First 40 Gallon Tank

First 40 Gallon Tank
Here is my first salt water tank. Bought it about 2 months ago, and had to re-plumb it, get a new sump, and work with most of the hardware, but it finally is looking pretty good. If you have any advice feel free to leave me some. Bill & Kelsey ><a href="http://s24.photobucket.com/albums/c14/kelseygirl707/?action=view&current=IMG_0195.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c14/kelseygirl707/IMG_0195.jpg" border="0" alt="New Percula Clown Fish"></a> The Tank

Looks great!! Very clean set up. I would suggest getting some intake screens for those drains so you don't suck up a fish,snail, etc and flood the floor. Also if that compartment in the sump has bio balls yank them out and toos them. IMO bio balls are worthless!! With your return line so low in the tank are you able to kill the power without a reverse siphon and overflowing the sump? You may want to remove the glass lids as well unless you won't have any issues with heat. Great start so far!! Rob

looks good!! im jealous your clown likes his nem. my pair just look at theirs.

Tank looks great now you need ALOT more livestock and fshies AT our monthly meetings we usually have a really good raffle at each meeting if we can work it right. And the kids are welcome, we have tos of kids that come to the meetimg and have a blast playig video grames and haveing pizza with us and then they hang together with crayons or whaatever we have, thanks Melissa

Looking good! Nice detailed photos for a first post! Welcome! Yeah with Live Rock (LR), Bio balls are not worth it. I have two grocery bags of them in a storage bin. Gutter guard is a pretty good screen but wont keep out the smaller guys but 'generally' they do not clog up things. There are other slottled screens you could put on your overflows. But it looks like you may have drilled holes in a pipe and you are using that as your 'screen', correct? Do you have anything on the top of the tank? Glass lids or screen? What kind of lights are those, PC or T5? Again looking good!

Hey there the Bio Balls were already in the filter so i left them in, what is the down side of having them in? I have a screen over the tops of my overflows already its a criss cross mesh that keeps all the live critters out. The top of the tank is wide open and i have compact florescents in right now four at 10000K and two actinics. Im working on building a new lighting system though, just researc h and design ideas right now but when i build them i will let you all know. As for the syphon problem my sump/refugium is big enough to control all the water back flow if it were to happen at all. Also i did open the sumps glass lid so i didnt have a heat problem. the temp in my tank has stayed at 78.0 for the last two days now with no fluctuation. So i hope i can keep that up. Thanks for all the comments i appreciate it. As for the livestock yeah i want alot more, just wanted to get the lights and plumbing all fixed up first. Bill and Kelsey

bioballs are detritus traps whose only function in the whole world is to create nitrate. most f/w and F/o systems can handle the elevated nitrates without an issue, but corals and inverts are highly sensitive to nitrate levels and can be killed by too high nitrates. Bioballs have their place in aquaria, just not in a reef where we strive for ideal conditions.

Hi again Bill and Kelsey, I am glad to see you guys posting on the site already. Don't have a definite idea about the next meeting, but your tank is looking good and I KNOW you want to come talk to some more REEF GEEKS!!! Melissa

You could always build a couple over flow boxes and cover those drain pipes as well. Either way the tank looks great. And yes Bioballs just trap uneaten food,fish poo,etc. and just turn into a Nitrate factory. Enough bacteria can't grow on that plastic to keep up with the waste. If you want get some LR rubble and replace the balls with that. Oh ya WELCOME!!!

Hi all, Kelsey and I wanted to say thank you for all your awesome answers and support. Well i just added a new baby to my aquarium. Kelsey just bought me a Black Longspine Urchin, I have wanbted one for a while. They are so cool. So here are some pics. <a href="http://s24.photobucket.com/albums/c14/kelseygirl707/?action=view&current=IMG_0510.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c14/kelseygirl707/IMG_0510.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

I love the tank shots!! Very Very cool! And the new creature is awesome! I have been wanting one for quite some time :D

my wife got it from Jody and Reef Connection he said he has a few more too. Pretty good price too. You should go check it out. K & B

Kelsey and I got a new fish a few days ago. What can we say we love the color. We also got a Scooter Blenny too but we will get pics up tommorow. K & B <a href="http://s24.photobucket.com/albums/c14/kelseygirl707/?action=view&current=IMG_0541.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c14/kelseygirl707/IMG_0541.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

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