DIY SPS 40B Build Thread

[wallet]

Background
This is my second tank, my first being a nuvo 20 I had in high school with mostly softies and lps. This is my first attempt at sps and diy tank set up.

Construction
Started the stand and plumbing October 2024.

-Stand
Started with a simple stand constructed with 2x4’s and used trim and plywood for the skin with with a black stain. Nothing crazy given this is my first taste of any carpentry work.

-Plumbing
I then drilled the tank placing the overflow on the far left side and two return bulkheads for both return pumps. I used 1” blue pvc for the overflow plumbing and 3/4” red pvc for the return just cause I thought it would look cool. I hard plumbed a small reactor into one of the returns for versatility and put check valves on the returns. For the sump I used a 20L with the Figi Cube sump baffle kit.

-Aquascape
For aquascape I decided to use the purple Marco rock put together with some brs super glue. I tried to prioritize habit for the fish I was going to keep while keeping the sps growth in mind with a minimalistic approach. For substrate I initially went with the special grade but ended up replacing it with some aragonite because it was getting blown around.

-Gear
For gear I’ll just list everything out and if anyone has questions don’t hesitate to ask. Some of the equipment was added intermittently throughout the build
•Lighting:
8 bulb 36” ATI T5’s
1x XHO Reefbrite
• Flow:
2x Sicce silent 2.0
2x Jecod DMP-30
•Temp Control:
2x brs titanium heater with INKBIRD
Wall mounted fan from Home Depot
Tunze fan in sump
•Filtration:
Red Sea Roller Mat
Reef Octopus 110 skimmer
AF CO2 scrubber
Refugium with kessil a80 tuna sun

Biome Cycling and Live Stock

I added water in late November 2024 using Dr Tim’s ammonia and bacteria to cycle. Simultaneously picked up a couple clowns from Petco and quarantined them for the duration of the cycle.

My intention was to add most of the fish before adding the coral to ensure a sufficient microbiome. At this point I started up my Refugium. Next fish was a Fairy Basslet. The qt time gave the nitrifying bacteria time to keep up with bioload.

With the edition of some clean up crew and a couple Banggai Cardinals that would conclude my initial live stock.

Not too much algae growth but you can see the purple Marco Rock has lost its color.

Coral and Chemistry

With a recent trip to Cocoa beach I took advantage of the opportunity and stopped by Top Shelf Aquatics. Picked up a birds nest and a stylo as my test corals as well as a torch from a lfs.

I started dosing All For Reef just for ease of use and upfront cost. This is where I made my first mistake. I’m using Nyos salt for the elevated elements but my kH was lower than I wanted. I assume the snails might have been sucking up the alk but not sure. I don’t think I understood that stability is more important than chasing numbers. This is a trend I have when adding the rest of my corals. Here are the rest of the additions. Most are from Fraghouse Corals and TSA.

 

[Rocks reef]

That looks really nice. You did a great job on the stand! Are you going to create a build thread or a showcase? I'm looking forward to seeing this progress.

 

[Fish Styx]

This is looking great! Maybe we can get @Crabs McJones to move this over to build threads so more people can follow your progress.

 

[Crabs McJones]

This is looking great! Maybe we can get @Crabs McJones to move this over to build threads so more people can follow your progress.

It's in member tanks already

 

[Fish Styx]

It's in member tanks already

Thanks, Crabby!

 

[Crabs McJones]

Tanks looking great so far! One suggestion, if able, swap that A80 over the fuge for an H80 or an H360. Your chateo will go nuts with it

 

[wallet]

Tanks looking great so far! One suggestion, if able, swap that A80 over the fuge for an H80 or an H360. Your chateo will go nuts with it

Yeah I was trying to find one but got the A80 for a good deal on Facebook marketplace and seems to do a pretty good job

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Background
This is my second tank, my first being a nuvo 20 I had in high school with mostly softies and lps. This is my first attempt at sps and diy tank set up.

Construction
Started the stand and plumbing October 2024.

-Stand
Started with a simple stand constructed with 2x4’s and used trim and plywood for the skin with with a black stain. Nothing crazy given this is my first taste of any carpentry work.

-Plumbing
I then drilled the tank placing the overflow on the far left side and two return bulkheads for both return pumps. I used 1” blue pvc for the overflow plumbing and 3/4” red pvc for the return just cause I thought it would look cool. I hard plumbed a small reactor into one of the returns for versatility and put check valves on the returns. For the sump I used a 20L with the Figi Cube sump baffle kit.

-Aquascape
For aquascape I decided to use the purple Marco rock put together with some brs super glue. I tried to prioritize habit for the fish I was going to keep while keeping the sps growth in mind with a minimalistic approach. For substrate I initially went with the special grade but ended up replacing it with some aragonite because it was getting blown around.

-Gear
For gear I’ll just list everything out and if anyone has questions don’t hesitate to ask. Some of the equipment was added intermittently throughout the build
•Lighting:
8 bulb 36” ATI T5’s
1x XHO Reefbrite
• Flow:
2x Sicce silent 2.0
2x Jecod DMP-30
•Temp Control:
2x brs titanium heater with INKBIRD
Wall mounted fan from Home Depot
Tunze fan in sump
•Filtration:
Red Sea Roller Mat
Reef Octopus 110 skimmer
AF CO2 scrubber
Refugium with kessil a80 tuna sun

Biome Cycling and Live Stock

I added water in late November 2024 using Dr Tim’s ammonia and bacteria to cycle. Simultaneously picked up a couple clowns from Petco and quarantined them for the duration of the cycle.

My intention was to add most of the fish before adding the coral to ensure a sufficient microbiome. At this point I started up my Refugium. Next fish was a Fairy Basslet. The qt time gave the nitrifying bacteria time to keep up with bioload.

With the edition of some clean up crew and a couple Banggai Cardinals that would conclude my initial live stock.

Not too much algae growth but you can see the purple Marco Rock has lost its color.

Coral and Chemistry

With a recent trip to Cocoa beach I took advantage of the opportunity and stopped by Top Shelf Aquatics. Picked up a birds nest and a stylo as my test corals as well as a torch from a lfs.

I started dosing All For Reef just for ease of use and upfront cost. This is where I made my first mistake. I’m using Nyos salt for the elevated elements but my kH was lower than I wanted. I assume the snails might have been sucking up the alk but not sure. I don’t think I understood that stability is more important than chasing numbers. This is a trend I have when adding the rest of my corals. Here are the rest of the additions. Most are from Fraghouse Corals and TSA.

So this is where that tank stands currently. Planning on adding another power head to get a little more flow but otherwise just waiting for them to grow in and keeping it stable. Thanks for taking a look! Also I’m new to R2R so not very savvy, not sure if this is technically a build thread but that’s what I was going for. Thanks!

I love all the corals you have in your tank! Can't wait to see what they look like once they are grown out!

 

[wallet]

A little update on the tank. I ended up adding a Jebao gyre. Pretty inexpensive and I can control it with my other Jebao pumps from the same app so pretty convenient. Just wanted to get some dead spots hit with flow and get more strong indirect current for the coral.

Major elements are dialed in really good and seeing some pretty good growth

kH: 8.8
Ca: 450
Mg: 1380

I’m testing my alk everyday and calcium and magnesium every couple weeks

Here’s my green birds nest which is probably my fastest growing. This is a little over 1 month of growth. First pic is June 27th and the second is just this morning August 1st.

I’ve found most of the acros are a little pale but still growing. My nitrate is pretty much bottomed out and my phosphate is around .03.

To tackle this nutrient issue I’ve kept my feeding the same as my fish and other tank inhabitants are fat and healthy. I’m employing on of those pill box organizers for my feeding in order to standardize my daily feeding amount.

With my feeding controlled I’m going to dose nitrate and phosphate to get to the levels I want. End goal is around 5-10 nitrate and .05-.1 phosphate. Not too concerned on an exact level. Just going to slowly add and test so I don’t have an algae outbreak. I’m choosing nyos nitrate and phosphate as my additives. I use their salt and believe they make good products.

I’ve also been doing amino acids specifically acro power and have seen some improvement in polyp extension and a little more vibrant color.

Hoping this will get some more color in these corals. If anyone has any tips I’m all ears as this is the first time I’ve dosed NO3 and PO4. Thanks!

Here’s a couple more shots from this morning

 

[wallet]

Here’s a quick sump shot. Just made this little divider for the refugium light. Found that the light spilling through the rest of the sump was growing algae. Loving my Red Sea Roller mat, working great.

 

[69cam]

Any updates?

 

[wallet]

Any updates?

Been battling a cyano/Dino combo for a while. Finally starting to clear up. Will update with pictures and how I solved it soon.

Here’s a pic after yesterday’s water change

 

[wallet]

As I mentioned before I’ve been battling some dinos and cyano for about a month now. I’ve finally seemingly conjured it and I’ll share how I think it happened and how I beat it.

I don’t have many pictures of the cyano outbreak but you can see the Dino’s starting to take hold in this photo.

My birds nest was probably the most impacted. I suspect that it was growing so fast that the Dino’s took hold on the tips where the tissue wasn’t fully formed. I tried my best to brush it off as much as possible but it kept coming back. This resulted in some die off of some of the branches. As far as this one coral is concerned I ended up fraging the most dead parts and put them in another, older system. The frags eventually grew their tissue back and I’ll touch on them and the system they were in later.

Suspected Cause
In a previous post I said I started dosing PO4 and NO3 in order to improve the coloration in my corals. From what I found, at least with my system, the increased nutrients cause a lower uptake in alkalinity and subsequent slower growths. The manual addition of the nutrients was made the system somewhat volatile due to my systems high nutrient export rate. I did see marginal improved coloration with increased nutrients and addition of amino acids. I suspect the relative immaturity of my tank and the inconsistent addition of nutrients/amino acids lead to an imbalance in the microbiome and the rise of Dino’s and the later cyano outbreak.

Treatment
With the onset of the Dino’s, manual removal was my first remedy. This worked for a little bit but it eventually kept spreading. My next treatment was a 5 day blackout. This worked really well and I think if I paired it with my other treatments this could have worked. Even with its effectiveness, there was still traces of the Dino’s and I was worried about my acros not getting light so I turned them back on. The Dino’s had given way to cyano once the lights were turned on just through the availability of resources. I started to do more research and planed my final attack to hopefully wipe them out for good. I removed the cheato from my refugium reading that it could be feeding the Dino’s and decided to dose H2O2 at about 1ml per 10 gallons daily. I decided to tackle the Dino’s first and then deal with the cyano with chemiclean later. Throughout all treatment I’d be dosing microbacter7 to improve the overall microbiome, roughly two cap fulls a day. I ceased dosing amino acids as to not fuel the Dino’s and it seemed to be working. The Dino’s started to recede and opened the door for the cyano to really take hold. I wasn’t worried though and allowed the cyano to take hold eating up the Dino’s real estate. Once I’d felt like the Dino’s had all cleared up, I started the chemiclean treatment. I also added some sand from an already mature system to introduce more bacteria. These pockets of mature sand were effectively footholds that the bacteria could fight out of gaining ground against the cyano. After about a week or two the cyano was completely gone. There still were some Dino’s holding out but with manual removal and a stronger microbiome the fizzled out in a few days. I’ve since added a auto feeder to keep a somewhat consistent and higher nutrient levels.

Drawbacks
My plan had seemed to work pretty well. I hadn’t sustained any coral mortalities except for some die off of my birds nest but that wasn’t a result from my treatment. My fish on the other hand had suffered massive loss. I’ve lost basically all my fish except for my angel and one cardinal. I believe this was due to already having less than ideal habitat for the amount of fish I was keeping and added stress. All fish had been quarantined before addition but I didn’t take measures to prevent disease as far as invert and coral qt. Prior to treat all were happy and there was little to no territorial disputes. Once I started the H2O2 treatment however, there was an immediate up tick in aggression and almost all the fish looked to have some sort of disease or parasite issue. My only thought was that the H2O2 was eating away at their gel coat and causing the disease to take hold. I’m not sure but I think this added stress cause more fighting and more stress until most of them succumbed to their ailments. I tried to isolate the weakest ones but didn’t have the facilities to treat the quantity nor did I want to relocate the sick fish to my other systems and potentially contaminating them. So I left it alone and let it work out naturally. I fed regular to make sure they were still feeding but it didn’t make a difference. I have seen some flat worms since my sixline had died but they don’t seem to be abusing the corals much so I’ll deal with that sooner or later.

Future Endeavors and Growth Update

These are a couple examples of the growth I’m seeing. This is about two months of growth. They seem to be still encrusting.

You can see these two seem to actually improve their coloration as well. I this this is just because I’ve gotten my alk a lot more stable.

Here’s the frags of the birds nest in another system. There’s definitely less flow and light in it with just a couple cheap power heads and a Chinese two bulb t5 fixture but they seem to be doing well. The polyps are a lot more extended.

Here’s a shot of the refugium without the cheato. I added a couple rocks with some soft corals from the tank I put the birds nest frags in. That was my first system I set up in high school so it’s coming up on 8 years old now.

For the future I may add another smaller power head to even out the flow on the left side. You can see with the pc rainbow it seems to be growing toward the flow of the powerhead suggesting there is better biology there. I could also be the reefbrite I have mounted on the ati fixture at an angle but I think flow is the culprit. So far the All for Reef seems to be supplying the major elements so no changes there. I want to eventually get an icp test once I really dial everything in to see if trace elements need attention but I’m just focusing on stability right now.

Here’s some photos taken today. Thanks for following along!