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First time 40B


FF419
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Hi everyone, I'm new to the hobby and to the forums. I just started cycling my 40 breeder. I'm a hobbyist woodworker so I built my stand. Hoping to document how this goes on here and perhaps get some pointers along the way. Here's my progress so far... this post will mostly be about building the stand.

Equipment:

40 Breeder, 20 Long sump
90lbs of dry live rock 
40lbs Caribsea dry aragonite 
2x 565 Hydor Koralia power heads (which I feel might be too weak)
Eshopps Eclipse S Overflow
Inkbird 308 Digital temp controller
Finnex HPG 200w heater
Reef Octopus Classic 110 internal skimmer
Sicce Syncra 3 return pump - Vibrates like hell, returned and tried a 2nd, same issue... Jebao DCP-8000 on the way to replace it
BRS 4-stage RODI

 

I started with two 10ft board of poplar.

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Most of the pieces to final dimensions and legs laminated together. Quite a bit of work to get to this stage.

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Legs mortised and stretchers tenoned, doing some dry fitting. You can see the tanks being leak tested in back.

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Sides

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And finally after weeks of work building everything I got it filled and starting to cycle!

 

 

 

 

 

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Edited by FF419
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My tank is above a finished room in the basement, but I was able to snake a piece of 1/2 inch pex through the wall to my return manifold. In the basement the end of the pex has a dripless quick connect fitting from BRS which I'm able to click either a drain tube or a pump to fill the tank into.

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To fill the tank I bought a 1/4hp sump pump to pump the water upstairs through the same line. The way I designed the manifold I can receive water to one side to fill the sump while still using the return pump to fill the tank. I have the sump pump in the basement on a remote outlet so I can turn it on when ready and off when the tank is full without running around all crazy. Here is a GIF I made while doing the initial fill.

And here is my RODI station in the basement. Fresh RODI water up top (with a float valve shutoff) that I can dump into the can below for mixing salt water for changes.
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Edited by FF419
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Welcome to the forum!  What a great idea to get the water up from the basement!  That looks like a brass valve you have where that water exits, I would be worried about that under the tank and close to your sump.  There is the concern of salt creep getting on it or condensate collecting and dripping into your sump..  Also it looks like that will constantly be exposed to salt water on the threaded side by water in your manifold.  Both scenarios could leach copper into your system which is potentially a huge problem.  I would look for a plastic alternative there and on your very cool water making station too just to be safe.

I consider myself a somewhat accomplished hobbiest woodworker, and I say great job on the stand!  It is refreshing to see people that still understand the value of traditional joinery.  I also can certainly appreciate that most of your time was spent preparing the stock to get to the point of cutting out the pieces!  Side note I'd be interested in knowing more about your shop cabinets like design/plans/likes and dislikes.

Sorry for the long post but one last comment lol.  Great work on the aquascape.  I don't know if you studied aquascape S before doing this, but it looks great and appears very functional too!  

So what is the stocking plan??

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Thanks guys!

 

Muttley, You're right, I probably should replace the brass valves, I'll look into PVC ones. As for the garage cabinets, I love them. I like the bottom drawers vs shelves so stuff doesn't get buried. And the upper cabinets aren't deep enough to have that concern either. My favorite small part of the whole thing might be the cubbies up top. Here's a more full on shot. The concept is from a youtube wood worker Jay Bates. I didn't use any set plans, just followed the idea.

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As for the aquascape... thank you. I just got a feel from pics and videos while researching how to start a tank on what I liked and didn't like from other peoples set ups. Then just played with what I had for an hour or so until I got what I liked! It's a bit difficult to tell from the photo but I have a couple cave type area's I think the fish will like.

 

The stocking plan... Right now the plans are for 2 clowns, a gramma, watchman goby and some inverts. I'm also planning on getting some lps corals and an anemone. I plan on starting a quarantine tank here in the next few days and getting the clowns started while the display tank finishes its cycle. Then I'll move on to more fish after the tank matures a bit. 

Edited by FF419
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  • 3 weeks later...

Thank you guys! I was in the planning stage for about a month I'd guess. I'm still tweaking things as I go. I got an amazing deal on an apex and hydra 52 from a guy on here and have worked those both in. Tank is done cycling and my first two clowns are half way through quarantine.

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I've made an ATO container that fit the extra space I had under my cabinet. It's 4x16x23 and holds just over 5 gallons!
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Salinity parameters have stabilized quite well since getting the ATO working.

Also made a screen top for the tank. I think it fits in quite well and doesn't look tacky. Don't want to lose any livestock to jumpers.
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Got my first two fish into quarantine. The QT tank is a 10 gallon with a quietflow 20 HOB filter that I seeded with some bio spira and 2ppm ammonia-chloride let sit for 5 days until it was at 0ppm ammonia. It also has an ammonia alert badge, 100w finnex heater, an air stone, some PVC fittings and a 425 gph powerhead which I think was creating too much flow, so I turned that off and will just kick it on when I do weekly water changes.

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And this was as good of a close up that the little guys would let me get!
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Trying to find a rainbow bubble tip anemone to get into my display tank. Apparently they are only capable of having ich/velvet live swimmers and not the eggs, so as long as they're are no fish for 16 days I should be in the clear.

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26 minutes ago, FF419 said:

Trying to find a rainbow bubble tip anemone to get into my display tank. Apparently they are only capable of having ich/velvet live swimmers and not the eggs, so as long as they're are no fish for 16 days I should be in the clear.

I’m confused ? What are you saying? The anemones all have ich or velvet ?

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No no. Just that everything has the potential to be disease carriers. I'm planning to quarantine everything, even corals and inverts. Those both require a quarantine period of 76 days since they are capable of having the eggs on them. Bubble tip anems aren't able to have eggs in their soft bodies but could potentially have the free swimmers inside them. And without being able to find a fish host in 16 days they will all die off. This will explain far better than me!

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/coral-invert-quarantine-time-frames.334584/

 

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4 hours ago, FF419 said:

Trying to find a rainbow bubble tip anemone to get into my display tank. Apparently they are only capable of having ich/velvet live swimmers and not the eggs, so as long as they're are no fish for 16 days I should be in the clear.

Rivers to Reefs in Columbus has Rainbow Bubble Nems.

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I picked up two bubble tip anemones from a local forum member 10 days ago. According to everything I could find on r2r the main concern was ich/velvet free swimmers, so as long as they were in a fishless tank for 16 days that shouldn't be a concern. The clowns were about to be started on copper so I figured it would be the perfect time. Well, that same day I notice white stringy poop from one of them SO I began a 10 day treatment with metroplex binded to their food with prime. Today is the last day and all seems well. Clowns are still doing great and their poop is now a normal brown. Copper will be started next and I should have them into the display tank in a few weeks! Can't wait.

As for the anemones... They are doing great. Right after I got them into the display they puffed back up. There was minimal movement day one and two.
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Day 3 they started moving around a bit and the next morning I woke up to find the darker one stuck in my powerhead. Fortunately the netting I put around it did it's job and he was easily rescued. 
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Here he is today, still doing good!
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  • 1 month later...

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