Anna's 40 Breeder - 1 Year Old!

[Anna576]

FTS

August 2013 - 1 Year Old!

February 2013

December 2012

October 2012

September 2012

August 2012


Equipment

• 40 Breeder (36" x 18" x 16")
• 29 Gallon DIY Sump (30" x 12" x 18")
• Coralife 36" Quad T5HO Light (w/ LED moonlights)
• 2 ATI Blue Plus
• 2 ATI Coral Plus
• Phosban 150 GFO Reactor w/ Maxi-Jet 1200
• Glass-Holes.com Nano Overflow (with teeth)
• Coralife Skimmer (65 Gallons)
• UV sterilizer
• 2x VorTech MP10 wES

Livestock

• 2 Ocellaris Clownfish
• Purple Firefish
• Royal Gramma
• Banggai Cardinal
• Feather Duster
• Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
• Reefcleaners.org 40 Br CUC w/ Hermits

Soft Corals

• Zoanthids
• Palythoa
• Clove Polyps
• Mushrooms

LPS

• Fathead Torch
• Frog Spawn
• Acans

SPS

• Pink Lemonade Birdsnest
• Green Polyp Birdsnest
• Bird of Paradise Birdsnest
• Pink Birdsnest
• Ponape Birdsnest
• Green Slimer
• Blueish Acropora
• Superman Montipora

[Anna576]

So here's a timeline.

 

I had a 10 gallon reef, with a very basic filtration system and really wanted something more. I was quickly running out of room in the 10 gallon because one of the LFS here in St. Louis does some crazy frag sales that I couldn't resist.

 

Originally I had planned to do a 29 gallon tank, with a 10g sump. I had an old 29 gallon tank that my had been in my family since before I was born. My Grandfather used to run an aquarium maintenance thing, so he would build his own fish tanks.

 

I decided to drill it after having no success with a PVC overflow. Unfortunately I found out rather quickly that the glass was tempered.

 

 

So I got on craigslist to find another, and instead found a 40 Breeder, that was already drilled. I used the glass-holes.com overflow, which is amazing and I highly recommend it. Just be sure not to forget the hyphen in the URL... trust me...

 

So I built the stand out of 2x4's following a DIY Fishkeepers video.

Here's everything all set up:

 

 

For the sump I used a 29 gallon, bought during the $1/gallon sale. Right now I have a deep sand bed, a few piece of rubble rock, chaeto and some random macroalgae. The cleaner shrimp is banished down there for now, as I suspect he has been picking off some of my LPS corals. I light the sump with 4 Xenon puck lights that come on during the night, and I have 2 additional ones that I can control so that I can see what I'm doing when I'm messing around down there. They get pretty hot, but I got a cover for the sump to help with evaporation.

 

 

 

I added the liverock (in addition to dry rock from Reefcleaners.org) before I left for vacation, and came back to this:

 

 

I ordered the 40 Breeder Quick Crew w/ Hermits from Reefcleaners.org and they made quick work of that mess. For now I'm using two really simple power heads, but believe me, an MP10 or two are definitely in my future.

 

In the future I plan on adding a few more fish, and I'd like to get my hands on a nice torch coral. Other than that I plan on just letting what I have grow. I've tossed around the idea of an anemone, but that will be far in the future.

 

Close ups of some of the corals. I have no idea what any of the zoas are named.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Spirofucci]

Another 40B???? You guys need your own web site!

 

 

 

 

 

Seriously, welcome to NR! I think the 40 B is a great tank. Yours is looking good and I like yer sump with a display fugue in the middle!

[Anna576]

Another 40B???? You guys need your own web site!

 

 

 

 

 

Seriously, welcome to NR! I think the 40 B is a great tank. Yours is looking good and I like yer sump with a display fugue in the middle!

 

 

Thanks I think there is actually a 40B tank thread somewhere!

[Singlefin]

Nice setup. What's in the bag on the left side of you sump? How long has it been running?

[Anna576]

Nice setup. What's in the bag on the left side of you sump? How long has it been running?

 

I put live rock in it in early June. There's ceramic rings in the bag thing. There's also a bag of purigen in there somewhere. Just to help with water clarity, I don't know if it's actually doing anything, but I read it can help!

[Anna576]

Well I redid the aquascape. I like this new set up a lot better! I think my cleaner shrimp does too, he spends all day inside the rock piles, peeking out different holes.

 

I finally got my nitrate reading down to 0! So here are some pictures to celebrate

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've also determined taking pictures of clownfish with a macro lens is impossible. But here is the most successful shot.... at least you can tell what they are sort of

 

[Spirofucci]

Nice!! 2nd scape is much better imo!!

[Lalani]

Ya for 40br's! Nice scaping too.

[Anna576]

Nice!! 2nd scape is much better imo!!

 

 

Ya for 40br's! Nice scaping too.

 

Thanks! I actually got the inspiration from the BRS "how to start an aquarium" video series. They have a 40br and I really liked the way they scaped it.

[Anna576]

Well I finally added some new fish! The Purple Firefish came down with ich while in quarantine, so he's been stuck in a 10 gallon since late August, but he's doing great so far as are my clowns and Royal Gramma.

 

 

I also recently attended a frag swap they do twice a year here in St. Louis and acquired these three beauties for (somewhat) decent prices!

 

Some more coral pics!

 

My Acan is growing

 

 

As of now my clowns show little interest in the RBTA, but I hope they come around!

[d'Espresso]

Very nice 40b Anna! Welcome to the Breeder Club!

[Anna576]

Very nice 40b Anna! Welcome to the Breeder Club!

 

Thanks!

 

So a small update! I have good news and bad news...

 

The good news is:

 

I'm so excited, although I have literally no clue what setting I need to put this thing on. I'm hoping to get a second for the holidays

 

The bad news is I have zoa eating nudis. I dip everything so I must have missed some eggs when I did the look over of recent frags. Luckily the last time I had these Alto offered advice which worked great! So I plan on dipping every 2 days for at least a week. Just got to keep my eyes open. There are certainly worse problems to have I suppose!

[mike c]

Congrats on the new MP10!!! I've got 2 on my 40b, and there's just no explanation on how ridiculous they are. You'll be satisfied with one, and amazed with two!

[Anna576]

Congrats on the new MP10!!! I've got 2 on my 40b, and there's just no explanation on how ridiculous they are. You'll be satisfied with one, and amazed with two!

 

You weren't kidding! I got my second mp10 tonight and set up the master/slave relationship, so far it's awesome. Right now I have them on anti-sync reef crest at ~50%, what do you run yours as?

 

I'm also pleased to announce that the zoanthid eating nudis have been eradicated. I finally got around to gluing all the corals back to the rocks, I'll have to take some pictures tomorrow.

[mike c]

You weren't kidding! I got my second mp10 tonight and set up the master/slave relationship, so far it's awesome. Right now I have them on anti-sync reef crest at ~50%, what do you run yours as?

I also have mine on anti-sync reef crest, only I have it one light over 50%.

[Anna576]

I've made quite a few changes in the last few months, mostly on my equipment! Adding 2 mp10s is likely the biggest change, and I LOVE it. I changed the lighting in the sump because after further reading the xenon puck lights don't put out a good wavelength for chaeto growth, so I replaced them with 2 18" basic fluorescent fixtures I picked up at Home Depot, one for turning on at night, and the other as a utility light. I've noticed a huge increase in the growth of my macro algaes in my refugium. I also purchased a power rack so that I can switch things on and off without trying to figure out what is plugged into where constantly. It's made water changes so much easier, and it looks a lot more organized!

 

 

I'm having an issue though with my GFO reactor. I'm using the 2 Little Fishes Phosban 150, but it kept getting clogged, the GFO would turn into a massive lump. So I mixed it up with carbon (I know I'll have to change them more often) but I still seem to have it clog. Maybe I need a stronger pump hooked up to it? Right now I just have some 250 gph pump I purchased at Petco. Any recommendations?

 

Pic Dump:

FTS

Left Rock Pile

Right Rock Pile

SPS

LPS

Zoas

Mushroom

Jeff the Cleaner Shrimp

 

I'm a little concerned about my anemone. He's been shrunken up the past 2-3 days and he's been slowly turning white. I've turned the rock he was on so he has more light/flow and I feed him every 3 days. I'm not really sure what else to do so let me know if you have anemone insights.

[BoCoMo]

Looks great! Subscribed!

[Anna576]

Looks great! Subscribed!

Thanks!

 

 

Well, I don't want to jinx myself but everything in this tank has been going so well! All my fish look great and my corals are growing like mad. I recently upgraded the protein skimmer to a Coralife 65 Gallon, up from the Hydor Slim Skim Nano (only rated at 35 gallons). My nitrates consistently read 0, but I'm using the API test so I'm sure they're more likely around 5-10.

 

I've given up on anemones for the time being. My little RBTA just went downhill after beginning to turn white. I think maybe if I had a 6 bulb T5 fixture I could do one, but my clowns don't seem to care that it's gone (it never hosted them anyway). I think I'm just about full on corals... I don't think I could fit any more if I tried, although I will make room if I can find some purple hornets locally!

 

I'll try and get some macro shots up this week and a better FTS, I couldn't seem to get the white balance where I wanted it on my camera and the tank lights were about to shut down.

 

As far as future plans I just want purple hornets and then equipment upgrades. I think I'm about due for an aquarium controller. Since the tank is at my parents house I often worry when I can't make it over for a few days if a heater should get stuck on, or some other thing stop working. At least with the controller I could check on things from my phone and know that it would shut a broken heater off.

 

I'm so happy with how this tank is going, now if only I could take better pictures to show off how great it looks in person!

 

My latest addition:

Recent FTS w/ crappy white balance

[Anna576]

So here are some more pictures!

FTS

Right Rocks

Left Rocks

Livestock

[markalot]

Hi Anna,

 

thanks for posting in my thread, I had not seen yours. Any recent photos or updates?

[Paandemonium]

Hey! Welcome to NR and welcome to the 40 breeder family!

[CrazyEyes]

Great looking tank Anna! Welcome aboard. The 40B's are taking over :-)

[markalot]

lol,

 

this thread was created 22 August 2012 - 05:55 PM

 

But since I missed it, welcome aboard!

[Anna576]

Hi Anna,

 

thanks for posting in my thread, I had not seen yours. Any recent photos or updates?

Here's a few recent pictures!

 

Hey! Welcome to NR and welcome to the 40 breeder family!

Thanks!

 

Great looking tank Anna! Welcome aboard. The 40B's are taking over :-)

That's because 40B's are the best!

 

 

So I've been gone for several months on an internship, because there's nothing I like more than working and not being paid. I left the tank in the very capable hands of my dad, and he didn't let me down!

 

So a lot of the Birdsnests have just exploded, and as a result my calcium and alkalinity took a dip, so I've started dosing C-Balance. I think the only other major changes since February are that the yellow tang and red fromia are gone. I was "renting" the tang for a couple months to eat some bryopsis. He did a stellar job and after I raised my Mg for a couple weeks to make sure it was 100% dead. I decided to give the red fromia to the yellow tang owner (a local reefer) because I was really worried about him around the mp10s.

 

I'm probably going to have to get rid of this royal gramma. He's about 3 inches now and an absolute turd. When he was smaller he was only aggressive if someone came to his cave, but now he just hates everyone and really harasses my poor firefish. I might replace him with a smaller fairy wrasse of some sort, or maybe try and find a lady Banggai.

 

I replaced the bulbs, before I had 2 ATI Aquablue Special and 2 BluePlus but I've switched to 2 BluePlus and 2 CoralPlus. It gives the tank more of a blue hue and the corals fluoresce a bit more, I really dig it. I tried my hand at fragging, hopefully I don't kill everything in the process.

 

Anyway, 1 year update pictures!

FTS before fragging w/ old bulbs

FTS after fragging w/ new bulbs

 

I really only trimmed off the 2 Birdsnests to the top right, and a couple zoanthids. I wanted to start by fragging the corals that I can bear to lose.

 

Here's some other pics.

 

 

Thanks for looking! I still can't believe this tank is a year old. I have a 65 Gallon sitting in my basement... maybe it's time to start working on that....