rnd4's 40 Breeder (New April FTS)

[rnd4]

FTS (04 April 2011):

 

After having gone through multiple revisions of my tank plan, I finally convinced my wife that a 40 gallon breeder tank was the way to go. I really wanted to build my own stand, but she didn't want me to and got her parents to buy me one as a graduation gift so I couldn't say no. I must pick my battles, and this was one that was easy to give up on!

 

Here's the tank on the stand before adding anything but water (the 10 gallon underneath will be a quarantine tank).

 

So, the tank has had water in it for a few days, but I just added 45 lbs. of Fiji live rock from LiveAquaria.com with ~30 lbs. of sugar sized aragonite. I kind of wish I hadn't bought such a fine grain, but it is what it is.

 

Here's the tank with just rock:

 

And here's the tank with sand!

 

It's been running for about 10 hours since the sand went in and I'm amazed by how much the tank has cleared already. Once things settle a bit (ie: I can see the rock) I'm pretty sure I'll want to re-aquascape a bit. I think the rock is a bit further from the right wall than I had originally intended.

 

I'm using Oceanic salt with R/O DI water (TDS was 0 prior to adding salt).

 

Parameters I tested prior to adding live rock:

pH: 8.2

Ca: 460+

NH3/NH4: 0

Temp: 81°F

Salinity: 35 ppt

 

Lighting: Outer Orbit 150w HQI 10,000k stock bulb with 2x96w PC 420/460nm

Heating: 100w Rena

Water Movement: 2x Koralia Nano, 1x Koralia 2

HOB: 2x Aquaclear 70 (Not 100% sure what I'll put in these. I'm open to suggestions. I was thinking chaeto in one for sure, but the other?)

 

Still debating whether I want to/can afford to add a HOB skimmer while the tank is cycling over the next month or so.

 

My stocking plans are still up in the air other than my wife will have an ocellaris clown. In the long run I know I would like a clam and Bird's Nest coral, but I keep going back and forth over which other fish will end up in the tank.

[nemmy]

I would have drilled that sucker!

 

 

Does the 100w heater keep the temp stable all the time? I always had to go heavy on the heaters.

[lasutaku]

Hi, I have a 40br as well.

 

I have a ac110 as a refuge (have cheato in there, and chemi pure elite as well), and a ac70 with filter floss and carbon. I'm also running a aqua c remora with mag3 hob skmmer.

 

Looking forward to seeing some pix once everything is set up.

[rnd4]

I would have drilled that sucker!

 

 

Does the 100w heater keep the temp stable all the time? I always had to go heavy on the heaters.

 

My wife specifically said "no plumbing." I think she's afraid I'll flood the basement if I even think about a sump.

 

So far the temperature has gone as low as 79°F and as high as 82°F. I have two additional 50w heaters on stand-by if the temps start giving me trouble.

[nemmy]

My wife specifically said "no plumbing." I think she's afraid I'll flood the basement if I even think about a sump.

 

So far the temperature has gone as low as 79°F and as high as 82°F. I have two additional 50w heaters on stand-by if the temps start giving me trouble.

 

Guess you keep your house at a decent temperature, i had to keep a 200 or 300w in mine when i had it running as a single tank. Now i have like 450w or something crazy like that

 

What is the heater set at? If its set at 79 and your getting a swing to 82 i would set it at 80 so you only swing from 80-82.

 

40B only holds like 45 gallons of water which doesnt seem like much until its all over your floor. So i can see why your wife would be weary of it.

[rnd4]

The tank became much more clear over night, so I re-aquascaped.

 

 

I'm not sure how stable the raised rock to the left will be, so I may re-position it before I add any livestock. I'm also thinking about adding a little more rock to fill in the right side of the tank a bit.

 

What is the heater set at? If its set at 79 and your getting a swing to 82 i would set it at 80 so you only swing from 80-82.

With all the lights on the temperature has risen to about 80°F from 78°F this morning. The heater is currently set to between 75°F and 78°F.

[rnd4]

I decided to test my water parameters today, about 36 hours after adding the live rock.

 

With straight R/O DI water all parameters come out at 0 (except pH, which I'm guessing would be around 7.0, but the kit doesn't go that low).

 

With Oceanic salt, but before live rock, my ammonia was 0 and I failed to get readings for nitrite/nitrate.

 

Today's parameters (using Red Sea test kits...Salifert kits are on the way for pH and alkalinity):

 

Temperature: 80°F

pH: 8.0

Ammonia: 5 ppm

Nitrite: >1 ppm

Nitrate: 15 ppm

Salinity: 1.026

 

I expected ammonia to be going up, but not nitrites and nitrates already? Maybe I should test freshly mixed saltwater for nitrates?

[rnd4]

My ammonia levels have started to plummet the past two days! Yay!

 

Went to the only local LFS today just to browse. Looked like over half the tanks had ich. Ick.

[rnd4]

Are these diatoms? We went home for Mother's Day and lots of these spots were on the sand/one piece of rock when we got back Sunday night.

 

 

Ammonia is now at zero, but nitrites are still above 1 ppm.

[rnd4]

My quarantine tank seems to have gone through its cycle. I watched ammonia go up and down, then nitrites go up, now they're back down to about 0.2 ppm. Hoping to add something to the QT tank in the next week to 10 days while the main tank finishes its cycle.

 

The 40g tank still has high nitrites and nitrates, but no ammonia. Debating whether or not to do a 10g water change this weekend. Lots of diatoms on everything, and I think I see a little green hair algae starting to grow (middle of the upper right rock in the photo below).

 

I added an AquaC Remora with surface skimmer attachment one week ago today. It's pulled out quite a bit of goo so far. I also rearranged my rocks the other day. I think they're more stable and I have a lot more open sand bed in the front now.

 

[rnd4]

Went ahead with the 10g water change early this morning (so my wife wouldn't see what a mess I was sure to make [Note: good idea]). I was able to vacuum out a lot of detritus that had accumulated in the nooks and crannies. I'm hoping that will help with the nitrites and nitrates in the long run.

 

The skimmer had been pretty quiet for the past few days, but after shutting it off for the water change it went back to being noisy.

[rnd4]

Added some chaeto to one of the AC70s yesterday.

 

My nitrites are still >1, but it takes the full 2 min. incubation to reach that level of coloration on the test kit vs. drop number 5 of 10 on the first step of the protocol, so I presume they've started to drop.

 

The QT tank finished its cycle and we've got a tank-bred ocellaris clownfish in there (named Norton by my wife). It looked to be in good shape at the LFS, but many fish in other tanks there had ich, so I wasn't shocked when a couple white spots showed up on day 2 in the QT tank. I've been treating with Cupramine since Monday and the ich spots vanished within 24 hours of starting treatment.

 

The clownfish will move over to the 40g sometime in mid-to-late June once the big tank has cycled and Norton has finished quarantine. We've been feeding Aqueon Marine Granules in the morning and right when we get home from work (Norton can only eat 2 1/2 pellets per feeding before all the food just gets spit back out) with a few frozen brine shrimp soaked in Vita-chem a bit before lights out every other night.

 

Green hair algae has really taken off in the main tank on one rock. What might take care of that?

[rnd4]

Here's a photo of Norton, who is maybe 1.5" long right now.

 

[rnd4]

Nitrites have dropped to 0.2 ppm over the past three days, which is exciting. I've been manually pulling out the green hair algae to try and keep it under some level of control until I can throw something in there to start eating it.

[rocko52286]

Yes those are diatoms. Looks good so far. I like your clown, he has an awesome name. Excellent job catching the ich.

 

Have you thought about a cuc? You could also reduce your light cycle to help with diatoms and hair algae.

[rnd4]

My water parameters checked out (took just about four weeks), so I went ahead and added a CUC and a "yellow-eyed" Zoanthid pulchellus nano cluster from Sea Life Inc (7 polyps; They also threw in a free 10 polyp zoa, but it hasn't opened yet). over the past few days. Then I manually pulled some algae and threw in a second Zoanthus sp. ($5 for 5 polyps at the LFS...it was too pretty to pass!) and a Caulastrea sp. frag.

 

Here's the zoa from Sea Life:

 

I also pulled out my underwater housing for my old point-and-shoot camera and tried to take a photo inside the tank. Need to work on the white balance.

 

 

Here's the zoa from my LFS. I love this one. I adjusted the white balance to make it look as it does in person when I have the actinics and halide on. I'm a little curious...does anyone know if it has a 'common' name? Is it an 'eagle eye?' Or if anyone could ID it to species :

 

Here's an in-tank underwater shot of the Caulastrea. It's been eating 1 or 2 frozen mysis per night.

 

 

Lastly, here's a current full tank shot:

 

While removing algae I decided to re-aquascape once more to give myself a little more exposed rock to place corals on. The algae is still a bit more than I would like, but I'm working on it! (And if you look closely in the center you can see the reflection of the PVC pipe in my QT tank on the other side of the room )

[rnd4]

I added a little 4" Walmart fan to the back of the tank this week. Temps were getting up to almost 84°F even without the metal halide on. The fan has stabilized the temperature quite a bit...it has stayed between 81.3 and 82.4°F even with the halide on.

 

I also removed a couple of the rocks and scrubbed them of algae. So far, so good, but we'll see.

 

The Caulastrea had a rough go earlier this week and expelled a lot of mucous. My ATO went nuts and dumped a lot of freshwater on it. Not happy. It seems to be doing better now that it's moved away from the ATO input point.

 

I got a Giant Sun zoa/paly from Sea Life Inc. yesterday and I added two new zoa frags from my LFS this evening. I'm hoping to get some photos tomorrow morning. I'm really excited about one of the zoa frags that had hitchhiker feather dusters. I didn't notice in the store, but it also brought along a bristleworm, two Stomatella snails. The other zoa brought along some bright orange worms that I assume are spaghetti worms.

[rnd4]

Photos!

 

Here is the $5 zoa frag from my LFS....30 cents/polyp!

 

 

Here's the $12 frag. The feather dusters went back in the rock when my camera lens bumped the aquarium glass. Whoops.

 

 

The putative Palythoa grandis from Sea Life Inc:

 

[rnd4]

I returned home this evening from visiting the in-laws and I took at my tank and was disgusted by the green-ness. My CUC has not been coming close to just keeping up with new growth, let alone making a dent in the old growth, so I decided to scrub most of the rocks clean, leaving them with the algae in the sand and on the back wall for now.

 

To be honest, I'm fairly disappointed with the live rock I got from LiveAquaria. For my next tank (a DIY AIO 10g) I'm going with dead rock from Reef Cleaners and just seeding it with a couple hand-picked pieces from my LFS. After almost six weeks I have yet to see a single hitchhiker on my LR, save all the lovely green hair algae. I got more hitchhikers from a thumb-sized rock with my latest zoas!

 

Anyways, the corals weren't thrilled while I was messing with the tank, but once I stopped screwing around they all opened up right away. I'll be doing a 10g water change tomorrow morning to vacuum up some of the detritus that has accumulated in the corners. I also re-aquascaped (third time!), and I'll probably add some more rock later this week/next week when I get the rock in from Reef Cleaners.

 

The tank is still a bit cloudy tonight, but I took a few photographs.

 

Here's the rock that is currently hosting all six of my current corals (one Palythoa, four Zoanthid, one Caulastrea):

 

 

Here's a better photo of my favorite zoanthid. Is this a Green Bay Packers morph?

 

 

And here's a photo of the worms that are living in the same rock as the above-mentioned zoa:

 

[rnd4]

As an early anniversary present my wife bought me a Favia sp. from LiveAquaria's Diver's Den:

 

 

And since LiveAquaria credited me 50% of the cost of my live rock (awesome customer service) since the live rock pretty much sucked, I bought a Frogspawn from Diver's Den as well. It's glowing!

 

[rnd4]

I bought some base rock from Reef Cleaners to fill up my new 10g and I bought a little extra to fill out my 40g. Here's my current FTS:

 

 

And some more coral shots!

 

This is the Red People Eater I recently bought from Davis7:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last one had a new polyp open today...my first sign of definite coral growth in this tank!

 

Here's a Kenya Tree from Davis7:

 

 

And since Norton the clownfish moved into the 40g breeder a Royal Gramma has moved into a QT tank:

 

[cheryl jordan]

Oh royal gramma is sad

 

Why did he have to the qt ?

[rnd4]

Oh royal gramma is sad

 

Why did he have to the qt ?

 

I plan to QT all of my fish for at least a couple weeks just out of precaution. The gramma seems pretty healthy so far (and scarfs down frozen mysis), but so did the clownfish until it got ich on day 3 in QT. Better safe than sorry!

[cheryl jordan]

Most definitely qt is good, sorry but the clownfish, the royal gramma is sweet, one of my favorite fish.

[rnd4]

Added a few clean-up crew critters from Reef Cleaners last week (chiton, urchin (which was dead by the first morning), some crabs and snails), but have otherwise just been letting things grow. Some zoanthids have made new polyps and I moved the Kenya Tree to my 10g, but otherwise not much has changed. But here are a few photos:

 

The Favia sp. has been putting out its tentacles daily for the past week:

 

 

And its barnacles are still doing well:

 

 

The birdsnest has recovered from its broken tips caused by shipping and new polyps have emerged over the past 10 days. The broken pieces have also healed nicely on their frag plugs:

 

 

Our red mithrax crab made a rare appearance in the light this evening: