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Cultivated Reef

Teenyreef's IM40 Not-So-Teeny Tank - August FTS


teenyreef

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Last time I checked which was about 20 minutes ago when I was at the beach... The big blue thing has this white stuff on the bottom...

 

Its brown here on the left coast ;) but I like your point!

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This is why we live on the east coast. More specifically, South Florida. Clear Blue Sea. White Sand Beaches! Paradise.

26876064704_be905c4930.jpgpalm beach by Penny, on Flickr

 

I will take my Mountains over Florida any day ;) I have rivers, mountains, snow and the ocean all within 2 hours.......

 

IMG_2243.jpg

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I will take my Mountains over Florida any day ;) I have rivers, mountains, snow and the ocean all within 2 hours.......

 

IMG_2243.jpg

 

Lies! :P

 

I lived in the Pacific Northwest for years. Most of the time the mountains are obscured by rain clouds, and it's way too cold to go to the beach, even in those rare occasions when the sun comes out.

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Lies! :P

 

I lived in the Pacific Northwest for years. Most of the time the mountains are obscured by rain clouds, and it's way too cold to go to the beach, even in those rare occasions when the sun comes out.

 

Well 97 today :lol: but the rain is needed to keep it green.........

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I've seen a lot of bare bottom tanks covered in coraline and corals. I'm tired of sand and the episodes it has staying white. Right now mine is mostly white ... why, who knows. In my 40 I've started slowly sucking it out. The Basslet spits it all over the place anyway so I figured I'd help. :)

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I will take my Mountains over Florida any day ;) I have rivers, mountains, snow and the ocean all within 2 hours.......

 

IMG_2243.jpg

 

Can't argue with you. I love the mountains. Would love to move there if I could. I've never been to the Northwest (It's on my bucket list), but I love the Rockies. Of course I've only been there on ski vacations, so actual life might be a little different.

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Great, now I can watch this thread too!

Welcome, Annette! :flower:

This is an exciting upgrade! I'll be following along now :)

Welcome Dr. Felicia! (I like being able to call you "Dr." now :))

 

Can't argue with you. I love the mountains. Would love to move there if I could. I've never been to the Northwest (It's on my bucket list), but I love the Rockies. Of course I've only been there on ski vacations, so actual life might be a little different.

I love the mountains, and the beach. Ironically, I live an easy forty five minute drive from Virginia Beach, but the only time I usually go to the beach is on vacation. :lol:

 

My parents live about an hour away on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, in a house by the Chesapeake Bay. We get the most awesome sunsets there. This is the view from the back deck :wub:

 

21125818828_055cd4082c_b.jpgSunset by TeenyReef, on Flickr

 

 

I've seen a lot of bare bottom tanks covered in coraline and corals. I'm tired of sand and the episodes it has staying white. Right now mine is mostly white ... why, who knows. In my 40 I've started slowly sucking it out. The Basslet spits it all over the place anyway so I figured I'd help. :)

For whatever reason, I've never had problems like you have with my sand. It might be because I stir it up a different section with the turkey baster every time I blow off the rocks.

 

For now, I'm going with sand. Since I haven't decided on my stocking plans yet, it might be good to have sand so I can keep jawfish, or a watchman goby/shrimp type pair. Or a basslet :D

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But I have a weakness for the clean look of bare bottom.

 

 

bare bottom valleys

 

big fan of bare bottom personally

 

 

 

 

 

 

But I recently went bare bottom

 

Still, I'd say in my mind there's a 10% chance of going bare bottom

 

Bare bottom makes sense to me. sexiness.

 

Anybody else getting sweaty? Hurry up and put some sand in the tank teeny!

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Hard Softy

 

Lies! :P

 

I lived in the Pacific Northwest for years. Most of the time the mountains are obscured by rain clouds, and it's way too cold to go to the beach, even in those rare occasions when the sun comes out.

I live just outside of Portland absolutely love it here :)
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I live just outside of Portland absolutely love it here :)

 

Hey neighbor ;) I am just outside of Portland to in Washington.

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I'm sorry that there are so many posts I haven't had a chance to respond to yet, I promise I'll get caught up soon. I've just been so busy getting the tank set up!

 

Everything is operating now, skimmer, heater, MP40, ATO and the media basket. The only thing I still need is the light, which will be shipped this week. In the meantime, I hooked up my old PAR30 bulb just to get some light. Then I finally got the rock and sand in the tank! :happydance:

 

I used all the live rock, and about two thirds of the dry rock, so I think I've got about 25 or 30 pounds of rock in the tank, along with 20 pounds of sand. I didn't spend a whole lot of time on the scape, I really just wanted to get the rocks in the tank so that whatever cycle is going to run can get going. I'm hoping for a quick/mild cycle, since the live rock was uncured and shipped overnight, and the dry rock was clean.

 

I've found the old "one pound of rock per gallon" rule results in nothing but a huge wall of rock in the tank. So, even thought I only used about two thirds of the rock, it's quite possible I'll remove even more rock in the future. And it's almost guaranteed that I will redo the scape. Several times :rolleyes:

 

To do the scape, I drained off about 10 gallons of water. This left the display chamber about half full, making it easy to move the rocks around, but leaving enough water so I could see what it would look like in the water. I also didn't want to go to high up with the rocks, so the low waterline helped me keep track of how high I was piling things up.

 

Here's what I can up with after a little playing around (bare bottom version):

 

27396205312_75a594f879_b.jpg20160606_022531.jpg by TeenyReef, on Flickr

 

One challenge I'm going to have is making the scape look good from different angles. The primary viewing angle for this tank will be from the corner, like in this picture. But that makes things look quite different since you see some of the same stuff in the two different panes of glass, giving a different perspective than when looking straight on to the tank. I think the scape looked a lot better from the front that it does in this shot. This angle makes the two islands look a little too fat, and a little too tall. So I may not stick with this one, even though it looks OK from the front.

 

I than added the sand, and took the obligatory cloudy water shot. That's all for tonight!

 

26887456913_7504d8927d_b.jpg20160606-untitled-002.jpg by TeenyReef, on Flickr

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Sharbuckle

 

 

Anybody else getting sweaty? Hurry up and put some sand in the tank teeny!

Whoa whoa. Way to twist my words around. Im 100% for sand. Silly.

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Yay!!! Rocks!! Sand!!!!! Exciting!!!!

 

I like how you're thinking of all viewing angles!

I also think if you do that whole 1 lb/gallon rule, there's not enough room for tons of corals!!

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It's so strange to read mp40 in a teenyreef thread :).

I know, right? It's funny, I've been researching the IM40 over on that big tank site, and lots of people are running MP10's because they said the MP40 would be way too big for this tank. But I find it to be just right. I can get plenty of flow without having to go much higher than 50%, which means it is dead silent. :)

Yay!!! Rocks!! Sand!!!!! Exciting!!!!

 

I like how you're thinking of all viewing angles!

I also think if you do that whole 1 lb/gallon rule, there's not enough room for tons of corals!!

Tons of corals is a good thing :)

 

I'll probably end up breaking up some of the big pieces of rock into little pieces so I can glue them back together into shapes that work better for me.

 

My only concern with removing rocks is reducing the bioload capacity of the tank. It's a fine balance!

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I know, right? It's funny, I've been researching the IM40 over on that big tank site, and lots of people are running MP10's because they said the MP40 would be way too big for this tank. But I find it to be just right. I can get plenty of flow without having to go much higher than 50%, which means it is dead silent. :)

Tons of corals is a good thing :)

 

I'll probably end up breaking up some of the big pieces of rock into little pieces so I can glue them back together into shapes that work better for me.

 

My only concern with removing rocks is reducing the bioload capacity of the tank. It's a fine balance!

and theoretically it should last longer with less stress on the motor :).

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aviator300

The new Tunze 7004 skimmer came today, with a US plug this time. I ordered from Amazon and had it shipped overnight.

I called BRS today and they were very helpful, and offered to either exchange the unit or provide a refund. They paid return shipping costs as well. I promised them if they gave me a refund they'd get the money back from me eventually. :)

 

I just finished fishing the power cord down back behind the tank and through the hole in the counter to the power strip in the cupboard below. It would have been fairly easy, except there's not enough room to get my hand all the way down behind the tank, and the tank blocks part of the hole.

 

There was literally just barely enough room to force the plug through the hole past the edge of the tank. I had to use an electrical fish wire to pull the plug down to the hole, and then a combination of wiggling from below and pushing the edges of the plug with a long steel rod from above eventually got it through.

 

It's getting a little messy down below...

 

27395237496_1ca241d467_b.jpg20160603_000402.jpg by TeenyReef, on Flickr

 

That's about an hour of my life I'll never get back. :( But it didn't suck nearly as much as it would have sucked if the hole was too small, and I had to completely drain the tank, slide it out, and refill it just for one plug. So on the whole, I'm a happy camper tonight. :)

You could have just cut the plug off and rewired rather than drain the tank.

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You could have just cut the plug off and rewired rather than drain the tank.

Yeah, I did think of that, but I was trying to avoid cutting a sealed cord on a brand new skimmer even before I'd figured out whether it worked or not. :)

 

But I think I'm going to do just that as soon as I'm sure everything is working, so that I can insert extension cords, that way I can unplug and remove things that need to be cleaned, like the skimmer and the pump.

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