The DeepBrew 40 Breeder + 20 Long Build

DeepBrew · Sep 17, 2016

Last fall I impulse bought a $1/G 40 breeder at Petco figuring I'd do something with it eventually. The time has come to do it. We have an unattached studio/garage/workshop building with a full kitchen we use for artsy stuff and I use for brewing. I had set up this 10 Gallon out there to keep some live rock that would fit in the 75 gallon in the house and a couple of peppermint shrimp that were exiled for eating coral:

We had set up a 20 long as a quarantine/frag tank for corals purchased in an online sale recently:

On the right is an elegance coral we got that was supposed to be a little frag. It opened up so big that there's no place on the sand in the 75G big enough for it. We decided to set up the 40 breeder and give the elegance a roomy place. I'm trying to keep the build as simple as possible and also want to keep the 20 long set up as a frag tank.

The main filtration will be an Aquaclear 110 which is presently hanging on the front of the 20 long to get a cycle started.

I thought about building a stand but found one at Petco for about $60 that will work fine.

So far the build will be:

40 breeder
Aquaclear 110 filter
lighting TBD - suggestions welcome, may use cheap T5s or Chinese LEDs
Osmolator Nano ATO
HOB skimmer? Only if I feel I need it after the tank breaks in. From what I've read elegance like water that's not pristine.
Powerheads TBD - a have a Jebao PP-4 I can use for starters but may change to something else

The 20 long will be a similar simple setup. I haven't decided on lighting for it either.

PaReeferJ · Sep 17, 2016

Nice looking elegance.

DeepBrew · Sep 17, 2016

This is the tank and stand leveled and in place:

I cut apiece of 3/4 plywood and painted it black to sit on the bottom rails and hold the 20 long. It will be moved after the 40 is set up and running. I had some window tinting film laying around so I decided to try to use it to black out the back of the tank:

I got about 15 gallons of water in tonight to leak test:

So far so good. If all goes well tomorrow I'll add sand, more water and start moving things in.

DeepBrew · Sep 17, 2016

I'm not planning on much fish for these tanks but would like one or two. I'd like to hear your suggestions. I don't have any clownfish but like them. I've heard they can try to host elegance coral and the corals don't like it though. I'm planning on leaving the tops open so no jumpers. Something small and peaceful would be nice.

Thanks for any suggestions you have!

DeepBrew · Sep 17, 2016

PaReeferJ said:
Nice looking elegance.

Thanks! It's really cool and seems so healthy I want to make sure it as plenty of room to spread out.

DeepBrew · Sep 17, 2016

Here's a better picture of it:

When it opens really wide it's as big as my hand. It likes to eat frozen krill.

That's another consideration I have for fish. The elegance takes it's time eating and I'd like to avoid critters that will steal food from it. That may be difficult though.

DeepBrew · Sep 18, 2016

I finished filling the 40 breeder, broke down the old 10 gallon and added the sand and rock today:

I left a nice big area on the right side for the elegance coral to stretch out. I used new live sand and most of the rock has been in either the 10 gallon or the 75 gallon reef for months. I've had the filter running on the 20 long for about a week in addition to the old filter so hopefully it will cycle fairly quickly. I've got to make a decision on the lighting soon, what's on there now is just a couple of Marineland LEDs I had around and they're nowhere near enough.

DeepBrew · Sep 25, 2016

I'm slowly making progress. I decided to splurge and buy a pair of EcoTech Radion XR15W G4 lights for the 40 breeder. They will be here later this week.

I went the budget route for the 20 long and got this cheap grow light off Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019J3UPTY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I liked that is has 2 switches so I can only use half the bulbs if wanted. It only has one power cord though so I can't put the 2 channels on separate timers. Here's what it looked like mounted in place after I received it Friday:

I didn't like the white color with everything else being black around it but thought I could live with it. When I got up Saturday morning I decided to pull it out and paint it black.

DeepBrew · Sep 25, 2016

Saturday morning I took it apart and realized I needed to unwire everything to get the switched and plugs out of the way for paint. THe way it was wired made it easy to add a second power cord when put back together so I decided to do that as well. Here is is stripped down and ready for paint:

And a couple pictures of the painting process, I just used a cheap can of black semi-gloss spray paint.

Painting and wiring done:

There's now a second power cord coming out at the top right of the fixture. Here's bulbs in ready to test before installing the reflector:

Successful test, YAY!

DeepBrew · Sep 25, 2016

Assembly complete:

Let's get it mounted and do a final test:

It's not the best paint job in the world but I think it looks much batter than it did white. Plus, now I have separate control of the two channels. The fixture came with 6500K bulbs, I'm going to try to use them for a while then switch to something more blue. If I think the warm spectrum is causing algae growth I may change them out sooner.

Next for today is moving the 20 long in place and maybe a trip to the LFS for a few clean up crew members.

DeepBrew · Sep 29, 2016

I decided to get pair of Radion XR15 G4s for the 40 breeder. I got them set up the other day:

Right now they're running the Coral Lab LPS program with a little extra white added. It may still be a little blue looking for my taste so I may adjust more after I watch it a while. The elegance now has lots of room and seems happy, although it hasn't stretched out as far as it did in the frag tank. It may take it a few days to acclimate to the new tank and light:

The frag tank below has some recently acquired pieces that will eventually be added to the 40 and to the 75 in the house:

All the basics are in place now but I still need to clean up the electrical rats nest behind the tanks. That's on the list for this weekend.

I'll probably start thinking about adding a fish or two in a few weeks. I'm open to suggestions!

DeepBrew · Oct 10, 2016

The 40 breeder has been wet about 3 weeks now. I kept a Seneye reef monitor on it until yesterday and never saw an ammonia pike, probably because I used live sand and all of the rock came from well cycled existing tanks. I had a good diatom bloom last week which has subsided for the most part. I also had some green hair algae on a couple of the rocks so I took them out and gave them a peroxide spritz. That seems to have taken core of that problem. Now I have some sort of algae growing from the sand:

There's no fish in the tank yet, just some various zoanthids, LPS corals and the elegance. I've fed oyster eggs and phytoplankton a few times. The elegance has had a krill or two as well. I'm hoping it's just another phase of the new tank cycle but I'd like some advice on whether I should worry about it or not. I tend to think it will take care of itself in time if I'm careful about not overfeeding the system. The tank parameters are:

Temp: 77F
Salinity: 35ppt
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: just above 0 (API test)
Calcium: 460ppm
Alkalinity: 9 dKH
Magnesium: 1300ppm
pH: 8.2

Thanks for any advice you might have!

Sm51498 · Oct 10, 2016

In my experience, new tanks always go through ugly stages with various diatom and algae blooms. I wouldn't go through any major acrobatics to solve it as time and good basic husbandry always seem to solve the issues. So manual removal, keeping up with water changes, keeping your parameters in check and patience is pretty much all you need to get things in line. It just takes time.

DeepBrew · Oct 10, 2016

Thanks for the reassurance!

DeepBrew · Jul 28, 2017

This tank is almost 1 year old now, I haven't done anything but add corals for quite a while. I had a terrible time with dinos, as a result I've slowly sucked out the sand removing them and the tank is nearly bare bottom now.

Here's the present view from the recliner:

I had just fed the tank and the elegance is closed up a bit, also the leptastrea in the center of the picture is not happy with the hermit crab that's crawling across it. This is a hitchhiker that came in on the live rock which has colored up nicely in the past few months:

I did add a doser for 2 part a few months ago and am trying a few montipora now. This one is seems to be happy and is gr0wing fast:

It's been in for about 2 months, the plug wasn't fully encrusted when I put it in the tank.

The tank gets 10% water changes per week and I dose 2 part. I still keep it as basic as possible, no skimmer. The only fish are a pair of clowns I added back in December 2016.

They seem very happy and have grown a lot. The there are thousands of amphipods in the tank and I've thought about adding a fish that would enjoy hunting them. A small wrasse would be cool but I'd need to be careful to pick one that will do well without sand.