Sauce's 40g Reef Diary

[Old Man Sauce]

So, After a 12 year hiatus, I've decided to re-visit the hobby and restart a new reef. While I would love to go back to the old 70g tank with a 40g sump, I've settled on starting smaller and seeing where things take me. I've decided on a 40g Recife Eco, and have absolutely zero plans to upgrade to anything bigger. BUT...... We all know how that usually works out.

The plans, as they stand, are to have only a few fish. A pair of Clowns, a pair of purple Firefish, a Royal Gramma, and some type of Goby. WIth a tank of this size, I know my options are extremely limited, so I'm always open to suggestions & recommendations. Nothing too fancy in the plans for a CUC, though I do want at least 1 fancy Brittle star (i really loved spotting the ones that used to come as hitchhikers on the old Live Rock). For corals, my plans include a neon green Sinularia, maybe some other leathers or softies, several varieties of Zoanthids, Ricordea and/or other mushrooms, and eventually a few LPS and/or easy SPS options. Again, suggestions are welcome.

I currently have the tank and stand in place, 60 lbs of Life Rock and 40 lbs of live sand standing by, and most of the rest of the equipment set to be delivered tomorrow. The lights that came with the Recife will be replaced by an AI Hydra 32. The Recife's included skimmer will be used for now, but I expect to replace that in time too. I have a 100gpd RODI system coming as well as Red Sea's ReefATO+ and an Eheim Jager 200w Heater. I'll also be starting with Reef Crystals salt mix, but I suspect that may change before any livestock ever hit the tank. I went with what I was familiar with and now I think I should have researched my salt mix options a little better before pulling the trigger on that one. At least for now, the reef crystals will be fine for getting the tank set up, cycled and settled in.

So, that's the game plan so far, however, per the Wife, no water hits the tank before the floors get replaced. New flooring arrives Saturday... Gonna be a busy weekend! More to follow.

 

[Tahoe61]

Welcome back to the hobby, and congrats on the new tank. :)
A lot has changed in 12 yrs. I think you'll probably appreciate a smaller tank.

 

[Old Man Sauce]

It's better than a toddler's Christmas morning... It's reef stuff delivery day. Got the AI Hydra, mounting bracket, ATO system, 5 stage RODI system, and a few other odds and ends today. Trip to the LFS planned for tomorrow for a pair of Nero 3s and maybe a heating controller.

 

[Old Man Sauce]

Did a little bit of rock work pre-planning this morning.

 

[Old Man Sauce]

Accidental duplicate post. That's what I get for posting from my phone. Old age and Technology, not always the best combination.

 

[Old Man Sauce]

Rockwork planning stage. This was a month or so ago, but haven't updated the thread.

 

[Old Man Sauce]

Set up the rockwork a few weeks ago

 

[Old Man Sauce]

Tank filled last weekend

 

[Old Man Sauce]

Waiting for the tank to finish cycling. Decided to make a control board for a few of the gadgets. Since the stand isn't very spacious, I opted to mount the powerhead and ato controls outside on the wall with the thermometer. I had a nice looking slab of live edge bird's eye maple burl laying around that made a nice natural looking backer.

 

[Old Man Sauce]

 

[Old Man Sauce]

I can't remember the last time I cycled an aquarium without using the filter media from an existing setup. My last reef was set up with actual live rock. Since neither of those options are available to me now, I figured I might give one of those "bacteria in a bottle" kits a try. I've always considered those products to be a gimmick, but what have I got to lose? I won't cycle with live fish, so I went with the microbacter dry rock bacteria starter kit from brightwell aquatics.

Monday: added kit contents per instructions. Ammonia 2.0, nitrite 0.0, ph 8.0
Tuesday: Ammonia 2.0, nitrite 0.0, ph 8.0
Wednesday: Ammonia 1.75ish, nitrite 0.25, ph 8.0

So far, it actually seems to be working. We'll see i guess...

 

[Old Man Sauce]

Had an issue with the brand new AI Hydra 32hd. Light would turn on, stay on for anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, then turn off for about 10-15 seconds. While the light was off, the indicator light on the button alternated back and forth between red and green. Then the light would come back on again. This cycle just kept repeating over and over. Since the documentation had nothing about the red/green alternating indicator, and I could find nothing on the web about it, I decided to call their support line. After a few minutes of troubleshooting it was determined that my issue was either a fan fault, or a driver failure. We opted to try to remedy or rule out the fan failure first. A new fan was sent out and received within only a few days. Replaced that last night and gave the silicone 24 hours to cure. Fired the fan up today and (fingers crossed) so far the light seems to be operating properly. A.I. customer support gets AAA+++ for this interaction.

 

[mjszos]

This is absolutely fantastic. I’ve been toying with ideas of how to best mount my controllers (currently in the cabinet). I’ve got a nice slap of black walnut in the garage I may need to mill up…

Looking forward to following along, welcome back to the Reefing world. Happy to answer any questions you may have :)

 

[scrib 2024]

looking great and following along

 

[Old Man Sauce]

Thursday: Felt lazy, didn't test.
Friday: Ammonia 1.5, Nitrite 0.25, Ph 8.0
Saturday: Ammonia 1.5, Nitrite 1.0
Sunday: Ammonia 0.5, Nitrite 2.0+
Monday: Ammonia 0.0, Nitrite 1.0
Tuesday: Ammonia 0.0, Nitrite 0.25, ph 7.8
Wednesday: Ammonia 0.0, Nitrite 0.0
Thursday: Ammonia 0.0, Nitrite 0.0, Nitrate 5-10ppm (looked closer to the 5), Calcium, and Alk both came in at the low end of acceptable ranges so I dosed 20ml B-Ionic 2 part which also helped to bring Ph back up to 8.2
I did test Nitrates somewhere around mid point and got a reading of around 40ppm but I suspect I may have done something wrong. Ive been using the API test kits for years now, and I really hate the guesswork, so I've been tossing around getting the Hanna checkers or the Marine Master, then BRS read my mind and put the Marine Master on sale so..... yeah, I pulled the trigger on that one.

Over the last few days of the cycle, i noticed a few small brown spots starting on the substrate.

Wednesday I added in a jar of 2850 pods and some live phyto from Algae Barn and gave them about 8 hours with the pump off to give them time to inhabit the rockwork.

Since my LFS has a sale ending today, I'm going to pull the trigger on a pair of small clowns and a few CUC members. I'll throw in some Nori to supplement their diet since there isn't much else for them to snack on for now.

 

[Old Man Sauce]

So, as my luck would have it, the LFS was almost completely out of clowns yesterday. I was able to pick up a few blue leg hermits, an emerald crab, a small fancy brittle star, a few (3) small frags. Once we got home, while waiting for the first residents to acclimate, I jumped onto WWC and found that I could get Snowflake Ocellaris for less than the cost of the standard Ocellaris at my LFS. Since I was planning to order a couple of Corals from WWC anyways, I just opted to add the Snowflakes to my cart and check out. $650 later, I am realizing how much i miss the days of big hearty $5-$10 frags. Whelp, at least now I have something to look at besides water and rocks.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

So, as my luck would have it, the LFS was almost completely out of clowns yesterday. I was able to pick up a few blue leg hermits, an emerald crab, a small fancy brittle star, a few (3) small frags. Once we got home, while waiting for the first residents to acclimate, I jumped onto WWC and found that I could get Snowflake Ocellaris for less than the cost of the standard Ocellaris at my LFS. Since I was planning to order a couple of Corals from WWC anyways, I just opted to add the Snowflakes to my cart and check out. $650 later, I am realizing how much i miss the days of big hearty $5-$10 frags. Whelp, at least now I have something to look at besides water and rocks.

Congrats on getting some snowflakes! Those are some beautiful looking clowns

 

[Old Man Sauce]

3/20/25 (LFS)
10 - Blue Legged Hermits
1 - Fancy Brittle Star
1 - Emerald Crab
1 - Christmas Favia (5 mouths)
1 - Pink Monte Cap
1 - Orange Krakatoa Zoanthids (5 polyps)

 

[Old Man Sauce]

3/23/25 (LFS)
6 - Small Nassarius Snails
1 - Blue Legged Hermit
5 - Red Legged Hermits (LFS ran out of blue legs)
1 - Tiger Conch
1 - Orange Acan (4 heads)
1 - Neon Green Duncan (3 heads)
2 - Green Hairy Finger Leathers

 

[Old Man Sauce]

3/25/25 (World Wide Corals)
1 - Bubble Bath Unicorn Acro
1 - Dolla Tree Acro
1 - Yoda Acro
1 - Paletta Pink Tip Acro
1 - Dragon Soul Goniastrea
1 - Lemon Lime Favites
1 - Jason Fox Sector 001 Favites
1 - Silver Fox Favites
1 - Diversity Favia
1 - Red War Favia
1 - Jason Fox High Voltage Platygyra
1 - Ruby Sanctum Platygyra
1 - Lavender Platygyra
1 - WWC Rainbow Pocillopora
1 - WWC Evil Heart Zoanthids
1 - Goblins Fire Zoanthids
2 - Snowflake Ocellaris Clowns