40 Breeder Mixed Reef (SPS and Polyp Focused)

[ViktorVaughn]

I set up my 40 gallon breeder back on September 3, 2013 putting it at almost 10 months old. I initially had started a 15 gallon tank in early July 2013 after years of freshwater planted tanks and quickly realized that the size was not going to be nearly enough for the corals and fish I wanted to keep. After a couple months of kicking around the idea of starting a new tank, Petco had a $1/per gallon sale so I jumped on the 40 breeder and transferred everything over. I just wish Petco carried larger tanks than the 55 (hate 55's dimensions) as I am already planning an upgrade within a year or so. My initial equipment consisted of a 2 light coral life T5 light, Reef Octopus BH1000 Hang on Back Skimmer, 3 Hydor Koralia Powerheads (600, 425, 240), and a 150 w heater. The light was the first to go, I quickly realized it wasn't sufficient for keeping coral other than some mushrooms and zoanthids. I upgraded to my current 4 bulb Aquatic Life T5 fixture.

I hated the way all the equipment looked in the tank, between the heater, 3 powerheads, and 2 pumps for my phosban reactor and hang on refugium, it was incredibly distracting and ugly to look at. Wish I would have thought of drilling my tank before I filled it to avoid just this problem and starting it with a sump. Since I did not have the foresight to start with a sump, I had to go the external hang on overflow route. So far, my initial concerns and fears associated with the problems that can arise from HOB overflows are non-existent. I have the CPR CS50 (300 gph) overflow which is different than the traditional U-Tube HOB overflows. It utilizes an air pump to draw the water up over the lip of the over chamber and also start the siphon back up if a power failure were to occur. I have tried simulated numerous power outages and different problems but have yet to get it to fail in the 3 months of operation.

The tank has definitely has had some ups and downs since setting it up. A few pretty nasty cyanobacteria outbreaks early on with 2 separate terrible algae outbreaks as well. A ton of GHA and some bryopsis popped up around 2-3 months into the tanks inception (November) and was a quite a battle to get under control. Everything I tried would lead to a slight decline in the Algae just for it to pop right back up again. I was getting pretty frustrated and disgusted looking at my tank. I read up on some experiences with Sea Hares and decided to give one a shot. Started out as what I thought was an incredibly ugly creature but quickly became my favorite inhabitant in the tank, invert or fish, when he started consuming MASS amounts of Algae. I was hoping for him to pick at it here and there but the Sea Hare went on a complete and utter 2 week annihilation of the Algae in my tank. My once Algae covered rock and sandbed was completely Algae free and looked spotless. I returned the Sea Hare to the LFS only for the Algae to start popping back up within a month or so despite 0 nitrates and undetectable to 0.01 ppm phosphate levels. Grabbed another another Hare, upped the GFO levels, and hoped that my rocks were about done leaching Phosphates if that was the issue. Its been a couple months now with my tank being Sea Hare free and the Algae has yet pop back up (fingers crossed it stays this way).

Tank inhabitants
Fish
-2x Amphiprion ocellaris (Ocellaris Clownfish)
-Cirrhilabrus lubbocki (Lubbock's Fairy Wrasse)
-Paracheilinus carpenteri (Carpenters Flasher Wrasse)
-Pterapogon kauderni (Kauderns/Bangaii Cardninal)
-Synchiropus splendidus (Mandarin Dragonet)

Inverts
-Snails: Turbo, Trochus, Margarita, Astrea, Nassarius
-Crabs: Handful of both Blue and Red Leg Hermits, 1 Large Halloween Hermit, 3 Emerald Crabs
-Blue Linckia
-Electric Flame Scallop
-Cleaner shrimp

Equipment and Parameters
Light: Aquatic Life T5 4 bulb fixture (ATI Blue Plus x2, ATI Aquablue Special, KZ fiji purple)
Water Movement: 2 Vortech MP10wES, return flow @ around 300 gph
Filtration: ~50 lbs live rock, Reef Octopus BH1000, Phosban 150 reactor (50 grams changed monthly), 5 gallon refugium with football sized chaetomorpha clump. To keep up with the mandarins need for pods and my small tank size I go through quite a few bottles of copepods cultured locally and also supplement his diet with a constant supply of Nutramar Ova (glad I stocked up a while back as everywhere is out of stock) in a feeding glass.

SG-1.026
Temp-78-79 Fahrenheit
pH-8.0-8.2
Alkalinity- 8.7
Calcium- 450 ppm
Magnesium- 1350 ppm
Nitrate/Phosphate- 0 ppm/0.01-0.02 ppm

Tank Inception (9/2/2013)

2/2/2014 Awful Algae Infestation period (November-late February, Early March) also shown is all the distracting equipment

6/21/2014

Some Acropora shots

Nice growth on the top tips
5/3/14

6/19/14

Some of my favorite new Zoanthids, i'll take some more individual pictures and progression shots later I just have a ton of zoanthids, probably around 30-35 different varieties and need to organize the photos.

These have amazed me at how fast they grow. Came in with 3 visible polyps 1 month ago and now has 11 polyps. The 3 original plus 8 babies.

 

[shayna123]

Beautiful aquascape!

 

[ViktorVaughn]

Beautiful aquascape!

Thank you, I appreciate it. Only thing I wish was different about it is I would like a break in the rock structure about 1/3 way down but that would be a nightmare to try at this point. I think it would look nice to have two seperate formations of caves, overhangs, and arches with some SPS on each side to form a coral archway. Next time!

 

[footballdude2k3]

Nice start!

 

[ViktorVaughn]

Nice start!

Thanks, coming up on 1 year old on September 2nd.

Figured I would upload some of my Zoanthids/Palythoas and a few progression shots.

Here's the above Space Monster Palythoa when in came in on 5/21 for reference on how fast it is growing.

6/21 (1 month of growth)

Orange Mauls

Can't wait for the rastas to grow out so you can't see the ugly disc anymore. Usually I take Zoanthids off but there was almost zero rubble attached to the plug making it difficult. Figured I'll wait until they grow out, clip the plug off on bottom and remount the disc on a rock.

Not sure what these are but I really like them

The Purple plate Orange Skirt ones are insanely fast growers, the majority were the Green Bay Packers when they came in but were quickly choked out by the Purple guys. Put this rock together in early March.

4/3/2014

6/18/2014

 

[ViktorVaughn]

Yesterday was one year ago that I filled up my first saltwater aquarium, a 15 gallon that was quickly replaced (September 3rd) by my current 40 gallon breeder. I was thinking yesterday about the amount of knowledge I have gained in the last year from reef central and all the great resources that come along with it. I am sure in another year and 5 years from now I will still be learning and by no means done adding to my reefing knowledge. Still so much to learn!

I was browsing craigslist the other day for tanks and SPS frags and came across an awesome relatively new retail store near me. They had hands down, the best selection and prices of SPS and Zoanthids I have yet to find in Colorado or online. All SPS frags were extremely healthy, colorful, and pretty desirable pieces. They had acroporas ranging from Strawberry Shortcake, Red Dragon, Tyree Pink Lemonade, Tons of ORA pieces, Rainbow Milleporas, and a ton more. The prices were awesome too, I scored a 1-1.5" frag of shortcake for $40, and two unknown acroporas pictured below for $35 and $25. Also grabbed a Sunny D frag that had 8-10 polyps for $30. Their display tank was also amazing, 460 gallons with HUGE acro colonies, some were at least 18" across if not bigger. Really glad that I found that store and was able to add one of my must have pieces (Strawberry Shortcake) for cheap on my 1 year fill up anniversary.

Light Purple/Whitish Acropora with some really cool translucent greenish polyps. Not sure what it is, if anyone knows please let me know.

Bright Yellowish/Green Acropora. Anyone know what it is?

Sunny D's

 

[atrox]

I set up my 40 gallon breeder back on September 3, 2013 putting it at almost 10 months old. I initially had started a 15 gallon tank in early July 2013 after years of freshwater planted tanks and quickly realized that the size was not going to be nearly enough for the corals and fish I wanted to keep. After a couple months of kicking around the idea of starting a new tank, Petco had a $1/per gallon sale so I jumped on the 40 breeder and transferred everything over. I just wish Petco carried larger tanks than the 55 (hate 55's dimensions) as I am already planning an upgrade within a year or so. My initial equipment consisted of a 2 light coral life T5 light, Reef Octopus BH1000 Hang on Back Skimmer, 3 Hydor Koralia Powerheads (600, 425, 240), and a 150 w heater. The light was the first to go, I quickly realized it wasn't sufficient for keeping coral other than some mushrooms and zoanthids. I upgraded to my current 4 bulb Aquatic Life T5 fixture.

I hated the way all the equipment looked in the tank, between the heater, 3 powerheads, and 2 pumps for my phosban reactor and hang on refugium, it was incredibly distracting and ugly to look at. Wish I would have thought of drilling my tank before I filled it to avoid just this problem and starting it with a sump. Since I did not have the foresight to start with a sump, I had to go the external hang on overflow route. So far, my initial concerns and fears associated with the problems that can arise from HOB overflows are non-existent. I have the CPR CS50 (300 gph) overflow which is different than the traditional U-Tube HOB overflows. It utilizes an air pump to draw the water up over the lip of the over chamber and also start the siphon back up if a power failure were to occur. I have tried simulated numerous power outages and different problems but have yet to get it to fail in the 3 months of operation.

The tank has definitely has had some ups and downs since setting it up. A few pretty nasty cyanobacteria outbreaks early on with 2 separate terrible algae outbreaks as well. A ton of GHA and some bryopsis popped up around 2-3 months into the tanks inception (November) and was a quite a battle to get under control. Everything I tried would lead to a slight decline in the Algae just for it to pop right back up again. I was getting pretty frustrated and disgusted looking at my tank. I read up on some experiences with Sea Hares and decided to give one a shot. Started out as what I thought was an incredibly ugly creature but quickly became my favorite inhabitant in the tank, invert or fish, when he started consuming MASS amounts of Algae. I was hoping for him to pick at it here and there but the Sea Hare went on a complete and utter 2 week annihilation of the Algae in my tank. My once Algae covered rock and sandbed was completely Algae free and looked spotless. I returned the Sea Hare to the LFS only for the Algae to start popping back up within a month or so despite 0 nitrates and undetectable to 0.01 ppm phosphate levels. Grabbed another another Hare, upped the GFO levels, and hoped that my rocks were about done leaching Phosphates if that was the issue. Its been a couple months now with my tank being Sea Hare free and the Algae has yet pop back up (fingers crossed it stays this way).

Tank inhabitants
Fish
-2x Amphiprion ocellaris (Ocellaris Clownfish)
-Cirrhilabrus lubbocki (Lubbock's Fairy Wrasse)
-Paracheilinus carpenteri (Carpenters Flasher Wrasse)
-Pterapogon kauderni (Kauderns/Bangaii Cardninal)
-Synchiropus splendidus (Mandarin Dragonet)

Inverts
-Snails: Turbo, Trochus, Margarita, Astrea, Nassarius
-Crabs: Handful of both Blue and Red Leg Hermits, 1 Large Halloween Hermit, 3 Emerald Crabs
-Blue Linckia
-Electric Flame Scallop
-Cleaner shrimp

Equipment and Parameters
Light: Aquatic Life T5 4 bulb fixture (ATI Blue Plus x2, ATI Aquablue Special, KZ fiji purple)
Water Movement: 2 Vortech MP10wES, return flow @ around 300 gph
Filtration: ~50 lbs live rock, Reef Octopus BH1000, Phosban 150 reactor (50 grams changed monthly), 5 gallon refugium with football sized chaetomorpha clump. To keep up with the mandarins need for pods and my small tank size I go through quite a few bottles of copepods cultured locally and also supplement his diet with a constant supply of Nutramar Ova (glad I stocked up a while back as everywhere is out of stock) in a feeding glass.

SG-1.026
Temp-78-79 Fahrenheit
pH-8.0-8.2
Alkalinity- 8.7
Calcium- 450 ppm
Magnesium- 1350 ppm
Nitrate/Phosphate- 0 ppm/0.01-0.02 ppm

Tank Inception (9/2/2013)

2/2/2014 Awful Algae Infestation period (November-late February, Early March) also shown is all the distracting equipment

6/21/2014

Some Acropora shots

Nice growth on the top tips
5/3/14

6/19/14

Some of my favorite new Zoanthids, i'll take some more individual pictures and progression shots later I just have a ton of zoanthids, probably around 30-35 different varieties and need to organize the photos.

These have amazed me at how fast they grow. Came in with 3 visible polyps 1 month ago and now has 11 polyps. The 3 original plus 8 babies.

What's the sps in pic 6 & 7? Crazy polyp extension.

 

[ViktorVaughn]

I wish I knew! That is one of my favorites, some days the polyps extend so much you can barely see through them to the corals blueish base at all. The closest match I have found is the ORA Borealis but it could just be something similar. Super small when I bought it, probably around .5" or so. It finally seems to be growing and I recently moved it out of a large birdsnest's shadow so hopefully it picks up even more.

 

[ViktorVaughn]

Your tank looks fantastic, did you mean a rainbow monti, or a legit rainbow mille? The only true rainbow mille I have seen was one I bought from Diver's Den, it was DOA, but a small part of it was still alive for an hour or so in my tank, it was the prettiest thing I have ever seen. In three years, when the GF is done with her PhD, we are looking at a move up to Colorado, so hopefully they will still have a piece if I cannot find another one on DD.

Thanks, I appreciate it. They had both, rainbow montiporas and milleporas. The milleporas were only around 1" and he had 3 frags in a frag tank of hundreds of SPS but they were some of the first pieces I noticed. They really jump out at you. I plan on grabbing a frag in a couple weeks, I'll post a picture when I do. I need to rehome an acropora frag to make room for it. I'm afraid my SPS section is getting too crowded and I won't have enough room for growth. You guys will love Colorado if you make the move, awesome state with a ton to do and we usually get 300+ days of sunshine a year. I've lived here my whole life minus 2 years in Florida when I was young and I don't think I will ever leave.

 

[ViktorVaughn]

I love the winter, definitely my favorite time of the year. I got quite a few 80+ days of snowboarding a season under my belt from my late teens, early 20's. I sure do miss those days. Lockheed seems to have a pretty sizeable presence in Colorado. There is an office a few miles from where I work. Picture will be up hopefully Saturday the 19th. I plan on starting a frag tank soon too so maybe I can grow out some nice frags.

 

[stacerbean]

Nice! This is about the same tank I'm looking at doing. I already have tank in the basement - just waiting to collect a few other parts. Thanks for the tread!

 

[ViktorVaughn]

Nice! This is about the same tank I'm looking at doing. I already have tank in the basement - just waiting to collect a few other parts. Thanks for the tread!

No problem, good luck with your tank. I love tanks that have a 2:1 ratio of length to width. My tank I want to upgrade to is either a 120 gallon 4' x 2' or a custom 5' x 2.5'.

 

[Andyf30]

That yellowish/green acro you have and asked for an ID for looks like the exact same one I have. FYI may wanna move it to an edge, its a tabler, and when it grows the tips and rim turn bright blue. It loves a lot of flow as well. (this is all assuming its the same species obviously). My colony of it is in my avatar

 

[ViktorVaughn]

That sounds awesome Andy, I hope we have the same species as some blue tips on the yellow/green polyps would look amazing, thanks for the tips on the growth patterns too.


I took some pictures tonight of some of my Acropora, I tried to get as close up as possible without the picture getting too blurry (Samsung Galaxy S4) so quite a few of the pictures got tossed out. Cell phone camera kind of stinks, doesn't capture the colors of some the acropora very well. Must be the angle the light hits them or something.

Awesome looking growth tips on this guy, I had pretty marginal growth on it for a couple months but it really seems to be taking off lately.

Another of my favorites

Love the colors on this Rock Anemone, it moved locations on me after about a week of being in the tank. It stayed on the same rock I placed it on, it just decided to move onto the backside of the rock to where you couldn't see it at all. I recently moved a large dresser that was on the left side of the tank where the Anemone resides and I can finally see it again. Appears to have gotten quite a bit bigger since I last was able to get a good look at it.

Part of my Zoanthid collection. The large rock on the right of the picture has really filled in nicely, most of the original rock can no longer be seen.

Original rock when I glued all the different frags onto it on 12/29/13

This big hermit crawled across the Zoanthid/Palythoa rock I put together closing up the polyps so I was able to get a pretty cool look at the polyps stretching across from their original rock to a pillar rock right behind them. They are probably my fastest growing polyps (orange skirt purple disc) and it probably won't be long before they take over that pillar too.

 

[ViktorVaughn]

It has been a few weeks so I figured I would post an update with some pictures of some new corals I bought and a few changes I made. Also have some good pictures of my blue linckia who is amusing to watch, lately his favorite spot to camp out is in my large zoanthid rocks. My cleaner shrimp has been obsessively trying to clean all fish in my tank for the 6 months I have had him. The only fish that lets him do so is my Blue Mandarin which doesn't really surprise me as most of the times the Mandarin seems to think he is the only fish in the tank and pays no one any attention. Every time my Lubbock's wrasse swims within 3 inches of the cleaner, he will fly at the Lubbocks in attempt to latch on and clean him. His methods seems off to me, if he were to approach slowly and less insanely, I am sure the fish might be more receptive. The Lubbock's won't let the shrimp get near him but seems to get great pleasure in getting close to the shrimp and stopping, almost taunting the shrimp to try and get at him. On the rare occasions I do put my hands in my tank, I get quite the cleaning from him on my hands and arm.

Sort of blurry as I was focusing on the starfish but in the bottom left you can see my small little bunch of 4 Rasta polyps I removed from the frag plug and glued onto their own rock. I was tired of coming home and having them upside down in the sand from one of my mischievous snails or hermits.

New Millepora I picked up a week ago. Really cool looking purple base that can't be seen unless the fuzzy reddish polyps are retracted. First shot shows it after dipping and initial placement into tank. Next shot shows how it looks now with the polyps out.

I noticed a few outcroppings of bubble algae a while back so I decided to grab a few small emerald crabs in hopes that they would eat it. So far, they have gotten it down to a very small level and it can't be found or seen that easily any more without some searching. Unfortunately, one of them has taken a liking to fragging a pretty decent sized (used to be anyway) green Montipora Digitata. It had quite a few branches and is now reduced to this. Traded the frags my crab made into a fish store for some copepods.

6/24/14

Today

These Pink and Gold Palythoas are growing like weeds, they have spread across this rock like wildfire. Pretty decent looking, not my favorite but still pretty nice looking.

7/06/14

Today

Grabbed these God of Wars the same day as that Pink Millepora above. 2 full size polyps with 2 babies for $20.

 

[ViktorVaughn]

A few more pictures I couldn't fit into the last post.

Couple of progression shots

4/6/2014

7/23/2014

Birdsnest and Montipora are both getting huge. Probably about time to trim both to make some room on that side of the tank again. Seems to be the favorite hangout for my clowns and Bangaii Cardinal, right in between the Birdnest and Green Digitata, hovering above the large Red Capricornis.

Birdsnest 02/02/14

Red Cap 01/12/14

Both together on 02/02/14 in the middle of a wicked algae problem. So happy that it is gone and hasn't popped back up again in 4ish months.

The both of them together today

 

[moondoggy4]

Looking good, very nice tank.

 

[ViktorVaughn]

Thanks moondoggy, I appreciate it. I have to keep resisting the urge to upgrade to a larger tank, I want to see what this tank looks like all grown out first.

 

[ViktorVaughn]

I went back out to that really great LFS again with plans of just getting 1 frag of some fruit loop Zoanthids but instead grabbed 4 frags to take advantage of their buy 3 get 1 free. Grabbed some awesome SPS, 1 frag of Ice Fire echinata, hawkins blue echinata, and a pink with green polyp millepora. I will post some pictures up later once the fruit loops open up and the milleporas polyps come out.

 

[ViktorVaughn]

I uploaded the pictures of the new coral I got yesterday, 2 Acropora Enchinata's (Ice Fire & Hawkins Blue), 1 Acropora Millepora, and 1 frag of Fruit Loop Zoanthids.

Ice Fire Enchinata

Hawkins Blue Enchinata

Acropora Millepora, really vibrant pink base with greenish polyps that are hard to capture on phones camera properly.

Fruit Loops