40 gallon aio build thread

[Steve d]

Was very passionate about the hobby converted my garage into fish room. Dam tanks nearly cost me my life! During the Eaton fire stayed behind to feed a generator, fell asleep and woke up to the heat and orange glow of my house burning down. RAN FOR MY LIFE!

Now running a 40 gallon AIO, target keep it sps dominated with some lps and softies on the fringes. Never ran a nano aio let’s see how it goes. Tank up in March but live rocks are about 8 months plus old. Sorry for pics don’t have any lense filter

tank-advance acrylic 24x24x16 AIO
Filter-filter pad and live rocks, bio bricks, cheap Amazon skimmer, little gfo in baffle
Lights-1xr15 blue gen 6 (just installed running AB+ at 55% ramping up 2% everyday to hit 100%). Hopefully enough for what I’m trying to achieve
CO2 scrubber-rigged a recirculating running perfect, ph 7.6 avg to 8.2 (3 adults and 7 cats in a small 2 bedroom apt)
Dosing-kalk (Meckley style), just started all for reef as supplement and get trace in
Controller-apex a2 with dos controlling kalk and all for reef, Neptune (shot out to ABC reagent replacing years worth diy mix that was burned)
Fish-2 storms been with me for 4 years, coral beauty, fox face (will rehome once he out grows),lawnmower blenny, fire shrimp, cuc
Coral-everything pretty new except large weeping willow (will end up getting rid of). P.C. rainbow mini colony, other frags. Euphyliias (shot out @Two_Nano_Reefs for hooking me up with Knick torch colony and bunch other stuff), 2 cc infernos that are struggling.

any suggestion for running an AIO would be welcome…wish me luck lol

 

[Steve d]

Paramaters
Alk-7.2
Calcium- 570 (going to manually recheck)
Mag-1323
Phos-non detectable with Hanna high checker
Nitrate- 40ppm trying figure how to lower
Temp has already hit 80.7, only a fan, what are other ways to cool down without an external chiller?

 

[Tangwich]

Welcome back brother. Pm sent.

 

[Steve d]

Thanks man I’m glad to be back reefing really does help my mental state lol. Lets catch up I’m still in the area

 

[BonnieB]

Wow! You are a total inspiration to a new Reefer like me! I’m so sorry for everything you’ve gone through and I hope this small start back keeps your heart and soul happy and joyful! I think your tank looks beautiful!

 

[joseserrano]

Welcome back. Sorry to hear about the tragedy

 

[joeoliver]

Welcome back, Steve. Don't know if you remember that I traded you a hellfire torch just before the tragedy. I have another you can have. Just let me know and we can meet up at CK, and then again at Joker Corals like the last time.

 

[Steve d]

Thanks for all the support and kind wishes guy!!!!!

 

[Steve d]

Welcome back, Steve. Don't know if you remember that I traded you a hellfire torch just before the tragedy. I have another you can have. Just let me know and we can meet up at CK, and then again at Joker Corals like the last time.

I totally remember…go rams!!!!!! That would be amazing to get another hellfire I could buy from you…it was one of my favorites.

 

[joeoliver]

Awesome! I got you. I'll pm you to meet up.

 

[Steve d]

Wow! You are a total inspiration to a new Reefer like me! I’m so sorry for everything you’ve gone through and I hope this small start back keeps your heart and soul happy and joyful! I think your tank looks beautiful!

Thanks BonnieB…hope your new bigger tank build out turns out amazing!

 

[Two_Nano_Reefs]

Glad you are back on your feet!!

 

[dansyr]

So sorry about the fire and all that was lost, but glad you made it and are jumping back in. I think we met awhile ago, you gave me some phyto if I remember right and I've still got it growing. Excited to watch your build come together, let me know if you need anything.

 

[drexel]

Welcome back and so sorry about the fire, glad you're safe. In that size of a tank, I might flip around the kalk to AFR and make AFR your primary source for elements and use kalk as the supplement. I think getting more elements from AFR would benefit the system more and you can use the kalk to keep your pH elevated to your desired level. Just something to think about, especially with a nano system. As someone who started this hobby with nano tanks and kalk, it can go south real fast if you don't set up a fail safe, even then, it can still go south.
Glad to have you back and look forward to seeing the tank mature.

 

[Steve d]

Than

Welcome back and so sorry about the fire, glad you're safe. In that size of a tank, I might flip around the kalk to AFR and make AFR your primary source for elements and use kalk as the supplement. I think getting more elements from AFR would benefit the system more and you can use the kalk to keep your pH elevated to your desired level. Just something to think about, especially with a nano system. As someone who started this hobby with nano tanks and kalk, it can go south real fast if you don't set up a fail safe, even then, it can still go south.
Glad to have you back and look forward to seeing the tank mature.

ks for the advi

Welcome back and so sorry about the fire, glad you're safe. In that size of a tank, I might flip around the kalk to AFR and make AFR your primary source for elements and use kalk as the supplement. I think getting more elements from AFR would benefit the system more and you can use the kalk to keep your pH elevated to your desired level. Just something to think about, especially with a nano system. As someone who started this hobby with nano tanks and kalk, it can go south real fast if you don't set up a fail safe, even then, it can still go south.
Glad to have you back and look forward to seeing the tank mature.

thanks for the advise! I’m going to try that especially now that I have a co2 scrubber helping the ph and being a nano I won’t brake the bank with afr as primary

 

[Steve d]

You guys don’t rag on me but I’ve never done an icp test, got free basic one at rap from ati. Everything is normal: iron and vanadium are low should I be concerned? Is phosphate at 0.02 good or is it considered critically low (sps dominate)? Might feed just a little bit more but should I be concerned

 

[thresher]

Keep in mind, this is coming from a tankless vagrant. If your corals are happy and exhibit growth, dont worry about the numbers.

 

[Jimbo327]

A lot of people have never done an ICP and don't even know what all of those elements result mean. So it is not strange, you are probably more the norm.

If you do regular water changes, I don't think you need to do anything. Just feed more and add a bit more iron.

If you don't do regular water changes, then you will probably do a bit more research into what each element you need to add. Then you are going towards the individual element dosing. And I wouldn't rely solely on the ATI analysis of each element. Each brand seem to have its own interpretation of what is low/normal/high.

 

[Steve d]

This is how the tank looks now. Everything been doing great pretty strong growth rate. Since initial set up swapped out xr15 for xr30 g5 at 78%, 2 mp40s that I had lying around running at 40%, will switch out to 1 icecap 2k if I can ever get the stupid thing to work (had to send in controller to coralvue see if they can fix), rigged up an uplift algae reactor in one of the chambers.