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50 Breeder From Texas


TotesMaGoat

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TotesMaGoat

Howdy all! I decided to make a journal for my new tank which I have been piecing together for the past 6 months or so. I originally bought the stand and a used no name rimless 40 breeder but it had 1/4” glass. I decided a few weeks ago I wanted thicker glass and ended up ordering an aquamaxx 48. Very pleased with the construction of this tank. Side panels are 1/2”, fit and finish on everything is great.

 

last weekend I drilled it for a 800gph modular marine overflow, and ended up drilling the drain hole on the return side. Whoops. After all that planning and waiting... well I had a schedule 80 bulkhead and decided to use that for the return, problem solved. Ugly but it will work. Hopefully that will be the biggest hiccup of the build.

 

I am indecisive as to what kind of reef I want it to be. I initially was going to go with a mixed reef of lps & sps, then was leaning towards a softy/macro tank, I am thinking it will be mostly softies with a few stylos and some Seriatopora. 

 

My my last tank this size was thrown together quickly with all 2nd hand equipment, the overflow was super loud as it was my first time plumbing a tank, and it did not last long set up in the living room. This time around I decided I was going to do it right. Took my time planning it out (minus my drilling blunder😅) and chose equipment I knew would help it be a successful reef. My goal for the tank is low maintenance. I am a teacher and coach, and  don’t always have the time during the week to show it a ton of love besides feeding. Livestock from my fusion 10 will be transferred over. I will be moving the first week of July and plan on setting it up that same week or shortly after.

 

Tank: aquamaxx 48 (36x18x18)

Light: ATI 6x24 4B+ 1 P+ 1C+

Sump: Emerald 26

Skimmer: Reef Octopus 110sss

Return: Reef Octopus Varios 2

Controller: Apex Jr

 

i also have about 35lbs of Marco rock I will be using, i cemented a structure together using their cement. My plan is to have one longer structure and then a taller round island, wanted to go more minimal on the LR. Also, I made something to hang my ATI using electric conduit. Excited to get this going!

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I’m running an aquamaxx 20” cube. They really are nice tanks for the price. Silicone work is very clean. Mines 6mm glass. I drilled for a glassholes overflow. 

 

 

 

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TotesMaGoat
8 minutes ago, micoastreefing said:

Is the interior of the stand sealed or clear coated with anything? Might need to think about that with evaporation/condensation trapped in there from the sump. 

There’s no sealant on the wood but I think it will get okay circulation with the hole for the plumbing

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TotesMaGoat
2 minutes ago, Jezmund said:

I’m running an aquamaxx 20” cube. They really are nice tanks for the price. Silicone work is very clean. Mines 6mm glass. I drilled for a glassholes overflow. 

 

 

 

I agree! And price was cheaper than if I had one with same footprint made. I’m real happy with it.

 

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Looks nice... Every tank I make always seems to run smoother or more hands free if I have macro algae so I like that idea. Just be sure to run good carbon with it. 

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TotesMaGoat
On 6/8/2018 at 11:33 PM, Tamberav said:

Looks nice... Every tank I make always seems to run smoother or more hands free if I have macro algae so I like that idea. Just be sure to run good carbon with it. 

Definitely! Plan on running chaeto in the sump as well. Official move date is now July 2nd, going to be ordering either 2 icecap 1ks or a gyre 230 along with a 5 stage spectrapure today. What do y’all think considering the flow?

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  • 2 weeks later...
TotesMaGoat

Santa dropped by while I was spending some time relaxing and getting fat in New Orleans!

 

got a 6 stage BRS rodi, icecap 1k gyre, 40lbs reef flakes sand, Red Sea salt, larger heater, and some other small stuff. Also got a few lbs of the new shelf rock from BRS, the stuff is super cool. Going to dry fit plumbing tomorrow. Still juggling the aquascspe in my head. T-minus 2 weeks until it sees water, and makes the transition from San Antonio to Houston.

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Inspiration

 

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TotesMaGoat

Dry fitted the plumbing the past couple days. I’m going to put in a couple more unions and some brackets to secure it (once I get it moved over). It other than that, anyone see any major flaws? Tried to allow for as straight of a vertical as possible for full siphon, open drain and emergency kind of zig zag but that’s alright considering they won’t see much action (hopefully).

 

also played around with some aquascsping ideas. I had ordered a couple pounds of shelf rock from BRS, I wanted to have some sps mounted on it center tank (couple stylo and a birdsnest). Going to use a smaller rock as the base to lower it a little. Also going to add a couple small rocks on the left hand side as well as part of the second shelf I had gotten for my acans and echinata. Decided that it’s going to be primarily a softie/macro tank with some gorgonians.. I love the natural look the macros and gorgs give. Throw in a couple flower nems and a jawfish and call it a day. 

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What kind of flow are you going to push through the tank/sump? I have a jbj 45 rimless that I want to change over to the Triton method, so I contacted modular marine about the 800 gph overflow and told em I wanted to be pushing close to 500gph through my system and they told me they would highly recommend using the 1200gph overflow instead for pushing that much water. Didn't make much sense to me seeing as I am wanting 300gph less than what the 800 gph overflow is rated for..

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TotesMaGoat
4 minutes ago, bennyd said:

What kind of flow are you going to push through the tank/sump? I have a jbj 45 rimless that I want to change over to the Triton method, so I contacted modular marine about the 800 gph overflow and told em I wanted to be pushing close to 500gph through my system and they told me they would highly recommend using the 1200gph overflow instead for pushing that much water. Didn't make much sense to me seeing as I am wanting 300gph less than what the 800 gph overflow is rated for..

Im shooting for 4x tank volume so about 200GPH. If for some reason I see issue with that Id just opt for the silicone on overflow in place of this skimmer box. Whats your reasoning for 10x turnover?

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TotesMaGoat
5 minutes ago, bennyd said:

Triton method. Just seemed odd that I want to run 500gph but they told me to get the 1200 instead of the 800.

Yeah the 1200gph overflow is probably a better choice simply for better skimming, they had told me the same thing when I got one for a different 40 breeder. I wanted the 800gph because I knew I was going to push low gph and the smaller footprint, my original plan was to not paint the back glass so a smaller overflow would be less distraction.

 

I think it could do 500gph it just wouldn't be as quiet, and the water level of the tank would be elevated a little more. If I was going to run 500gph I'd get the 1200 as well, better to oversize than undersize.

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TotesMaGoat

Frosted the back glass. Think it turned out real well. Put quite a few coats on it as I really wanted to hide the plumbing as much as possible. Sorry the glare in the pictures makes it kinda hard to see it, but stuck my hand directly behind to give y’all an idea.

Also got plumbing glued. Everything is 100% finished! Moving Monday and will be wet soon after??

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TotesMaGoat

First off sorry for picture quality I still need to run back to the old house for some things including my real camera...

and livestock.

 

its finally up and running! I have to shim the left side of the stand and lower the water level, other than that it’s running great!

 

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TotesMaGoat

My 10g is at my parents so they could watch it while I moved and got settled in. They called this morning saying my possum wrasse jumped and died. Super disappointing, was an awesome fish. I’ll definitley get another.

 

i shimmed the tank, really happy with where is sits now. My new internal overflow box arrives today but I really don’t know if I want to put it on. Water line is 1/2” from the top. Blasting my wavemakers to test the boundaries, I feel pretty safe with where it’s at. My only regret right now is that I went with the 800gph overferflow. I wish the skimmer box was larger but I’m only moving about 250gph through the sump so it works well.

 

finished scape.

 

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mitten_reef
23 minutes ago, TotesMaGoat said:

My 10g is at my parents so they could watch it while I moved and got settled in. They called this morning saying my possum wrasse jumped and died. Super disappointing, was an awesome fish. I’ll definitley get another.

 

finished scape

Nicely done! This is one of the best scape I've seen in a long time!  

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TotesMaGoat
On 7/9/2018 at 2:48 PM, micoastreefing said:

Nicely done! This is one of the best scape I've seen in a long time!  

Thank you! Had this is my head for a long time. I did change it up a tad. I had s ton of zoas that came with me from the 10. I’m going to put most of them on the bottom 1/2 of the structure on the left side, with a few others scattered. On the lookout for some nepthea, gorgonians  and some other interesting softies. 

 

Leaving tomorrow row for big bend national park for 5 days, I’m going to set up a 5g bucket for the ATO which should be plenty as I’ve been using roughly 1/3g a day.

 

sorry for pics, still haven’t gotten my real camera from old house yet.

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TotesMaGoat

Well, I’m on day 3 of a 5 day vacation. Will be back Saturday evening, all I have to monitor my tank is the apex temp probe. I went from about 1.5*F of temp variation to now about 0.3*. That makes me feel a little anxious but I did raise the tanks temp and lower the A/C in the house before I left. Room was getting too warm and I had the water temp set lower than what it could maintain mid day.

 

obligatory pictures of vacation. Big Bend National Park in Southwest Texas

 

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TotesMaGoat

Tank survived. Added my first fish and went on a coral spending spree to celebrate

mostof the corals on the sand bed will be sold off.

added some pods right before the wrasse, he feasted. Has been super active the moment he went in.

 

 

 

 

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TotesMaGoat

New corals new update.

 

i found out my scape is too tall if I want a lot of gorgonians. Rescaped rocks to lower them. Also added a kessil H80, Chaeto and marinepure spheres in refugium, along with some pods from algae barn.

 

went to the LFS for some salt. Came back with several hundred bucks of coral. Sold a fishing micro skiff to help fund this tank. Not like that will cover it all but makes me feel better 😅

 

bought an Aussie crown, spotted discoma, some “zebra paly”, what I believe to be a purple plume, corky finger aaand I think that’s it. The plume is s lot taller than I had anticipated it being. Not sure if I should trim it or find a spot that’s essentially sand level. Wrasse has been eating well, seeing a bit of GHA and picked up a couple more snails to combat it.  Overall everything’s going real well.

 

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On 7/22/2018 at 2:40 PM, TotesMaGoat said:

Tank survived. Added my first fish and went on a coral spending spree to celebrate

mostof the corals on the sand bed will be sold off.

added some pods right before the wrasse, he feasted. Has been super active the moment he went in.

 

 

 

 

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Nice wrASSe. 

 

 

 

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LogicalReefs

Nice tank man! What fish stores do you go shop at in Houston? I usually just got to Ocean Life Aquariums and FJW. Some others here and there but those are my main spots to throw money at coral and fish haha. 

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