40 Breeder - slow build thread

[Rocks reef]

What's the thing with the rocks in it that looks sort of like a skimmer?

 

[BriDroid]

What's the thing with the rocks in it that looks sort of like a skimmer?

That’s a Nyos Torq reactor. I just put some AF Life Bio FIL in there to help seed the biome.

 

[BriDroid]

Gulf Live Rock Grunge day!!! I added a bag of the grunge along with some live rock rubble in the sump. It’s cycled, just trying to build that biome up! I removed all filters and let this run for 2 days like they said.

 

[Ef4life]

The tv mounts are a great solution for light mounts. Filing that away in my mind for a future day

 

[BriDroid]

Woke up this morning to quite a bit of "dust" and bacterial slime around the tank. I assume it is from the grunge. I did throw a couple of the bigger blue leg hermits in there and they are picking at it, so that is good.
I also placed an order with @reefcleaners today for delivery early next week. A 40 breeder package and a tiger conch. I bet the snails will love that bacterial "dust" that is coating everything since the hermits are digging it. I'll probably move over a few trochus snails later today. I also have a couple bottles of pods and phyto coming from @Dinkins Aquatic Gardens!

The good news is that it is supporting life and holding N and P, which my nano didn't do forever! I'm at about 5ppm N and 0.08ppm P. It took months to get measurable P in my nano! Maybe this Marco rock is better or the old bleached "used" live rock that is used to setup the nano was just really P empty!

 

[danglock23]

Great thread! Good luck with your work to the final destination.

 

[BriDroid]

I added two more 16 oz bottle of Dinkins pods. My sump is crawling with them now!
Dinkins Birthday Giveaway thread!

 

[BriDroid]

It’s been a while, but the tank is doing wonderfully! I did get cyano or dinos for a few days after dosing the grunge, but I was really expecting something. They did clear in about 3 to 5 days. I’ve had some ups and downs with NO3 and PO4, but they’ve seemed to settle in around 2ppm NO3 and 0.06ppm PO4 and that is dosing ammonium and urea.

Algae in the display is being held back with my CUC from Reef Cleaners and the turf algae scrubber. I’m growing a lot of thick algae in the scrubber and the little that pops up in the display is being eaten.

I wasn’t happy with the shadowing from the Kessils, so I added 2 Helix Meso Blue bars, and they have made a ton of difference! PAR is incredible, I can get over 200 on the sand if I crank them, of course I’m not. Luca at Quanta told me to watch my KH with the new lights. Sure enough, my consumption went up 0.3dKH a day so far.

I’m extremely happy with how this tank is turning out! I was worried that I was pushing it too fast and setting up an instatank, but everything is going great so far! I even have some coraline spots starting on the gyres! Way faster than it showed up in my last tank!

 

[BriDroid]

Things seem to have finally settled down! After adding the Helix bars my N and P dropped to 0 and I had a flare up of Ostreopsis dinos. I added a 15W Aqua UV a while back so that combined with bacteria dosing got rid of those nasty things then came some truf and hair algae. Adding both N and P along with some big Mexican turbo snails got rid of that in a week or so. There are still a few remnants of hair algae, but my N is 3.7ppm and my P is 0.043ppm and seems to be holding there with dosing. My alkalinity consumption is right around 0.7dKH a day. Things are looking good and seem to be growing. I added an aF4 frozen feeder 2 weeks ago. It is really helping to keep the tank fed and with the nutrients too.

The water was exceptionally clear today so I snapped a few pics. Overall I’m very happy with how this tank has progressed.