Neptune Aquatics

My 40g tank

Finally got the sump in and in the process of making rodi. Unfortunately it is a long process to make enough water for this much volume. I plan to mix the salt in the tank and wondering if I should take the dry rock and marine pure block out when putting in the salt. Plan to add some prime as well to the tank bc I'm unsure if the rodi is filtering out the chloramine. Finally got my hands on some fritz turbo 900 just waiting on the ammonia to get in to start the cycle.

Also wondering if the 10lbs dry rock and marine pure block is enough. Only going to be housing a pair of clowns and used as a frag tank.
When you go to mix your salt water it’s ok to do it in the tank but I like to fill the tank only about 90% with water and then add the salt. Definitely don’t put the salt in first and then add the water. You can get precipitation because it’s too concentrated. Also, I do 90% full because I try to sneak up on the salinity but sometimes I’ll go over and if the tank is already full I can’t add more water to dilute it.
 
When you go to mix your salt water it’s ok to do it in the tank but I like to fill the tank only about 90% with water and then add the salt. Definitely don’t put the salt in first and then add the water. You can get precipitation because it’s too concentrated. Also, I do 90% full because I try to sneak up on the salinity but sometimes I’ll go over and if the tank is already full I can’t add more water to dilute it.

Makes sense.

Do you have a pressure gauge on your rodi?

No I do not..
 
So I ended up getting a Trigger system tideline sump spec to follow:

Dimensions: 36" long x 18" wide x 15" high
Skimmer section: 10.5" x 17.5"
Refugium section: 8" x 17.5"
Total water volume: 41.7 gallons (larger than the display...)

- I ended up pulling one of my mp10s from my 29g biocube and moving it over to the 40g which saved me on having to buy another power head.
- We have 2 AI primes for lighting
- Return pump is an Innovative Marine Mighty Jet controllable DC pump
- Seneye reef monitor

So with that and the holidays rolling around the corner I have been wondering what other equipment (if any) should I be looking into getting? The tank will only house a pair of clowns (MAYBE a 6 line further down the road) and frags. I plan to set up a refugium with some chaeto at some point so I can dump some pods in.

Some things I had in mind that are definitely not a necessity but could become handy later in the future is:
- Another mp10 for some more and chaotic flow or a gyre perhaps
- Kessil H380 grow light (Heard these work great for chaeto growth but also that there are cheapo LEDs that could pretty much do the same for the fraction of the price)
- Skimmer ( I really know nothing about what brand is good or bad only know its purpose)
- Aquatic life hybrid fixture (supplement the AI primes to get rid of shadowing or perhaps if I dive into harder to keep SPS that require more par)
- Dosing pump
- Or should I just get some coral?

Would love to hear some thoughts on what some people would aim for getting next. My assumption is all these things will end up being purchased at some point in the next couple years just curious to see if one is more of a necessity over the others or perhaps I missed something completely? Sister plans on getting me one of these types of things as a holiday gift so thought I'd ask seeing how I really don't know if I really need anything extra atm lol.
 
I wouldn't bother with a skimmer on the system. Such a low bio load. I think a dosing pump will be of huge benefit.

I've been considering this for the future. Right now all I have are frags so not much is being consumed but I feel like once everything starts growing this may be worth while, especially if I dive into the SPS world.
 
Dosing pumps (Ca+Alk, not Mg) make sense.
I would just stick with one lighting type. In your case an extra AI prime, not the hybrid.
Cheap grow lights for sump are fine.
Wait on the skimmer.
Get corals.
Focus on Flow, Light, and STABILITY.
 
Bit of a an update. The tank is up and running. Got a pair of juvi MochaVincis in there atm and some frags. (Hammer, duncan, some zoas, a grafted monti and some other one I have no idea what it is but my g/f picked it out because she liked it) Got some brown stuff forming up on the rocks so looks like were heading towards the ugly stages. (oddly I am excited). Will be posting some pictures soon, atm the tank lights went out so i'll post em up tomorrow. Even though 40g is relatively small for most for me it feels extremely vast. I have a frag rack and 2 rocks in the DT so it seems really empty. The sump has a 8x8x4 marine pure block so I don't have to load the DT with rocks. Today I ended up adding a icecap 1k gyre to the mp10 because I had some dead spots forming where all the excess food was just gathering. I also ended up adding a cheapo power head in the sump because the water seem really stagnate and a weird film was forming on top. Ended up getting a grow light from amazon (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074MBV5GF/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) Not sure if this is good or not the only problem is with the way the sump is behind the tank and the pvc is set up it blocks me from being able to hang the refugium light really high up so it is about 8 inches from the refugium section. I feel like this might be too much but we will see.
 
It has been a while since I posted, so here is an update for all the tanks in the house! Decided to just go ahead and cram all my tanks into one thread to make it a bit easier to keep track. The 2 snowflakes I got couple months ago were doing well until the larger more aggressive one found the anemone. She decided it was hers now and started to beat up the smaller one again and made sure the smaller one was never again near it. I ended up separating the two and put the larger more aggressive one in the 40g tank and moving one of the mochavinci into my 29g biocube. So now both tanks have 1 snowflake and 1 mocha each. This has worked out wayyyy better. The mocha clowns are now following the snowflakes around (in both tanks) and they are not nearly as aggressive as they were to each other. Granted it has only been a week but we'll see how this turns out. With some coral news I have picked up some acropora for the 40g to do a bit of testing and see how well they work out. (picked up some $15 frags unsure of what type they are and such but pics below) So far it looks like its doing great but we'll see.

40B - Ended up getting a 1k gyre for the tank along with the mp10. The gyre has been great. As time goes on I keep looking back and wanting to change this tank from a frag tank to just a regular one. It pains me to see 2 pieces of live rock in there and a frag holder next to it, especially since this tank is in the living room. The tank had started to go through part of the ugly phases a couple weeks ago but it looks like it has cleared up a bit. Oddly enough it didn't go full bloom algea crazy. I am unsure if this is because it has such a small bioload vs the amount of water in there. The sump for the tank on the other hand has hair algea growing on the marine pure block but it is no where to be seen in the display. The chaeto as well has gone from the size of a golfball to being a bit larger than a softball so I guess things are progressing well, perhaps too well seeing how the seneye is reading .001 nitrate. This worries me because when my biocube hit 0 nitrate all sort of crazy bad things started to happen in it. Have not really tested anything in this tank well because everything has looked pretty happy I think? (I guess one of my bigger problems is I don't know what is looking good vs bad but i'll post pics and I guess people will let me know)

29g biocube - So from my last post things were not doing so well with all the brown algea forming. Good news its pretty much all gone. The tank is looking great and all the corals (except one type) are doing well. So this is the new problem the corals in the tank seem to be doing well except zoas. Almost half of the zoas I had pretty much have melted away, while the other half have been growing like crazy. This is nice and all except the fact that the half that melted away were the more expensive ones and the ones I liked =(. It pretty much happened when I rearranged the rock work and their locations a while back. They just never recovered like the other half. I will say they had some brown crud on them that would just never go away. I did end up doing a chemiclean treatment to this tank twice and that saved some of the zoas but a lot of the ones I liked have melted away.

Some pictures:

29g Biocube







40B - Pictures are a bit meh because the glass is really dirty. Didn't want to mix glass scrapers between the tanks so waiting the new one to come in the mail.




My SO's 20g - The anemone in this pic when we go it was the size of a quarter... Now its diameter is close to a dollar bill.... It is really getting big. Also the clownfish in there has started to bite when she has to clean the tank haha. Guess it has gotten really territorial.

 
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