New 40 breeder coming soon....

[Moonreef]

So right now I have a 55 reef with a 10 gallon sump and I am thinking of switching over to a 40 breeder with 20 gallon sump. Ultimately making the 55 to a FOWLR is my main goal. The wife wants to have pretty fish and I keep having to tell her that "no, that eats corals", lol. I'm the tank nerd....and she constantly asks, how do you know this stuff. LMBO

Don't get me wrong, she likes the corals but also likes the fish because they do a little more moving than an acro or a bubble coral for that matter. So....this will be the start of a 40 breeder thread and when I switch over to it and run smoothly I will get the 55 thread running.

I currently run the following:

55 gallon tank
10 gallon sump
5 gallon R/O auto top off
Mag 7 main pump
Bubble magus (clone) cone skimmer 65 gallon model....small I know but it does the job for now, nice dark green skim coming out
TLF reactor running BRS bio pellets w/mag drive 3
(2) Hydor 1050 circulation pumps
(2) Sicce 1100 circulation pumps
125 watt jäger heater....small but I live in Florida and 150 is over kill in my house which is a constant 75
A pleather of cords and power stripshwell: want a reef controller
Spectrapure 90 GPD R/O DI unit....also use it for drinking water, just the R/O side for that though
(2) Taotronics dimmable 110 watt LED lights, really not bad for cheap LED lights but the cord connection stinks...'bout to rewire that


Current stock is as follows:

Mated pair of false perc
(1) lawnmower blenny
(1) pajama cardinal
A host of snails and hermits
Recently found some fireworms/bristleworms I think...heard they're good small, bad when they're big. Dunno what to do yet with them and how to vacate if I did know.
4-5 aiptasia shrimp, whatever they're really called escapes me right now

Current corals:

*New*green acro
*New*pineapple coral
Medium sized orange/green/blue-gray pineapple coral colony
2" Orange plate coral
Chalice frag....not that pretty colored stuff but I wanted to see if I could raise it, so far so good
Green star polyps
Several Kenya tree frags
Fuzzy green mushrooms
A fuzzy orange mushroom, prolly got the wrong names on these too but they're orange and look fuzzy. LOL
Orange and blue ricordea
Duncan coral w/several small heads...bout 8, started with 2
Medium sized white bubble coral
Assortment of zoas...red eyes w/blue ring and yellow tentacles, red eyes with brown tentacles, orange eyes w/brown tentacles and some green palys
2" Long tentacle toadstool mushroom
2" Blue crocacae clam....spelled it wrong I'm sure, why so difficult names for these things. LOL
1/2" when I got it now 1" Small finger leather frag
(2) Rose bubble tip anemones
(1) Rock anemone, brown and white striped but kinda pretty
And I think that's it...I'll add more if I find it, lol

So all that I intend on swapping to the 40 minus that skimmer, blenny, cardinal & shrimps. I will increase to a much larger skimmer on the coral tank and maybe add one more fish besides the clowns.

Pictures of stock coming soon.

Thoughts?

 

[Moonreef]

Long Tentacle Toadstool Leather

Bubble Coral

Button Coral

Clam

Rock Anemone

 

[Moonreef]

Cup Coral, looks a lil rough but actually coming around from what it was.

Orange Mushroom

Rose Anemone #1

Baby Finger Leather

Hairy Green Mushroom

 

[Moonreef]

Ricordea

Orange Plate Coral

Deep water Acro

Red and Green Monti

GSP

 

[Moonreef]

Whole lotta Zoas

Rose Anemone #2

Pineapple Coral #1

Pineapple Coral #2

Duncan Coral

 

[Moonreef]

Chalice...so plain...

Kenya Trees

 

[Moonreef]

Blue has saturated these photos and they were taken with an iPad. Sorry.....regardless, I will be transplanting these into the 40 and from there I intend on starting to play with some feeding of the corals....I feed them reef chili, mysis and krill right now. I want to start using Fauna Marin as well as some liquid amino acids as I have read lots of good reviews for both.

 

[Moonreef]

So I need some help, I don't know if I should use both of my Taotronics LED dimmable light on my 40 or just one? Two is more than adequate but would one be better? I did get my tank yesterday as a birthday present.

 

[Moonreef]

Started the build....

The tank, stand and canopy my wife got me for my birthday.

Drilled it today, surprisingly easy. Laid it out with permanent marker which wipes right off after the process. Painters tape on the backside of the glass. Steady flow of water while I drilled it outside. Started at an angle then rotated to 90 degrees and a few minutes later a hole. Just make sure you get the right sized hole cutter for your application and schedule of the unions. Schedule 40 fittings required a little bigger hole than the stock sized hole saws.

Starboard, called something else on ebay....ordered from ebay. 4'x2'x1/4" piece shipped was only $25 and I'll use the excess to divide my sump.

Cut to size with a notch for the overflow.

More pictures of the build to come and I got some equipment on order for the build as well which will be in soon.

 

[Moonreef]

This will be a bare bottom FYI, hence the starboard for the bottom. I caulked around the edge of the starboard and secured it to the bottom using aquarium caulk.

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

Great pics! Looking forward to the build!

 

[JMSKI333]

Did you drill the bottom of this tank or did it come that way?

 

[powers2001]

subscribed

 

[Moonreef]

Did you drill the bottom of this tank or did it come that way?

I drilled the bottom, was nowhere near as scary as I thought it would be. Just make sure you don't have a tempered tank and your in business.

 

[Moonreef]

Great pics! Looking forward to the build!

Thanks! I will have more coming as I get the rest of my equipment in. Amazon taking their time this week. LOL I ordered a reef keeper this time for my tank, I used power strips and timers last go round....dohhhhh, I learned the hard way it's cheaper to just buy a reef keeper. I payed $114 shipped for the reef keeper lite which does temp and controls 4 devices at the same time. I payed 40 for decent timers and another 20 in power strips for the other tank!

 

[Moonreef]

Overflow installed

Tray for filter floss...yeah I heated and bent it but way easier then cutting, glueing and so on.

 

[Moonreef]

Sump tray installed and divider, I don't think the double baffle works hence only one divider. I will have a sponge on the front of the mag drive 7 to get rid of the microbubbles. We shall see, but I was successful last to round.

 

[Moonreef]

When the pump comes in I'm going to plumb and leak test the system. It should be in this evening so I will most likely do that tomorrow. I still have to paint the back of the tank and level the stand as it has a teeny bit of a wobble but I don't want a tank broke from being torqued.

 

[Moonreef]

Aight, got the stuff all in and plumber a couple weeks ago after the above post. Plumber it in and filled it with water and started it up. No leaks at all! I put my equipment in the sump and have a couple things I want to do but it's up and running. I need to build a platform for my skimmer because it's to deep in the water...some eggcrate or the likes will fix that. So anyways...pictures.

The top to the skimmer is off at this point to the side because I epoxy the rocks and it causes excess foaming.

The light set up in the top. Plenty of room to shuffle things around and what not. I left it as is and the following day when I woke up the system shut off. I determined this was due to the internal condensation building up under the hood and tripping the gfi. I am getting a fan to vent the air and bring fresh air in and that should solve this.

 

[Moonreef]

Full tank shot.

Close up shots.

Don't mind the dirt, that's just what's blowing off the rock from sitting in the sand for so long. Still waiting on a different return but for not 3/4 inch PVC it is.