Have a new 38 gallon!

[tim]

My excitement got the best of me and I ended up buying a bigger fully setup aquarium from a neighbor! It is an JEBO R375 with tons of nice live rock, a bunch of softies, a firefish, and a shrimp. I’ve moved over a clownfish, a turbo, and two hermit crabs from the nano.

I've been running a Nanocube 12G for about 5 years. So this thing feels really different. I'm confused by the filtration. There is an internal powerhead on a wavemaker, another powerhead moving water from the left of the tank through the hood back to the right side of the tank, and then a pelican biowheel filter hanging on the back. I didn’t think biowheels were really used in a reef setup? The R375 isn’t drilled and there is no sump.

What would a “typical” filter setup look like for a 40ish gallon tank? What kind of cleanup crew should I be stocking -- there wasn't anything in the original setup?

Looking forward to meeting folks online and hopefully in person!

Cheers,

-Tim

PS - what should I do with my old nano tank? I’m not up for two tanks!

[madsalt]

Being this is approx 40 gallons, you can certainly run a biowheel for filtration. I run a 20 gallon with a hang on back filter with one circulation pump going across the front to create flow. The circulation pump collides witht the return on the hang on back to create turbulance that the clowns play in. Having two internal circulation pumps sounds like a lot of flow (depending on the size) but if your animals are doing well, let it ride. I run both carbon and GFO bags in the hang on back filter along with a simple filter to catch large particles. Don't get me wrong, you could go with a full on hang on back overflow and sump if you wanted.

As far as clean up crew throw a turbo in there and some assorted snails along with a few hermits and you are good to go. Depending on your feeding you may need to increase the hermits to munch on the leftover food. Just make sure you don't over do it or they will compete for food and eventually starve.

[jestep]

Typically biowheels aren't used in reef keeping because we use sumps and AIO tanks with media chambers. But, bacteria is bacteria. Since biowheels aren't going to trap and hold particles, it should actually be a pretty decent biological filter for a reef. But with that much live rock, you probably don't need it at all.

With that setup and what you listed, I wouldn't change anything major. It does look like it could use some better upkeep, but the stocking is reasonable, the rock and how porous and featured it is, look great.

I would test for PO4 and NO3 with good test kits, I have a feeling it's suffering from some nutrient issues, possibly some old tank syndrome. My primary concern is that the rock has absorbed a ton of PO4 which is going to leach back out for a long time. I would get the tank on a routine water change schedule, like 10% per week minimum, 25% per week, for a month or 2 would be an even better start. Start running some GFO and see if the cyano on the sandbed clears up.

The rest is preferential, but I would probably pull the rock and replace the sand entirely. It looks like it's probably holding a lot of gunk, not to mention all the shells on rubble on it. It would be a good place to start to get the tank back in really good shape and would instantly improve the aesthetics. If you have one a vortech or small jebao or similar would provide a lot better flow than the powerhead. If it's on one of those 2 pump wavemakers, throw another pump on the other side to get some better wave flow in the tank, the jebao would be my first choice though.

But really, there's not a lot that needs to change, just looks like some improved husbandry is all it needs, and then whatever coral or other additions you want to put it in. I'd probably leave the fish load where it is for now.

[tim]

Thanks for the help folks! I think the biowheel has got to go because it is so darn loud. It's like a waterfall in my living room! I can't get the water level up high enough to stop the sound without hitting the lights. I will move my vortech from the nano to the big tank. I'll start getting on top of the water changes.

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