Daddynemo's 1st 40GBR

[Daddynemo30]

Hello everyone. Ive been lurking around the foruns for awhile, and have done quite a bit of research on here. I have to say that R2R has become one of my primary sources of information for my introduction into the hobby. I come from a decades worth of freshwater/cichlid tank keeping but have slowly figured out, there is very little that can be transferred. Anyway, if for nothing but my own tracking, I'm going to start my build thread, even though Ive been cycled for 3 months now, and have already fully stocked my fish livestock, and am slowly adding corals, as I learn about them.
My tank is a 40 gallon breeder i picked up at the dollar a gallon sale at petco. I have what I assume would be in the area of 25 to 30 lbs of live rock. I'm running 3 powerheads, a Sicce voyager 3, and 2 hydor 425s. At the moment, the only filtering I have is a half protein skimmer/filter hob thing from coralife. I had started with an emperor 400 hob filter, but obviously when I realized where nitrates were coming from, I removed it. In the filter portion of the skimmer, I'm using a bag of fluval biomax, and chemipure elite bag. My heater is a marineland submersible, but honestly barely ever do i see it on. My lighting consists of a really old 2 bulb 48" t5 fixture, with Wave Point 420 actinic, and 460 actinic bulbs. Also I have a chinese black box light, though I dont know the brand. My water parameters stay pretty good, and I'm doing 10 gallon water changes with SW from the lfs every 10 days. I feed pellets, Mysis, reef roofs, and reefreshments phytoplankton on a schedule throughout the week.
I currently have a few scans, a favia brain, clove polyps, a couple zoas, GSP on its own rock (I will do my best to manage, sorry but I love the looks of it, one of the corals that brought me in the hobby) along with a few others, including a hammer and a rose coral.
My biggest issue at the moment is finding permanent placement for the corals I have, so they thrive in their respective light and flow. Its been trial and error but it is coming along nicely. My other issue is leaving the tank alone and keeping my hands out of it, but have gotten better as of late. I will update often, with plans of my custom stand, and future plans of sump and lighting. Lighting is ok for now, but trying to decide wether to do a 4 or 6 bulb ATI t5 fixture, MH with reef brights, or the Kessel Ap700.
Anyway thats all I can think of for now, and thanks to everyone that's helped me along the way so far, and in the future.

 

[Ishaithecoralguy]

Nice can I recommend a refugium, even a hob fuge will do wonders for phosphate and nitrate as well as algae reduction and micro-flora diversification with pods.

 

[Daddynemo30]

I plan on going full sump with refugium shortly after the stand has been built. That may be just a 40 gallon underneath with baffles. But until then how big a refugium would I need to see the benefits to phosphate and nitrate reduction and what contents should i use. I appreciate the feedback and will do a little digging into a hob to suffice for now

 

[HexaReef]

10 gallon WC'S every 10 days? How big is your bio load? Cause that seems a bit excessive.

 

[Daddynemo30]

16 coral frag, 5 fish all small, about 8 snails and some feather dusters (dont contribute i know) I guess its just routine. I had diatom issue about 2 months ago so thats where it started the 10/10

 

[Daddynemo30]

Update, my neighbor came by yesterday with the framework cut out for the stand. And sent me a photo this morning of the gussets he will be cutting out today. Should be meeting up with my welding friends in the next couple of days so he can get the basic frame put together