Peninsula 40 Breeder (Now Hydra powered!)

[nanoreefer11]

So recently my corals outgrew my 20 long and I upgraded to a 40 breeder in the last petco $ / gallon sale.

Here's a quick vid of my old tank so you can see what I started with. This tank was 2 years old:

I did not use the old rock because it was covered in aptasia and a few spots of bryopsis. I used 100% DIY rock made by a local reefer and seeded it with aquacultured live rock from an LFS.

Here's my equipment:

24x 3w LED DIY (upgrading to 2x ai sol this week)
DIY Sump
SCA-303 Skimmer
RK Lite running 2x PC4 and Advanced Lighting Module
Petco Broklyn metal stand
Vortech mp10
50# Dry rock

The tank is setup peninsula style to allow more placement of corals and a more interesting aquascape.

I haven't taken any real pics of this tank because most of the new zoas I added last week are still adjusting to my lighting and to be honest my camera kinda sucks. I'll probably keep video records of things as my camcorder is MUCH better.

My current livestock is:

2x B/W Clownfish
3x Blue Chromis
1x Springeri Dottyback
1x Six Line Wrasse

I would like to add a midas blenny and maybe a goby/ pistol shrimp in the future but those will all have to wait. I just bought 2 ai sols from a friend of a friend and they will be arriving wednesday and within the next few months be upgraded to vegas with a director controller.

[nanoreefer11]

And my last video of my old tank:

 

 

And some pics from today! Apparently the Galaxy S3 has a good camera... never woulda guessed that lol:

 

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[nanoreefer11]

FTS:

 

 

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[ChouDawg]

Following along, I'm going to be doing a 40BR peninsula soon as well! Hows the flow with the single return and the MP10 on the opposite side? Can you still put corals on that center "point" since the MP10 is directly at it? Oh and last question how's the current DIY LED setup doing for you?

[nanoreefer11]

The flow from the return is the Hydor L40 rated at about 740 gph. With that and the return it's going great. I've had some issues with the mp10 sucking air because of the angular flow of the return but I think I've hit a sweet spot on the height from the surface and as of now, it's been working great. Somewhere down the line when I begin to add some SPS, I will add as second one though.

 

My tank is mostly LPS and I have my MP10 at about 75% reefcrest.

 

The pennensuila setup is AWESOME though. So much space for corals on both sides, it's truly changed how I view aquariums in general.. so much wasted space with a typical against the wall setup.

 

The DIY light is going great, I'm running 6x Neutral white, 8x Royal Blue, 4x UV, 2x Actinic Purple, 2x Cyan, 2x Red

 

Here's my layout:

 

 

I'm using 2x DA moonlights and the light is controlled by the ALC.

I'm replacing this unit with 2x AI sols and eventually 2x ai vegas (upgrade kit) because it really bothers me how the light dims from 10% as a start, rather than a gradual 1%-max ramp. Also I feel I'm only getting about 85% coverage. Other than that, it's actually really good. My layout is the same triple puck layout as the sols. I would reccomend the 36 LED kit from aquastyle or rapid if you are going to build your own.

 

This is an aquastyle kit, and having owned both aquastyle and Cree diy through rapid, I feel the savings of over 50% warrants ordering this one from aqyastyle over rapid. I don't have any par numbers but I've read that cree's are about 30% brighter when driven at comparable percentage.

 

Can you define center point?

[ChouDawg]

Wow, I was totally expecting a "ya the lights are cool, flow is nice" response, really appreciate the detailed response!

 

The "point" i was referring to is the peak of the rock formation closest to the overflow, it looks like it's in direct path of the MP10, I was thinking of similar MP10 placement but was worried i would essentially lose coral placement at the 'center' of my rock formations where the MP10 was directed. I know the MP10 has a pretty wide/varying flow pattern so that may still be okay for corals furthest away but was curious what you thought?

 

Ill look into the Aquastyles 36 setup, I have a MakersLED 6" over my cube right now with the DIM4 doing the sunrise/sunset control and love it. I'm probably going to keep my DIM4 but unfortunately it only does 0-10v dimming not PWM so I cant use those cool Meanwell LDD drivers. Looks like your current setup is essentially one AI SOL, are you replacing it with two AI SOL for better coverage/PAR?

[nanoreefer11]

Well, I'm replacing for three reasons, the first is to get full coverage and the second is I'm a person that really values the clean look of a fixture. Right now theres so many wires hanging off of my stand, it really distracts from the tank. When my tank was against the wall, the wires were hidden by the tank itself so it wasn't as bad. And third, I really really like the features of the new AI controller and there soon to be released director. GPS sunrise/ sunset, GPS weater, Cloud cover and storms are all really awesome features IMO.

 

And as for the center rock placement, I think taking a top down may help you a bit. If you look at my short side of my tank, the MP10 is blasting my leather and it loves it. I did have to turn it down a bit because the torch (which is about 5'' down and 2'' to the right was getting po'd at the flow. Other than that, all my corals love it. As for the right rock (the one that looks like a duck) I have some zoas on the peak and they seem to be happy.

 

Edit: Pic isn't sending to my email. I'll post the panormic pic when I get back from the petstore.

[nanoreefer11]

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[Drift Monkey]

Wait, where is the time elapse setup video?

[nanoreefer11]

Bam:

 

[ChouDawg]

Thanks for the top down shot, that helps. Awesome time lapse video too, how long did that move take you?

[nanoreefer11]

Well, I had about 40 gallons mixed ready to go from two days before, which took a while to physically go to the store back and fourth 15 gallons at a time, but the actual move started at 1PM and I was sitting on my chair in front of the tank by 8PM, so not too bad. Everything went much smoother than I expected.

 

Also, Sol's will be here monday and mounted either that night or tuesday, depending on how much finals studying I get done

 

Last time I moved from my 10 --> 20 gallon, I ended up leaving all the screws I had bought at lowes in the kart, breaking off a leg of my sump, and then dropped my RKL headunit in my sump.. terrible day, luckily I had a backup RKL head unit. I had worked from 8-5 that day, then drove two hours to pickup the stand and tank, then 1 hour back home so I didn't get started until about 11:30 at night, terrible terrible day.

[nanoreefer11]

Look what the mailman brought me....

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[Drift Monkey]

BALLIN'! Looks great Zack!

[nanoreefer11]

Thanks man! I'm suprised how clean the setup came out, thanks to that NR guy who came up with the bracket conduit holders to mount the AI sols on..

[BeardedReeferLLC]

Awesome! Welcome to the 40 Club.

[nanoreefer11]

Thanks!

 

Awesome! Welcome to the 40 Club.

 

I'm running the sols at a super low percentage right now, there 40 and 70 and 12'' AWL is much more light than my diy light!

[BeardedReeferLLC]

I'm running the sols at a super low percentage right now, there 40 and 70 and 12'' AWL is much more light than my diy light!

 

Well the lights are looking good on your DIY fixture tree.

[nanoreefer11]

Thanks! I need to paint it black, but for now it'll do

[ChouDawg]

Sweeet so does this mean you're selling your DIY fixture? I used the same conduit clamps on my fixture too, they work great. What size conduit is that? Did you mount the conduit just into the drywall with anchors or did you get lucky with a stud right there?

[nanoreefer11]

To be honest, I'm not sure. I think I'm in a stud on 5/6 points and the 6th I'm not in a stud. I bought dry wall screws and they worked.. I'm considering myself lucky.. I'll just seal the holes when I move out lol..

 

And yeah, actually I am selling my fixture. If you're interested shoot me a PM, I have it for sale on my local club but no buyers yet.

 

And the conduit is 3/4''. In the lowes that is in my city, they REFUSED to bend my pipe for me, and the pipe benders are all under key'd locks so I used a 3/4'' coupling 90 degree thingy and 2 couplings to make the bend. Worked out great and is amazingly sturdy. I pulled down on it with about 20% strength and it didn't fail so I'm sure 10 pounds won't be an issue. I like it because if I need to do tank maintenece the whole unit will rotate left or right.. pretty neat IMO.

 

I do need to paint it black, but honestly I was super excited when the post man came this evening that I had forgot to pickup the paint. I'll paint it when I make the skin for the stand and canopy.

My initial thoughts on coloring is that my DIY fixture had much better color. Like, no comparison, however I feel that the features and the fact that I'll eventually upgrade this to a vega are worth it. I've seen the vega in person and the colors of the vega are very similar to mine, except the vega is a touch more green and my unit adds a touch more color overall due to the super actinics and the UVs.

[Drift Monkey]

You should try to stuff all the wiring into the conduit somehow!

[nanoreefer11]

It'd be difficult, the power supply the plugs into the ai's has a 1'' diameter thing hanging off it, it'd be hard to do that with it lol. I glued your SPS down last night in their final spot. You can see one of them in the video in a temp spot while I moved some stuff around.

 

Here's a video update. I'd like to do one of these once a day or maybe once a week.

 

[ChouDawg]

Sweet video, only got 2 min into it at work but looks great! How do you like the L40? Noise etc, does it lose a lot of GPH with height, cant find any charts online.

[nanoreefer11]

I actually like it quite a bit, no noise, no vibrations, and honestly, it provides ample water movement. I'll take a video of my surface movement with the vortech off, I'm actually suprised how well it's doing. As for GPH, I don't have an exact number