New 40g thread

[sarduci]

This is just a nice place for me to start with my new 40g tank when I move to my new place. I'll be down sizing from my 90, relocating most of my corals to a DX nano cube for the move and selling a good chunk of them to start my ricordea tank and make room for my frogspawns in the nano until I can find a good home for them.

I've decided to use a 40g breeder tank (36"x 18") with a 30g tank (36"x12") for a sump under it.

Overflow will be almost coast to coast along the back of the tank, two drains and two returns over the back of the tank. I'm going to go with a low flow sump, and I'm going to try and reuse my HOB skimmer since it runs on a maxi-jet and served me well on the larger tank.

There's a good chance I'll go with a steel tube stand and skin it in wood or (an outside chance) find someone to make me a wood stand since I can't cut a straight line if I tried.

After I get done here with building the whole thing, I'm going to cross post everything in one big shot to the beginners forum cleaned up with pictures.

I'm going to try and reuse my existing 250w halides for the tank and see how well that'll work.

I'm ordering the tanks tomorrow, should be here in two weeks.

 

[sarduci]

No tanks yet, they'll be here next week, bit of a misunderstanding when I ordered them, they waited a week to hear back from me on the stand and canopy which I'm going to get elsewhere. Ordered my T5HO retro kits (six bulbs total) from ReefGeek.com, also ordered some 3000k bulbs from atlantalightbulbs.com since they have them in the 36" length. I sat and read the entire T5 Q&A thread from post #1. I've also decided to put each bulb on it's own ballast. I'm looking into a Reefkeeper Jr to control them all along with the return pump, skimmer and (semi) auto top off system.

I also have a Seio controller on order from Premium Aquatics, I plan on going with two Seio 620's in the back left and back right corners of the tank. That will give me anywhere from 1 at 30% to both at 50% if my understanding is correct. I'm going to magnet mount them both through the glass so all I have out the back of the hood is just the two power cords and one of my two grounding probes (one in tank, one in sump) other than the lights.

 

[sticky]

Supposedly the seio controllers will only work on the 1100's and larger.

 

[sarduci]

OUCH! Ok, well, maybe I'll be running them on really low settings then with my 1600's........ Or maybe I need to go with that IceCap pump.... Ack, crimp in the plan since none of my flow is really comming from the sump. Shooting for 80 to 120gph flow with MAYBE future plans of a gravity feed recirc skimmer.

A goal of this setup is low electrical cost, hence the T5's, the Seios, current maxijet powered skimmer, and the future plan for the recirc skimmer.

 

[specsirl]

Yep you're right steve.. Seio controller only will work on 1100's and up.

 

[sarduci]

Yeah, I've been reading up more on them. It looks like they just drop the wattage being supplied. There might be a "fix" like plugging two or more smaller pumps into one port. It looks like the lowest wattage is 15w, which is full power for the small Seios.

 

[sarduci]

Got my 3000k bulbs in today. Forgot to update my address with my credit card company way back and reefgeek didn't ship my fixture yet because of it. It should leave tomorrow and I will have it in my hot hands most likely Monday.

 

[sarduci]

Got my tanks today! One spanking new 30g and one schweet looking 40g breeder sitting out in the car waiting to find a temp home down stairs.

 

[sarduci]

Took a trip down to Point today. Stopped at Lowe's and picked up a bunch of stuff for the house today, and some stuff to continue the fish tank. Picked up two Dremmel bits, one diamond coated glass etching bit and one tile cutting bit. These will let me cut my overflow holes in my tank.

I also picked up the glass I needed from Home Depot (good brand loyalty, huh?) along with a glass cutter and some cutting oil. The sheets of glass are 36"x4", which was the exact size I was looking at for my coast to coast overflow. I picked up some silicone on the way home from Petco to put it all in with.

Now, I just need to find my Dremmel......

 

[sarduci]

Been practicing cutting glass with the RotoZip tile cutting bit everyone talks about. On the 7/16" glass for my overflows, it takes forever to make a dent. Going to try cutting it under running water in the sink this weekend when I get some time to see if that helps.

 

[sarduci]

Didn't have time this weekend to work on anything, got a trip out of town for the next few days for work. Gonna stop in at Phishy Business and check the place out.

 

[sarduci]

Took the tank into Rib Mountain Glass to get it drilled on Tuesday. Should have it back tomorrow.

 

[sarduci]

*sigh* No luck on getting the tank back today. 3 to 4 days to have it be maybe Monday...... I was hoping to start building the temp wood stand for it this weekend so I had some more time to buy a welder. Now I might just go buy the welder and skip the wood stand. Decisions, decisions.......

 

[sarduci]

Got the tank back on Monday. Figured out the dual drain, return and above tank 'fuge plumbing today. Came up with the stand I'm going to build, going to go wood since I just don't have time to build a metal stand right now. Maybe for the next tank I setup.

Top and bottom frames will be doubled up 2x4's, with an extra 2x4 on the bottom for supporting the sump. Top and bottom will have 1" sheet of plywood. Uprights will be doubled up 2x6"s running left to right along the front since I can't brace front to back because of the sump being the same length as the tank above.

It's way over built, but the issue with the sump being as long as the tank makes bracing it hard.

 

[sarduci]

Well, got a collection of 2x6's at home now, and roughing out the stand on paper still. I bought enough to make a basic square stand, but I have another design I'm looking at first to make room for a gravity return refugium above the tank.