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40b build (1 Viewer)

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I have been asking alot of questions on here and doing my own research and this is what I have come up with. My sump will be the trigger sapphire 39 I like this because is has a big refugium for the size tank I also decided to go with a reef octopus regal 150. Plans are to run a carbon, gfo and bio pellets reactor that will be plumbed off a manifold which will be powered by a ecotech vector m2. I also plan to run a kalk reactor that will run off the ato and dose 2 part along with that. Lighting will be the AI prime hd or AI prime sol. Im still on the fence with the ai neo 3 or the ecotech mp 10. Salt will be tropic marin bio-actif. Let me know what yall think and any suggestions you have.
 

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Not a bad setup.

The only thing I see that you may want to re-think on is the skimmer. It is way over sized for a 40b tank. Unless you pack that tank with a ton of fish, you're going to have issues getting it to perform correctly. I know from experience a 40b simply won't have enough of a bio-load in the system to support it. You will end up having issues developing a consistent foam head in it. It'll likely be very finicky and either not develop any foam at all, then overflow at random filling the collection cup when you least expect it. A smaller skimmer designed to run within or much closer to the bio-load that tank will have to perform much better for you. Check out the Simplicity Aquatics skimmers. The 120DC model would be a much better fit. I replaced my eSsence S-130 for it and it was the best decision I made. You can get it locally and it's a very solid performer.
 
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I would not run GAC or GFO initially. Let the tank get established first. You can run a small amount of carbon if you need to, but always ask yourself the question as to why you need to run it. I’ve seen so many reefers put things on a system that are simply not needed.

Talk to Webster123 before you run bio pellets. Pellets tend to get a lot of reefers in trouble. The simplest systems do the best in the beginning. Then you can add things when problems arise or when needed.
 
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Not a bad setup.

The only thing I see that you may want to re-think on is the skimmer. It is way over sized for a 40b tank. Unless you pack that tank with a ton of fish, you're going to have issues getting it to perform correctly. I know from experience a 40b simply won't have enough of a bio-load in the system to support it. You will end up having issues developing a consistent foam head in it. It'll likely be very finicky and either not develop any foam at all, then overflow at random filling the collection cup when you least expect it. A smaller skimmer designed to run within or much closer to the bio-load that tank will have to perform much better for you. Check out the Simplicity Aquatics skimmers. The 120DC model would be a much better fit. I replaced my eSsence S-130 for it and it was the best decision I made. You can get it locally and it's a very solid performer.

PorpoiseHork is right. An oversized skimmer can cause issues down the road. Typically as the tank matures the NO3/PO4 levels will start to drop and the skimmer will start to strip the tank too clean. This happens when people have good husbandry skills.

The opposite happens to lazy reefers when the tank gets over 1-2 years. They fight NO3/PO4 levels that are sky high, because most do not test or do their maintenance and they don’t control feeding. You have to keep a log to really start to understand your reef. Otherwise things can go south quickly.
 
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GAC is granular activated carbon.

New tanks at least until the full cycle is complete generally do not need to run any chemical filtration or active fuge. They like an over-sized skimmer will pull out too much and could lead to minor/major issues early on. Most recommendations are to wait on starting GAC for at least 2 months and 4-6 months for the fuge.

The full cycle is not just the Ammonia --> Nitrite --> Nitrate stages, but also includes the diatom and green hair algae, cyano stages which can take an additional 1-3+ weeks. These last two are affectionately known as the ugly phases. Diatoms are harmless feed mostly on silicates from the sand and rock and will cover nearly every illuminated surface. Keeping the main lights off during this phase will help to some degree but they do not need the light. You can clean the glass with algae sponges, add trochus snails, as well as syphon them off of the sand bed with a gravel vac, but as the silicate levels drop they will die off on their own. This is where weekly water changes is vital on a new tank. As the diatoms die off they will cause your nitrate and phosphate levels to start increasing. You want to keep them low, to prevent a green hair algae outbreak. After the diatoms is typically the cyano, GHA phase. This is from the nutrient levels being out of balance and lack of bio-diversity. Various forms of nuisance algae and cyano will make their way into the tank from the addition of your cleanup crew, as well as when you start adding corals. Much of this phase can be avoided if you remain patient and give the tank an extra 3-4 weeks after the initial cycle is complete before you turn the lights on and start adding fish. Then when you do go slow with only adding 1-2 smaller fish a week to allow the tank to adjust to the new bio-load.

Running carbon and/or an active fuge at this point in the tank's life can easily become more detrimental than beneficial. The carbon can and will strip too much out and the macro algae could easily strip the tank of nutrients, and this can open the door for a full blown dinoflagellate outbreak. Trust me you want to avoid a dino's at all costs. They have likely caused more hobbyists to do complete shutdown/restarts or just give up and walk away than any other issue. Dino's are a single celled organism that are toxic to most tank inhabitants, nothing will consume them and if an outbreak occurs it can easily take months to beat it back. Outbreaks can happen in both new and well established tanks, and almost always is the result of allowing the nitrate and phosphate levels to drop to zero or near zero as to be undetectable when testing for them. When the nutrient levels are that low for a sustained period, many types of bacteria that feed on them will go dormant and no longer out compete the dinos. The dinos then rapidly multiply causing the brown snot bubbles to start appearing and once this happens the other forms of bacteria struggle as long as the nutrient levels remain extremely low. To beat the dinos back, you have to ID what strain it is, then use multiple methods of attack to beat them back. This includes manually elevating the nitrates, and phosphates that can stress corals, UV, daily dosing of various bacteria cultures, manual removal, 3 day black-outs, etc etc. When I had a dino outbreak it took about 3-4 months adhering to a strict daily regimen from onset before I had finally beat them back.

I know it's agonizing sitting there looking at an tank for a month or more with just water and a few snails/crabs. You want nothing more than sit back and admire your own beautiful slice of reef like the pictures/videos you have been looking at that was part of the reason you got into the hobby. Just know that nearly every single one of those tanks went through many setbacks, took time in some cases years to get there. If you try to rush the tank, or get too lax on the upkeep, you will almost certainly be met with problems and frustration. Take your time, keep doing your research, don't be afraid to ask questions on here as well as at your LFS.
 
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Can I seed the tank with microbacter7 as well as a few pieces of live rock along with the dead rock. As far as fish I want them all the be small so I can watch them grow. Same with the coral. I just want 1in to 2 in frags and watch them grow. But I understand no fish for the first month or longer. Just a cc.
 

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Can I seed the tank with microbacter7 as well as a few pieces of live rock along with the dead rock. As far as fish I want them all the be small so I can watch them grow. Same with the coral. I just want 1in to 2 in frags and watch them grow. But I understand no fish for the first month or longer. Just a cc.


Yes you can. I had to restart my tank after a velvet outbreak. Rather than go fallow I used chlorine to sterilize the tank. Not wanting to get off on that.. but if you use bacteria there is no reason you shouldn't be able to add fish fairly quick.

I just restarted last week and I can now process 4ppm ammonia in just over 12 hours. I used a bacteria shot gun approach... Fritz 9, MB7 and some Dr. Tim's one and only. So for all intent and purpose my tank is ready for fish. It has not gone through the algae uglies yet and I would be hesitant to add corals at this point.

I'm just giving a little extra time for the nitrite fixing bacteria to catch up with the ammonia fixers.
 
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Carbon dosing is a double edged sword, and really not something anyone should be thinking about getting into on a new tank. New tanks are far too unstable and prone to unexpected swings in the parameters especially when adding another variable like carbon dosing to the mix. Over do-it on the carbon dosing and you can rapidly deplete the available nitrate and phosphates and invite the previously mentioned dino bloom. Suddenly stop carbon dosing and the bacteria utilizing it to consume those nutrients will rapidly die off, causing a spike in nutrient levels as well as unexpected blooms like cyano or algae. There are plenty out there, myself included that know the pitfalls from carbon dosing on both new and mature reef tanks from experience.

Best thing is to keep it as simple as possible at the beginning. It's relatively easy to control the nutrient levels on most tanks by simply not over feeding your fish and corals, and performing regular water changes. When the tank has matured for 3 or so months then look at adding more to it. Bring the carbon reactor online, Add macro to the fuge as it should now be able to support the it at that time. Sooner than that and the macro could deplete the nutrient levels too rapidly, or die off and release more nutrients back into the tank.

Keep a log of the water parameters and learn how your tank behaves. Take time to get comfortable with it and then slowly start adding new items like calcium, carbon, bio-pellet reactors, and dosers etc. Starting off doing all the things that many advanced hobbyists are doing, you could easily become overwhelmed if things start to go wonky and could complicate your ability to bring the system back into balance.
 
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I have to say that PorpoiseHork and steveb as well as the rest of yall have given me more information than I had when I set up my first tank 6 + years ago. I really feel welcomed here and I cant wait to put names to faces when we move to Houston in the next few months.
 
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There's certainly no harm in that if you really want to do that much per week. Just be sure to make sure the temp, PH, and ALK are fairly close to the tank levels to avoid a large parameter fluctuation with larger volume changes. Otherwise weekly changes at 10-15% is usually more than sufficient. I do 20-25% every two weeks on the 75g and 20% weekly on the 20 nano since it's a new setup.
 
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