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BlueSallymandr's 40 gallon AIO tank

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BlueSallymandr

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I’m starting a tank journal for my new 40 gallon tank, which is an upgrade from my 16 gallon BioCube that got me into the hobby. Thank you so much to the club members who helped me pick out equipment for this setup earlier!

Current equipment:

IM 40 gallon AIO tank
Reefi Uno Pro 2.1 light with 3D printed shade
100W Eheim JAGER Aquarium Heater (x2)
INKBIRD Temperature Controller ITC-306T Series
Natural sea water

Next I will add an ATO and protein skimmer. I just got the equipment but I’m holding off because I redid the epoxy on the live rock, and I read that it’s best to shut off the protein skimmer for a while after that. (Also I had to evacuate my home because of a nearby fire this weekend, which really cut into my tank time).

I took apart the mesh lid that came with the AIO, replaced the ¼” mesh with 1/8” mesh since I’m keeping small fish, and reassembled it. It doesn’t look too bad of a job, haha. Could be better.

20241012_100844.jpg


Pictured here: my cat who didn’t help me assemble anything.

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Aquascaping:

About half are freshly purchased dry rock, and half are live rock reused from my old tank. My previously epoxied rocks broke apart when I was moving them, so I just sort of stacked them as best I could. I got some reef epoxy that cures underwater later, and redid the aquascape. Now it looks the way I wanted, but the difference between the old and the new rocks is so glaring. I’m hoping the colors will balance out in the end.

Speaking of color balance, I’m not sure I’m happy with the light’s spectrum. I might play around with it a bit and get it closer to natural daylight. I know my phone’s camera is not loving these lights! My photos are turning out terribly.

20241019_171940.jpg

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Current livestock:

I moved everything over from my smaller tank, but unfortunately I had two losses. I think I must have acclimated them improperly to the new water, plus my firefish had been going downhill since it spent well over a week in the pump chamber before I found it.

Royal gramma
Yasha goby/Randall’s pistol shrimp (these two found each other immediately in the new tank)
Skunk cleaner shrimp
Tuxedo urchin
Pompom crab
Snails (trochus, cerith, nassarius)
 
Corals! I forgot about the corals. I am trying to keep a mix of softies and LPS corals in this tank. I moved over some assorted mushrooms, a Nepthea tree, a weeping willow toadstool, a Gorgonian, a finger leather, some very sad fireworks clove polyps, a favia, and a candy cane coral. All are still pretty small, and I'm hoping they grow out more.

At the frag swap, I picked up the following frags:
-Tequila sunrise mushroom @t0mmy108
-Gorgonian @Apon
-Pipe organ @musclebenz
-Spicy lemon favia @FooFtr

They are doing good so far but I'm not going to lie, my photography skills suck and all my pics of them are coming out badly.
 
nice to meet you at the swap registration table. since you like nano fish, would you be interested in 2 red spotted cardinal fish? i'd like to rehome them and get more damsels.
 
nice to meet you at the swap registration table. since you like nano fish, would you be interested in 2 red spotted cardinal fish? i'd like to rehome them and get more damsels.
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Nice to meet you as well! I'm going to have to say no, only because I already have a much longer list of fish I want than I think will actually fit in this tank, hahaha. Thanks though!
 
I set up my protein skimmer and ATO last night. I didn't have either of these on my old BioCube setup, so it was a bit of a learning experience.
Tunze Osmolator Nano 3152 Auto Top Off
Tunze Comline DOC Protein Skimmer 9001

Both of them seem to be running okay, but I had a question about the skimmer. I have it on nearly the lowest setting to start out with, and it's producing nearly colorless water as skimmate. Is this because my bioload is low and the tank's still pretty clean? I thought skimmate was supposed to be pretty gross.
 
BlueSallymandr said:
I set up my protein skimmer and ATO last night. I didn't have either of these on my old BioCube setup, so it was a bit of a learning experience.
Tunze Osmolator Nano 3152 Auto Top Off
Tunze Comline DOC Protein Skimmer 9001

Both of them seem to be running okay, but I had a question about the skimmer. I have it on nearly the lowest setting to start out with, and it's producing nearly colorless water as skimmate. Is this because my bioload is low and the tank's still pretty clean? I thought skimmate was supposed to be pretty gross.
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If your tank is new then there isn’t really anything to skim so you’ll get that
 
BlueSallymandr said:
I set up my protein skimmer and ATO last night. I didn't have either of these on my old BioCube setup, so it was a bit of a learning experience.
Tunze Osmolator Nano 3152 Auto Top Off
Tunze Comline DOC Protein Skimmer 9001

Both of them seem to be running okay, but I had a question about the skimmer. I have it on nearly the lowest setting to start out with, and it's producing nearly colorless water as skimmate. Is this because my bioload is low and the tank's still pretty clean? I thought skimmate was supposed to be pretty gross.
Click to expand...
Small tip since you said your new to atos, for ato make sure the water line that pumps rodi water into the tank is well above the water line of the tank, otherwise during a power outage it can create a reverse siphon. That would suck water from the tank back into your rodi storage container and possibly all over the floor.
 
Thanks for the feedback, all! I'll give my skimmer some time. Also I forgot to mention that I had to remove the filter media column that came with the tank to fit the skimmer in, but it's probably worth it?

Small tip since you said your new to atos, for ato make sure the water line that pumps rodi water into the tank is well above the water line of the tank, otherwise during a power outage it can create a reverse siphon. That would suck water from the tank back into your rodi storage container and possibly all over the floor.
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Thank you! It's currently set up so that it's tightly fastened in place well above the water line, but I'll keep that in mind to avoid disaster.

I did some testing to get a better idea of what's going on in there, and got the following values:
Salinity - 1.026
pH - 8.2
KH - 6 degrees KH
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
Phosphate - 0

So I dosed with some bottled nitrate and phosphate to try and keep my corals happy until I get some more fish.
 
BlueSallymandr said:
Thanks for the feedback, all! I'll give my skimmer some time. Also I forgot to mention that I had to remove the filter media column that came with the tank to fit the skimmer in, but it's probably worth it?


Thank you! It's currently set up so that it's tightly fastened in place well above the water line, but I'll keep that in mind to avoid disaster.

I did some testing to get a better idea of what's going on in there, and got the following values:
Salinity - 1.026
pH - 8.2
KH - 6 degrees KH
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
Phosphate - 0

So I dosed with some bottled nitrate and phosphate to try and keep my corals happy until I get some more fish.
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I think skimmer>filter media column.
Filter floss can remove particulates before they break down, which is nice, but you have to stay on it or its pointless, so thats added maintenance. Sometimes its nice to run like a ceramic media, but not a big deal to skip it. The most important part of the media column would be carbon IMO, but thats just for emergencies anyways, you dont want to run it 24/7. Maybe you can fit a media bag of carbon somewhere if you had an emergency?
 
Yep, there's a chamber where I can throw in some carbon! I hadn't realized that it shouldn't be run 24/7. Is that still the case even when you have leather corals?

I'm getting to the exciting part of stocking the tank, and I've been researching fish, but I have very little feel for how many fish I can keep in a saltwater tank like this. I want it to be as peaceful as possible with nice colors, activity in all levels of the tank, and fish that won't eat my corals and invertebrates (or my tiny Yasha goby, for that matter). Feel free to chime in on any red flags you see!

Current fish:
- Royal gramma
- Yasha goby

On order:
- Tailspot blenny

Considering to add:
- Pair of pink skunk clowns
- 1 Banggai cardinalfish
- Hector's or Rainford goby
- Possibly a single blue/green chromis or neon blue goby (I know those are vastly different fish, lol, I just know I probably don't have room for both/either)
 
BlueSallymandr said:
Yep, there's a chamber where I can throw in some carbon! I hadn't realized that it shouldn't be run 24/7. Is that still the case even when you have leather corals?

I'm getting to the exciting part of stocking the tank, and I've been researching fish, but I have very little feel for how many fish I can keep in a saltwater tank like this. I want it to be as peaceful as possible with nice colors, activity in all levels of the tank, and fish that won't eat my corals and invertebrates (or my tiny Yasha goby, for that matter). Feel free to chime in on any red flags you see!

Current fish:
- Royal gramma
- Yasha goby

On order:
- Tailspot blenny

Considering to add:
- Pair of pink skunk clowns
- 1 Banggai cardinalfish
- Hector's or Rainford goby
- Possibly a single blue/green chromis or neon blue goby (I know those are vastly different fish, lol, I just know I probably don't have room for both/either)
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I personally run carbon 24/7 in all my tanks except my current grow out one, I would also run it in that one as well but that's my tank that's sorta gets over looked more than the other two. Planning to shut that one down soon anyway.

I'm not aware of any issues with 24/7 carbon in the system. I won't make a any argument on the subject as many know alot more than i do. If it shouldn't be ran for safety 24/7 with leather corals, I'd also be eager to learn the potential cons of running it as well?

Just keep a eye for fish agression when adding new ones to the tank. A trick i employed was taping a small mirror to the glass to distract the existing fish. Using a aclimation box is also another method, as is adding 2 of the planned fish at a time tk spread out potential agression. Of your list to my limited knowledge the royal gramma had potential of being semi agressive, small chance of the two gobies, the others you listed As considering I wouldn't think have those tendencies. - only my opinion I'm no fish expert at all.

Looking foward to seeing more pictures of the set up as things progress.
 
MichaelB said:
I personally run carbon 24/7 in all my tanks except my current grow out one, I would also run it in that one as well but that's my tank that's sorta gets over looked more than the other two. Planning to shut that one down soon anyway.

I'm not aware of any issues with 24/7 carbon in the system. I won't make a any argument on the subject as many know alot more than i do. If it shouldn't be ran for safety 24/7 with leather corals, I'd also be eager to learn the potential cons of running it as well?

Just keep a eye for fish agression when adding new ones to the tank. A trick i employed was taping a small mirror to the glass to distract the existing fish. Using a aclimation box is also another method, as is adding 2 of the planned fish at a time tk spread out potential agression. Of your list to my limited knowledge the royal gramma had potential of being semi agressive, small chance of the two gobies, the others you listed As considering I wouldn't think have those tendencies. - only my opinion I'm no fish expert at all.

Looking foward to seeing more pictures of the set up as things progress.
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I think carbon can take out some traces you do t want, as well as the potential to release fines/dust. Other than that no real problems I’ve seen/experienced. I do t personally run it all the time. I think it gets saturated fairly quickly, like a week it’s mostly used up/full
 
Coral reefer said:
I think carbon can take out some traces you do t want, as well as the potential to release fines/dust. Other than that no real problems I’ve seen/experienced. I do t personally run it all the time. I think it gets saturated fairly quickly, like a week it’s mostly used up/full
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Yeah it gets used up in just a few days: https://reefs.com/magazine/granular...d-organic-carbon-removal-from-marine-aquaria/

Probably not a lot of harm in leaving it in there (other than maybe it continues to pull out small amounts of trace elements).
 
Good to know about the carbon, I had no idea it got used up so fast. I'm still measuring 0ppm nitrates and phosphate today so I increased the dosing for now. I will also keep the mirror trick in mind for fish aggression, especially when adding the clowns.

So I know I said I had a plan for what fish I wanted, but I went to High Tide Aquatics yesterday for snails (shoutout to @under_water_ninja for all the help with this tank and answering so many questions) and got a McCosker's flasher wrasse to add. So far it's doing well and no hint of aggression from anyone (the wrasse is a little bit bigger than the gramma).

20241027_185506.jpg


I also got the following snails to try and control the algae that's starting to pop up:
6x trochus
6x cerith
4x nassarius
 
Hermits are also funny to watch if you don't have any, I have red leg and blue leg ones currently.

When i had fish only around 2006 i had the scarlet hermits, those suckers got to large ate each other and caught sleeping fish.

The small ones though i have found entertaining.
 
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