Neptune Aquatics

Jeff's 40 SPS Tank

zambavi

zambavi

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I’m very happy to say that I’m putting together another tank. I’ve been enjoying my little 6g nano for the last several months but I’m ready to start growing SPS again and getting more active in the community! I just got the thumbs up to set up the tank at my office in San Jose and have started to pull the pieces together. I’ll be doing a 40g breeder BB display with 40g sump/fuge. The tank will be for SPS and select LPS. Fish livestock will be very minimal if any. I have about 200 pounds of nice liverock that’s been taking a bath these last several months that I’ll pull from for some spartan aquascaping to allow for lots of coral growth. I’ve been doing monthly water changes on the rock since I took down my main system back in May and it has maintained some nice color even chilling in tubs in my spare room with little light and lots of flow.

Right now I’m putting much thought into the aquascaping. Coming to a final decision on what I want will probably be the most time consuming piece of this project here initially.

I do plan on building a custom canopy to house my lighting system for a nice clean match to my office furniture. Nothing very fancy but nice and clean… I have some beautiful black oak that I plained out of a tree that I cut down awhile back that I’ll probably use for it.

Here’s the equipment I currently have in hand that I’ll likely be using for this build.

Tanks

40g Breeder Tank 36”Lx18”Wx16”T Display
40g Breeder Tank 36”Lx18”Wx16”T DIY Sump/Refugium.
5g - ATO Reservoir

Filtration

ASM G-3 Protein Skimmer w/ Sedra 5000 Pump
3 x Two Little Fishies Phosban Reactor 150
Korallin Calcium Reactor 3002 w/ Dual Guage CO2 Regulator Deluxe and 10 lbs CO2 tank
15W UV Sterilizer for TECO SeaChill Chiller

Temperature/Levels controls and Monitors

1/3HP TECO SeaChill Chiller TR20
2 x ViaAqua VA300T 300W Titanium Heaters – Placed in Sump
Reef Fanatic Level Control Kit ATO
RKE v2 w/ Net Module

Flow

Danner Mag-Drive return pump to feed return, chiller and reactors
VorTech MP20w PH w/ controller and Icecap backup battery (I think this will be enough for a 40g)
1 x Maxi-Jet 400 Utility Pump 106 gph – ATO pump

Lighting

1 HQI 250w MH with Icecap ballast
2 36” T5 with Icecap ballast

I welcome any feedback/suggestions as I get things up and running. It’s not the 600g system I wanted next but it’s a heck of a lot bigger than the 6g softy tank I’ve been running. :bigsmile: As always I’ll have lots of pics along the way. Glad to be back!
 
Very cool.

If you can, get the TECO chiller with the built in heaters. It saves a lot of space in your sump, as 300watts are pretty long. I believe all the TECO's can come with heaters.

I've never used a UV sterilizer before, but that's just me. not sure you'll need it.
 
kinetic said:
Very cool.

If you can, get the TECO chiller with the built in heaters. It saves a lot of space in your sump, as 300watts are pretty long. I believe all the TECO's can come with heaters.

I've never used a UV sterilizer before, but that's just me. not sure you'll need it.
Click to expand...

My equipment list is actually all stuff I already have and is sitting in rubbermaids in my garage... My chiller came with the UV sterilizer and it has its uses... not sure how much or "if" I'll use it. I do like the idea of the built in heaters but will need to order one and install it. The two heaters I have now work really well and fit in the 40 pretty nicely... having that much extra space available in the sump would be really nice to though so something I'll for certain consider. Thanks Kinetic!
 
My little piece of office where my new tank will be going. I set up a table for it on the right and got it leveled today...



The Table the tank will be going on is 48" wide and 22" deep... It is a very heavy 3" thick top supported by powder coated metal L frames. It handled me jumping up and down on it without budging... Stand weighs around 180 pounds. I'll be putting together some doors for it as well that will match and cover the bottom area where the sump/fuge and reactors will be located.





The nice part about having the tank in the office is that the office is a steady 70 degrees all year round, the office has backup power and I don't have to worry about the electric bill at all... :bigsmile:
 
OK, yeah, tough job eh? Aquarium... Golf Clubs..... Little table with toys.... All you need is a stripper pole and I'm convinced you have the best job ever.
 
tuberider said:
OK, yeah, tough job eh? Aquarium... Golf Clubs..... Little table with toys.... All you need is a stripper pole and I'm convinced you have the best job ever.
Click to expand...

LOL... well... with the amount of time I have to spend at work I'm just thankful it's not the worst job ever.

er... the stripper pole is just a couple blocks away... :party:
 
A little help from the community here... I am looking to see if anyone has any remaining Emaco S110 left over from a project or know where a good place is to get some here in the south bay/San Jose area. I had used the Thorite equivalent many years ago and i think it's exactly what I need to complete my aquascaping ambitions for this tank. I believe it comes in 5 gallon buckets and I need probably 2-3 gallons total. Anyone?

Edit - Moved question to resources thread
 
NEED YOUR THOUGHTS AND INPUT! - As I start to pull everything together to figure out how I want to aquascape this tank I was thinking about trying something that I don’t think I’ve ever seen done in all my tank thread trolling over the years. First off I will not be doing a sand bed in the display tank but will be doing a DSB in my sump/fuge. So I'm going bare bottom to avoid the sand storms I know my flow will create and to help me keep the DT cleaner. So what I’ve not seen before that I’m considering is some sort of bed in the DT made out of a thin layer of mortar applied directly to the bottom glass embedded with crushed coral. This would be primarily for aesthetic purposes. This would of course cause the tank to be a little heavier when empty and would probably be such that it could never be removed without destroying the tank… but in a 40 breeder I wouldn’t care about that. What do you guys think? Is there a consequence I’m not considering?
 
That is funny, I was slightly considering a similar idea myself.
Basically - a true "reef bottom". Although still want some sand in spots.
My thoughts were:
First, do it in reasonable sized tiles, that overlap, like a floor.
Bottom = layer of 1/4 acrylic. Sanded. Thus removable.
Then spread a layer of mortar or epoxy.
Then place on rubble, in the 1/2" to 2" range. Tightly together, mounded in spots.
Then cover with sand, and jam sand into crevices.
Let it dry, and remove the sand not stuck to mortar/epoxy.

The theory being it would be very rough an uneven, like a real reef.
And as coralline grows, it would fill a lot of the gaps, ending up looking very natural.

I think applying directly to bottom is a scary idea, if it does not look good, you are screwed.

The problem with thin layer + crushed coral is that it will probably look unnaturally flat.
More so even than normal sand.
 
Some great ideas Rygh... appreciate it. I think I will for certain go the route of doing them on tiles. I have about 5 gallons of nice looking 1/2" to 2" size rubble bathing in one of my Rubbermaid’s that would be perfect for this... and I can always make more out of all this extra live rock I have with the skilled use of a hammer. :) I've also got about 3 gallons of large grain crushed coral and plenty of sand I can use to push into the little gaps. My main concern will be doing everything right in the short amount of time I have before the mortar gets too hard. Will the mortar attach well to roughly sanded acrylic tiles you think?

I'm also considering doing something similar for the back and left side glass. Something I can add 4-6 small ledges randomly to for some additional coral placement. Would also like to do it so as to hide my overflow and conceal somewhat the placement of my VorTechs. I like the idea of being able to anchor to the back or side walls one or two small overpasses from the aquascape. I’ll play around with some ideas here and see how things end up looking. Ideas and feedback are welcome!
 
Here it is... Though I think I like Rygh's idea of a fixed LR rubble floor instead of trying to do a faux sandbed. I may try making a version of each and see what I like best.

http://www.reefhobbyistmagazine.com/archives/vol_1/issue_2/pages/rhm_summer_2007_08.htm
 
There was a discussion recently on some other thread (gimitto's maybe), about cement sticking
to acrylic, and it appears to stick very well.
Never tried it personally.
Might be better un-sanded. Not sure. The sanding is key for epoxy sticking.

I can say that the cement does NOT stick very well to plastic egg-crate lighting grid.
I used that as a base for rock piles.

Good article. Google "faux sand bed", and there are a lot more.
Looks like the big problem with a faux sand bed is that it simply gets covered with coralline.
You might as well have a bare bottom, or starboard or something simple.
The rubble bottom will as well of course, but at least it has reef texture.

One problem is that you lose your barrier between low-lying corals. They will expand over the bottom, and fight it out.

Another problem is that my blennies would be pretty pissed off with no sand to move around. :)
 
Great feedback man... appreciate it. I'll do a test on some scrap acrylic first to gauge sanded vs. un-sanded. Ya, I’ve Googled and looked at several threads on faux sand beds over the past few days and I’ve not found one yet that is particularly impressive or well done… and I agree that since it all ends up being purple in the end it’s kind of a moot issue. I’m still leaning heavily towards the rubble bottom at this point.

rygh said:
One problem is that you lose your barrier between low-lying corals. They will expand over the bottom, and fight it out.

Another problem is that my blennies would be pretty pissed off with no sand to move around. :)
Click to expand...

I'm not too concerned about the low-lying corals since I'm not intending on keeping any softies/zoo's/zoas in this tank... everything else I'm planning for I'd be happy to see spread. If they get to a point to where they are fighting it out I'd be pretty happy.

As far as fish go I still don't know what if any I'll be putting in this tank. I've had no fish in my 6g since I set it up early in the year and I've been amazed by how healthy the tank has been and how good the water quality's stayed. There are not many fish that fit healthily long term in a 40 breeder so I don't intend to push the limits at all on this one. Maybe a mated pair of something that does well in a 30ish gallon space and call it a day.
 
Potential fish for this tank...

http://liveaquaria.com/product/detailed_image.cfm?pCatId=169
http://liveaquaria.com/product/detailed_image.cfm?pCatId=2672
http://liveaquaria.com/product/detailed_image.cfm?pCatId=2892

We'll see...
 
Dottybacks can be mean.
I was not completely bummed when my Purple Dottyback launched himself into the light fixture somehow,
and the other fish were much relieved.
Cardinals are great, although rather boring except when there is food.
Mine makes the weirdest popping like noises at night.
 
Ya… my last tank I had a couple cardinals and they made the same weird noises at night also... strange... I liked them though. The dotty's can be mean but they also eat bristle worms :) Usually if you house them with other semi-aggressive and or larger fish it's not a problem. You never know the true meanness scale of your dottyback though until you get him in your tank.
 
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