40 gallon breeder club

[Nburg's Reef]

Thanks for the advice I know my tds is around 3 coming out and new filters are on my list of things to purchase. Naturally i need alot of things at once including new salt and a pump for my skimmer. I have since stopped the reef roids and i had plucked the chemipure elite which had gfo in it do you think i should get another one and throw it in? And should i resume regular water changes (once a week) or even up the frequency?

Hold off on water changes until you get new RODI filters. 3tds is too much. I change mine once I see 0 go to 1. Then start doing some water changes, or if its going to be a while, go buy some water at a LFS. I wouldn't use 3tds water as that might be the cause.
Chemipure is fine, but its more economical to buy some good carbon (i use the 0.8 ROX) and GFO from BRS.

 

[Tokash23]

Ok cool i will give it a try. Probably just do chemi pure as its cheaper in the short term run filter sox and change everyday to help get the junk out. I also ordered a new di resin hopefully that is all my rodi needs. Should i continue to scrub and stir the sand on a daily basis?

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Here's mine! 40g breeders have, imo, the best dimensions for smaller tanks.
I turned the return pump off so the MH shimmer didnt mess with the focus of the cell camera... thats why the water level is low.

Very nice!

 

[count krunk]

Tokash, what are you feeding the tank? Just reef roids? I know you stopped that. I would do 50% wc asap. Go to the lfs and get some water if you can't get new filters for your ro/di. I also ask what other husbandry you are doing to the tank? Is there an ato? also for your skimmer, be sure to get a needle wheel pump if that is what came with it originally. I would prob use a needle wheel anyway as I'm fairly positive almost every skimmer now uses one. During the wc get out as much algae as possible. Since there is little coral on the rocks take out what you can if algae is on those as well. Give em a good scrub in the water you pull out of your tank. Don't get discouraged! My very first sw tank (in 2007) was a train wreck for the first 6 months of its life. I mean there was hair algae covering everything. But i started doing regular wc, used ro/di water and then when I removed the algae it didn't grow back.

I would also check out reefcleaners.org if you don't have much of a CUC going on. I am an all snails guy, and that site has the best quick crews around IMO.

 

[Tokash23]

I do have an auto top off setup and the thought has crossed my mind of the container contaminating the water might look into a switch when i replace my rodi filters. Other then that i dont run anything else on the tank just a small bag of carbon at the moment. As far as feeding goes i do a quarter cube ish of frozen food for carnivores i dont recall what its called off the top of my head. I have looked through reefcleaners a really want to order more snails and such just hate to pay shipping and unfortunately my lfs just closed leaving me about an hour from the closest one now [emoji21].
Thanks for the advice i may pick up some distilled water tomorrow to do a water change in the short term thoughts? I wont give up a little perseverance and itll be ship shape (i hope [emoji29]) i just want the corals to open back up then i wont be as worried.

 

[O'l Salty]

My phosphates were really low, .009 and my Po3 was 0. I started feeding more and dosed Po4 up to .5. My Po3 is now 2-5. I'm getting a tiny amount of brown algae but the coral color and growth have been outstanding. I think too low P03 and Po4 is starving the corals for nutrition. Po4 has fallen steadily since I dosed it up and I'll let it fall to .2 and see how things go.

 

[Firethorn77]

Just my opinion. I'd swap the chemipure elite for blue. I tried a black box over my 40 breeder but I think it doesn't cover the sides very well. Now it has a reefbreeder 32 over it.

 

[DaveC]

Working on it ! ! !

 

[count krunk]

I used distilled water many times in the past with good results. I believe distilled and Rodi are the same, but I am not sure and I have never tested tds of distilled water

 

[wyld_bill17]

Heres mine, 40g breeder full of coral (mostly lps), been up and running sence june of 2016. Im lighting it with a zetlight 6600, i run a cpr hob skimmer and two rio 200 powerheads for flow. I keep a deep sand bed about 2 inch deep

 

[wyld_bill17]

Heres mine, 40g breeder full of coral (mostly lps), been up and running sence june of 2016. Im lighting it with a zetlight 6600, i run a cpr hob skimmer and two rio 200 powerheads for flow. I keep a deep sand bed about 2 inch deep

 

[wyld_bill17]

Sorry for some reason i cant post a pic and i cant remove my post

 

[Chris Villalobos]

Just my 2cents but there is no way you need to be dosing when you only have 2 or 3 corals in your tank.

I couldn't tell but if he has lots of coralline algae he may need to dose even without many corals. My tank is regrowing after a crash and I'm having a massive coraline growth spurt with very few hard corals in the tank and I have to dose 10ml Triton Base Elements a day to keep my alk at 8.4dkh.

 

[O'l Salty]

Working on it ! ! !

Which overflow box are you using?

 

[Richard the Reefer]

Picked up a 40gallon breeder from petco thanks to the $1/gallon sale a few weeks ago i couldnt help it. So on starts the long process of trying to save money and set this tank up better than my last one. This will be my second tank (the first was a standard 55gal mixed reef about 5yrs ago) I never really wanted to get rid of my 55 but we moved and didnt really have the space for it so out the door it went. I really want to try and do this right. So input is the reason for the build thread tell me if im doing something stupid lol. Going for a mixed reef.
Heres a list of things i will need to do

Best of luck to you original poster Tokash23! Tank and stand look amazing! Plumbing looks awesome too! Be sure to update us on everything you do for this build!!!

I'm trying a 40g breeder as well. Here are the ideas for mine...

I'm waiting on a few items before I go full speed on this build since I absolutely butchered my fluval 13.5 thanks to work and lack of experience! So my 40 will be...

Livestock

mainly SPS and maybe some LPS. 2 normal nemo clowns, eventually a diamond goby once the sand bed is cured enough for him to live, two hawkfish (breed to be determined), and a few scooter Blenny's. Shrimps of course and 2 emeralds with some snails and hermits. All slowly over time so my tank can handle the bio load. On the other tank we were not patient and went way too fast without knowing what can happen when you do so!

Equipment!

No sump

CPR large HOB refugium (pods, chaeto, sand, rubble, and some tiles maybe for the nitrifying bacteria to stay.

Fluval C4 HOB filter. I will mainly use this to catch debris with filter floss, and some type of bio media with a poly pad, because they work wonders. Definitly run some chemipure for sure.

1 or 2 800gph power heads sicca voyager 2. Going to try some trial and error and see how 1 does.

Eheim submersable heater

Currently have a fluval LED for lighting. I am not a fan so I will purchase 2 AI prime HD's

The rock is reef saver from BRS. I love it because it was cheap, porous, and easy to scape. Will get live rock from the coral farm in my area to help seed it. Cant use the rock from current tank because it has two bristle worms over 10". And I dont care what anyone says I have seen both of them try and drag my hermits and snails into the rock and kill them.

I was going to run a fluval fx4 for the filter but it won't fit in my cabinet!

And a 5% water change every 3 days and slowly work up to 10% a week once I find the tank is stable. phosphates are why I want more changes early on. I know they will be there along with diatoms!

Me and my girlfriend are going to take this one slow and do our best to not make the same mistakes again! Wish us luck!!

The scape isnt final trying to find what I really want to top it off!

 

[DaveC]

Which overflow box are you using?

Modular Marine 1200

 

[Metcho]

Just finished the stand for my 40 Breeder peninsula for my daughter.

 

[Metcho]

L a few picture of stand coming along.

 

[Liv2reef]

I also have a 40B it's been running for 18 months now. I'm using vipar spectra LED fixtures on mine. They are 165 watts each. You can get them off Amazon for a little over $100 a piece. I had just 1 but it was giving me a little bit more shadowing than I wanted. Considering I've got them only 9" above the water line. Unfortunately that's as high as my hood would let me hang them.

 

[Metcho]

Here’s the 20 long sump I built for peninsula