Moving up from the 40 Breeder world

[Justin]

It's been awhile since I've posted any threads of my own on the site but I wanted to take this opportunity to solicit some advice from the knowledgeable reefers here and document the process of my 100 gallon build.

For a couple of years now I have been running with a 40 breeder and truly loving the dimensions and space that the breeder tank offers. When the wifey mentioned she wanted another kitty, I quickly said yes and then hinted that if she can have a new kitty, I can have a new tank. It was a little sneaky but she loves her kitty and I'm going to love my new tank.

I was able to purchase a nice 100 gallon tank with a nice sump, and Bubble Mac Skimmer from Cuteowow awhile back. Since then I've been refinishing the stain and slowly making some cosmetic touch ups like including a water proof skin in the stand, new stain and modding the hood to accommodate my new lighting setup and a couple of fans.

Current setup:
Livestock
(1) Tail Spot Blenny
(1) Rainford Goby
(2) Scissortail Dartfish
(1) Green Mandarin
(1) Yellow Watchman
(1) Pencil Urchin
CUC from Reefcleaners... He gives you so much livestock that its insane to keep track of it
(1) Fuzzy Chiton-Reefcleaners
(1) Bangaii Cardinal- My other two died while in QT. I might try and find another 2 to make a little school of them
(3) Lyretail Anthias- I lost a couple of them due to not eating and had to replace them with some LFS ones. I finally got them to eat Cyclops and Artic Pods
(1) Male McCoskers Flasher Wrasse- I sadly lost my female once she was put into the DT. Not really sure what happened but she looked a little weak in the QT a day before I added her to the DT. I will need to find some females for my dude!

Coral
Appleberry Monti
Red Digi
Blue Digi
Duncan
Frogspawn
Turaki looking coral
Purple Gorgonian
Monti Setosa
FireCoral
GSP Rock
(2) Sunset Rose Bubble Tip Nems
(3) Mini Rock Anemone (my lone guy split in three once I introduced him to the tank)
Trumpet Coral
Various Zoas- I forgot the name to a bunch of them but I know I have some gatorade Zoas from Elegant Reef
Green Torch
Monti Spongodes
Bonsai Coral
Purple Plate Coral
ORA Scripps Green Stag
Raspberry Lemonade Table Acro

Equipment
SICCE Syncra 4.0 Return Pump
Seaside Aquatics CS-1 Skimmer
(2) Rapid Led Dimmable Onyx light fixtures
(2) DIY T5 Bulbs running Actinic + and I forgot the other one
(2) Vortech MP10 EWS with Battery Backup
(2) Jebao WP-40
(1) JBWave controller box
(3) BRS 1.1ml Dosing pumps

[Justin]

My plans for the plumbing are the following:

I have three drain lines; (2) 3/4 inch and (1) 1 inch drain line. I plan to use the 3/4's for my returns and setup a durso standpipe for the 1 inch drain into the sump which will be split between the two filter socks and Refugium. The return line will at first be split between the tank itself and a manifold which will fuel my Dual Reactor, and two other reactors or units which I have not determined just yet. I typically like to have at least two options for hooking something up and at the very least use one of the drains as a water change drain for the system.

From the manifold, the line will split between the two return lines and be redirected to flow over the surface of the water to diffuse any surface skim and keep aeration at a premium. I realize that splitting the return will decrease the flow considerably but I also plan to have the following for flow in the tank:

(2) MP 10's along the back wall rotating between modes via the Apex
(2) WP 40's on wave mode pushing flow back and forth in the tank. I might just go with the one but I could always try to program the two so that only one is on a time through the day

This should be plenty of flow for SPS and avoid any dead zones as the corals grow. This will be my first time dealing with Jebao's but I've heard good things about them despite the cheap plastic construction. I may in the future upgrade my returns to flow through a wavemaker or Sea Swirls to get more random motion in the tank.

The following is my plumbing ideas for the tank. Please let me know your thoughts as I have not glued anything just yet. Reading Big Pun's 105 build, he mentions using two return pumps rather than one to avoid a system crash when one of the returns goes bad. Having dealt with this before in my 40 breeder, I'm thinking about doing something like this for this tank build.

Anyway, my plumbing ideas:

Plumbing for 100 gallon.jpg

[Justin]

As I'm still re-staining the stand and building a taller platform for the tank (I"m not a big fan of having to bend over to view a tank), I'm taking the time to also deal with the issue of tiny scratches on my glass front and sides. I bought some Celium Oxide to buff out the glass. Anyone have any tricks or advice for me?

[jrsatx20]

have u used the jebao before.

i have the wp-25 in a 90 and its on the lowest setting and its a lot. imo i think u could do a wp-25 and a wp-10

[kkiel02]

Is there a reason you aren't getting their new pumps? For the glass just take your time I heard it takes a long time. I've never done it but thought I was going to have to when I got my tank. Yes two pumps are better than one. I used to do two but at the moment I'm back to one since my new overflow isn't as fast as my megaflows.

This is what I want to do for reactors on a little sps tank- run gfo for phosphates and a bio pellet reactor for nitrates and of course a nice powerful skimmer to help both. I wouldn't run it off the return personally because I feel water circle back and keep repeating the flow through the reactors vs going up to your tank. My dream sps sump goes-
1. biopellet reactor
2. Skimmer
3. Gfo reactor
4. Then return back up to the tank.
I would then dose Kalk in the ATO as I do now for calcium.

Hoping my wife will let me splurge and setup a 40b.

[Justin]

Jrsatx20- I have never run the Jebao's before. I did a little research on them and for the price tag, they are supposed to move quite a bit of water. Through my research I saw a number of people using the WP 40's for the size tank that I have. When I bought the pumps, I was a bit leery of the power of the pumps but once I get them in this week, I'll try them out and see if if they are too powerful and determine if I need to trade down to the WP 15's instead. The WP 40's will do the brunt of the water movement in my tank and I wanted to make sure I eliminated any possibility of dead zones. I would have gone with a single MP40 but the price tag alone drew me away. Worst case scenario, I can always return the pumps via amazon and trade down.

[Justin]

kkiel02-

I used to run GFO, carbon and a bio pellet reactor in my 40 breeder. For awhile it was bothering me that I could not keep any SPS in my breeder for longer than a couple of days before they started bleaching. What irked me was that they would do fine in my QT tank but as soon as I placed them in my DT, they would bleach. Through some deducing I determined that it was the bio pellet reactor that was stripping the tank of nutrients and the Carbon pellets were releasing something in the water that was feeding cyano. I since took the pellets off line and the cyano was reduced to a nice small patch that my cucumber can handle and my SPS started flourishing. After talking to some folks about it, they all mentioned that it is best to keep it simple and not get dragged into the latest hype. Advice that has finally allowed me to keep some nice SPS colonies.

I hear you on the separating the reactors from the return line, but to be honest, I was avoiding adding another pump into my sump to feed my manifold. I typically do not have the gate valve of my dual reactor fully on, so in theory not all of the treated water recycles through the reactor. I like to think that most of the treated water makes it back up to the DT.

The 40 breeder layout is awesome. Plenty of room for ideas on aquascaping. I'm planning on using my 40 breeder to upgrade my 20L planted tank. I'm sure my freshies will love the extra space and water volume.

[kkiel02]

Cool sounds like you got it under control. I was just bouncing ideas around some are what I'll hopefully be doing soon. Why did you decide against the new jebao pumps? Was it the price difference?

[Justin]

kkiel02-

I used to run GFO, carbon and a bio pellet reactor in my 40 breeder. For awhile it was bothering me that I could not keep any SPS in my breeder for longer than a couple of days before they started bleaching. What irked me was that they would do fine in my QT tank but as soon as I placed them in my DT, they would bleach. Through some deducing I determined that it was the bio pellet reactor that was stripping the tank of nutrients and the Carbon pellets were releasing something in the water that was feeding cyano. I since took the pellets off line and the cyano was reduced to a nice small patch that my cucumber can handle and my SPS started flourishing. After talking to some folks about it, they all mentioned that it is best to keep it simple and not get dragged into the latest hype. Advice that has finally allowed me to keep some nice SPS colonies.

I hear you on the separating the reactors from the return line, but to be honest, I was avoiding adding another pump into my sump to feed my manifold. I typically do not have the gate valve of my dual reactor fully on, so in theory not all of the treated water recycles through the reactor. I like to think that most of the treated water makes it back up to the DT.

The 40 breeder layout is awesome. Plenty of room for ideas on aquascaping. I'm planning on using my 40 breeder to upgrade my 20L planted tank. I'm sure my freshies will love the extra space and water volume.

[Justin]

Cool sounds like you got it under control. I was just bouncing ideas around some are what I'll hopefully be doing soon. Why did you decide against the new jebao pumps? Was it the price difference?

Ultimately, yes it was definitely the price tag on the pumps. For a single MP40, the price was going to run in upwards of 400+(even if I found one used), but for a 1/4 of the price of the MP 40 I could go with (2) WP40's and get the same wave motions and equal if not more water flow. The only downside is that I control my MP10's with my Apex and I do not think that Jebao has anything that can communicate with the Apex. So now I'm pretty much forced to program them via their internal controller and through the outlets I plugged them in at on the Apex