40 Gallon Reef Build

[djrfeller]

Hello everyone, I have spent all my time lately on this tank that i wanted to setup. I have a small 29 thats crammed with all my corals and its not doing too well so i decided to move eveythign to a 40 gallon thats tailored more towards a successful reef. My 29 doesnt have much flow and it doesnt have a sump / refugium. This tank is expected to have both. I built a stand for it and slowly got everything started. Take a look and give feedback to what i might need to tweak. This is the first time i have setup a sump/ refugium in a tank and i want ot knwo what i need to do. I want o tmove my corals as soon as possible (like a little kid on Christmas) but i need your opinion on when the time is right. I want ot transfer everything from the 29 into this tank but when can i do it? I put dry sand at the base of this tank but only about an inch or so and it is not fine sand but rather larger pieces. i Hva ehad the water going for 24 hours now and i wan to tsee when i might be able to start moving everything over. Do you think i can do it tomorrow evening or do i have to wait. i will be using the live rock from the old tank and the old sand from the bottom of the old tank will go in my refugium at the bottom. can you guys give me ideas and feedback. i still have to stain the hood and will do that soon. thank you

[Mr Cob]

that's a cool looking canopy!

CAUTION: If you move that sand bed and it hasn't ever been disturbed you are going to have a mess and require a month or more to settle down and fully cycle.

As it stands, your new tank doesn't have anything in it so not much is going to happen. I would slowly start introducing live rock to it as well as seeding the dry sand with a cup or two of your current cycled sand.

If the new tank is ALL new water I would take my time and let it cycle...but you need to get some live rock in there to get it going.

[hobogato]

like rob pointed out, nicely done on that floating canopy. nice clean setup, i look forward to your progress.

[Zack]

How exactly did you make that canopy? Looks AWESOME.

[djrfeller]

i put a couple pieces of live rock from the old tank in there to get it started but i might go ahead and put more today. what can i do to start a nice refugium without bringing over the old sand from my other aquarium? could i possibly use that sand but close off the compartment in my sump so that uts quaranteened?

[djrfeller]

i had this tank setup with freshwater before and i had 2 plectos get about 14" in there and take up the whole thing so i took them in and put the tank in storage. i hsd made the hood to sit on top the the aquarium and it had hinges in order to open but with the leds i have i figured it would be too hot even with the two fans i have, plus i dont like the look of lights dangling from the ceiling or poles. i used 1x4's to create a canopy, put molding on the sides and i have it on hinges on the back. its just being held up by two small hinges attached to 2 x 2 poles that attach to the back of the aquarium. pretty simple but works extremely efficiently.

[djrfeller]

So i couldnt wait to move everything over so this weekend i went ahead and did it. i moved the corals in containers and then positioned the rock like i thought it was nice looking and then moved everything in place. i think i have remedied what i was doing incorrectly to make my other tanks crash. i have added much more flow to my tank this go around. i built in a refugium/sump to it and thats not pushing too much water through it since my pump isnt pushing it that well becasue of the head height. Its still working though. i have 2 small powerheads on the back bottom corners pushing water towards the middle of the tank to avoid buildup of debris which was a problem on my last tank ( 1 is a marineland mini-jet 404 and the other is a small powerhead i had laying around). i have a aqueon circulation pump on the left side of the tank pushing water upwards and a hydor koralia 1 in the middle on the back glass pushing water down and off the front glass. Finally i have a koralia 3 or 4 which is the main mover of water in my tank on the left side pushing water towards the surface. i notice a large difference in motion of my corals compared to my other tanks. my leds are bringing out the color of mycorals and since this tank has a larger footprint i am going to add a few more to it and space them out to better illuminate the ends of the tank. and the best thing i am doing is posting on MAAST to get opinions from you guys in order to help me out. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know. i was thinking i am going to save up and buy a ecotech vortech mp10 to create a better wave action but do you guys think that if i replace mny current powerheads with a MP10 that i will get any bestter results? Here is a few pictures of what it looks like before i added the powerhead in the middle.

[djrfeller]

everything is looking nice, i keep tweaking the location of zoas and trying to find out where they look best. i might have to move some down becasue i feel they are fading in color even though thtey are always open and looking good. I might adjust the powerheads becasue the flow is too great in one direction. Here are a few pictures of its updates.

[Mr Cob]

looks like you got everything under control, nicely done, looks great

[Mr Cob]

by the way, you might want to reconsider spreading frags of that yellow polyp out all around your tank. They can really take off and might be cool at first but they will eventually own your tank. I like to keep them isolated on rock islands.

[djrfeller]

they grew over the rocks when i had the other setup and now i have little pieces everywhere. i want to transfer them onto a rock and sell them or trade them or give them away but i dont knwo the best way to do it. any suggestions on how i can transplant the polyps without spreading them further or killing them?

[djrfeller]

I posted some pictures of my tank and I got some advice about limiting the amount of space I give my green star and yellow polyps. I don't have space enough to make islands in my tank and its not deep enough to do anything in front or in the back so I thought of an idea that might work but I just don't know how it will look. I made a couple of PVC racks that hang from the back and I am going to place live rock on then to allow my polyps to expand without overtaking my tank. Does anyone have any suggestions? Has anyone done this and had it work or fail? I have a black background and the pvc is painted black so I hopw it wont be noticeable. let me know what you think.

[Mr Cob]

Looks good, what kind of paint did you use? Krylon fusion spray paint is safe but needs to fully cure. I pike to let it sit in freshwater once cure just to be safe.

What's your plan to keep that structure from floating? Acrylic rods work really well...just drill holes in the rock and put them on rods that are glued to a flat piece of acrylic.

Sent from my HTC VIVID using Tapatalk

[djrfeller]

i was going to try to secure then some other way or just hope they didnt fall off but the rods is a good idea. fortunately the pieces of rock that are going on there arent too large and it shoudl be easy. i am going to do these two first and then if i liek it and it seems t obe functioning then i will possibly do a couple more depending on how it looks. i definately dont want everything to look too crowded.