40 breeder SPS dominant

Salt Creep · Feb 2, 2016

I recently (about 5 month ago) set up this tank. I used to have a 40, then went to a 75, then back to a 40 and I'm going to stay here until I get the 120 in a couple years. I used to do mixed reef, but lost most my SPS when I had an accident and couldn't work on my tank for a couple months. Giving it another shot and going to try to not harm myself that bad again

My setup is pretty simple. I have the 40 breeder display on a modified 75 gallon stand and a 20 gallon sump with two sections.

One section has a reef octopus xs-200 skimmer and heater.

The other has a media reactor tumbling GFO on the bottom and carbon being held at the top with a return pump throttled down a little pushing around 400 GPH.

For flow in the tank besides the return I have 3 Jebao WP-25 pumps. Two of them are on the dual controller on W1 mode and one is alone on else mode to add some randomness. I was so impressed with the affordability:quality that came with the Jebao pumps (I have had them for about 3 years now) that I got a Jeboa doser to dose my Ca/Alk/Mag

I have a 6 bulb T5HO fixture for lighting and a Reefkeeper to control everything.

Hmm, that's about all I can think about for equipment at the moment... now some livestock pics

Smite · Feb 2, 2016

Sweet setup. Everything looks to be happily encrusting. Well done!

TheWhiteFord · Feb 2, 2016

Nice tank!

Salt Creep · Feb 2, 2016

Thanks! Yeah, everything is doing pretty well. I did lose an aussie blue tip echinata a week ago when I came home and it was on the sand bed... probably knocked off by a crab. Bummer because that was the one coral I really, really wanted. Everything else seems to be pretty happy though

Salt Creep · Feb 24, 2016

More pics

Tried some top-down pics, but these are so difficult without a camera that can go underwater. I bought a case for my cell phone that was supposed to let it go underwater, which it does, but I cannot hit the camera button to get it to take a pic! Oh well... here is my effort. Can't wait until these grow out and I can't see mostly rock anymore.

Chromis

Crab

FTS

aaron23 · Feb 24, 2016

awesome pics like it so far!

thehammer1985 · Feb 24, 2016

Beautiful tank love the light setup I did the same

Salt Creep · Feb 24, 2016

aaron23 said:
awesome pics like it so far!

Thanks! Hopefully in a year it will be nice and grown in and perhaps I'll have a better camera by then

Salt Creep · Feb 24, 2016

thehammer1985 said:
Beautiful tank love the light setup I did the same

Thank you! I'm going to take another FTS... didn't realize I took this one before I cleaned it until just now :/ The algae that is on the back wall is now gone and the powerheads are clean.

I am very happy with the T5s though. I had LED for the past 3 years and just didn't like the shading it caused when coral grow out into colonies.

Salt Creep · Mar 20, 2016

Picked up a pretty sweet gorg yesterday along with a brain coral, yellow fuzzy acro, and a flame wrasse. The wrasse is still hiding out a bit, but you can kinda see it behind the sun coral.

Salty1962 · Mar 21, 2016

Very nice tank!

Salt Creep · Mar 21, 2016

Salty1962 said:
Very nice tank!

Thanks! A couple of the pieces are starting to show potential of taking off. Hopefully in about 6-12 months I'll have some more mini-colonies. I'll be updating progress on here and lots of pics

revhtree · Mar 21, 2016

Looks good!

Salt Creep · Mar 21, 2016

revhtree said:
Looks good!

Thank you!

PaReeferJ · Mar 21, 2016

3 wp-25's??? I had 2 wp-10's in my 40 breeder and tried to put a 25 in it but it created a sand storm.

Salt Creep · Mar 21, 2016

PaReeferJ said:
3 wp-25's??? I had 2 wp-10's in my 40 breeder and tried to put a 25 in it but it created a sand storm.

I have two on a dual controller with w1 with the wave power at 50% and the third one on else mode full power. I use special grade sand, which I find is the perfect size where it's not too big and coarse for sand dwellers, but not so small it creates large dunes and sandstorms. What size sand were you using?