caas1496's 40 Breeder - One Year FTS!

[Coastie]

I just transferred the first livestock to my 40B from my twenty long.  Came here looking for fellow fortyBs! I am impressed! Your plumbing and sump are amazing and you had way more patience than me with the scape!

 

I see you did an 80/20 light mount as well! 

 

Looks amazing!

 

Following along!

[caas1496]

On 3/17/2020 at 2:39 AM, Coastie said:

I just transferred the first livestock to my 40B from my twenty long.  Came here looking for fellow fortyBs! I am impressed! Your plumbing and sump are amazing and you had way more patience than me with the scape!

 

I see you did an 80/20 light mount as well! 

 

Looks amazing!

 

Following along!

Thanks! I look forward to checking out your build as well. 

 

I am going to try to post more regular updates and photos of the tank to track the progress better over time. Hopefully weekly along with a short update of whats new.

 

FTS 3/27/2020:

 

 

The Bad:

Unfortunately I found out about the jumping skills of wrasses the hard way. My social wrasse managed to jump out through the cord pass through hole in my lid and I didn't find him until after work. It's always rough to lose a fish and the wrasse was otherwise doing great in my system. I will have to find a way to seal up all these holes before I add any more fish with jumping tendencies.

 

 

The Good:

Most corals are doing quite well and growing. I have had to increase the dosing amount for Ca and Alk again to keep up with demand in the tank. I also had to move a couple corals to safety that weren't getting along with my torch. 

 

I'm excited because I put in a small acro frag and for the first time I am getting growth with an acro! I tried one in my 20G and it sat for months without any growth and then slowly lost tissue. This PC Rainbow frag has been noticeably encrusting out onto the plug already.

[Coastie]

I feel ya!  I lost my Christmas Wrasse when I had to put a mount on my tank.  The lid had maybe a 1/2" opening on one side.  He jumped out and through.....

 

And how are you going to mention an acro frag without a picture of said frag?

[caas1496]

30 minutes ago, Coastie said:

I feel ya!  I lost my Christmas Wrasse when I had to put a mount on my tank.  The lid had maybe a 1/2" opening on one side.  He jumped out and through.....

 

And how are you going to mention an acro frag without a picture of said frag?

Good point Coastie. That wasn't fair. 

 

[Coastie]

Sweet! Colony coming soon!  Looks good!

[caas1496]

I think its about time to revive this build thread. The tank is up and chugging along still. It went through a pretty rough phase so you will see a lot of changes in the photos below. Without getting into too much detail tonight I lost large majority of my euphyllia shortly after my last post on this thread. But anyways things are back on track and I felt motivated to post some more pictures!

 

 

Turns out these photos are pretty large... will have to find another way to attach them.

[Matteo]

Looking good! 

[5*Chris]

10 hours ago, caas1496 said:

I think its about time to revive this build thread. The tank is up and chugging along still. It went through a pretty rough phase so you will see a lot of changes in the photos below. Without getting into too much detail tonight I lost large majority of my euphyllia shortly after my last post on this thread. But anyways things are back on track and I felt motivated to post some more pictures!

 

 

Turns out these photos are pretty large... will have to find another way to attach them.

😲 Oh man, this is awesome!! I honestly just felt all the livestock in my tank say...don't you even think about it. 

[caas1496]

58 minutes ago, 5*Chris said:

😲 Oh man, this is awesome!! I honestly just felt all the livestock in my tank say...don't you even think about it. 

Thanks haha, what are you thinking about?

[caas1496]

Some more photos...

 

[5*Chris]

32 minutes ago, caas1496 said:

Thanks haha, what are you thinking about?

I've been thinking about redoing my aquascape, well...at least moving things around. I really wish I would've taken the time to redo the scape when I upgraded to the 40b. I just basically moved the rock work over and added more rock and a bigger frag rack lol. 

 

Your scape really takes advantage of the foot print of the 40b. 

 

[caas1496]

5 minutes ago, 5*Chris said:

I've been thinking about redoing my aquascape, well...at least moving things around. I really wish I would've taken the time to redo the scape when I upgraded to the 40b. I just basically moved the rock work over and added more rock and a bigger frag rack lol. 

 

Your scape really takes advantage of the foot print of the 40b. 

 

I was just checking out your tank and actually really like how you have it scaped. I think you have to do things a little differently when you have a peninsula. My scape wouldn’t be too interesting from the backside. I really want a peninsula tank... but there isn’t a great spot for it in my apartment. There’s just so much extra coral real estate! 

[caas1496]

Some new additions to the tank from a labor day sale. I also got up the nerve to frag a branch of the torch tonight so hopefully I can trade for some more new pieces!

 

 

 

 

[caas1496]

Traded in the torch frag for this guy. Excited to finally have a scoly in the tank!

 

 

 

[dbsoundcheck]

What size are you using for returns and drains? Is it all 3/4"? I just ordered a 1200 from modular marine and the 3 drains are apparently 3/4" so just wondering if that was an issue for you? 

[caas1496]

@dbsoundcheck I think 3/4” will work great. I have 1” drains and have the gate valve cranked way down on my primary drain. The guy I bought the tank from was planning to push way more flow through his drains and returns I guess but 3/4” seems like a more reasonable size for the drains to be honest. My return plumbing starts out as 1” but changes to 3/4” when it splits to run to the dual returns. 

[dbsoundcheck]

6 hours ago, caas1496 said:

@dbsoundcheck I think 3/4” will work great. I have 1” drains and have the gate valve cranked way down on my primary drain. The guy I bought the tank from was planning to push way more flow through his drains and returns I guess but 3/4” seems like a more reasonable size for the drains to be honest. My return plumbing starts out as 1” but changes to 3/4” when it splits to run to the dual returns. 

That's what I thought. I was just wondering as this will be my first attempt at building a tank with a sump as I'm upgrading from a sumpless 20 long. There is a lot of info out there that says you should only use 1" drains and 3/4" returns but I feel like the 1200 should do fine on the 40b. Your build and tank is awesome btw!

[caas1496]

3 hours ago, dbsoundcheck said:

That's what I thought. I was just wondering as this will be my first attempt at building a tank with a sump as I'm upgrading from a sumpless 20 long. There is a lot of info out there that says you should only use 1" drains and 3/4" returns but I feel like the 1200 should do fine on the 40b. Your build and tank is awesome btw!

Thanks! I also upgraded from a sumpless 20G. The 40 breeder is a great tank size IMO. Can’t wait to see your build. You should start a build thread if you haven’t already.

[caas1496]

Some rearrangement was required due to a couple battling euphyllia corals.

New FTS:

 

I also messed around with getting some top down photos tonight. 

 

 

 

And one more of the acan garden for the fun of it.

 

 

A few more photos turned out decent but I’ve reached my file size limit for this post... to be continued...

[caas1496]

Some more coral photos...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[billygoat]

Just discovered this thread and read back through your build. Wow! Pretty incredible job putting this system together. Very well-designed and well-maintained, and the results really show in your animals. I've been thinking about joining the 40 breeder club, but I wish I was half as good at drilling, plumbing, and generally putting things together as you are! Great stuff all around. 👌

[caas1496]

1 hour ago, billygoat said:

Just discovered this thread and read back through your build. Wow! Pretty incredible job putting this system together. Very well-designed and well-maintained, and the results really show in your animals. I've been thinking about joining the 40 breeder club, but I wish I was half as good at drilling, plumbing, and generally putting things together as you are! Great stuff all around. 👌

Do it! Join the 40 Breeder club haha. All the DIY is just part of the hobby for me. I like that aspect of it, even if sometimes it would be quicker or even cheaper just to buy something... 

[caas1496]

My clown goby seems to think that the deresa clam is his personal throne! This is one of his favorite spots to hang out. I’m kind of amazed the clam stays open for this.

 

 

[ef4life]

41 minutes ago, caas1496 said:

My clown goby seems to think that the deresa clam is his personal throne! This is one of his favorite spots to hang out. I’m kind of amazed the clam stays open for this.

 

 

Clams can be pretty cool, but I’ve seen fish get killed by clams doing that. Hopefully nothing happens to the goby

[caas1496]

On 9/20/2020 at 1:15 AM, ef4life said:

Clams can be pretty cool, but I’ve seen fish get killed by clams doing that. Hopefully nothing happens to the goby

Hopefully nothing bad will happen to him. So far the clam doesn’t seem bothered by it. 

 

Thought I would post some pictures of the fish for once. I tend to focus more on coral photos usually.