CuzzA's 40 Breeder Display & 40 Breeder Sump | True All In One | Mixed Reef Tank Build | Heavy Automation

[CuzzA]

@Msteven1 I apologize for not getting the cut list for you. With the holidays and the following info I have had my hands full. Keep in mind to do the cut list requires I go back and measure each piece in my graphics program.

So, I don't have any good news to add. Somehow from adding various inverts I introduced velvet into my system. I tried a mild h2o2 dosing regiment, but being a reef my level to live dangerously was pretty low and then once the clowns became symptomatic I decided they all needed to be pulled and re-quarantined.

So that's where we're at. All fish were pulled, got a 30 minute hydrogen peroxide bath and are in a 20 long getting Chloroquine Phosohate and Furan 2. I am going to fallow the tank for 30 days and then test the display with a black molly.

About the only thing of any real interest I can add is the buoyant fish trap I made and my water parameters remain pretty good; however, po4 has dropped to undetectable levels. I will probably exhaust the GFO currently running and then stop using it until fish are returned and it begins to rise again.

As for the trap. I bought a small fish bowl and drilled a hole in the top to drop in food with a baster. I had a small round rearview mirror you put on your vehicles side mirror and attached that inside the bowl. I cut a piece of pool noodle and zip tied that to the rim and finally zip tied the whole works to an old Magfloat I had in the fish bin. When fish go in to eat, pull the outside magnet and the buoyancy of the pool noodle sends the fish bowl flying up to the surface and trapping the fish.

I also speared the final gorilla crab discovered in the display with a skewer. I then fed it to the anemone.

Anyway, I'm really not sure how to proceed with inverts in the future. Qting inverts seems so ridiculous, but it appears most distribution centers and fish stores are just overwhelmed with parasites and I've noticed fish stores keeping more fish in their invert systems. I would have never worried about it 5 years ago, but I think times have changed.

 

[CuzzA]

I want to keep adding value to this build thread and so today I figured I'd share the Taylor Speedstir. I've been using this since I started reefing years ago and it really makes titration water testing a lot easier.

It's a simple stir plate, very compact and the kit includes everything you need. The stir plate also has an integrated LED light to view the liquid during your test. Eventually I bought smaller stir bars to fit in the Salifert containers. This isn't necessary, but it allows me to just run all my tests without having to clean the container and stir bar in between tests. I use Hanna checkers for alkalinity and phosphate, but Salifert for everything else and this product is really useful for that. It's also pretty cheap at $30.

They can be bought here.

Taylor 9265 Magnetic Stirrer Speedstir Start-Up Pack with Stir Bar + Batteries | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Taylor 9265 Magnetic Stirrer Speedstir Start-Up Pack with Stir Bar + Batteries at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

 

[Msteven1]

@Msteven1 I apologize for not getting the cut list for you. With the holidays and the following info I have had my hands full. Keep in mind to do the cut list requires I go back and measure each piece in my graphics program.

So, I don't have any good news to add. Somehow from adding various inverts I introduced velvet into my system. I tried a mild h2o2 dosing regiment, but being a reef my level to live dangerously was pretty low and then once the clowns became symptomatic I decided they all needed to be pulled and re-quarantined.

So that's where we're at. All fish were pulled, got a 30 minute hydrogen peroxide bath and are in a 20 long getting Chloroquine Phosohate and Furan 2. I am going to fallow the tank for 30 days and then test the display with a black molly.

About the only thing of any real interest I can add is the buoyant fish trap I made and my water parameters remain pretty good; however, po4 has dropped to undetectable levels. I will probably exhaust the GFO currently running and then stop using it until fish are returned and it begins to rise again.

As for the trap. I bought a small fish bowl and drilled a hole in the top to drop in food with a baster. I had a small round rearview mirror you put on your vehicles side mirror and attached that inside the bowl. I cut a piece of pool noodle and zip tied that to the rim and finally zip tied the whole works to an old Magfloat I had in the fish bin. When fish go in to eat, pull the outside magnet and the buoyancy of the pool noodle sends the fish bowl flying up to the surface and trapping the fish.

I also speared the final gorilla crab discovered in the display with a skewer. I then fed it to the anemone.

Anyway, I'm really not sure how to proceed with inverts in the future. Qting inverts seems so ridiculous, but it appears most distribution centers and fish stores are just overwhelmed with parasites and I've noticed fish stores keeping more fish in their invert systems. I would have never worried about it 5 years ago, but I think times have changed.

Hey Cuzza...thanks for the follow up. Don't bother with dimensioning your drawings, I have Sketch Up and will play around with the dimensions.

 

[CuzzA]

Well, just because your fish are in rehab doesn't mean you can't stop building your reef.

Picked up five corals yesterday.

A very bright yellowish green Anacropra. A Bird of Paradise Birdsnest, blue cyphastrea, scrambled eggs zoa and utter chaos paly.

Hard to get a good pic of the Bird, plus it was only a half an inch. Got it for free as it was just laying in the bottom of the frag tank.

Scrambled eggs took a bit of a beating as I took it off the plug. Utter chaos opened right up.

Reef tanks are not the same without fish.

 

[CuzzA]

So the coral additions continued today. I picked up a replacement battle stag frag that went up in smoke from the first frag pack. I added a smooth skin acro that I'll have to get an ID on. It was free, again I always search the bottom of the store's frag tank bins for broken coral. This piece was in perfect condition. So a nice score.

I also scored an awesome ricordea with bright blue skin and orange, pink and yellow bubbles. Way under priced and the store employee was like, "awe man, nice find, we wouldn't have put that in their for that price."

I also added some blue zoas to continue mixing up the zoa garden rock. I actually fragged them to place several on nem Island. There's quite a bit of real estate on the rock and far enough away to prevent the nem from stinging them, though I've read they can often coexist next to each other.

Finally, I picked up a gorgeous stellata. The polyps are yellow and the skin is teal. I really hope these corals maintain their colors in my system.

I'll add some pics tomorrow when the white lights are on.

Fish all are looking healthy and no more signs of velvet. It will have been ten days of 80mg/ gallon treatment tomorrow so I think I'm going to pull them out of qt and give them another 30 minute h2o2 bath, during which I will quickly break down the qt, sterilize it, swap the HOB filter for a new one that's never been used and restart the system with biospira. I'll add a black Molly as a canary after a week and verify that the system is clean. I still have a few more weeks for the DT, but same deal, I'll add a Molly and see if anything pops up.

 

[CuzzA]

Reef building continues... Yesterday I added a meter shower cyphastrea to compliment the other bizarro. Both are on each side of a cave below the hammer. Being a low light coral they should fill the void there nicely.

Also I added some sympodium scattered about in between the acros. Sympodium is a really pretty Indo coral. It looks like a cross between blue and green star polyps. However it isn't invasive like those two species. The goal is to keep the acro bases from touching.

I also ended up fragging off the cup coral and putting it on an undercut on the wall drop off rock. It was from one of the small seed rocks and I pitched the rock it was on. It was a pretty dense lemon sized rock and the sponge that was on it had already deteriorated in the low nutrient system. Everything remains status quo. I did start a super slow night time kalk drip as I'm visually starting to see some growth, but nothing is registering on the Hanna meter. February 12th is the date I chose to introduce the molly to the display.

In the meantime I finished up the qt today. All fish got a heavy dose of CP at 80/ mg and daily dosing for 15 days and I haven't seen symptoms since day four in qt. I transferred the fish to a holding tote while I sterilized the qt with bleach and then added new water, all new equipment, a nice reef background, a frosted bottom vinyl left over from the display to stop them from chasing their reflection, and last but not least a few fake coral resin pieces for cheap on Amazon Warehouse. But not before they all got a 30 minute peroxide bath for good measure. It may be a bit overkill for an observation tank, but their demeanor instantly changed once introduced and now I don't have to look at an unsightly tank in my bathroom for the next several weeks. Though I may just leave it setup for future qt. I'd really like to add a leopard wrasse. I'll also add the other used Koralia powerhead once it's been dry for 24 hours.

So here's the current FTS and the observation setup. I would have liked to oil the background, but thought better of it since it may need to be sterilized again. I also added some side background, cut at a slope, as my bathroom is all mirror and originally they were constantly spooked.

 

[CuzzA]

Oh, almost forgot. I made a magnetic frag rack rock. This will get tucked right on the top of the left wall rock. You won't even know it's there once the rock colors up.

I had a really old glass cleaning magnet in the fish box and pulled the magnet out of the casing. Took a piece of extra Pukani that I acid washed when I originally cleaned my rocks. I shaped it a bit and drilled four holes. I then took some of that Nyos cement I had left over and embedded the magnet into the rock and then put some sticky felt on the magnet to protect the glass.

You might be thinking the holes are small and you would be correct. However, I plan on using plastic purple golf tees as frag pegs. I really wish the hobby would get away from ugly frag plugs.

Anyway, here's some pics of that project and a link to the purple golf tees.


Zero Friction Victory 5-Prong Golf Tees (2-3/4 Inch, Purple, Pack of 40)

 

[CuzzA]

An update from my reef.

Fish look great. Velvet is gone. Still waiting until 2/12 to reintroduce to the system. Sadly the Flame angel did not make it. Despite treating with antibiotics it succumb to the extensive velvet bite marks.

I am seeing good growth on coral. I added a couple acans. One blue with green highlights, the other orange with blue highlights. Fortunately they were cut from a pretty tall colony so they had a good amount of skeleton. I glued them to frag tiles and buried the tile and most of the skeleton under the sand. This should look nice as they grow and create a round brain looking colony.

I had a small patch of hair algae develop on nem island which is nearly eradicated through direct h2o2 treatments. This is the problem when trying to ghost feed a tank without fish. An interesting observation is while the h2o2 may not kill off the algae right away, it definitely changes it to where every algae eating invert converges and eats it, but doesn't touch untreated areas.

I am in the process of researching the best way to administer h2o2 daily. The Oxydator is a simple solution and a dosing pump comes with the overdosing risk. I would love to do an IV drip, but I don't know if I could get the dosing rate low enough to not exceed 5-10 ml per 24 hours. I will have to investigate further.

Finally, I still have not purchased the DOS and instead have been dripping kalk. I don't see the need to pull the trigger just yet and I've learned over the years from a warranty perspective, it's best to wait until you need it to not waste warranty time. Nevertheless, here's a picture of my DIY kalk dripper. I am able to get the drip rate as low as 1 drop every 12 seconds, which is pretty good, but testing shows I'll be continuing to increase that rate.

I have a few more corals to add. I have an ornate leopard wrasse waiting for me as another local reefer is breaking down his tank. So that is exciting and I don't have to go through the task of trying to get one to adapt to captive life.

More updates to come.

Oh, I forgot to mention in my previous post on the golf tee frag plugs. The process will e
Involve adding purple two part epoxy to the top of the tees. This will look a little like a lollipop rather than a frag plug, but have the benefit of not looking like a frag plug and can more easily be placed throughout the holes of rocks since the tees are a much smaller diameter than frag plugs.

 

[Coastie Reefer]

So, I'm picking up the coral tomorrow from my LFS. They have a gorgeous reef and I picked out 10 pieces making sure to get a good blend of colors.

The pieces I chose are as follows...

Forest Fire Digi
Battle Stag
Orange Mille
Green Slimer
Green Hulk
Blue Slimer
Fuzzy Pink Mille
Ultra Blue Bonzai
Strawberry Shortcake Acro
Gomezi Acro

These will be placed across the center and right rocks. I'll put one slimer on the small background rock. The forward right rock will be getting a bubble tip nem. The tall rock to the left will get a collection of encrusting corals yet to be determined. I will also probably put some dendros and blastos in the lower light under cuts. Finally there's a small solo rock at the base that isn't attached so I'll likely grow a little garden of various zoas and move it off the tall rock an inch or so.

I'm hoping to get out for one more dive before the end of the year, before we hang up the spearguns as most species will be closed January 1st. If I do, I plan on looking for a small starfish, a photosynthetic gorgonian, and a feather duster or two. I may add a plate as well. I had a UFO plate in the past and that thing was bullet proof when it would get covered in sand. So that's the plan. I'm also trying to figure out a clever, easy and natural looking way to keep nori on a hard surface to keep the angel occupied. Fingers crossed he will be a model citizen.

Here's some picture of my LFS's main hard coral reef. Pics don't do it justice, as usual. But if you're ever in the Tampa Bay area, stop in The Coral Corral. They have two huge displays. The smaller hard coral one is several hundred gallons and the large one is soft corals and a ton of fish, sometimes sharks.

Good ole Coral Corral!!! I miss that place so much. Used to go nearly every week when I lived in St. Pete...

 

[CuzzA]

Reef update...

I have since added a pair of T5 SunBlaster lights to the system. I put a 24w ATI Coral Plus in front and a 24w Blue Plus in the rear. The QMaven fixture worked perfect for this because it has those acrylic pieces of trim which allowed me to easily drill holes for the hanging clips. I have them running six hours a day, slightly longer than the LEDs photo period. The reason for adding them is to reduce shadowing and color up some corals, especially my millies. This appears to be working. The hammer is showing a much brighter fluorescence and the millies are definitely beginning to display color after browning out.

I had a brief battle with some hair algae and so I proactively tackled it. Manual brushing and two doses of Vibrant eliminated it within two weeks. I attribute this to the tank being fallow, yet I'm still ghost feeding. Otherwise everything is doing really well and everything is growing. Not a whole lot of coral growth to illustrate because much of everything is still establishing it's base on the rocks.

Diatoms have persisted, though not at unsightly levels and so I decided rather than me siphoning them out I'd rather try and create a natural cycle of growth and consumption so I added a really pretty Fighting Conch which has a metallic blue shell. This is a variation I have never seen before. So far my plan is working. It's keeping the sandbed fairly clean, but there's still enough reproduction to sustain it. Since halting the sandbed siphoning the microfauna has begun to flourish. I am noticing an increase in feather dusters and bivalves along with various worms. My hope now it that I can leave it undisturbed and the conch will take care of it for me while all the microfauna begins to take off.

I have added a few more zoas, a red urchin from the Gulf, an Orange coco worm from Bali and a couple sticks here and there, including one Indo acro since the ban was released. I've moved a few things around as well. Like putting the millie front and center and directly under the Coral Plus bulb. Which makes sense since they are a shallow water coral and likely appreciate a whiter spectrum. Flow is also very good there with the tidal gyre I have going on.

Fish remain in QT and since they are stable I am taking my time before adding them back in. I want to be 100% there is not velvet remaining in the display. So far I have no other pests and I always dip, cut away frag plugs, et cetera. So no aptasia or vermitted snails.

Finally, I am currently building a semi automated automated kalk dripper. I will share pics when it's done, but the half gallon is becoming annoying as I have to fill it and mix kalk daily. The new setup is 3 gallons. My goal is to turn it into a once a week job.

I am probably going to upgrade this reef to a 60x24x24 system. I am considering either a custom acrylic tank or an SC Aquariums tank. I won't add more rock, rather I would be able to spread everything out more and allow these colonies to grow out, plus I'd like to have some bigger fish and perhaps a clam. The tank would be setup nearly identical and I also won't have that black rear trim showing through which distracts from the shadow box background. We'll see. I am in no rush so it won't happen for a while.

 

[CuzzA]

Alright, today I assembled my DIY semi-automated kalk reservoir gravity dripper. The only parts I had to buy were the reservoir and stirrer, as I had everything else in spare parts.

This is controlled with the Apex. Basically my design is as follows.

The reservoir is a 3 gallon glass beverage dispenser. I chose to use glass to avoid degradation of plastics and for easy cleanup. I replaced the spigot with a 1/4" quick connect bulkhead. This will be stored in an adjacent closet behind the tank in between my tank's water supply. There's already a night stand in the closet that holds some dive equipment so it's up high enough and will lead down to my sump where the drip rate will be controlled with a valve. I added a funnel to the lid to add kalk when needed and threw in a wine stopper I had laying around. The seastar wine stopper was fitting for the project. I likely picked it up from some beach wedding over the years.

I had a spare normally closed solenoid so through the Apex this will be part of the auto filler. I also had spare float switches so I made an acrylic bracket and mounted a high and low switch. This way the reservoir will automatically refill. For a fail safe there is also a float valve attached to the lid and I will add my DIY copper tape leak detector strips to the closet. I will program the Apex to notify me when the reservoir is low so I will know to add kalk.

Finally, since it's so large and a bit cumbersome in the closet, I picked up a magnetic stirrer off Bezos for $30. I will set up a virtual outlet so I can turn on the stirrer and have it shut off automatically after a several minutes to mix up the kalk. I have no intentions of continuously stirring the kalk. I prefer the consistency of dripping from a still reservoir.

A couple pieces that make this setup work is utilizing quick disconnects, not to be confused with quick connects. This will allow me to easily pull the lid, detach the feed tube and clean the reservoir every so often. The top water supply QDC is automatically valved so even if I take the lid off and the float triggers the solenoid, no water will leak.

I've always been a fan of kalk. It keeps pH up, the dosing is balanced and it's cheap. My goal is for weekly refilling of kalk and hold off as long as possible until I need to start dosing. Right now I'm getting just over a day from my smaller 1/2 gallon dripper I made. I also know I have the ability to use vinegar to super saturate the kalk, but right now I don't have the bio load for it nor the calcium demand.

 

[CuzzA]

So, coral additions continue. A couple acros. An unknown red and a Jawbreaker acro I'm really excited about. Also added a Jack O'Lantern leptoseris and a spitfire leptastrea.

This morning my Trochus snails spawned. Fitting considering today is Valentine's Day. I was able to capture a quick video.

My red urchin, which is a great species from the Gulf because it doesn't carry objects around like other species, apparently has an appetite for shrimp molts. That is pretty cool to learn and I'll be sure to feed it molts in the future.

I decided I needed to modify the kalk dripper. I got a duplicate container and built a stand. The problem I realized is it would take too long to let new kalk settle out, so I need to transfer the useable liquid to another reservoir. So I'll have the first one on top of the new one and transfer the liquid to keep a continuous supply of kalk.

Finally, I really liked what hydrogen peroxide did to my tank when I was dosing it, but I've been trying to figure out a way to safely dose it long term without the expense and hassle of an Oxydator. I don't trust putting it on a dosing pump, so I built a little siphon dripper. I used an airline valve and a needle at the end and was able to achieve a 5ml dose over 24 hours. This seems like a good maintenance dose to keep the tank over oxygenated.

 

[CuzzA]

Update on the kalk dripper.

More sticks added. Great coloration beginning on all of my corals. Been dosing Brightwell CoralAmino and upped my po4 to > .05 through the addition of Reef Roids and phytoplankton. The reef is really taking off and laying down some tissue and skeleton.

In the next day or so I'll get the glass cleaned up for some good pics. Can't wait to get fish back in as I think the reef is on the cusp of really stabilizing and I feel like I have really good control over everything going on. I am approaching my max on coral species. In the next few weeks I think I'll be done with additions if I can get my hands on a variety of encrusting montiporas.

 

[CuzzA]

I got the kalk dripper dialed in and were holding steady at 7.9 dkh. So this should get me by for a long while before having to add two part.

I added a red serpent seastar yesterday. Leopard wrasse is going in the tank tomorrow. I have a baby white tale yellow eye tang on hold at my LFS. This week I am going to start moving fish from qt back to the display and then qt the tang. I normally wouldn't consider a tang in this size tank, but I'm making plans for the 60x24x24 so it will be fine by the time I upgrade. The nice thing is I really don't need to upgrade much of my equipment other than power heads and lights since everything else can handle that size tank. I may convert the WC reservoir to a pod refugium and then add a new larger reservoir and ATO. Nevertheless, the tank will be almost identical but the rocks will be more spread out allowing for more coral growth. Plus I can then fit a clam.

FTS:

 

[CuzzA]

Came home today to find one of my glass shrimp pregnant. Unfortunately I think their days are numbered once the leopard wrasse goes in. The guy with the wrasse had to put it off until this weekend so maybe we'll get some babies before then.

Some more reef pics. Kalk is barely keeping up with growth so two part will be going online soon.

 

[Phildago]

Looking great!

Great idea with the nem island. Are you able to get you, sticks enough flow without bothering it?

 

[CuzzA]

Looking great!

Great idea with the nem island. Are you able to get you, sticks enough flow without bothering it?

Thanks. Yes, plenty of flow for now. I'll have to add more as the sticks grow. I think BTA can tolerate a pretty wide range of flow patterns, but I suspect if there's too much that is when they lose their bubble tips.

So far so good. It literally hasn't budged, nor split. That tells me it's happy.

I forgot to add the display is officially no longer fallow. Though I haven't moved my other fish over. With all of the pandemic preps I haven't got around to it. Maybe this week.

 

[CuzzA]

Not much to report. A few coral additions here and there. Added a white tail yellow eye kole tang. I would not recommend a tang in a three foot tank, but I'm working on the details of that five foot tank so he'll be fine for now. Anyway, latest FTS. I'm thinking of moving the acro on the background pinnacle and instead putting a torch there. I'll likely move the plate to the corner by the nem and add a clam in it's place. Unfortunately with the Chinese virus going around there's few imported fish to be had, so no new fish additions for now.

 

[October Sky]

A quick update on the water change reservoir lid. I was able to find a batter dispenser large enough to hold the minimum 5.5 lbs. of salt I need to make water. And in an effort to keep the sump tidy this will go a long way. I used a whole saw and drilled the lid, and well, I think the rest is self explanatory. The dispenser came from Bezos. Around $15.

Realize this is old, but my brain saw 4 heaters and I thought you have serious OCD/redundancy issues. Awesome build.

 

[Sebastiancrab]

Wow that looks amazing so far! I just picked up a 40B myself and need to build a stand. Would you mind sharing the dimensions and cut lengths? I look forward to seeing this come to life!

Whose tank did you buy and is it drillable?