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Vincent's 40g AIO

Vhuang168

Vhuang168

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The start!

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40g acrylic custom tank. 1" front 11/16 sides.

Lighting is an Aquaillumination Hydra 52

Light mount is from Reeflightmounts.com. I really like this mount. It's well made and wel designed. Prefer the wide flat stock vs the usual round rod or the small aluminum bar mounts.

Skimmer is a Cadloghts PLS100 Elite. 1 of very few that will fit in the back chamber. Other being the new Aquamaxx WS1 but I liked this design better.

Control will be by Neptune Apex. I already have it running in the QT tank. Still trying to decide if I want lighting control by AI Director or use the Apex AI module. Will have to purchase a PM1 and PM2 module and probes for this tank.

The plan:

Salt will be Red Sea Coral Pro.

Gonna use Caribsea Argalive Hawaiian black sand again. Maybe 2-3" because I want to move the Yasha goby and Pistol shrimp combo over. Or maybe get another pair.

Probably a mix of dry rock from Neptune and live rock.

Will pickup a pair of Jebao RW-4 pumps. I was going to get the Gyre 130 but there is talk of a Apex controllable version coming out. The RW-4s can be controller by Apex already.
 
Do you still have the option of returning that tank?

As the owner of an acrylic tank for about 1 and a half years. I can safely say I will never own another acrylic tank.

They scratch too easily. Very very easily. And if you have a scratch on the inside, theres no getting rid of it when your tank is running.

We have these tanks to enjoy looking at them. Having scratches in the way definitely takes some of the enjoyment away.

Either way nice start vincent! Cant wait to see more. Acrylic or not you can get away with it just be careful when moving anything in the tank.
 
It's already scratched up on the inside. I've thought about getting it buffed out but seems cost prohibitive.

Might try it myself but I thought once you filled it up you won't notice it anymore?

This will eventually end up as a frag/grow out tank so I'm not too concerned.

The ultimate plan is a tank 90+ depending on cost n space
 
Lol 3 tanks! You've become reef-addicted :) Whatever you do, keep it fun. I know a lot of people who set up nice reef tanks but can't keep up with the maintenance. Either too big of a tank or they try to keep corals (acroporas lol) that require too much up keep. All that and then they have kids.

Yeah I recommend buffing it out first. I used Novus 2 and Novus 3, these are acrylic polishers, to get rid of the scratches on my acrylic tank. I recommend the buffing wheel attachment for any handheld powerdrill. They sell buffing wheels at any Automotive parts store like Oreilly, used for polishing headlights on cars. That or you will need some good elbow grease. Tried just using my hands at first, the buffing wheel got it done much faster.

Keep it fun!
 
Saw those at Tap Plastics.

That was me 10+ years ago. Had a sw tank but was a lot of work n then kids so left the hobby.

Kids are older n can help/appreciate now so makes it more fun! It's always about fun! The frag/grow out is more for sharing/DBTC type stuff n helping pay for a little of the expenses than trying to make money from.

Lol I've always been a reef addict. Part of the reason I started diving in my teens. Now I get a little piece of it in my house!
 
Don't listen to ET. He's just an acrylic hater! :D :D

Yes, they do scratch easy. Be careful and you won't have issues. I have a 20y/o acrylic tank with no scratches.

The down side is they scratch easily. The upside is they can be buffed out. Can't do that with glass. It's even possible to deal with scratches while the tank is running. When you do your water testing see if you need to deal with the current scratches. If you do decide to polish, get the Novus products and a scrap piece of acrylic from Tap. Practice on the scrap!

Nothing beats the clarity of an acrylic tank. Enjoy yours.
 
Lol, my 40 is not even wet yet n you wanna sell me a 90!

To be honest I HAVE been keeping an eye out for good deals on tanks but I'm not ready to jump into 1 just yet. Have to figure out where I'm going to put it 1st then see what configuration would work.

I'm going to water test it this weekend. Then it's getting rock and working out an aquascape. Going to try to make 1 with different light/flow zones.
 
Its WET!

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Just tap water. Doing a full water test after leveling the stand. I ended up using plywood and leveling it in the corners. I will put some more pieces in the middle sections after this water test.
 
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Nice tank, can't wait to see it aquascaped!

Fwiw, you can remove scratches from glass, it's not that difficult but requires specialized sanding pads.
 
Thanks.

Here it is today. Wet with saltwater! AND rocks!

Mix of live rock from CRC and dead reef rock from Neptune. Still need more, think I'm 15lb short of where I'd like to be. But the general rockscape is done. I will try to fill in the necessary rock weight with rubble .

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I'll have to take a top down or 45deg down view. There is a lot of open space between some of the rocks for fish to swim and for softy (think zoa) or LPS and some high spots for SPS while still allowing growth upwards I think.
 
Started tank cycle. Dosed to 4ppm NH3 last night. Its at 1.5ppm today but no Nitrites yet. I'll give a few more days. I did not use BioSpira this time. Forgot to purchase it while at Neptune and Petco was out. I may pick up a bottle (maybe try Dr Tim's instead) tomorrow and toss it in.
 
Picked up a bottle of Dr Tim's One and Only. Put it in yesterday morning. Dosed 8ml NH4 at the same time (should be 4ppm according to the calculator but Seneye only showed 0.5, maybe it doesn't ready high range and that's as high as it got, didn't bother to use the Salifert).

Measurements this morning were 0.272ppm NH4 (per Seneye, Salifert said kinda 0.25 kinda 0.5 but kinda closer to 0.25). Nitrites are at 0.4ppm up from 0.1 last night. So cycle is going good. The NH4 decrease seems to have slowed down though so I don't know if the # NH4 bacteria is decreasing because of an increase in N02 bacteria or something else. But I'll keep an eye on it and check again tonight.

Also swapped out the Jager 300w heater for a 150w one. The 300w heater was just too long for my fuge area, I had to put it in slanted and even then it was a tight fit.

Skimmer is in but not on. Also a tight fit but manageable. Think I've decided on picking up a Jebao DC3000 as my return pump to replace the not so Quiet One 1200 in there currently.

Going to pick up more rock from Neptune's later today and possibly more sand.
 
Something to consider.

I run two jaeger heaters in the winter. Each are rated for my tank.

One heater died. The other one is taking its place. If i only had one heater i couldve lost some corals. Good thing last winter was very mild.

If ya have a controller, even better. Tell the heater to turn off if temps are too high.
 
Yup. That is my plan. I'll be picking up another 150w heater later on. Both will b hooked up to Apex but that is after I get a PM2 module n temp probe n probe holder.

Soooo many things to get just to get going! Almost there though.
 
Well you gotta prioritize. A second heater is probably not high priority now with summer.

I dont have an apex or controller (but i want one)
I dont have a dosing unit. (But i want one)
I dont use my Auto top off.
I dont use my media reactor.
All I have is a ball of chaeto and a bulb thats growing crazy film algae in my sump.

All my LPS are doing great and I have no nuisance algae.

Maintanence is easy and I enjoy my tank. :)

Your results may vary. I only have 3 small fish in my 40 gallon.
 
That's awesome.

The 10g QT is at the point where I just top off and do 20% (2g) water changes. Pretty stable and everyone is happy.

Well except the Favia.. it still has its tentacles out almost all the time and doesn't seem like it wants to eat just yet. Hope it pulls it together... and the Yumas. The tiny one melted a few days ago but the rest are still doing ok.. though they keep wanting to move. I've put them under some rocks overhangs. Hopefully they settle down soon.
 
Tank is fully cycled. Ammonia 0, Nitrites 0, Nitrates 2 ppm. Ammonia n Nitrites neutralized within 20 hrs when dosed to 2ppm.

Added my 1st invert besides cuc. A small Fire shrimp. Will be moving some corals over tonight!
 
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