Back in November I decided to make a new home for my sps. I have always liked the 40 breeder, and have wanted one for years. So that decision was easy. The decisions I had to make from there on were a little more difficult. I haven't had a tank with a sump before, but with this tank I was going to have one. At first I was thinking of using a 20 long for a sump because it would fit inside the stand. Then I got to thinking, if I was to use a stand for a 75 a 40 would fit and have extra room for equipment. This is the route I chose.
Sump
The sump was built with the first chamber for skimmer, second for refugium, third for return, fourth for autotopoff reservoir. I drilled the display with 2 holes for 1" bulkheads. The gentleman who is building the sump and installing overflow boxes cracked my display and I'm waiting for him to replace it. It took around 2 months to decide what exactly my setup would be. Whether deep sand bed, shallow sand bed, barebottom etc. Ultimately, I decided to go with a very high flow rate where having sand is not really an option. After looking at several different skimmers, and asking for fellow reefers advice I chose the bubble magus curve 5. Once I made this choice the remaining decisions were much easier. I thought about a multifaceted approach to nutrient export. Without a sandbed none export was a concern to me. I decided to use biopellets as a replacement for the sandbed for nutrient export. I will have a ball of cheato in the fuge which should help some also. The curve 5 skimmer should be a little overkill, but I plan to feed extremely heavily, and it should be a pretty good match for this system. I have also bought a phosban reactor if I need aid with removing phosphates. I hope this is one piece of equipment that never sees a drop of water. For a return with manifold I chose sicce syncra silent 5.0. My goal for turnover in the sump is from 4-6 times per hour. The sicce should be adequate to achieve this with the manifold included. Since this will be a sps tank I wanted to have the most stable CA/alk levels I can. I chose to do this with kalk in a two little fishes kalk stirrer hooked into the autotopoff. For autotopoff I chose the jbj ato. Later on I decided to purchase a Neptune systems apex lite which kind of makes the ato purchase unnecessary. But oh well, I have both now so I will use them. The apex was not something I was going to purchase initially. After thinking for a while about the controller it seemed to be kind of an "insurance" in case something went wrong. In my mind now its worth the investment to help protect the livestock I plan to have. For flow inside the display I will be using 2 jeabao wp25. I should be able to provide heavy to insane amounts of flow with these. Also, I'm sure I will have no problems keeping detritus from accumulating inside the display. I chose to use flex tube for all plumbing in this system. I like the thought of being able to move things later without having to replumb everything. I guess time will tell if this was a good choice or not. For lighting I am using a 6x39w t5 fixture with 6 LED moonlights. I replaced the stock bulbs with all ati bulbs. This is the.same model el cheapo fixture that I have had on my 29 for over a year with great results. The fuge light is a 2x18w t5 fixture that I'm sure will be plenty of light to grow macroalgae. I researched a bit on biopellets and reactors and chose a bluefin reactor with Dr. Tims np active pearls. There were lots of miscellaneous purchases for plumbing parts, extra powerheads etc.
When I had everything purchased, and the tank sent off to be built I took a trip to Little Rock and hit up the lfs there. While I was there I picked up 32lbs of Tukani rock. I have this rock in my 29 and have had great results with it. I didn't anticipate my tank being cracked, and having to wait over a month for it to be replaced. The rock has been curing in a tub for over a month now, and I'm sure its ready to go.
This about sums everything up for now. The display is supposed to be complete this week. Hopefully I will be able to start setting it up soon!
I want to give a special thanks to David Maki from Concordcorals.com for all the help, and his extraordinary customer service.
Sump
The sump was built with the first chamber for skimmer, second for refugium, third for return, fourth for autotopoff reservoir. I drilled the display with 2 holes for 1" bulkheads. The gentleman who is building the sump and installing overflow boxes cracked my display and I'm waiting for him to replace it. It took around 2 months to decide what exactly my setup would be. Whether deep sand bed, shallow sand bed, barebottom etc. Ultimately, I decided to go with a very high flow rate where having sand is not really an option. After looking at several different skimmers, and asking for fellow reefers advice I chose the bubble magus curve 5. Once I made this choice the remaining decisions were much easier. I thought about a multifaceted approach to nutrient export. Without a sandbed none export was a concern to me. I decided to use biopellets as a replacement for the sandbed for nutrient export. I will have a ball of cheato in the fuge which should help some also. The curve 5 skimmer should be a little overkill, but I plan to feed extremely heavily, and it should be a pretty good match for this system. I have also bought a phosban reactor if I need aid with removing phosphates. I hope this is one piece of equipment that never sees a drop of water. For a return with manifold I chose sicce syncra silent 5.0. My goal for turnover in the sump is from 4-6 times per hour. The sicce should be adequate to achieve this with the manifold included. Since this will be a sps tank I wanted to have the most stable CA/alk levels I can. I chose to do this with kalk in a two little fishes kalk stirrer hooked into the autotopoff. For autotopoff I chose the jbj ato. Later on I decided to purchase a Neptune systems apex lite which kind of makes the ato purchase unnecessary. But oh well, I have both now so I will use them. The apex was not something I was going to purchase initially. After thinking for a while about the controller it seemed to be kind of an "insurance" in case something went wrong. In my mind now its worth the investment to help protect the livestock I plan to have. For flow inside the display I will be using 2 jeabao wp25. I should be able to provide heavy to insane amounts of flow with these. Also, I'm sure I will have no problems keeping detritus from accumulating inside the display. I chose to use flex tube for all plumbing in this system. I like the thought of being able to move things later without having to replumb everything. I guess time will tell if this was a good choice or not. For lighting I am using a 6x39w t5 fixture with 6 LED moonlights. I replaced the stock bulbs with all ati bulbs. This is the.same model el cheapo fixture that I have had on my 29 for over a year with great results. The fuge light is a 2x18w t5 fixture that I'm sure will be plenty of light to grow macroalgae. I researched a bit on biopellets and reactors and chose a bluefin reactor with Dr. Tims np active pearls. There were lots of miscellaneous purchases for plumbing parts, extra powerheads etc.
When I had everything purchased, and the tank sent off to be built I took a trip to Little Rock and hit up the lfs there. While I was there I picked up 32lbs of Tukani rock. I have this rock in my 29 and have had great results with it. I didn't anticipate my tank being cracked, and having to wait over a month for it to be replaced. The rock has been curing in a tub for over a month now, and I'm sure its ready to go.
This about sums everything up for now. The display is supposed to be complete this week. Hopefully I will be able to start setting it up soon!
I want to give a special thanks to David Maki from Concordcorals.com for all the help, and his extraordinary customer service.
