40 gallon breeder build

[scelona]

Hey guys,
I am starting a thread to track the progress of my 40 gallon breeder build. I am brand new to reefing so any feedback would be much appreciated. I initially was planning to set my tank up sumpless but eventually changed my mind. I am planning on doing a peaceful community tank with all softies. I plan to start with the corals and add fish 72 days after the last coral addition.

I don't have a set coral list but my tentative fish list is:
- pair of clowns (don't know breed yet)
- diamond watchman goby
- purple or exquisite firefish
- 3 pajama or Banggai cardinal fish

Current equipment list:
- 40 gallon breeder tank, back spray painted black with two 1" bulkheads and one 3/4" bulkhead for the return
- 20 gallon tall sump with custom glass baffles (I went with the tall to leave a little extra room under my tank for other equipment)
- 35 lbs of live rock with another ~30 being picked up today
- 40 lbs live sand/40 lbs dry aragonite
- 3 hydor koralia 425 powerheads
- Stand with canopy
- Eheim compact+ 2000 return pump
- Eheim 200w heater
- Cheap counter current protein skimmer (will upgrade eventually when I get fish)
- Overflow box rated at 1200 GPH
- Canister filter that I want to convert into a reactor
- For lighting I have decided to do LED, the two frontrunners at the moment are a Reef Breeders photon 24" and a 32" fixture from BuildMyLED

My sump (and cat) after testing it for leaks. The bubble trap goes under over under:


I am doing a Herbie overflow with 1" pvc for both the siphon drain and the emergency drain:


My plumbing from the back:


A closeup of the mounting brackets I used:


I am so excited to get started in reefing and the setup has been a blast so far.

[acbaldwin]

Looks like a pretty great start. Better than probably 80% of our first reef tanks!

[acbaldwin]

Oh, and since you're starting fresh, I recommend setting up a 20g QT and establishing a very rigid QT policy. It'll save you money and headaches down the road, and it helps to keep you from doing any impulse buys since it's kind of a headache to deal with.

[scelona]

Thanks! All the forum type websites have been so helpful, I'm sure getting into reefing in 2015 is 100 times easier then it was 20 or more years ago. I was planning on doing a 10 gallon quarantine unless this seems too small? I'm going to be moving very slow here so there will never be more then two fish in it at a time.

[acbaldwin]

Thanks! All the forum type websites have been so helpful, I'm sure getting into reefing in 2015 is 100 times easier then it was 20 or more years ago. I was planning on doing a 10 gallon quarantine unless this seems too small? I'm going to be moving very slow here so there will never be more then two fish in it at a time.

I believe it. I started... 10? years ago, I think Koralias were all the rage and MH/T5 combos were the holy grail. LED setups were $1000+. It's a whole lot better now!
And I'm sure some of the old fogeys could spill their knowledge about the wetdry, undergravel, and VHO days...

I have a 12g QT myself, and for a proper medicated QT period of six weeks, it feels pretty small, even for one fish. A couple weeks is no problem in my opinion, but it seemed that around the 3/4 week mark they start getting antsy.

[crabbysd]

Nice work. keep updating.

[swplimited]

Great plumbing job for your first tank, mine looked like crap the first time (some people this it still does) lol it's functional though, welcome and nice startup. Man I need to start some build threads already

[swplimited]

FYI I would put that sock deeper in the sump, it's going to bubble and splash water all out the back of your sump, just my $0.02 (I learned the hard way)

Here is what I did on my 40 gal, that's also a 20 high sump, it's a 5x5 piece of acrylic with a 4" hole in it a few inches in the sump so water will not splash out [IMG][/IMG] this is an old pic before I plumed it

[scelona]

Thanks for the advice and the avoided mess on my floor swplimited, I didn't even think about that being an issue. The baffle for the skimmer section is set really high because my skimmer (which I will replace) is a hang on the back piece of crap that needs about 12 inches of water. So my sock will have to sit pretty high, I will have to figure something out.

[swplimited]

Also make sure with a water level that high there is enough room in the sump to hold the water from the display tank if the power or return pump goes out, that two will make a mess, lol again learned from experience to figure that out just use l*w*h/231=x, you wanna make sure that x= a higher number for the sump lol

[scelona]

Thanks for another good tip. I will check that this is the case, that would be a disaster. I read about someone that gave on reefing because of this, sounded terrible. But I am going to make sure my loc line sits right at the surface and I have a check valve as a back up so hopefully this won't be a problem.

[swplimited]

I saw the check valve, if the math doesn't work out it won't be a disaster lol, just cut your baffles a little bit to allow more room, it all depends on your water level above the overflow teeth bottoms

[scelona]

So yesterday was a big day. I managed to build the first draft of my rock scape, put sand in the tank, and fill it up with water. I had previously put my tank together sumpless so I already had all my live rock and sand ready to go. The live rock is held together with pvc, zip ties, acrylic rods, and pretty much every other technique I saw being used. The plumbing is working great, the overflow is easily handling the water from the return pump, and the system is silent.

I would be glad to hear any feedback you may have for my rock scape. I feel that there are a lot of good places to put corals at different heights but the pictures don't show the ledges too well. All of the rock is sitting on eggcrate underneath the sand.

Front view:


Top view:

[scelona]

I just installed a used rodi system I bought from a member on SDReefs! I used my TDS meter to measure the tap water (462 ppm, much higher then I was expecting), water after the filters and RO membrane (12 ppm), and the final product (2 ppm). I bought all new carbon filters, sediment filter, and DI resin but wanted to test before switching them out. Are these values reasonable?

[swplimited]

Ideally you want 0ppm, out here in valley center I'm usually 14-18ppm coming in and 0ppm after the DI Resin (I'm using a bulk reef supply 4 stage unit myself) I would pick up another DI filter and see if you can get 0ppm