Cali Kid Corals

New project advice needed

James Oh

James Oh

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Hey guys with the petco sale going on I bought a 40b and 20g long for sump and was looking for some equipment advice. Plan to be a frag tank with a pair of clowns.

So far the plan is

Tank- 40g breeder and 20g long sump

Stand - just built with 2x4

Lighting - 2 AI primes

Overflow - 16" shadow overflow (This might be overkill maybe? Was looking for something really quiet.)

Bio media- Maybe marine pure blocks in sump? Not sure how big of blocks to get. Or just use some dry rocks? If so how many pounds?

Return pump - sicce 2.0? Not really sure on this either.

Skimmer - was thinking vertex omega 130 but its sold out on brs and not sure what is really neccessary and what brands are good.

Powerheads - Not too sure on this either was back and forth between just some hydor power heads or looking to get a dc powerhead. Didnt really want to shell out a ton but may have to?

Anything else I could be missing? Advice is very welcome. Thanks!
 
Return pump can be tiny, dont need much turnover. I'd say get a nice powerhead like an mp10 since you say it will be a frag tank. You can drill it and use a cheap overflow that will be pretty quiet as long as you don't flow a lot of water through it.
 
Any idea what kind of corals you might want to grow in there? The AI primes might be a little underwelming if you're looking to really grow SPS, while you can make them closer with the 40B tank, the problem is the foot print isn't going to be terribly large when they're closer. Any overflow with 3 pipes should be able to make a really quiet overflow. Return pump I'd say a DC pump then you can tune it to the flow you want, but if you're looking to save money Sicce isn't a bad idea. I'd say ditch the idea of Marinepure blocks, you'll have 2 clownfish in there and unless you plan on feeding corals extremely heavy there's no real need for all that filtration, worst case scenario toss some rock rubble in the sump. Skimmer yeah you don't need anything that big for the tank, same reasoning for marinepure blocks, nothing wrong with the Omega 130 but I feel it'll be overkill for 2 clown fish again, unless you're feeding like crazy. As for pump, Mike's recommendation of a Mp10 isn't bad, look into the Rossmont pumps they're fairly quiet and super cheap for a pump not made in China, but AC powered and unless you buy the "Waver" accessory they have a fixed output, one of the gyre pumps on the market might be a good call too
 
Bif fan of the Icecap Gyre on a small frag tank. Inexpensive but pushes a lot of water in a wide gyre pattern. Perfect for frag tanks. As to a return pump check out the Innovative Marine Mighty Jet controllable DC pump for $99.00

I am using (on new frag tank) and have always used Marine Pure bricks and balls. Much more surface area that rocks. Not sure you need a skimmer on a frag tank with two clowns. You don't want to strip too many nutrients. Also what type of frags? If it's SPS you'll want to at least consider how you will dose.
 
Thanks for the quick responses! As far as the type of frags going in I'm not honestly too sure. This just came about because the Petco sale and also my 29g biocube is running out of room. I don't think i'll be jumping in SPS quite yet as my first frag in my 29g is not doing so hot so i'll probably stick with zoas/acans / LPS for now. I may hold off on the skimmer for now and once my biocube and frag tank get more mature i'll add the skimmer in. I'll just make a spot in the sump and leave it empty. I'll definitely look into that Marine Might Jet and Rossmont pumps I havn't heard of them before. So now I'm torn between the Gyre or mp10. If I go with mp 10 am I looking at using 2 mp10s? or just 1? Since I am trying to future proof it a little bit I guess the Primes are too weak of lighting. Should I use 2 primes and some t5 supplements? or maybe just some stronger LEDs like 2 AI Hydras?
 
One MP10 would be fine especially if you're not doing SPS. On a frag tank I always recommend T5's :) even if just as a two bulb supplement.
 
By the way I still prefer a Gyre on a frag tank just for the amount and type of movement. Frankly, I now prefer it on all my tanks. :) Although I still run a supplemental MP40 on my 6 foot long tank.
 
I'm in the minority here. I believe that two primes are just fine for maintaining sps (and some more needy LPS) and allowing for reduced growth. Some other choices are probably better for "faster" growth." So it all depends on your goal with the frag tank.
 
I have 12 AI primes on my 240G tank, and I keep turning them down.
240G / 40G = 6 = 12 / 2
So I think they will work great.

Note that the marinepure blocks seem to gather a lot less detritus than live rock rubble.
Nice flat surfaces.
So I am becoming more of a fan of them now for sumps.
 
I think your AI Primes will be fine even for some SPS, just make sure they're closer to the surface, and run your photo period a bit longer.

I had a 40g breeder frag tank for 2 years without any filtration other than some live rock under the egg-crate. There was a HOB skimmer that never skimmed a thing, but probably kept oxygenation going. The only animals were two clowns and some snails. Over the top was one 250watt DE halide. I had four cheap hydor koralias to keep the water going.

I think you'll be fine with just marine pure blocks. You could get two gyres, like XF230 to create a nice alternating gyre.
 
Okay sounds like I have some ordering to do. So as far as overflow goes seems like as long as I stick to a 3 pipe overflow it'll be pretty quiet. Any particular brand anyone is loyal to and is currently using? BTW this will be my first time drilling a tank. For that matter this is my first time doing anything DIY with tanks in general. The stand alone took me all day yesterday to build, but when all was said and done it was rather simple, just time consuming. From the videos I have watched plumbing the tank seems some what similar in difficulty as building the stand was. Anything I should watch out for when plumbing the tank? So far it seems like some major things I picked up was when gluing the PVC together make sure you hold for a min so the pipe doesn't push out when it expands because the glue and probably add a gate valve to the main overflow pipe so I can control the amount of water flowing down into the sump.
 
Coral reefer said:
Let me know when you're ready. I've done plenty of plumbing and a few drills. It's not so hard really.
Click to expand...

Yah I've been reading up on as much as I can and have watched several videos on people drilling their tanks. Everyone seems to say, looks scary but in actuality as long as you let the drill do the work it is easy.
 
@Bruce Spiegelman Was reading into the Ice Cap Gyres were you running the 1k or 3k? Also people keep talking about some high pitched noise it generates. Some say cleaning it out and getting rid of the air bubbles fixes this issue. Have you ran into this problem?
 
Find yourself a pair of polarized glasses, and google how to test for tempered glass. While they don't specifically say tempered, and normally shouldn't be tempered after talking with the manufacturer it seems that it can be tempered if that was the only glass that was available at the time due to shortages.
 
From what I remember watching I can put on the glasses and put my phone with a white background on the other side. If I see white streaks it means its tempered. Is this right?
 
James Oh said:
@Bruce Spiegelman Was reading into the Ice Cap Gyres were you running the 1k or 3k? Also people keep talking about some high pitched noise it generates. Some say cleaning it out and getting rid of the air bubbles fixes this issue. Have you ran into this problem?
Click to expand...

On the frag tank I'm running the small 1K. It's only been on there about 2-3 weeks now but it's silent. On my larger tanks I'm running larger Maxspect Gyres.
 
James Oh said:
From what I remember watching I can put on the glasses and put my phone with a white background on the other side. If I see white streaks it means its tempered. Is this right?
Click to expand...
Or the sun.
You can check your detection method on car side and rear windows.
 
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