Thanks for the recommendation! You’re spot on, it’s 8-9dkh at 35ppt after looking at their site. I will probably go with that.
Thank you! That’s a hard price to beat tbh.
Awesome. We would love the opportunity to earn your business.
Seems that may be the case, I need to do a little more research on bacterial blooms. I have a skimmer running and good surface agitation, so that should be hopefully take care of any oxygen depletion.
Hello, Nice Deal. I just picked up my brand-new one this weekend. Love the quality of the tank. I am super excited to set it all up.It's good to be back!
After a 10 year break from the hobby (college, jobs, buying a house, bla bla bla), I found a great deal on a used IM 40L for my home office.
Months of waiting for something to pop up on Facebook Market place was worth it. Someone was exiting the hobby and was selling a very well taken care of IM 40L AIO, with pretty much everything needed for set up, and more!
Here's a list of all the major equipment I scored in this deal:
1 IM 40L w Stand 3 AI Prime 16HD 3 Prime 16 Mounts 1 Ai Nero 3 2 Cobalt Neotherm Pro 100W 1 NF-1 Skimmer 1 Tunze 9001 Skimmer 1 Aqua Auto Micro 3 Auto Aqua ATO Lite 2 Aqua Neat Pumps 1 Eshopps Frag Rack 1 Sicce Syncra Silent 3
+ tons of chemicals, carib sea rock, various tools, etc! He pretty much just wanted all of it gone lol.
I took inventory of everything included and it came out to around $3600 new, obviously resale value isn't all that high on aquariums and gear, but for the $600 I paid, I think I did alright. The seller was very nice and knew the value, just wanted it gone to make room for a new car project.
Here it is empty the day I picked it up!
That night, I ordered a BRS 5 Stage RODI kit, some Dr Tim's bacteria + ammonia, and some other little goodies to get this thing going.
Over the past few days I've been working on cable management:
As well as mixing salt water and getting the cycle started! I'm on day 4 and everything is going smoothly. The water is clear, ammonia is present, and there are very small levels of nitrite and nitrate!
Current picture:
My current plans for this tank are a nice mixed reef with 3-4 fish. I'm really interested in getting a nice zoa garden going as well.
Thanks for reading this far and I look forward to chit chatting with y'all and documenting the process here.
Nice! I'll have to check out your build thread if you make one, seems like theres a nice little group of people on here with IM 40Ls. I was impressed by it too, really nice glass and the black silicone is a great look.
Hey I like the pictures they look good!Couple of pics from the past few days, don't mind the deep fried photo editing. Been playing with Light room lol.
Thought it was cool that this clown has a perfect circle on it lol.
The mushroom seems to be settling in and found a nice rock to attach to, going to give it a week before attempting to remove it and see if its stuck.
The new GSP frag is already growing, and the first frag I got looks like its back from the dead. Day by day it has been getting more extension and even a hint of green! The frags from the same batch at the LFS I bought it from didn't make it from what I saw last time I was there, glad mine pulled through lol!
Also, dKH is now at 8, going to maintain with All For Reef now. Ordered some Red Sea blue (7.5-8.5 dKH) since it comes in a bucket. Love a good bucket.
Beautiful octo!Quick little update!
Still going though the ugly stages, seeing lots of diatoms and hair algae right now.
Corals are all doing pretty well! Alk seems to be pretty stable with the use of All For Reef. Going to pick up a Kamoer doser pretty soon to automate the AFR. Annoying to dose by hand lol.
I did a few peroxide dips on my Zoas to remove the hair algae with limited success, it cleans most of it off, but it seems to come back stronger. Seems like a fleeting effort at this point. Went to the LFS this weekend and picked up a few more additions to the CUC. 2 Large Turbos, 6 hermits, and a Tiger Sand Conch.
The turbos are straight up bull dozers, going to glue the Zoas soon. But holy crap, they put in some work! Devouring hair algae and leaving a nice clean rock surface behind. It's even cleaning the frag plugs... and tipping them over...
The Conch is a cool little critter, interesting to watch it drag itself around and eat algae with its trunk thing.
Some coral updates! The Zoas are growing new polyps like crazy, even though they're covered in hair algae. If you full size the image below, there are 3 new polyps in the shot and another 3-4 on other parts of the frag plug. Should be a nice little colony in a few months.
When I got the torch, it was splitting and it looks like the process has completed recently. There now two distinct heads. My hammer coral is splitting as well, but its been a bit grumpy lately, I'm thinking of moving it into some more flow.
I told myself I wouldn't purchase more frags for a while as I'm still in the ugly stages, But the LFS had a really nice frag of green/gold Octospawn. The green flesh is super bright under blue lights and the gold tips glow so nicely, had to pick it up! Really like the contrast between the flush and tips.
As usual, thanks for reading y'all!
The turbos mop up the rocks pretty well (and any macros you have)! I have two conches, one with a significantly better work ethic than the other--that one will climb rocks to reach algae. Luck of the draw, maybe.
I went to check on the tank after reading your comment and found mine on the rocks (or trying at least), looks like I might have one with a good work ethic lol. Also laid out a nice Zoa frag buffet.
Thank you! I do some manual removal during my water changes to keep things somewhat clean. I’m sure there are uglier days ahead of me haha.
