Beginner's Reef

[Mazdawg09]

After years in the freshwater tank hobby my Girlfriend and I have decided to try our hands at a reef tank. I know going straight to a reef tank and basically skipping the "FOWLR" stage of saltwater isn't recommended but I have done tons of research into the hobby and I'm figuring if I combine that research with my years of freshwater experience We should be relatively successful.

 

To give a little more info about us we have basically been hang arounds at our "LFS" for about 3 years and we've been interested in the saltwater hobby ever since. Unfortunately the hobby was way to expensive for us so we have been slowly preparing to have a reef tank for most of that time. Just recently our freshwater fish outgrew the 40 Breeder we had them in so we decided to upgrade to a 125. Luckily being a regular at our LFS has its perks and they gave us a killer deal on the 125 and all the stuff we had to buy for it. After staring at our empty 40 gallon for a few months and some convincing from the LFS we decided we had the perfect candidate to begin our journey into the saltwater world.

 

I'm pretty new into the forum world as well so bear with me along this process but hopefully this doesn't turn out too terribly. If anyone has any recommendations for anything along this journey please feel free to share.

 

Now the good stuff for everyone who has read this far, The Photo Dump:

 

The 40 gallon in its beginning stages

 

Tank after drilling (probably the most terrifying thing ever)

Equipment wise I chose the Eshopps Eclipse M overflow because of its nice slim form factor as well as 2 basic 3/4" loc line returns for symmetry. I may eventually buy 2 random flow nozzles but I currently am not too sure if they're worth it especially on a tank this small.

 

    

The basic black painted background (this is my first tank out of 6 or 7 to actually have a background)

 

Next post with more than likely be the construction of my 20L sump thanks to Petco's $1 per gallon sale and this sweet baffle kit I found after some googling!

 

[banasophia]

Congrats on your first reef tank! Looking forward to following along. 

[Tamberav]

Nice! 40 Breeders are great tanks.

 

I never had FOWLR and I didn't have much for freshwater either, do bettas count? lol 😛 Mostly just straight to the reef for me 😎

[Firefish15]

It's a fun process! Take some real time with your aquascaping when you get there, it's worth it!

[Mazdawg09]

First off I want to say thank you to everyone for the support and interest I am receiving. I was actually kind of worried this whole forum thing wasn't gonna be what i was hoping for but I'm exited about it so far.

 

As for the sump build that was supposed to be coming today I decided to hold off for a few days on posting about it. I had to order some unexpected parts to get it to something I am happy with and I figured I should just wait to put that all into one post. Luckily I don't need to order anything crazy just a few bulkheads and some other simple stuff so that should be arriving in a few days.

 

Since the sump post is getting pushed back I figured I should layout the stuff I already have. Most of the equipment I have is from my failed attempt at a FOWLR setup that never completed the cycle for whatever reason. That tank was a 65 tall and because we were on such a budget most parts we have meet the absolute minimums for that sized tank which was another reason stepping down to the 40 made sense. Most of the equipment from that tank will eventually get sold more than likely but we are holding onto the basics to at least get started.

 

Here's the list of things we're using:

 

Mag 7 as the return pump

Corallife Super Skimmer 65 (Maybe not the smartest purchase but it will be safe in the sump)

Approx. 70lbs of live rock including a few pieces with coraline to start that process (Yes I need to lower that number but I'm hoping I can make a nice scape with that much)

2 aqueon heaters that will be replaced before any livestock is added (Plan on getting a few Cobalt Neo-Therms after watching a BRS video)

 

Other things I have purchased are:

 

Eshopps Eclipse M overflow box (Best drill through kit I could find)

A ton of 1" and 3/4" plumbing parts for the drain and return

A few 1/2" fittings to try out a manifold setup

A cheap 800GPH  pump for the manifold (Overkill for sure but I'll throttle it down)

A basic IP rated grow light for the Refugium

And a baffle kit to make a 20L sump

 

Hopefully that should be everything I need to get the tank up and running so I can get into the fun stuff like stocking the tank. If anyone has any suggestions on other things I should look into or any questions about anything I listed please feel free to share I would greatly appreciate it.

[Firefish15]

Do you have a light for your display tank yet?

[Mazdawg09]

6 hours ago, Firefish15 said:

Do you have a light for your display tank yet?

No light yet. That is unfortunately one budget constraint still so I probably won’t purchase one until later on in the cycle so I can afford the best light possible. I have had my eyes on the OceanRevive Artic-T247 or a basic 365 watt Chinese black box. If you have any good budget friendly recommendations I’d be happy to hear about them.

[Lula_Mae]

On 10/19/2018 at 6:21 PM, Mazdawg09 said:

No light yet. That is unfortunately one budget constraint still so I probably won’t purchase one until later on in the cycle so I can afford the best light possible. I have had my eyes on the OceanRevive Artic-T247 or a basic 365 watt Chinese black box. If you have any good budget friendly recommendations I’d be happy to hear about them.

Since you're on a tight budget, I was going to suggest you look into one of the black box lights. I don't know a lot about lighting for a bigger tank but think that could possibly be a candidate. Have you decided on live vs dry rock? If doing dry rock, you could get some pure ammonia and bottled bacteria and start cycling it in buckets, although there's really no rush if that's not feasible. 

[Mazdawg09]

2 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

Since you're on a tight budget, I was going to suggest you look into one of the black box lights. I don't know a lot about lighting for a bigger tank but think that could possibly be a candidate. Have you decided on live vs dry rock? If doing dry rock, you could get some pure ammonia and bottled bacteria and start cycling it in buckets, although there's really no rush if that's not feasible. 

We already have about 70lbs of live rock. We attempted a FOWLR tank a while ago and have kept the tank running basically just to keep the rock alive. We will have to go a little crazy to break it up into smaller chunks. 

[Lula_Mae]

15 minutes ago, Mazdawg09 said:

We already have about 70lbs of live rock. We attempted a FOWLR tank a while ago and have kept the tank running basically just to keep the rock alive. We will have to go a little crazy to break it up into smaller chunks. 

Smart thinking!  I've heard of screwdrivers and chisels being used with a hammer, good luck breaking it up!

[Mazdawg09]

So after a short hiatus I'm back with an update! The Sump Post!

 

The base of this sump is just a simple 20G long which was conveniently on sale at Petco for $20 exactly when I needed it. As for the baffles I originally planned on doing full DIY but after getting a quote on glass the $90 was not worth it when I found more advanced kits for less money. After doing a bunch of research on those kits I actually decided to buy the cheapest on I found. After shipping that ended up costing me another $53 wich is way better than spending $90 when I wasn't 100% sure with what I was doing. Unfortunately I had to buy two bulkheads which I didn't see mentioned but I can't be too mad about that.

 

The exact baffle kit I purchased can be found here:  https://www.ebay.com/itm/REFUGIUM-KIT-for-30-x12-x12-20-GAL-Long-aquarium-protein-skimmer-sump/162166276338?hash=item25c1dd00f2:g:ex4AAOSw5cNYZXOZ:rk:1:pf:0

 

All the pieces included. They also included a few of the horizontal cutouts if you wanted to plug some of the slots to change flow. I may block the top two slots to create more of a rotational flow in the refugium.

 

Excuse the mess but here are the finished pictures

Here you can see the bulkheads I purchased which included 1" barbed fittings. I wanted these to help cut down on splashing and noise.

 

Here is another angle just because

 

 

As for specs:

The water level is supposed to be 6" but I measured 8" to top of baffle

First section is 11"x12" to fit my socks and skimmer while also leaving the option to remove the socks and get a bigger skimmer in the future

Second section is the Refugium it measures 9"x12"

Third section is the return 8"x12" I made this section so large because I am running a seperate pump for my manifold

 

Based off of my measurements I will have 12.5 Gallons of water in the sump which means I should have about 7 Gallons of overflow space before displacement.

 

7G should be more than enough considering I did a very crude back siphon test and calculated I will lose about 1.5G from my display in the event of an issue.

 

 

Hope my long post made up for the delay. Next up will hopefully be a full Plumbing post as long as I didn't forget to order any fittings.