40G Breeder Frag Tank

[Bryn]

Ok this has been done elsewhere, but I thought it would be neat to do one and post it in this club section, with input from you, the club members. So this project is to use a 40G breeder as a quarantine/frag tank. Something that can be setup and taken down. So the equipment needs to be portable and thus HOB style. No drilling the Tank or use of a sump, yet... . Can you drill 40G breeders from Petco?

So lets start simple, I guess a lot of it would depend on the coral that we would use. So what does the club suggest as a simple coral to go along with a simple setup?

 

[Shaddow_wolf169]

Sure can drill 2 so far

 

[Bryn]

Great to know. I have two and want to try this simple setup first with one, then maybe hook up both to a sump with my RockBank.

 

[Bryn]

Does any club members have any thoughts about skimmers. If we where to have soft corals in this tank, should we add a skimmer? When should a skimmer be added? Also should it be a HOB or an internal?

 

[Bryn]

If I do buy a skimmer I was looking at this model, https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/tunze-comline-doc-skimmer-9004.html it is internal but a hang on style. Anyone have any experiance or thoughts?

Thanks

 

[Bryn]

Ok, so I have decided to go with the internal Tunze 9004 skimmer, I will also drill the the tanks with 1 inch drain and return for future addition to a sump, the bulk heads will be blocked for the time being. As I have some AI Hydras sitting around I'm going to add two of them to the tank. Will use the AI HMS system.

From what I can find, a bare bottom tank would be preferable, so I'm thinking of adding AquaClear 70 for filtration, along with some power heads.

So any thoughts of advice?

With the skimmer I guess I can add to the corals I can keep, maybe bump it up to LPS, and some easy SPS, thoughts?

 

[Bryn]

Been reading more about sumps and filtration. It seems that many threads are asking one question but really wanting a different answer when it comes to "turn over". From what I can gather the question to ask is "Tank Filtration Rate" and "Tank Turn Over Rate". The first being how many times an hour do you want to filter your tank, either through a HOB filter or sump. I'm going with a Tank Filtration rate of 5 times, so my 40G will require 200 GPH to meet this 5x Tank Filtration Rate. This 200 GPH is important to know as this will determine the size of a bulk head, or number of bulk heads.

Tank Turn Over Rate is how many times you want the water in the tank to turn over, this determines the flow, and the flow is determined by what you have in the tank. Taking the 40G, if I have soft corals I might need a low turn over/flow rate, so lets say 10x tank turn over rate, so 10 x 40 = 400 GPH, for LPS tank turn over rate of 20x so 20 x 40 = 800 GPH, while SPS might need 40x, which would be 1600 GPH. Do not take my word for these numbers, so many other things come into play, such as placement, light, acclimation. So to get Tank Turn Over Rate, you can choose the Power head with the flow in GPH that you need. It is better to use more than one power head, so if you need 1600 GPH you could use 4 x 400 GPH power heads, rather than one 1600 GPH power head.

Some people also include the Tank Filtration Rate in the Tank Turn Over Rate calculations, for soft corals it could be as much as 50% of the Tank Turn Over Rate, while for SPS, it is only 12.5% of the flow rate.

Lets go back to Tank Filtration Rate, this flow rate is important because it can help decide the equipment you put in the sump, particularly the Skimmer, as well as the rating of the return pump. The head pressure, or the distance from the pump to the tank has an effect on the flow, the pumps have an ideal flow rate, and checking the chart for flow rate compared to height above the pump will help you determine the correct pump. In the case of my 40G I need to move 200 GPH, but I have a 4 foot distance from my pump in the sump to the inlet at the top of my tank. From this Spec Sheet for a Syncra Pump I would need the 2.0 Syncra Silent. Now this is a very simple calculation, when you start adding elbows and twists and bends, as well as back flow preventers, this can dramatically change the size of the pump needed, to over come the flow restrictions.

I still have plenty to learn and research, but this is what I have figured out so far. Now on to sump design.

 

[Bryn]

So far I have decided to take a 40G breeder and drill 1.5inch overflow, with a 3/4 return. Attached this to a Syncra Silent 3.0 pump. With about three feet of head pressure this pump should give me about600 GPH theoretical flow, we could lose about 70GPH from the unions of the pipe work. So I will have a Tank Filtration rate of 10x - 13x. Thinking of using my RockTank as a sump, or I could just block off the overflow and return and make it a simple QT with HOB as first envisioned.

 

[Daltrey]

Here is my 40 breeder qt. A 20 long fits perfect under it for a sump.

 

[Bryn]

Thank you for posting the picture. I have some 20G long around here somewhere, and that is what I will use.

 

[Bryn]

Have an old tank that had a lot of MacroAlgae in it, it died, water evaporated, replenished with water, no heating or cooling, and left in a garage, really neglected the crap out of it to see what would happen. It is a long story and one I will post another time, but suffice to say, a canister filter had cleaned up most of the debris, Salinity is good, ammonia is 0, while nitrates are off the chart. Dead things have been floating in it for months. So why tell you this.

I put the Tunze 9004 skimmer in it, the one for the frag tank/QT and fiddled around with the skimmer, I thought this would be a good tank to play on. I'm following the directions and running with the air full open, and making sure no pump is pointed at the skimmer, or the skimmer too close to a flow, such as the spray bar of the canister filter. I found that there was enough down flow from the spray bar to pull micro-bubbles out from underneath the skimmer. I also found that I needed to raise the skimmer really high so that it did not over flow the cup. Now one would expect a lot of crap to come out of the skimmer considering the torturous life this tank has lead, but not much skim, although you could see an oily film on the surface at the beginning. What I have found in less than two hours, is a crystal clear surface, and a very small amount of brown liquid, about 5ml in the cup and that height does make a difference. If you have a Tunze 9004, consder running air wide open, and playing with the heigh, in very small measurements. Until this skimmer has broken in, I guess I will be playing with the height on this skimmer, but so far it seems to be helping from my limited inexperienced knowledge.

 

[Bryn]

Tunze 9004 like other skimmers needs a consistent water level, to work at an optimal level. This has been an interesting couple of days, still playing with it and learning a lot. I know this is the least efficient skimmer, but for the application it should work. Will give me time to research bigger skimmers for a sump.

The frag tank has been loaded with water, salt added and the Jebao TW10 set to Max with a heater set to 80, salinity set at 1.025. Got some GFO and carbon ordered, along with a reactor from BRS. Plan on splitting the frag tank up in to a 24 x 18 section for frags, with the 12 x 18 split into two sections, one for live rock, and the other for cheato. Not ideal for pH swings, as I will not have a separate light for the cheato, but I have to start somewhere. I was going to use egg crate and plastic needlepoint sheets to keep things in there place, so I could have a sand bed with the rock. Had considered an Algae scrubber that I could attach to the end glass pane.

I know the GFO and Carbon could/would be over kill on a straight frag tank, but what are your thoughts?

Also I have a controversial feeding idea for the corals. That I will save for next time.

 

[Bryn]

Thought I would update my Frag tank post and show what I'm doing.

Here are a few pics of some egg crate that I have used in a 40G breeder to section areas off. The tall tower will hold cheato, while the lower section is broken up into two sections, one is a thin section that will hold GFO and Carbon socks, and the other which is about 8x8 an has a basket in it will have sand in the basket and rock on top. In the taller section you can see the heater, I'm also going to build a algae scrubber that I will attach to the side glass of the tall section, and light during the night. That part of the project is not done yet, but will work on shortly. You will notice the egg crate lid over the sand section, I thought this might be a good place to put frags. The main area of the tank will be made up of the usual two levels of egg crate. One will be 24 x 12 and the other sitting on top of the lower section, will be 6x24. Any thoughts be let me know. I'm getting closer to getting some frags to populate this tank.

I will be using two AI Hydras, and Jebao power heads.

 

[Bryn]

Been playing on the Reefers Direct auction and have got me some frags for this tank.

Cherry Bowerbankii, RD Bam Bams, Not sure of the next and Utter Chaos, pluse some shrooms.

 

[Bryn]

And here are the Shrooms.

RD Iron Man and Toxic Sludge Mushroom.

 

[Bryn]

Forgot one, Blood Organe Leptoseris

 

[Bryn]

We are getting so close, here are a few more pics.


And then this one.


So you can see I have cheato, rock, and under the rock a basket of sand, along with two socks, GFO and Carbon sock. I have also inoculated with Rotifers and Copepods courtesy of Emerald Bay in old hickory. And finally a stolen idea, a algae scrubber.

 

[Bryn]

I think this has become more of a diary for me, somewhere to keep notes.

Have connected up my ReefKeeper Lite to the tank. Have the heater, light, powerhead all running off the RKL, with the heater plug set to switch off at a set temp just in case the heater fails open. I have the heater controlling the temp right now, but the RKL should kick in if it fails.

One thing I like about the RKL is how inexpensive it is, it does the job controlling four plugs, and has a temp probe. For a basic tank it works well, although the programming is not intuitive, and the software myReef only works on a PC.

 

[Daltrey]

I have a few corals in qt in my 40 breeder now. They have been in for a couple of weeks so far.

 

[Bryn]

Brilliant. Nice and simple. How are your parameters?