40B build: Gonna try to take my time with this.

[Doug6952]

I welcome any feedback, suggestions, advice, etc.. I really want to do this right the first time.

I've had my Red Sea max nano running for 5 months and I want more. I figured this was going to happen. Always does. Lol

I decided to do a 40 breeder build. This time I plan on taking my time to get things right. I had planned to do that with the nano, but I wound up winning a coral giveaway the same day I picked up the used nano setup. So that tank got thrown together quick. Currently battling algea and dinos with the nano.

Took advantage of some black friday week deals to save some $$$ in the long run. Was shocked when I opened up one of the boxes and found a G5 XR30 Pro light from BRS. That will save me a bunch of money. Was planning on going with the Reefi duo extreme. Also thought about the kessil ap9x.

Here's my plan so far:
40 breeder display
29 gallon or 20 high sump
Bubble magus curve 5 elite skimmer (purchased)
Fiji cube sump kit (purchased)
Ice cap 2k gyre (purchased)
Radion G5 XR30 pro (received in giveaway)
Rocks not sure which
Exotic marine systems overflow
Return pump not sure which one figured I'd need around 200 gph flow
Special grade sand
ATO not sure which

I'm debating about buying a used 125 to upgrade my 40 gallon Freshwater planted tank. If I do that I'll use that tank and stand. If not I'll hit up petco for the DT and sump tank. I'll build the stand just like I did for the planted tank.

I plan on having a refugium in the sump. Wether it is a full blown refugium growing macro algae or just housing extra live rock is yet unknown. Been having trouble keeping nitrate and phosphate up in the nano without a refugium dosing all for reef.

Thinking about using Marco rocks since that seems to be the cheapest option. Don't know if I can stand looking at all that bare white rock though. Caribsea life rock may be an option. Whichever rock I get, I'll seed it with some live rock from a local shop.

Currently using instant ocean salt on the nano and bought some red sea blue bucket salt on sale.

That's all for now. Time to make breakfast and get started on tank maintenance.

 

[Idoc]

Pretty awesome winning the radion G5 from BRS!

 

[Doug6952]

Pretty awesome winning the radion G5 from BRS!

That it is. My jaw dropped when I saw it in the box. Might get the reef brites k30 add on for it.

 

[Devaji]

nice! I have a sweet spot for 40Br. perfect little big tanks.

not sure what you're stand is? but if you can fit a 40br as a sump to I would go for it. lots of room to make a nice fuge and what not.

for rocks I am a fan of the real reef rock. and the HNSA style aquascape.
good luck and have fun!

 

[Doug6952]

nice! I have a sweet spot for 40Br. perfect little big tanks.

not sure what you're stand is? but if you can fit a 40br as a sump to I would go for it. lots of room to make a nice fuge and what not.

for rocks I am a fan of the real reef rock. and the HNSA style aquascape.
good luck and have fun!

I do too. I used to have a 50 gallon. Same footprint of 40 breeder but slightly taller.

I'll be building the stand, but won't be able to fit a 40 breeder inside.

I would like to do a NSA or HSNA aquascape. I don't want to just stack the rocks like I've done in the past. Thing is I generally suck at aquascaping. Lol. When I get to that point I'll be posting in the aquascape forum for advice/criticism.

 

[Doug6952]

Ordered the overflow from exptic marine as I've heard it can take awhile to receive. I also ordered a 50lb box of Marco rock and a 40lb bag of caribsea ocean direct original grade sand.

I'll be getting the 125 gallon on Sunday, so will be converting my 40 breeder planted tank into a reef. It would be nice to make the 125 into a reef, but it's expensive enough just doing a 40 breeder. maybe in the future I will.

 

[Scottsquatch]

The Marco rock doesn't stay white for long. Hopefully you can skip the "uglies" and go straight to purple/pink.

 

[dvgyfresh]

Nice name haha , I also run a 40br if you want to check out my build thread and I’m here for any advice

 

[Doug6952]

The Marco rock doesn't stay white for long. Hopefully you can skip the "uglies" and go straight to purple/pink.

One can always hope for the best. I'll definitely seed the hell out of it with coraline algae at the start.

Nice name haha , I also run a 40br if you want to check out my build thread and I’m here for any advice

Thanks! I'll check it out.

 

[Kraig]

Ordered the overflow from exptic marine as I've heard it can take awhile to receive. I also ordered a 50lb box of Marco rock and a 40lb bag of caribsea ocean direct original grade sand.

I'll be getting the 125 gallon on Sunday, so will be converting my 40 breeder planted tank into a reef. It would be nice to make the 125 into a reef, but it's expensive enough just doing a 40 breeder. maybe in the future I will.

I just got the Exotic Marine overflow last month. Took about 2 week, which I expected, and so far, I'm pretty happy with it. Good luck!

 

[Doug6952]

I just got the Exotic Marine overflow last month. Took about 2 week, which I expected, and so far, I'm pretty happy with it. Good luck!

I emailed them late last week and they said they were building it and it should ship out this week. It looks like a quality overflow.

 

[Kraig]

I emailed them late last week and they said they were building it and it should ship out this week. It looks like a quality overflow.

It seems like a quality build to me as well. I am new at this, so can't really compare it to anything, but I had no issues getting it installed and tuning the overflow to be super silent.

I emailed them about a week into having my order in, was told they would finish up the next day, and 2 days later I had tracking info so I was happy with the response and timeframe.

 

[Doug6952]

I just got shipment notification for the overflow. Estimated arrival day is Friday. Tank probably won't be getting wet until end of this month or after new years. Working on aquascape now. Ran out of glue so that is on hold until more arrives.

Set up my new (to me anyhow) 125 planted tank yesterday. Still have a few more plants to get into the substrate. If I ever get tired of the plated tank I can see that getting converted to a reef.

 

[Doug6952]

Overflow arrived today. As did the Tunze 3155 ATO. Bought a bunch of the plumbing parts I'll be needing the other day. Went to petco and picked up the 29 Gallon tank for the sump.

Tomorrow I'll be drilling the tank for overflow and return lines and gluing the baffles in the sump. Have to cut out a section of the back of the stand to run plumbing. If I have time I'll also start getting the plumbing run.

The glue to finish the aquascape should be here on Friday ( 6 days from now). That will be my project for next weekend.

I may get some live rock and sand from Tampa Bay saltwater to seed the tank. I'll put the rock in the refugium to try and contain and remove any unwanted hitchhikers. I will also get some live sand and other critters from IPSF. Want to get as much bio diversity as I can.

 

[Doug6952]

Tank is now in its permanent location. Overflow installed. Plumbing finished. Aquascape fully assembled and glued.

I plumbed for dual returns and dual pumps for redundancy. Currently just using 1 pump with gives me about 124gph flow through the sump. Seems really slow, so I may wind up using 2 pumps. That would give me about 6 time turnover.

Flooded the tank with Freshwater to do a leak test and rinse the rockwork. No leaks!!! With the rock in the tank, total system volume is about 50 gallons.

Time to mix up a bunch of saltwater.

 

[ss7]

The build is looking great, Doug!

I would definitely encourage you to get some TBS live rock. I fought two tanks for about a year with BB dry rock before realizing hitchhiker risk is way less of a headache than keeping it "clean".

 

[Doug6952]

The build is looking great, Doug!

I would definitely encourage you to get some TBS live rock. I fought two tanks for about a year with BB dry rock before realizing hitchhiker risk is way less of a headache than keeping it "clean".

Thanks!

That is the plan. Contacted them to get an idea on price. I was thinking 5lbs of premium nano rock and 2lbs of live sand plus some hermits and snails. With shipping it would be around $175. Although I'm debating about just getting the base live rock since it will be going in the refugium.

That will be after new years since the last shipping day for this year was Thursday.

Playing with the gyre pumps right now and then I need to hang the light from the ceiling.

 

[Doug6952]

Tank is up and running. Sand made it super cloudy, but it cleared up overnight. Had the skimmer running to help pull some of the fine stuff out.

Now it's time to let the tank run and cycle. I have some biospira and microbacter 7 that I may use to speed up the cycle.

After new years I'll seed it with some live sand and rock.

 

[Doug6952]

Happy new year!

I added biospira right after Christmas and added ammonia. Just letting it run.

Ordered 4lbs of premium live rock, 5lbs of base live rock and 5lbs of live sand from TBS. Scheduled to ship on January 13th.

Bought a light for refugium from Amazon. We'll see how well it does.

 

[Doug6952]

Live rock and sand from Tampa bay saltwater came in yesterday.
4lbs of premium, 5lbs of base rock and 10lbs of sand.

All the rock went into the sump.


Found a couple of crabs. 1 is a gorilla crab and I managed to pull it out. The other 1 I'm not sure about, but he was tiny. Maybe 1/4" across. A few small snails and a bunch of brittle stars. A bit of macro algae on a few rocks.

Looks like there is some type of coral or anemone polyp on 1 or 2 rocks. I'm leaning toward a hidden cup coral as that seems to be the closest by the way the polyps look.


Now I'm gonna let it sit for a bit and see what else pops out. I may pick up a few pieces of cycled rock from my LFS just to help add to the bio diversity.