My 40g Breeder

[cutterx23]

Nice zoas man. Great pics

[specvjeff]

Two things:

That blenny is really cool looking.
What did you spill all over your poor clowns? Their color is all messed up!

Tank looks nice Jeff.

Can't complain about fish you won in a raffle at MACNA! Honestly Dave, I didn't foresee liking the fish but they grew on me as the black came in. My regular Perculas have no black in them at all. They did when I got them but it faded over time and they are now solid orange with of course their white bands.

Tailspot Blennies are one of my favorite fish. They were my favorite until I found the White Tiger Gobies.

[specvjeff]

Nice zoas man. Great pics

Thanks Brett! It was good seeing you and your attack dogs today. I'm lucky to have made it out of the house in one piece! Hope you enjoy the RODI unit and no more runs to Scripps.

[Sancho]

Nice tank cant wait to see it in six months. I still think you should put some cannons over it!

[specvjeff]

So right now I currently have the following fish wise:

Two Extreme Grade Picasso Clownfish
Two White Tiger Gobies
1 Female African Leopard Wrasse
1 Tailspot Blenny.

It's a lot of fish for the 40 gallon tank but I'm going to be adding a pair of Helfrichi and possibly another Wrasse of some kind. Unfortunately, the White Tiger Gobies and Tailspot aren't out swimming around so the tank looks a bit empty. I'm running the SRO XP1000 Super Space Saver Skimmer on the tank. It's rated to 150 gallons. I have around 50 after displacement so I'm not too concerned with slightly over stocking the tank. Plus I have good water change habits and don't overfeed.

[specvjeff]

I also finally picked up the mounting brackets for the BRS dosing pumps today from Chris (lotsafishies). One of his service clients bought my old tank and I forgot to remove the mounting brackets when they picked up the tank. The additives are BRS bulk ALK, CAL, MAG and have been sitting awhile now (8 months). So I think I'm going to remix the three then start up the dosing pumps. I have several LPS that will definitely appreciate the the three.

[Sancho]

Your apex looks like mine. I wish there was a better solution out there for wire management.

[specvjeff]

There are good options out there for wire management. Dave gave me this great stuff for hiding wires but I just had too many with a large diameter and they wouldn't fit in the track. I may order some and double up to make it nice and clean. I also got the set it up or get rid of it from the wife so I was in a bit of a hurry to get it running. In all fairness to her, it was sitting empty for a few months. All you have to do is look at Dave's (DaveMorris) build thread to see how to do proper wire management.

I do need to shim the stand. I knew it was off by nearly a half inch in the front from when I was going to set up the old tank but I forgot about it when I decided to set up the 40g. Thankfully the tank isn't very heavy and I can still lift it enough to get the shims under it. I was going to do it the weekend I set it up but my wife was out of town and I couldn't lift the tank and put the shims under at the same time. If Home Depot is open tomorrow, I'll probably run by and pick up some. Right now the front of the sump is 1/2" lower than the back of it and the water just goes over the middle bubble trap baffle instead of under it.

[specvjeff]

The tank was filled with Scripps. All future water changes will be done with Tropic Marin Pro Reef. Did first water test today. Results are below.

PH - 8.02 (Apex probe reading)
Temp- 80.5 (Apex probe reading)
Orp - 442 (Apex probe reading)
Alk - 6.5 (Salifert)
Cal - 380 (Salifert)
Mag - 1140 (Salifert)
Salinity - 1.025 (Refractometer)
Nitrate - 0 (API)
Phosphate - 0 (Salifert)

I got the dosing pumps up and running today. Will be raising the alkalinity to 8.0 over a couple weeks. Calcium will be raised to 450 and the Magnesium to 1350.

I plan to pick up a Hannah colorometer for measuring phosphate since the Salifert test kit isn't accurate and is difficult to read.



Jeff Saurwein
SDMAS President
SDReefs Moderator
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk Pro

[antoneoh]

Nice build Jeff, tagging along...

[specvjeff]

Picked up a couple of nice tank bred Banggai Cardinals from Aquatic Warehouse today. It was very important to me to purchase tank bred Banggai Cardinals with the state of the wild population. They are sexually immature fish so determining the sex is difficult. They are not sexually dimorphic in any way. You can typically tell by their behavior who's who. As usual the female is the bossy one. I observed the fish for 15-20 mins to see who was being the bossy one and who that fish let stay near her (hopefully). The fish are in quarantine despite being captive bred fish. They were in a system with wild caught fish and it's simply not worth the risk. I'll try to get some pictures of them tomorrow.

Jeff Saurwein
SDMAS President
SDReefs Moderator
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk Pro

[Blaze]

Looking good

[specvjeff]

Captive bred Banggai Cardinals! They are still a little shy.

[specvjeff]

I did something I never do today. I bought a fish the wife wanted. Guess we'll have a Yellow Watchman Goby now.

Jeff Saurwein
SDMAS President
SDReefs Moderator
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk Pro

[CMD2213]

Or later a grey watchman goby lol after the 50/50 shot of its color changing when matured
They look pretty cool.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk