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Donny's 40 breeder


Donny41

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Started my first saltwater tank in March of this year after years of freshwater. It was a simple 10 gallon tank with a current USA led and a small HOB bio wheel filter. Since then I have moved and transferred that tank into an old 40 breeder that I had. When I first moved tanks I did not give the corals and my bta enough time to acclimate to the more powerful lights but over the last month I've turned off the t5s and have been using the LEDs on a lower power and everything is doing fine now. Over the next few months I plan to reintegrate the t5s. I feed mainly flakes and freeze dried mysis 1-3 daily and feed my corals/ bta with chopped scallops occasionally. Let me know what you think!

 

Equipment 

100 watt aqueon heater 

Marineland biowheel 400

3x powerheads (425-625gph)

Reef octo 100 HOB skimmer

Aquatic life 24 in. T5 led hybrid 

2x coral plus/ 2x actinic bulbs

Hydra 26 led

 

Stock list

Yellow watchmen/ pistol shrimp

2× ocellaris clowns

Purple fire fish

Tail spot blenny

Fairy wrasse

Cleaner shrimp

Snails/hermits

Red fromia star

Green bta 

Zoas/lps corals

 

Original 10 gallon

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Tank when first set up/ tank currently

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  • Like 4
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Awesome lighting! I think lots of people are missing out on the benefits of t5 lately. A few bulbs is tried and true, corals love it. The scape is really nice too.!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Unfortunate turn today. Seems my hydra has become more of a brick then a light. No power going to it at all tried a bunch of different outlets and such. Pretty sure it's not on warranty anymore, still waiting to hear back from AI though so we'll see. Don't think it will effect my corals too much, t5s still going fine and I have an orbit led I can supplement it with for now if needed. 

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Christopher Marks

Sorry to hear, that's too bad! Hopefully you can troubleshoot it and get it back online. At least the T5's are still operational though, like you said, so you're not totally out of service. Had you been acclimating everything to the T5's more, or were you still using the LED exclusively before it went out?

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My hydra 26 is getting sent out tomorrow so hopefully that will be back and running soon, I have been using my old current usa orbit in the mean time for sunrise/set. Other than the light issue the tank has been running great! Over the past month I've been adding new corals and am very happy with everything so far. Added some acans, a hammer,Ultron favia, pulsing xenia, ppe cyphastrea, and a pavona which is my first sps. I also just added a coral beauty angel which I've been going back and forth on for a while now but I saw a nice looking one in the store so I went for it. Not looking to add anything else in the foreseeable future, just want to watch my corals fill out. Next step is to add some kind of backing to hide the wires (does not bother me but the fiancee hates it), and to find/make something to shield my skimmer from the light because algae is starting to grow inside of it.

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One other issue has been the zoas on the right completely over growing its neighbor

  • Like 2
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Did a water change today and noticed that my geledium is taking hold again.. also knocked a rock over taking my hob skimmer out of the tank to clean... always something 

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8 hours ago, Tangina20 said:

What settings are you running on your hydra? I have a 40b going from Chinese box to 2 hydras and I’m thinking about running these ab+ settings at a lower %

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I'm currently not running the hydra, still waiting to get it repaired but when I was I had everything much more even than that, dont love the super blue look. 

7 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

That misbar clown is beautiful! I like how open your scape is. Plenty of swimming room for the fish. 🙂 

Thanks! He was actually a rescue from my brothers 220g reef. Poor fella was bullied and kept jumping into the corner overflow 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ordered an ato and should have it up and running on the tank by the weekend. Figured it was a good time as I'll be home for most of the holiday so if something does go awry at least I'll be close by. Once that's up and running in going to actually start testing my water (dont think I've done so in at least 4 months.. other than salinity). Plan on dosing kalk through the ato once I figure out more about my parameter fluctuations.. usage should be low right now but I want to start adding some sps and i want to get a handle on dosing before i do that. In the mean time here's some crappy phone pics (one day I hope to be able to take much better pictures)

 

This zoa tunred out to look so much better than in it did in the store.  Had quite a start to my tank too as It was used as part of my pistol shrimps den for about a month until one day I saw a polyp sticking through the sand. Its rebounded quite nicely

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ATO (xpaqua duetto) was delivered today. Was going to wait until Sunday to set it up but I got home from work early and felt like a kid with a new toy so it is now currently installed and running on my tank. 

 

 

Initial impressions

1. The sensor is tiny! Knew this going in which is why I bought this specific model but it's even smaller than I expected. Needed a small enough sensor to be able to fit under the rim of my tank and this one gives me more than enough room.

2. Easy set up. Took me only 4-5 minutes to have it up and running and sensor was easy to calibrate.

3. Plastic parts feel cheap but only time will tell how they hold up

4. Biggest disappointment is size of the tube attachment. Not large enough to fit entirely around the rim. Was able to get it on but not as secure as I would like

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  • 2 weeks later...

Began testing my water this week with my new red sea pro test kit and calcium and alkalinity levels are on the low end, as I expected. I am going to continue testing on Saturdays (water change day) as well as wednesdays. Also going to check my fresh saltwater for a couple of weeks to see where it generally mixes out at. I use plain Instant Ocean which I know mixes out low but its soo cheap and easy to use. Once I test for a few more weeks I am going to buy some two part to slowly bring my levels up and then begin dosing kalk through my ato. Also plan on using two part with my fresh saltwater, which I think will be necessary when I do water changes. 

 

Another note, noticed a population of vermetid snails have sprung up in my tank. I havent added anything in about a month so I guess they've been in my tank for a bit but have just gotten to a noticeable population. So I pulverized the ones I could see with tongs and let my cleaner shrimp devour them. Honestly the first time me and my shrimp have gotten along lol. I always have to keep him from stealing food when I feed my coral and he is one persistent bastard.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Few updates:

 

1.  Began dosing my tank a few weeks ago with fluval sea alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium to bring levels up. When I first tested my alk was ok at 7.7 but my calcium was between 320- 340 and mag was close to 1100. Using the red sea pro test kit. Since then I've slowly brought my alk/ca/mg to 8.4/400/1300. 

2. Just mixed my first kalkwaser batch in my ato reservoir. Will turn the ato back on in a few hours. 

3. Installed an icecap 3k gyre. Thought it might be too much for the tank but it wasnt too much more money than the 1k and I do plan on going bigger at some point so I figured why not. After blowing a bunch of sand around at first I've settled on the random setting between 10-30% which seems to be doing well. Had been running 3 powerheads before, currently have one of them still running opposing the gyre and one other in the tank that I may turn on, still havent decided. 

4. Moved a few corals around because of the flow change so everyone's not exactly happy right now but hopefully they all open up fully again within the next few days.

5. Finally not fish related but we brought home a new furry friend a few days ago! He's a rescue from Kosovo in Europe and he is very happy to be out of the shelter! (Although he's still very skeptical of the glowing room in the back of the house)

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Put a cheap cling background on yesterday. Not the prettiest job but it beats looking at the wires in the back for sure. Also manually removed about 7-8 vertimid snails yesterday. I'm sure there are more in there but that's all I could find. Took the sponges off the top of the skimmer outlet because they were an eyesore and trapped a bunch of crap. It might be going back on soon though with all of the micro bubbles in the tank now. 20190127_110009.thumb.jpg.daaab6a66f711c2d0f7fbec9c810f16e.jpg20190127_092308.thumb.jpg.554e8c1fc09e55c3f7b14601bd9e0346.jpg

 

Also my Duncan has been closed up all morning. It does this every few weeks and wont open for a day or two but then when it opens it always seems like its bigger. 15486056844291171736285154483932.thumb.jpg.1ab74469da4a0c3c466c72bed0e62f6c.jpg

 

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  • 1 month later...

Few updates:

 

1. Purple firefish died unfortunately. Was not aggressive enough in getting food and was getting outcompeted by everyone else. Had been getting thinner for a long time and died a few weeks ago.

2. Calibrated my refractometer for the first time in a while and realized my salinity was at 31 ppt. Have been increasing it slightly every water change, right now it's at 33 ppt. Want to have it at 35 in two weeks. Have been doing this extra slow as I have not noticed any ill effects, pretty much everything in my tank is doing really well atm so trying not to mess with things too much.

3. I was having an issue with my HOB filter being extremely loud and creating a ton on microbubbles. It's old and I figured it was time for a new one but before replacing it outright I tried replacing the impeller and that has worked perfectly. Filter is running quieter and more efficient

4. Added a few more sps! Since my last update I have bought two more acros and three montis. First acro I bought (green slimer) began to encrust and is doing well. Montis are doing exceptionally well and have already began to encrust the plugs nicely.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

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