Alfred's 40 Gallon Breeder

[Alfredo De La Fe]

I recently started my 40 Gallon Breeder tank up again. This is a work in progress and I plan on rescaping once I have a new circulation pump and I get new lighting. I know it looks horrible right now, but I learned to be patient and will slowly add coral frags and let them grow out over time.

Here is a full photo, right now everything in it (except the fish) are from a frag, a tiny frag or aqua cultured:

Maxima clam
Nepthia (Green)
Superman Monti frag
Green Dendro Frag (3 small heads)
Pulsing Xenia
Kenya Tree
Red Montipora Capricornis (TINY frag)
Frog spawn
Red Bubble Tip Anemone
Asterospicularia (Very small frag)
Neon Green Toadstool (Small frag)
2 Cleaner Shrimp
1 Barlette anthias (Male)
Pair of Lyretail Anthias
Pair of Percula or OC clowns (already hosting anemone)
1 Pink Spotted Watchman Goby
1 Mimic Tang
1 Flame Angel
1 Bi-Color Pseudochromis

Once I upgrade my lighting and add a circulation pump I will be adding more corals, all frags...

Once I get my 180 back into "shape" I will start a thread on the rebuild. I have a lot of work to do on it, principally changing out the return pump, adding circulation pumps, changing my MH bulbs or upgrading to LED, repairing my controller and the big one: NUKING my rock to kill the parasitic worms that kill clams.

 

[Alfredo De La Fe]

Man, I suck at taking photos of my tank... here are a few new ones. Now my problem is cyanobacteria and a little hair algae. So I got the skimmer tweaked, bought snails, hermits and a sand sifting star, stepped up swapping out the filter sock and of course added some soft corals and a 5-6" clam. All that I am waiting for is a small Hydor Koralia power head which I plan to order to keep waste suspended long enough to make it to the overflow...

All of this to improve nutrient export.

I increased the bioload too quickly and I really should have waited for the coraline algae to really take off.

 

[shookONES]

How long has your tank been up and running? I like the hard scape a lot!

 

[Alfredo De La Fe]

It has been up for some time, but I left it "dark" for over a year so that all of the "bad" stuff would die.

I have been "working" on it for about two months now. Started out with a massive water change and turning the lights on. Then I moved over a RBTA from my 180, some frogspawn heads and bought a pair of clowns, pair of cleaner shrimp, two Mexican turbo snails, a flame angel and a bi-color psuedochromis.

I waited about a month before adding three anthias, pink spotted watchman goby, green nepthia and frag of xenia. Another two weeks before adding a mimic tang, a few days later- a 6" clam, frags of kenya tree, superman montipora and other small frags of softies and another weeks later and the MRA black Friday sale! I added the three bangai cardinals (now two- one went over my overflow and died in my filter sock!), the blue seafan, rock of red mushrooms, snails, hermits, star, etc.

I am going to take it easy now. Need to stop spending so much money, give the tank some time to stabilize and build up the bacteria to handle the additional load and the corals time to grow and start absorbing more of the dissolved organics!

Best,

Alfred

 

[noelskii]

cool! got any pics of the 180?

 

[Awibrandy]

Great seeing you at the swap Alfredo!! Nice 40. Can't wait to see what you do with your old 180. I remember when you had it going some 6 years ago, and it was unbelievable.

 

[Alfredo De La Fe]

Losing all of my coral colonies really hurt. A lot of love and hard work went into caring for them. I almost got out of the hobby altogether. Some old photos of my 180, every coral had at least tripled in size after these photos were taken AND all of them started out as frags less than an inch in size! Also, the colors don't come out great in these photos. My red milli with blue tips was MUCH nicer in person!

 

[Alfredo De La Fe]

Great seeing you too! (Still haven't picked up glue, LOL)

Great seeing you at the swap Alfredo!! Nice 40. Can't wait to see what you do with your old 180. I remember when you had it going some 6 years ago, and it was unbelievable.

 

[Awibrandy]

Great seeing you too! (Still haven't picked up glue, LOL)

LOL, sorry I just need to be ready for when I am able to start gluing. IC Gel is the only glue that works for me! I've tried quite a few others, and none work as well as IC Gel. They take longer to setup, and do not hold as well as IC Gel. I tried the "Crazy Glue", "Loc Tight", and some other gels, and none worked as well. PM Josh, maybe he got more.

 

[Alfredo De La Fe]

You bought enough glue to run a frag farm for five years! LOL

 

[Alfredo De La Fe]

My wife took better photos of two things...

 

[Alfredo De La Fe]

LONG day- at 8:30pm, Tim shows up with 25 Gallons of water, ROWA media, a pump, my 10 filter socks, a bag of Caribsea sand and lots of energy. He siphons out all of the cyanobacteria, cleans EVERY piece of plumbing in the tank, actually disassembles the overflows and has his assistant clean them with a toothbrush! He leaves about 10:30pm and leaves me with a spotless tank, rescaped rock work and me happy. All at a price that can't be beat. During his visit I get a call from Jimmy of FathomLED. A customer cancelled and he knew I wanted my lights as soon as possible.

10pm in comes Jimmy...

It is 2:30am and Jimmy is just finishing up the installation of my LED lights. Gotta tell you, they look GOOD. The fact that he was willing to come late is a big plus... We got to play around with them and we mixed and matched the optics until I got the shimmer effect just right, to where I was happy with it.

Got to try one module, but I wanted something much brighter and my wife did not want the so high above the tank. We tried two modules and sure enough, I fell in love... At the price of his sale, I had to jump on the opportunity.

I will post photos as soon as I have a chance. Gotta wake up early tomorrow, so when I am no longer a zombie will shoot pics.

Since I can't buy fish for at least a month (due to losing all of my fish to disease) I will be taking people up on the offer of frags over the next few weeks. Now that I have enough lighting to grow whatever I want and even start a tanning booth business on the side, I plan on taking advantage of it!

Anyway, I give Jimmy and FathomLED an A+ so far.

Alfred

 

[Awibrandy]

Fantastic!!! I am so happy for you, and your tank.:hug:

Can barely contain my excitement to see the new pix.

 

[shroomie]

Awesome, can't wait for pics!

 

[Alfredo De La Fe]

Picture time... Only fish still alive is a pink spotted watchman goby. He seems to be immune to ich, perhaps because he stays at the bottom of the tank???

New FathomLED lights are HOT!

 

[FathomLED]

Thank you Alfred and sorrry for keeping you up with the install. Glad to see you are enjoying them and as you know you can get me anytime. Lookng foward to bringing the 180 back to its glory. Enjoy.

 

[Alfredo De La Fe]

Two weeks after LED install, everything is doing great. Going stir crazy without fish though! Also went to Maximum Reef again and my daughter BEGGED me to buy a hot pink colt coral frag. I have never seen colt coral in hot pink! So I caved in. ;-) (My daughter loves anything pink)

Anyway, photo does not do the tank justice. The colt looks like a regular colt, pink is not showing... But trust me, it is VERY pink...

 

[fishman1069]

Tank looks great! Are you sure the colt coral wasnt dyed?

 

[Alfredo De La Fe]

Yeah, pretty sure. It was a frag from a coral they have had in their large SPS system for over a month.

Alfred