The 40 Breeder Mixed Reef

[Dempsey941]

Beautiful photos here @Dempsey941! How's the reef doing?

Still chuggin' along. Just started a new teaching job in August and have been meaning to update, but then I get an email from one of my students about [insert something I already said 5 times here]. Little Bryposis & Bubble Algae outbreak while back but Reef Flux has knocked it back. Getting some vibrant from BRS to see if that will help knock out the rest of this bubble algae along with some emerald crabs.

Waiting for my LFS to bring in another wrasse, thinking a lubbock's but I wouldn't mind a different flasher to re-place the one I lost over the summer.

 

[Acros]

Do you still have the carpenter's wrasse? Is that wrasse an outgoing personality or does it just stay around the rocks?

I had a ruby long fin fairy wrasse. That fish was not a fan of swimming out in the open.

 

[Dempsey941]

Do you still have the carpenter's wrasse? Is that wrasse an outgoing personality or does it just stay around the rocks?

I had a ruby long fin fairy wrasse. That fish was not a fan of swimming out in the open.

No I lost it during the summer when the tank accidentally drained. The time I did have it it was fairly timid.

 

[Msteven1]

Loving your tank. I'm about to scape mine. I'm gonna spend some time tonight going through your thread from the start for inspiration.

 

[Dempsey941]

Loving your tank. I'm about to scape mine. I'm gonna spend some time tonight going through your thread from the start for inspiration.

Yep definitely an awesome tank. Trying to move some frags out so I can have the front panel back to actually see stuff.

Biggest regret right now is putting those palys in the upper left. Would have been a good spot for some of these acros from @Battlecorals

 

[Dempsey941]

Just a handful of images I took of the reef tank lately. Got an order from @Lazy and everything is looking pretty sweet.

Just a handful of other pictures from the tank.

Just a FTS. Tank is a mess but is chugging along. Cyano outbreak on the sandbed from the latest renovation, but it has been getting better. Aiptasia is being a butt, contemplating getting some Nudibranchs but I have a feeling my yellow wrasse will munch on them before they get a chance to munch on the Aiptasia.

 

[Lazys Coral House]

Looking good Dempsey

 

[Dempsey941]

Tank Update #24: The Fall

Tough times everybody. The 40B is going through a rough patch. One that's cost me 99% of my SPS corals, my beautiful Indo torch (may still be salvageable) and several other LPSs. The worst part is...its all my fault.

I accidently dosed ~200ml of vibrant (because I'm an idiot, who gets locked into a rhythm while doing water changes) and turned the plug with the vibrant dosing pump on (when it was meant to be off because I stopped using it).

This cause my nutrients to skyrocket, the salifert nitrate kit was deep pink for a looooong time. At the same time, my ALK bottomed out. High Nutrients and Low ALK = Bad time for everybody. So now 50% of my tank is covered in cyano, the other 50% is dead/dying SPS. I'll clear out what pieces are too far gone, see If I can save any of my sticks (doubtful).

One constellation is that my zoas and palys approve of the nutrient pump. Once I get my ALK stable and my nitrates/phosphates back in rhythm I'll deal with the cyano, from there... we rebuild, but I think I avoid SPS for a while, maybe, probably not.

 

[reef_ninja]

This is such a bummer. I’ve been reading this thread lately, trying to get inspiration/ideas for getting my 40breeder up to par, and this is an easy thread to get inspiration from! Very sorry to see this, I hope things bounce back for you.

 

[Dempsey941]

Well my friends the 40 breeder as we know it has come to an end I’m afraid.

The winter storm and the lack of consistent power (and heat) for the past 2 days has wiped most of the life from the tank.

Didn’t have power for 13 consecutive hours in 0 degree weather what da frick ERCOT/ONCOR “rolling blackouts” my butt. If I find out any of the upper members of ERCOT/ONCOR had nonstop power during this....well let’s just say revenge is best served cold.

My power back up plan was only designed to keep a power head up for 10-12 hours, because hello, Texas, its hot here. I never anticipated having to HEAT a tank during an outage, especially one this long (and still on going).

Emergency power ran out on Monday. As temps fell to below 0 outside, home temperatures plummeted to just above 40. Tank thermometer was reading somewhere near 50.

Power today has been fairly consistent, 3-4 hours on then 30 minutes off. Raised the reef tank temp back up to 75ish. After a couple of hours none of the fish have jerked back to life, I’ll let them sit for a bit longer in the warm water to see if anything happens (not likely). The coral that remains is probably trash. I’ll reconfigure the lights if our current power situation continues and see if anything perks back up.

I am crying internally because external tears might freeze on my face. Years of my time and money gone in a matter of hours.

When the snow/ice thaws I will deconstruct the tank, put everything in storage, and redesign the tank. One thing I know I want todo is drill for a sump. After that the canvas is a blank slate.

For now, I’m turning my focus to my AP students for the next couple of months (especially my virtual kids) who test in May. So I probably won’t get anything major done until after May, which is about the same time I will start to feel my toes.

When I come back shopping list for future me:

@TopShelfAquatics: You guys will be in charge of a zoa garden. I’m also gonna want a fancy pants torch. Oh and a favia or two. I’ve got Ernesto’s number so I’ll be in touch when it’s time.

@WWC: You guys will get the other zoa garden (AOIs FTW), you’re also in charge of the Acan garden. Also if I decide chalices are worth it...you guys are in charge of that.

Good night everyone, stay safe, I’ll see you when I see you.

 

[Dempsey941]

Operation Spring Break has begun. The mission Drill, plumb, and sump this tank (or at least have the parts ready todo so) before the end of the break.

Phase One:

So I carried the tank outside and cleaned it up a bit. Part of my rebuild plans is to drill this 40 breeder and put a sump on it. So I watched probably every video of people drilling tanks on YouTube and put even money that I'd screw it up.

For my overflow I went with the Fiji Cube 800 GPH overflow box. Saw good reviews for the product and it seemed fairly straightforward for installation. The overflow looks very slick on the tank I think I need another rubber gasket to put in between the outside glass and the box itself.

As for returns I put two 3/4" bulkheads with loc line fittings about 12" off the sides of the overflow.

As for drilling the holes, it actually wasn't a complete train wreck the worst part was the sound of drilling, but after the first hole I just kind of got into a groove and kept going. After I finished drilling I was kinda like "I should put a drain plug in here" and number of other crazy thing, but I figured I'd quit while I was ahead.

I took a razor blade to the paint on the back of the tank to get a better view of where my hole placement was and had to repaint. I'll have to do some minor touch ups with a brush around the bulk heads themselves and couple other spots (ran out of paint). I also painted the bottom white because my Clownfish in the past would kick all the sand out of a corner and it wasn't very attractive.

Overall I'd say Phase One was a complete success 9.5/10.

I also took the better part of 2 hours cleaning my old sand out. Following the idea behind @brandon429 's thread on sandbed cleaning. There was some seriously nasty stuff in there but after a couple of hours of rinsing the bucket would only have clear water after mixing up everything, so hey, whatever works. According to the thread I need to run some RO water over it so I'll just put the water on and let it run for a couple of hours before I put it in post-aquascape, but that's far off from this point.

Phase 2 is sump set up and plumbing, assuming this J&J vaccine I'm supposed to get Tuesday doesn't kill me I'll probably get that process started then.

 

[brandon429]

Thanks tons for the update, that’s no small surgical job, that’s dollars and time on the line, watching popcorned

 

[brandon429]

You’re telling me the tank from post #81 is being disassembly cleaned

we gotta re ramp the lights slowly in the new assembly no full blast sun, worked up a week. That will specifically protect the corals from any bleaching stress, I’m 100% sure the reef is about to look like a mix of both platinum and gold bullion sitting on crystal white sand

any time you can deep clean a reef like this, you’ve extended its lifespan just tremendously. We just have to press pass all the written rules and certain poll responses that its the worst thing you could do.


You’ve allowed for renewed zestful feeding with all the new open spaces, we don’t even have to preserve the clean condition it can be leveraged for coral mass. Stick stirring it as a preventative can slow or stop the repeat gunk, spot feed them well as it sparkles they’ll open up huge and eat like hogs. Everything will shine, nice low light start.

 

[brandon429]

I am truly thankful and happy to be associated with ten grand in coral care.


no small margin of error with that $ you have done everything right. All that coral is in holding, awaiting assembly?

 

[Dempsey941]

You’re telling me the tank from post #81 is being disassembly cleaned

we gotta re ramp the lights slowly in the new assembly no full blast sun, worked up a week. That will specifically protect the corals from any bleaching stress, I’m 100% sure the reef is about to look like a mix of both platinum and gold bullion sitting on crystal white sand

any time you can deep clean a reef like this, you’ve extended its lifespan just tremendously. You’ve allowed for renewed zestful feeding with all the new open spaces, we don’t even have to preserve the clean condition it can be leveraged for coral mass. Stick stirring it as a preventative can slow or stop the repeat gunk.

Actually the tank mini-crashed due to the power outages and cold weather in February. So I've had to start over with most everything but this is the end goal is to bring this back to the Hay Days of the 40 Breeder

 

[brandon429]

My gosh so sorry that was a horrible time

this iteration will be strong

 

[Dempsey941]

My gosh so sorry that was a horrible time

this iteration will be strong

That's the plan. Learn from past mistakes, make new ones, the usual. At least now I have a better understanding on how to make my sand not be a complete trainwreck.

 

[Crabby48]

Great job documenting progression. Tank looks great

 

[Dempsey941]

Operation Spring Break Part 2: Sump It.

So it's not the prettiest sump in the world, no, but its water tight and works for me. Its not going to be seen by anyone important on a regular basis, so there we have it.

Should I have gone for the 20 Long over a 20 High? Yes. However I would not have any space left under the main display for my ATO reservoir, so we will make due. I already know I'll need to build a skimmer platform to lift my new skimmer up to the desired water depth, but that's fairly easy work with the amount of egg crate I have from other projects. Left chamber will be Skimmer/Filter sock chamber, Middle Chamber a small fuge/Heater chamber, Return pump and ATO sensor will go into the right chamber.

I had two thoughts behind this I wanted to minimize headloss on my return so putting in in the "center of gravity" for the system made sense since I will need to connect two return bulkheads back to the return pump. At the same time I wanted to buy some flow loss from the drain by moving my sock holder farther away from where the overflow box will drain down from. Obviously I will have a gate valve to help regulate the flow from the overflow but it made sense in my head.

Built a small wooden platform out of spare wood from the the garage to get the sump and the ATO reservoir off the floor itself, and cut up a yoga mat I use for leveling my tanks and put it under everything.

Plumbing material is scheduled to arrive tomorrow. I probably ordered 2X the number of material I actually needed (according to my plumbing sketch), but I am not a handy/toolsy person so mistakes are likely. Thankfully I can return my unused materials back to BRS. I'll bet they won't show up until close to the end of the day so I wont be able to work on it until Thursday, So Wednesday might be a chill day while I do some other maintenance around the house (mainly water changes on the freshwater tanks).

 

[Dempsey941]

Well Operation Spring Break didn't finish on time, but its my own fault. I forgot to order a barbed end for my return line so we had to wait for it to come in. Now the plumbing has been installed and the tank is currently going through a leak test. So far everything is holding after being cemented into place.

I when I was filling the tank I did note that there was a slight drip from my return bulkheads, but a quick quarter turn from the outside stopped the drip, so I must of forgot to do it when I first installed them. I'll let the system run for a day to make sure it's good and water tight then drain, move into position, and begin the difficult work:

Aquascaping.