I'm looking for a source for live rock. I am tempted by the prices from online vendors, but I also like the idea of being able to pick my pieces from an LFS.

Once the tank is cycled and stable I have a 'must have' list of things to slowly add:
Pair of clownfish- I have always loved the regular false percs, but I may be tempted by one of the 'cool' varieties with different striping
BTA- undecided on red or green
Potter's angel- I had one for about 5-6 years, loved the little fish
Assorted corals- I'm really hoping I can find hammer and frogspawn like the ones I used to have, but I want to do a mixed reef

Also, I am throwing around the idea of getting a HOB overflow to run a sump, but that will probably be a project for down the road. I would love to not have the skimmer and AC110 filter on the back, though.
 

fidojoe

Fish Addict
Update...

I got a lot accomplished yesterday... I added water and sand. I rinsed the heck out of the sand, so the water wasn't as murky as I though it would be. I let the tank circulate for a couple hours while I went to the LFS. They had some live rock that was well cured and had been in their stock tank for close to a month. I picked up 45 lbs, some bacteria starter and a pair of clowns. I don't anticipate having too much of a spike or a long cycle process, just because the rock was cured and I worked quick to get it back under water.

This was right after adding rock, fish were still drip acclimating.
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This was taken this morning. I need to re-aim the Koralias away from the front glass a little more.
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fidojoe

Fish Addict
OK, so I ordered some things, and made some decisions...

I was wanting to upgrade the tank to a reef-ready 65g. At this point, I have decided that a 65g is only going to give me more volume, and not really any extra real-estate. I don't have huge plans for fish in addition to my clowns; probably just a potter's angel, yellow watchman goby and maybe a wrasse of some sort. I'm going to stick with the 40B until I am no longer in an apartment, then investigate a larger setup.

I am adding the 20H sump (planned actual volume is only ~11 gallons). I ordered an Eshopps PF-800 overflow box, a Jebao DCT-4000 return pump, and some various parts.

For sump design, I am going to have a return pump chamber and a large chamber for the skimmer and drain. I may make a small 'box' out of egg crate to put in the big chamber to contain some cheato.

I'm still researching skimmers, but I'm leaning heavily towards a Bubble Magus Curve 5.

For the ATO, I discovered that a wire was just loose in the Niveaumat pump. It still works, it just needs a new tube. I ordered that. I think that I'm going to use the included float switch as a low level shutoff in the RO reservoir. Still deciding between the Hydor and JBJ ATO controller.

As for live stuff... I checked water levels, nitrites are stable at 0, ammonia stable at 0. Nitrates are barely detectable ~1 or 2. One of the rocks had some hair algae when I bought it, and its growing. I picked up some nerite snails, and they're making quick work of that and the diatoms.

I also picked up a 'green' leather coral. It actually reminds me of the yellow fiji toadstool that I used to have, but a little more on the brown side. Time will tell what it actually is. After only a day, it seems to be perking up. The LFS also threw in a few tiny xenia frags.

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fidojoe

Fish Addict
So I kinda had an 'eff-it' moment today, and ordered a Bubble Magus Curve 5 and the Hydor ATO controller. I'm really excited that I will basically have all of the equipment that I want at the moment, and I should have it ready to set up this weekend.

A few new things arrived today, too. I finally got my magfloat, I discovered the flipper after it was too late... I may have to get one of those, as it is a dream come true compared to what I used to deal with when scraping my glass. My magfloat is the scraper-ready model, tho.

I also received my eshopps overflow, the return output nozzle, my eheim jager 125w heater, timers for the kalk reactor mixing pump, and some kalk+2. Amazon sent me the wrong return pump, so my Jebao DCT-4000 return pump will be here Friday, giving me time to cut and glue the drain pipe setup.
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I also siliconed the baffles into place in the sump tank on Sunday. I am not the most skilled with silicone, but I did make a water tight division between the main chamber and return pump chamber.

Here's a pic of the 'dry fitting' of my sump and kalk reactor. I cut a piece of ¾" plywood to fit perfectly in the bottom of the stand, for my sump to sit on, so it's not directly on carpet. I am trying to figure out what to do in regards to the top off reservoir. For now, it'll probably just be a 5 gal jug sitting next to the stand, but it's pretty hideous. I may try to find a thin container that holds a couple gallons to slide behind the stand.
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fidojoe

Fish Addict
Update...

Sump is up and running.
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I bought a couple big zoanthid rocks from my LFS. They were pretty cheap, and added a nice spash of color.
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When I was at the LFS, they also had two potter's angels. I realize it was probably not the most wise decision I've ever made, but I purchased one. I had one for about 6 years, up to the point where I sold my last tank, and really loved that fish. The one I purchased was eating frozen foods, and looked nice and healthy. He is still kinda shy in his new home, but seems to be kind of a ham when I have a camera in front of him. He moves between the two rock structures constantly, and swims in the open if I am not directly in front of the tank. I am also a little nervous that I might not be as lucky with this potters as I was last time, because I think he may be picking at my zoa's.
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Here's an updated FTS. I'm fighting off a little hair algae at the moment, but between the snails, hermits and potters, it seems to be disappearing quickly.
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Also, I have the kalk reactor in place and running... sort of... I've had a pretty infuriating experience trying to get this thing going. The reactor itself is a custom that was made for me circa 2005. I had wonderful results back in the day, running my ATO water through the reactor. At first, the uniseals were leaking, so I replaced them. Then I discovered that my Aqua Medic Niveaumat ATO was in need of parts. I spent $50 replacing the santoprene tubing and the roller mechanism. The POS now refuses to turn the right direction, and I'm pretty sure the motor is just about dead, because it works properly maybe 5% of the time. I was also trying to use a Hydor ATO controller to manage the water level, leaving the built-in float switch on the Aqua Medic to be used as a low level shut-off in the water reservoir. The Hydor was too slow to react to high and low levels, and the ATO pump (when it works right) is just barely too slow to fill the sump to the appropriate level. The Hydor would also randomly disable itself and alarm for no discernible reason.

So, the Hydor ATO is on its way back to Amazon, and a JBJ ATO controller is on its way to me. I also ordered an aqualifter pump as a backup ATO pump. I will likely order a Milwaukee dosing pump, since I can't find anything else that looks like it is made half way decent, with enough force behind it to run water through the kalk reactor.
 

fidojoe

Fish Addict
Good news!!! The aqualifter came today (thanks to Amazon & 1-day shipping), and it actually works pumping thru the kalk reactor! At a much more consistent speed, too! I'm pretty happy with this solution, since I was only planning on running the aqualifter as a backup with RO water only if I ran into issues with the dosing pump. This saves me $100 on a new dosing pump, and I'm OK spending $15 every once in a while if I kill the aqualifters faster than normal. Now I just have to order another aqualifter as a backup.
 

fidojoe

Fish Addict
Very Nice, hope you keep the updates coming. How are you parameters doing?

I still need to buy a couple more test kits, but I've been using a set of Seachem kits to monitor the basics, I stopped testing ammonia last week, since I haven't seen any measurable free or total ammonia since the middle of the first week the tank was set up. pH is holding steady at 8.2, Alk is ~4meq/L, nitrite 0, nitrate surprisingly undetectable. Phosphates don't seem to be an issue, since the hair algae is basically gone, and I (knocking on wood, here) don't have any other algae showing up. I dose kalk through the ATO, so I'm not worried about calcium deficiency at the moment.

I went to a local reef club meeting and picked up some frags. I'll post pics in a few...
 

Squatch XXL

Well-Known Member
Also, and update on my toadstool leather, it seems to be quite happy:
Leather corals can irritate SPS corals with chemical warfare. Keep this in mind as you progress. Some have success, and others do not. I am not a fan of leathers, but even if I was I would not keep them in the same system as SPS and other hard corals.
 

fidojoe

Fish Addict
Leather corals can irritate SPS corals with chemical warfare. Keep this in mind as you progress. Some have success, and others do not. I am not a fan of leathers, but even if I was I would not keep them in the same system as SPS and other hard corals.
I remember this from my old system. I had 2 huge toadstools (8-10" each), both sitting in close proximity to the sps. I ran carbon constantly, which I think is what helped to make it work. I'm doing the same now. I am in the process of setting up a flow thru system for the carbon, like I used to. Right now it's passive in a bag in my sump. Back in the day, I made a reactor of sorts with a 1L bottle and a pump pushing water thru the carbon.
 

fidojoe

Fish Addict
Hey All,

I figured I'd post an update... The tank has had water in it for 2 months and 2 days. I've come to realize that I'm not the most patient when it comes to adding stuff- both equipment and livestock.

Livestock updates:
I had a mishap a few weeks ago with a BTA that didn't look so hot going in, and made a mess of the tank when it died, but the skimmer, carbon, and a 20% water change had things cleared up in a few hours.

I also tried to add a six line wrasse, but I'm pretty sure it over ate and exploded... Literally. I had fed the tank while he was floating in the bag so that the other fish weren't jerks. He cleaned up a couple mysis that were left over, then went nuts searching for pods. He was quite successful on the pods mission, bc by the end of the night, he looked like a balloon. The next morning i found the remnants of his spinal column after the CUC did away with the rest of his body. The pod population seems to have recovered, because the clowns still chase and eat them off the glass every morning.

The 4 fish (2 clowns, potters angel and yellow watchman goby) are all doing great. They eat like pigs, and beg when I walk up to the tank. The cleaner shrimp is getting along with everyone, too, and offering cleanings to the potters (who takes him up on it) and the watchman (who doesn't trust him yet). I also added a sand sifting starfish to help maintain the sand bed.

Corals are all doing well. The octospawn is opening up really nicely, as is the toadstool leather. The SPS are surprising me with their growth. The purple cap has turned from a dull brown to a purple that gives my coraline algae a run for its money. The acros are showing some good growth, too. The orange digi continually gets knocked off its spot, so its a constant game of recovery for it.

Speaking of coraline, the overflow box, koralia's, and return pipes are starting to get some nice purple speckling. The front glass has a few spots, too. The back glass is kinda dark, so it's hard to tell, but the back is definitely getting covered with tons of those little white calcium-based spiral things.

Equipment updates:

I am now using RODI, instead of just RO. I purchased a SpectraPure MaxCap 90GPD system last week. I was gonna buy a cheaper model, but I figured I'd end up adding all of the other stuff on eventually, so I just went all-in now.

I built a DIY carbon reactor. I am currently running some Phosban in it, with sponges to separate it from the carbon, but I plan to add a separate Phosban reactor in the near future. It's fed by an old mini-jet 606 pump, and the cap at the right side is drilled with a series of 3/32" holes around the perimeter, drilled at a 45 deg angle. I just dropped it into the return chamber of my sump.
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Now for the eye candy:
Note, I am intentionally leaving the random patch of hair algae, it's not spreading, and the angel loves to pick at it. Also, the LEDs throw my camera off, so sorry for the pics being a little washed out.

Yellow Watchman Goby
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The Ham, AKA Potter's angel
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Sand sifting starfish
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Left side of the tank
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Right side of the tank- zoos are partially closed because a hermit had just taken a stroll across them.
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And finally, a full tank shot
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