40g Community Tank Build Thread...

What is your favourite type of Tank? (Sorry if this has already been asked)


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(-This is my first build thread so I might not be doing things right and this build thread is after my tank is cycled because I was to scared to do it but I still have HEAPS more to add so here I go)
To start this of, I have had no backround in reefkeeping or just saltwater in general, I have had maybe three freshwater tanks and they were all fun but I decided on that I want to keep my favourite animal - Nemo! And lots of others too.

I got my tank second hand that came with a bunch of junk equipment but at least it came with a filter and some T5 lighting but those are all soon to change, my goal for my 40 gallon is to make a community tank with maybe two pairs of clowns because I love clownfish and lots of other saltwater inverts and fish! I plan to just keep some soft corals with a couple of euphyllia and maybe an elegance at the bottom but I am really excited :)

I have taking a live to saltwater fish and invertabrates for a long time and I currently have in my tank:
- Pair of ocellaris clownfish (Named Michelle and Damien and these were chose because the female clownfish was hosting a shell when we picked her up and Damien helped us a our LFS)
- Coral Beauty Angelfish (Named flame because of his orange texture)
- Bubble Tip Anemone (His name is ****'s because my mother thought that was what his bubbles look like)
- Pincushion Urchin (Named Urchy because I couldn't think of anything better)
- Nassarius Snail ( Named Shelly because he is a snail... with a shell.)
- Two Trochus (Named Charles and Snail dude)
- Blue Lincktia Starfish (Named Patrick after Spongebob)
- Brittle Sea Star (Named Creepy because he looks creepy)
Soon to add-
Copepods
Sand Sifting Goby (Maybe a diamond watchman)
Some More Trochus (Maybe two more)
3 Hermit Crabs (These are called janitor hermits and I will supplement with food and shells)
Some Cerith Snails (To clean the sandbed of dreaded algae)
I have put these in order for when I will get them.

Most of those purchases will be when I add some more real Reef rock.

My current equipment is pretty bad but does its job, the canister filter filters and it is doing good but I will change to a nano cube refuguim for my build and use a Eshopps HOB overflow with several redundancies (I have not figured that out yet) and I plan to use Vectra for the return.
I have a crappy wavemaker that always gets clogged but it does its job but I have to turn it off every night because of the anemone (More on that later) but I will get two Ecotech vortech mp10wqd with anemone covers
No protein skimmer but I will get a sinplitcity 120 DC.
I currently fill my tank with freshwater manually but when I get the Tunze Osmalater I will also get a Eshopps 10 Gallon reservoir because I can paint it to look like furniture and I can see the water level.
No RO/DI at the moment but plan to get maybe the aquatic life twist in unit.
Lighting is so-so but I will get the aquatic life T5 hybrid although it is 4" wider than my tank (I will hide it) I will use two ATI Blue Plus and two Coral Plus because it is blue but not to blue and not to white. I plan on getting two Ecotech radion g3 xr15s for the tank with the diffuser a d reeflink because I found a good bargain on them ($300AU)
I will not have a apex because it is to expensive but I will use a seneye reef and I might put controllers for pH, salinity and ORP.
Some issues I have had was diatoms and they are still here but managed now and temp was causing the anemone to bleach and I thought it was light so we reduced the photoperoid but now he is moving like crazy so we will bring it back, he walking in the wavemaker but I woke up just in time and stopped him and only two of his tentacles were chopped off. He moved the next night and walked on the filter. His foot was firmly attached and I HAD to cut a bit off and lots of his foot was injured a d luckily he survived and is healing, he is currently on the wavemaker which I have turned off and here are some pics, also if you want more info of something specific please tell me and also there is a video of my clownfish being nippy!
Edit: I realized from reading moberts 27 clowns 27 months that I am to latw on a clown harem and also, do you guys thing I could somehow keep a non-hungry anttanae Lionfish because I love Lionfish.

1592980067472-1574289235.jpg 1592980099799750381322.jpg 1592980121356991696614.jpg 15929801303151825242902.jpg 1592980140813-2023607829.jpg 1592980148508-722166222.jpg 1592980177015-1268285334.jpg 1592980196630-368927560.jpg
 

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(-This is my first build thread so I might not be doing things right and this build thread is after my tank is cycled because I was to scared to do it but I still have HEAPS more to add so here I go)
To start this of, I have had no backround in reefkeeping or just saltwater in general, I have had maybe three freshwater tanks and they were all fun but I decided on that I want to keep my favourite animal - Nemo! Or ocellaris clowns.

I got my tank second hand that came with a bunch of junk equipment but at least it came with a filter and some T5 lighting but those are all soon to change, my goal for my 40 gallon is to make a clown harem because I love clownfish and how they live in anemones, a clown harem is relatively easy to maintain as I learned with BRS although there are some things to look out for and I have considered other tanks like a predator (My personal option if a clown harem does.not work out), Mixed Reef, SPS dominant and even just euphyllia only :).

I have taking a live to saltwater fish and invertabrates for a long time and I currently have in my tank:
- Pair of ocellaris clownfish (Named Michelle and Damien and these were chose because the female clownfish was hosting a shell when we picked her up and Damien helped us a our LFS)
- Coral Beauty Angelfish (Named flame because of his orange texture)
- Bubble Tip Anemone (His name is ****'s because my mother thought that was what his bubbles look like)
- Pincushion Urchin (Named Urchy because I couldn't think of anything better)
- Nassarius Snail ( Named Shelly because he is a snail... with a shell.)
- Two Trochus (Named Charles and Snail dude)
- Blue Lincktia Starfish (Named Patrick after Spongebob)
- Brittle Sea Star (Named Creepy because he looks creepy)
Soon to add-
Copepods
Sand Sifting Goby (Maybe a diamond watchman)
Some More Trochus (Maybe two more)
3 Hermit Crabs (These are called janitor hermits and I will supplement with food and shells)
Some Cerith Snails (To clean the sandbed of dreaded algae)
I have put these in order for when I will get them.

Most of those purchases will be when I add some more real Reef rock.

My current equipment is pretty bad but does its job, the canister filter filters and it is doing good but I will change to a nano cube refuguim for my build and use a Eshopps HOB overflow with several redundancies (I have not figured that out yet) and I plan to use Vectra for the return.
I have a crappy wavemaker that always gets clogged but it does its job but I have to turn it off every night because of the anemone (More on that later) but I will get two Ecotech vortech mp10wqd with anemone covers
No protein skimmer but I will get a sinplitcity 120 DC.
I currently fill my tank with freshwater manually but when I get the Tunze Osmalater I will also get a Eshopps 10 Gallon reservoir because I can paint it to look like furniture and I can see the water level.
No RO/DI at the moment but plan to get maybe the aquatic life twist in unit.
Lighting is so-so but I will get the aquatic life T5 hybrid although it is 4" wider than my tank (I will hide it) I will use two ATI Blue Plus and two Coral Plus because it is blue but not to blue and not to white. I plan on getting two Ecotech radion g3 xr15s for the tank with the diffuser a d reeflink because I found a good bargain on them ($300AU)
I will not have a apex because it is to expensive but I will use a seneye reef and I might put controllers for pH, salinity and ORP.
Some issues I have had was diatoms and they are still here but managed now and temp was causing the anemone to bleach and I thought it was light so we reduced the photoperoid but now he is moving like crazy so we will bring it back, he walking in the wavemaker but I woke up just in time and stopped him and only two of his tentacles were chopped off. He moved the next night and walked on the filter. His foot was firmly attached and I HAD to cut a bit off and lots of his foot was injured a d luckily he survived and is healing, he is currently on the wavemaker which I have turned off and here are some pics, also if you want more info of something specific please tell me and also there is a video of my clownfish being nippy!

1592980067472-1574289235.jpg 1592980099799750381322.jpg 1592980121356991696614.jpg 15929801303151825242902.jpg 1592980140813-2023607829.jpg 1592980148508-722166222.jpg 1592980177015-1268285334.jpg 1592980196630-368927560.jpg
Here is a rare event of the brittle star, I saw his mouth but he moved a little and sorry for the light, I just want to not scare anyone
 

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Okay I figured out the livestock I will have in this community tank.
For fish it will be
- 5 Blues Green Reef Chromis and I will have an acclimation box in hand in case they bully eachother
- Diamond Watchman Goby and if that isn't available Yellow Watchman Goby
- Blue Tang (I will find a home for him and only keep him for 6 months.)
- Six Line Wrasse well Fed.
Inverts
- 2 Cleaner Shrimp and I will try to breed them because I am not paying $160AU every three years for cleaners
- Strombus Snail
- 4 More Trochus
- 9 Ceriths
- 4 Hermits (With shells)
- Maybe some peppermint shrimps
Corals-
Euphyllia Only
Torch's on one side and hammers and frogspawn on the right
 
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Okay I figured out the livestock I will have in this community tank.
For fish it will be
- 5 Blues Green Reef Chromis and I will have an acclimation box in hand in case they bully eachother
- Diamond Watchman Goby and if that isn't available Yellow Watchman Goby
- Blue Tang (I will find a home for him and only keep him for 6 months.)
- Six Line Wrasse well Fed.
Inverts
- 2 Cleaner Shrimp and I will try to breed them because I am not paying $160AU every three years for cleaners
- Strombus Snail
- 4 More Trochus
- 9 Ceriths
- 4 Hermits (With shells)
- Maybe some peppermint shrimps
Corals-
Euphyllia Only
Torch's on one side and hammers and frogspawn on the right
I might switch out blue tang for yellow tang only because I have seen many adult yellow tangs in a 40.
 
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Hi, at this point I think I am talking to myself but I have decided to go with 2 AI Prime 16HDs for my lights. Also, any thoughts on the eKoral Lite Controller, it seems to have a lot of things the apex does but without the salinity probe which is an easy fix because I can buy a separate controller for that. I also cannot pay $1800 dollars for the apex.
 

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Yer I'm in Melbourne, I know wot u mean. Even the product range selection here is very limited.

I must agree about the coral, majority is from here, but it seems they export the good stuff.

I'm still in my cycling stage but slowly starting to think about live stock list. And just saw ur post on cleaner shrimp pair for $160! Ouch... is that coz they are paired or they $80 a pop regardless?
 
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Yer I'm in Melbourne, I know wot u mean. Even the product range selection here is very limited.

I must agree about the coral, majority is from here, but it seems they export the good stuff.

I'm still in my cycling stage but slowly starting to think about live stock list. And just saw ur post on cleaner shrimp pair for $160! Ouch... is that coz they are paired or they $80 a pop regardless?
Yeah, we get good fish and we get the best sps for like $50AU and awesome euphyllia and other LPS for like $5AU, Cleaner shrimp are 160$ each(They can be cheaper online but there is shipping involved) and also they do not do well during shipping and blood shrimp are $200AU each and these shrimp are expensive because divers need to dive extremely deep for these shrimp, I'd recommend peppermint shrimp ($15AU each but the ones we get eat small aiptasias and are coral friendly!) or coral banded shrimp (Prices Vary). If you want cleaner shrimp to clean fish parasites they will not do that, or atleast not for ich and velvet but if I do succesfully breed them, I'll see if I can send you some but I think it takes 4 months for the larvae to mature and they are hard to keep the larvae alive but I will try.

Also what is on your livestock list and how big is your tank? I'd love to hear.
 

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Where do u get lps and euphyllia for $5? Haven't seen any for less than $35-$60.

As for my stocking list, this is what I'm thinking:
2x clowns
1x bicolour blenny, but I heard the nibble on sps thinking its algae, so might consider tailspot blenny instead.
1x firefish
1x 6 line wrasse
1x yellow tail damsel
1x yasha goby & 1x pistol shrimp
1x cleaner shrimp to clean the fish, but I need to look into that deeper based on your comments.

I think most of these r reasonably priced but I'm not sure about the yasha and pistol
 
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Where do u get lps and euphyllia for $5? Haven't seen any for less than $35-$60.

As for my stocking list, this is what I'm thinking:
2x clowns
1x bicolour blenny, but I heard the nibble on sps thinking its algae, so might consider tailspot blenny instead.
1x firefish
1x 6 line wrasse
1x yellow tail damsel
1x yasha goby & 1x pistol shrimp
1x cleaner shrimp to clean the fish, but I need to look into that deeper based on your comments.

I think most of these r reasonably priced but I'm not sure about the yasha and pistol
We get Yasha Gobies? Pistol Shrimp are rare but avaliable here and that is a good stocking list, I am not stopping you on the cleaner because the fish think of him as a shrimp that massages them and the shrimp relaxes them by picking off dead scales and tissue and he does lower stress so he can help against parasites.
 
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We get Yasha Gobies? Pistol Shrimp are rare but avaliable here and that is a good stocking list, I am not stopping you on the cleaner because the fish think of him as a shrimp that massages them and the shrimp relaxes them by picking off dead scales and tissue and he does lower stress so he can help against parasites.
Euphyllia at Exotic Aquaculture Australia
 

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We get Yasha Gobies? Pistol Shrimp are rare but avaliable here and that is a good stocking list, I am not stopping you on the cleaner because the fish think of him as a shrimp that massages them and the shrimp relaxes them by picking off dead scales and tissue and he does lower stress so he can help against parasites.
Definitely food for thought on the shrimp anyway.

I did ask the LFS and they said they get them, didnt ask about price though. I know they r common in Indonesia, but I heard that Australia doesn't allow the import of fish, but I'm not sure how true that is.
Australia does have yasha's but very rare and only recently are trying to captive breed them. From the wild they are a few $k
 
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Definitely food for thought on the shrimp anyway.

I did ask the LFS and they said they get them, didnt ask about price though. I know they r common in Indonesia, but I heard that Australia doesn't allow the import of fish, but I'm not sure how true that is.
Australia does have yasha's but very rare and only recently are trying to captive breed them. From the wild they are a few $k
Oh, we get fish all over the world, just corals and inverts that are illegal.
 
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Hey, I came up with an idea, could I create like a deep sea tank, I have a brittle starfish so he would come out and I will not need a lot of flow or light, I can put a couple Hammer corals up high and the anemone there to because I plan on a massive overhang, would I be able to lower the temp a little and have a pair of seahorses? I have 2 Ocellaris clownfish and a coral beauty, would they be effected? I could also add some NPS corals at the bottom like sun coral and gorgonians.
 

A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

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  • I have no plans to have feather dusters in my tank.

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