One year in and counting

I just passed the one year mark in the saltwater hobby. It was kind of ironic that the day of my one year anniversary of setting up my 50 gallon tank, we had a club meeting and the guest speaker was Mike Paletta who was the author of the book that gave me the knowledge to start the whole saltwater thing in the first place. And it was a great speech and meeting too.

I really have to get more pictures of the AI posted. I'm running it at 80% white and 80% blue right now.

I have two new clams in the tank. A 3" crocea and a 2" deresa. They seem to be doing well so far and enjoying the light.

Today I have to move a few things around to make some room for my SPS frags, so it should be a salty day :)

AI in Action

And here is the AI in action.

Right now its set to 75% blue and 25% white. The picture makes it look far more blue and dark than it really is, but that's just the limitations of the camera.

Initial impressions, this thing is built really well. Love the adjust-ability and the look. Can't really say enough.

There are some things I don't like, but after talking to Chris from AI, they're working on fixing them. The support legs leave alot to be desired. The length of the cord from the fixture to the power supply isn't long enough, the power supply is suspended in the air. And the power supply makes a high pitched buzzing. None of those issues is a deal breaker, but they should be addressed.

I'll have more to say tomorrow after I observe it going through a sunset and sunrise cycle.

On the tank

A quick shot of the fixture on the tank. The flash sure does make the tank look bad.

Accessories

And all the accessories.

My first look

When I opened the second box, I got my first look at the fixture...

AquaIllumination has arrived!

The AI light fixture finally arrived today. After four long months of waiting, it was delivered just after noon and I immediately tore it open.

It was packaged very well in double think cardboard boxes with plenty of padding.

Aquarium Water Testing results

I received the results from my AWT tests this morning. Here's the results summary

Ammonia 0.003
Nitrite 0.005
Nitrate 1.10
Phosphate 0.020
Silica 2.60
Potassium 441
Calcium 307
Boron 4.40
Molybdenum 0.10
Strontium 11.10
Magnesium 1241
Iodine 0.030
Copper 0.030
Alkalinity 3.670

I tested

pH 8.16 ( they don't test this )
SG 1.026 ( they don't test this either )
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 1
Phosphate 0.10
Alkalinity 3.2 ( 9 from a kH test )
Calcium 385
Magnesium 1440

So my tests match for the most part except for Calcium. I thought there would be a discrepancy but I thought it would be in the other direction.

Here's the detailed analysis they sent:

Ammonia (NH3-4)
Natural Seawater Value: 0.010 mg/L
Acceptable Range: 0.000 to 0.050 mg/L
Tested: 0.003 mg/L
(GOOD) Your ammonia level is within the recommended range. We
recommend staying with the current feeding and stocking levels. Be sure to
maintain a good schedule of water changes and additives. Ammonia levels
can rise after the addition of new animals, after a water change, or after the
changing of food diet. Any ammonia level above 0.05 mg/L is a cause for
concern, and the source should be found and corrected.


Nitrite (NO2)
Natural Seawater Value: 0.010 mg/L
Acceptable Range: 0.000 to 0.100 mg/L
Tested: 0.005 mg/L
(GOOD) Your nitrite level is within the recommended range. We recommend
continuing with your current maintenance and feeding schedules. Residual
levels of nitrite are common in marine aquariums. Levels of 0.05 or less are
of little concern. If the levels are higher than this, the source should be found
and corrected.


Nitrate (NO3)
Natural Seawater Value: 0.050 mg/L
Acceptable Range: 0.000 to 25 mg/L
Tested: 1.10 mg/L
(GOOD) Your nitrate level is within the recommended range. Be sure to
maintain reasonable stocking and feeding levels, as well as a regular water
change schedule. Nitrate is not toxic in and of itself, but a rising level is
indicative of deteriorating water conditions, and any level above 5.0 mg/L in
reef aquariums is a reason for concern.


Phosphate (PO4)
Natural Seawater Value: 0.030 mg/L
Acceptable Range: 0.000 to 0.250 mg/L
Tested: 0.020 mg/L
(GOOD) Your phosphate level is within the recommended range. We
recommend continuing the current maintenance and water change schedule.
The use of a phosphate absorbing resin is recommended to keep phosphate
levels below 0.05 mg/L.


Silica (Sio2-3)
Natural Seawater Value: 0.040 mg/L
Acceptable Range: 0.000 to 0.500 mg/L
Tested: 2.60 mg/L
(HIGH) Your silica level is too high. We recommend that you use a silica
specific R/O membrane in addition to deionization resin for your makeup/
top-off water. You may also use a commercially available phosphate
absorber, as these will also remove some silicate. Silicate is required by many
types of sponges for growth/reproduction, but will also encourage brown
diatom algae growth. Any level above 0.3 mg/L may cause a diatom bloom in
the aquarium.


Potassium (K)
Natural Seawater Value: 390 mg/L
Acceptable Range: 350 to 450 mg/L
Tested: 441 mg/L
(GOOD) Your potassium level is within the recommended range. We
recommend continuing with your current water change and chemical additive
schedule. Potassium is an important constituent of seawater, being found in
almost the same concentration as calcium. Potassium is important for
neurological functions in fishes, as well as being a critical plant nutrient
required by zooxanthellae and macro algae.


Calcium (Ca)
Natural Seawater Value: 400 mg/L
Acceptable Range: 350 to 450 mg/L
Tested: 307 mg/L
(LOW) Your calcium level is too low. We recommend using a commercial
calcium additive to raise this level. There are several methods for doing this.
Calcium is a critical parameter for coral growth in reef aquariums, and
chronically low levels will cause coral mortality and loss of coralline algae and
other invertebrate species.


Boron (B)
Natural Seawater Value: 4.6 mg/L
Acceptable Range: 3.0 – 6.0 mg/L
Tested: 4.40 mg/L
(GOOD) Your boron level is within the recommended range. We recommend
maintaining your current buffering and water change schedule. Boron is a
significant portion of your aquarium pH and water buffering capacity, and is
crucial to maintaining appropriate calcium levels, as well as being essential to
several biological processes, including macro algae growth.


Molybdenum (Mo)
Natural Seawater Value: 0.01 mg/L
Acceptable Range: 0.0 to 0.12 mg/L
Tested: 0.10 mg/L
(GOOD) Your molybdenum level is within the recommended range.
Molybdenum is found in many common additives and at highly elevated levels
in most salt mixes and so a vast majority of reef tanks demonstrate a level
10 to 50 times higher than natural levels. 0.12 mg/L is the upper toxicity
limit for Molybdenum, the point at which negative effects can begin to
manifest themselves. Your level is below this limit and is in proximity to
natural sea water values. Molybdenum is important to microbial activity in
the aquarium filter, and may also be important to stony coral health and
reproduction.


Strontium (Sr)
Natural Seawater Value: 8.1 mg/L
Acceptable Range: 5.0 to 12.0 mg/L
Tested: 11.10 mg/L
(GOOD) Your strontium level is within the recommended range. We
recommend continuing with your current additive schedules. Strontium is
important to coral growth, as they incorporate strontium ions into their
skeletal mass, particularly SPS corals. It is also important to coralline algae
growth.


Magnesium (Mg)
Natural Seawater Value: 1280 mg/L
Acceptable Range: 1100 to 1400 mg/L
Tested: 1241 mg/L
(GOOD) Your magnesium level is within the recommended range. We
recommend staying with your current water change and additive schedule.
Magnesium is a very important part of the water buffering system, and is
incorporated into coral skeletons. It is also critical to any photosynthetic
processes.


Iodine (I¯)
Natural Seawater Value: 0.060 mg/L
Acceptable Range: 0.030 to 0.090 mg/L
Tested: 0.030 mg/L
(GOOD) Your iodine level is within the recommended range. We would
recommend continuing with the current water change and additive schedule.
Please be advised that many iodine supplements are difficult to dose
accurately, and “above normal” readings are easy to achieve with common
iodine additives.


Copper (Cu++)
Natural Seawater Value: 0.030 mg/L
Acceptable Range: 0.000 to 0.030 mg/L
Tested: 0.030 mg/L
(GOOD) Your copper level is within the recommended range. We recommend
continuing with your current water change schedule, being careful to use only
RO/DI water for make-up/top-off water. Use of activated carbon can also help
keep this level in check. Copper is fatal to marine invertebrates at levels as
low as 0.05 mg/L for many species.


Alkalinity (meq/L)
Natural Seawater Value: 2.5 meq/L
Acceptable Range: 2.5 to 5.0 meq/L
Tested: 3.670 meq/L
(GOOD) Your alkalinity level is within the recommended range. We
recommend continuing with your current water change and buffering
schedule. Maintaining an appropriate alkalinity is crucial to maintaining a
healthy aquarium. A fluctuating alkalinity will lead to serious problems in
maintaining an appropriate pH, as well as problems keeping calcium and
magnesium levels within required ranges.

Vortech Wireless Wave Driver

I've had my Vortech WWD running for about a week now and I have to say that I love it! First of all, it has solved my stalling problems, not a single stall since I installed it.

Installation was very easy. All in all it took me less than 5 minutes and anyone could do it.

Right now it is running in Reef Crest mode so I'm getting lots of variable flow.

I tried pulse mode which is supposed to allow you to create waves in the tank. I did get a wave, sort of, but I think that fact that the other Vortech on the tank wasn't being controlled by a WWD limited the effectiveness of the pulse and thus the wave. When the second round of controllers becomes available and I get one, I'll try pulse mode again and see what kind of wave I can get.

Feed mode is nice. I like that I don't have to unplug the pumps any more and that it automatically returns to the preset speed after ten minutes.

In other news, still no lights. I was lead to believe that maybe they'd be shipping this week, but I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up.

Water testing

I read about a new service recently that performs some laboratory grade testing for 14 parameters on your tank water and I thought I'd give them a try.

I received the kit from AWT on Saturday, and when I did my normal round of tests on Sunday night, I filled the two bottles for their tests to be mailed out on Monday.

Hopefully soon I'll have the results and can compare how I've been testing with what they get.

Plus, the test for many parameters that I can't possibly test for so it should be interesting to see what the final results are and how close to natural seawater I've come.

Catching up, again

Wow, it's been too long since I've updated the blog, and over the next couple of days I'm going to try to catch up.

First thing that happened in the tank after getting back from MACNA was adding the clowns to the display tank.

I acclimated them over the course of an hour even though the temp and salinity were already pretty much the same, and introduced them to the tank.

They explored for a while, and all the other fish came over to say hello, or so it seemed. Over the course of the last three weeks, they've fit right in to the community, often swimming with the school of chromies or with ADD, the yellow tailed damsel.

I was worried about them at first because they didn't seem to retreat into the rocks at night like all the other fish, but they don't seem to be suffering any ill effects from sleeping out in the display.

Overall, a great addition to the tank. The black and white coloration really is striking. Sorry the picture kind of sucks, they just don't slow down tho and without the flash on the camera the shutter stays open too long and I end up with blurs. Hopefully when the new lights come, there will be enough light in the tank too fix this.

MACNA 2007 : Day 3

Day three, the final day of MACNA 2007. It went by SO fast.

The lectures today were my three favorites of the entire show. To start the day off, Adam Blundell gave a talk titled "Ornamental Crustaceans". Although there was probably too much referencing of scientific papers and not enough cool pictures or hobbyist info, it really was a good lecture. He's basically a researcher in the field of breeding shrimp and trying to get skunk cleaner shrimp past the day 23 wall. He hasn't had any luck to date, but he mentioned a firm in England just did and is now selling tank raised skunk cleaner shrimp, a world first.

Next up was Dr. Frank Marini, another breader, but this time of fish. Dr. Marini was the first person to successfully breed Bangaii Cardinal fish. He shared a lot of good information on breeding fish and rearing the fry. He stressed the most important factor is food, and gave good examples of what kind of food is needed to get fish from eggs to larvae to fry to adulthood. A great talk with lots of great info and good pictures.

Both Adam and Frank made numerous mentions of a new website called Marine and Ornamental Fish Breeders. I haven't checked it out but they both seem positive about it.

The final talk I attended was given by James Fatheree simply entitled "Clams". As you may know, James just had a book published about clams and he shared a ton of info about them in his talk. If you've read the book you know he has a very casual writing style, and his speaking style is the same. Of all the lectures at MACNA, I enjoyed his the most. One thing I took away is that you can do everything right to grow a clam, lighting, position, food, everything. But sometimes the clam just wont grow because you have a "wuss clam". lol

The final event of MACNA is the raffle. There were SO MANY good items up for raffle, it was overwhelming. RO/DI units, lighting of all kinds MH, T5, and LED, calcium and kalkwater reactors, fluidized media reactors, supplements of all kinds, artwork, magazine subscriptions, gift certificates, livestock and complete setups including the tank and all the included livestock.

The grand prize was donated but 6 companies, Marine Depot, EuroReef, Salifert, Eco-Tech Marine, Ice-Cap, and Zero Edge Aquariums. They were giving away a complete system that was absolutely beatiful. Zero Edge Aquariums have to been seen in person to really comprehend just how amazing they are. The picture above was taken with my cellphone and can't do the tank justice. The winner basically was flabbergasted that she won this amazing prize. A few CTARS members won some items, but none of us claimed any of the big prizes.

And with that, MACNA was over. Like I said, the weekend went by so amazingly fast, I can hardly believe it. Next year, Atlanta!

MACNA 2007 : Day 2

Sorry for the delayed post.

Overall, I didn't like the second day of MACNA as much as I did the first. Maybe it was because I had already been through the exhibit hall too many times already? Maybe it was because all the lectures seemed to be not too hobbyist friendly or totally not what I expected them to be. Maybe it was the free beer on Friday making Saturday a blur? Well anyway...

The first lecture was given by Anthony Calfo about reef toxicology. Now I know not to eat most of the things in my tank. Not that I've ever had an overwhelming desire to do so in the first place, but I guess a warning is always good. Anthony is a good speaker and made the lecture fun.

Next, Ron Hessing gave a lecture entitled "European Perspectives on Reefkeeping". I expected the lecture to be about current trends in Europe, instead it was just pictures of building two tanks. I could have just logged onto Reef Central if I wanted that.

Roy Torres, a Special Agent with the NOAA, then gave a lecture called "Illegal Harvest for the Aquarium Trade". He covered the applicable laws ( dry ), but then went into a case study which was good, I'm glad the perps were brought to justice, but I think their sentences were kinda lenient.

After lunch I attended a photography workshop, hopefully someday I'll be able to use some of the knowledge to get a decent shot of my tank, but I doubt it :)

Ok, so one of the lectures I was really looking forward too was Dana Riddle's talk called "Coral Coloration". This particular talk wasn't hobbyist friendly at all ( other than his one slide at the end that said LEDs Rock ). He went on and on about pigments and which colors have what number pigment and who can flouresce and blah blah blah... snore.

The exceptional talk of the afternoon was by Dr Sanjay Joshi. While it was very technical, it was the technical stuff that hobbyists want, how do lights compare to each other not only when new, but as they age. He had some really interesting data, and is a great speaker.

The final lecture of the day was by Daniel Knop. He isn't a native english speaker so it was a bit rough, but his pictures made up for it ten fold. He took a tank, removed the fish, corals, and filtration and just watched and photographed as the invertibrates grew. The tunicate and sea squirt growth he had in there was amazing. He had some truely gorgeous pictures. He was using a 5:1 macro lens though, so that helps.

Like I mentioned, not much, if anything changed in the exhibit hall between Friday and Saturday, so it was really just a place to mingle and wait for the next event. At least for me.

MACNA 2007 : Day 1

Well day one of MACNA is over and I gotta say I had a great time. The speakers were excellent, the exhibit hall is great, and the reception was well done, at least until they ran out of food. But the open bar made up for that.

Three of the four lectures I went to were informative and fun. The forth was pretty doom and gloom. According to Dr. Schimek, the reefs have until about 2050 and then the ocean just won't be able to support them anymore. And major changes to the planet will take place as the ocean changes to something we've never seen before. But I digress...

The exhibit hall has loads of great vendors and exhibitors. Some of my favorite companies were there including Deltec and Eco-Tech Marine. I got to talk to the Eco-Tech marine guys for a while about the Wireless Wave Driver which should be released soon. And I got to see them in action, and they are wild. Can't wait for mine to be delivered. I didn't get to talk to Doug from Deltec because he was always mobbed by people. Connecticut's own Aquactinics didn't make a good showing to start the show off as one of their lights was wired wrong at the factory and they had it torn apart and were trying to make field repairs to it. Hopefully their display, which is combined with MarcoRocks, will be up and better tomorrow.

There were particularly good display systems set up by ORA and at the combined Eco-Tech, Euro-Reef, Marine Depot, and Zero Edge Aquarium booth. The Zero Edge tanks are absolutely gorgeous. I really can't say enough about them, just gorgeous.

There were a few vendors who were selling corals and clams, some very nice ones too. I'm not sure I'm going to be buying any though, at least until Sunday. Hopefully they will lower their prices to move the goods they don't want to bring home.

There is free loot galour. I picked up a toy clown fish for my niece. For me, so far I've gotten some fish food, a few magazines, a nice insulated bag, and various snacks and drinks.

The raffle items weren't on display today as they were supposed to be. I guess they are going to open that up tomorrow.

I'm really bad estimating the number of people in a crowd, but I'd say there was at least a thousand at the reception tonight. ( knowing how I estimate though it could be 2 or 3 thousand, lol ) Dr. Bruce Carlson talked all about the Georgia Aquarium for almost two hours. The place looks amazing, and will be the site of next years MACNA. He shared details about their Whale Shark display with its more then 6 million gallon capacity, and their Coral Reef tank which holds 120+ thousand gallons, 1500+ fish of 100+ different species.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow starting with breakfast at 7 and a full day of lectures and exhibit hall roaming.

Arrived in Pittsburgh for MACNA

I made the drive down to Pittsburgh yesterday for this years MACNA convention. The drive went well for about 5 hours, then the road construction started. All in all it took about 8 and 1/2 hours, so not too bad.

I did a little exploring last night and took a look at the exhibition hall. Hopefully they were working through the night because it didn't seem ready then. The Monroeville Mall was as short walk across the street so I went there and got some dinner and a Blizzard. It must have been the guys first one because it took him about 10 minutes to make :)

So this morning I'm going out to do some more exploring and get my registration materials. I'll blog more about the show later this evening.

AquaIllumination on it's way

I just received mail from AquaIllumination saying that the lights will be shipped out next week. WOOOHHHOOOO! I'm freakin excited!

Two Month Anniversary

Tomorrow is the two month anniversary of adding everything to the big tank. Lots of changes in those two months.

Coraline algae have turned the stark white of the base rocks into a purplish color. Nitrates crept up and up but now seem to be going down as the refugium and deep sand bed start to do their jobs of keeping nitrates down. I've had to harvest calerpa and cheatomorpha out of the refugium twice already, and it appears I'll have to do it with increasing frequency soon.

I've noticed all sorts of life in the refugium, and the tank itself. The fuge has quite a population of stometella (sp?) snails, a small crab, many small bristle worms and the copepod population is on the rise. I've seen similar life in the tank, including a few small starfish, although I can't find them anymore.

I started feeding the fish without turning the VorTech pump off and it seems they love to chase the food around the tank. Perhaps I won't need the feed mode on the new controller after all. Unfortunately, news has been released that the controller will ship late due to some problems with getting FCC approval. Hope its not too long.

Above is a picture of one of the two colonies of Ricordea I have. I bought the top polyp and it split into the two in the picture. Hopefully more splits to come.

Anxiously awaiting news about the AquaIllumination release too :)

All is well

So all is going well as of late. About a week ago EcoTech Marine announced their wireless wave controller and I ordered one of them for my Vortch pump. It's already been charged to my credit card but isn't supposed to ship until the first week of September.

Hopefully my lights will be shipped that week too, if not sooner.

Here's a side shot of the tank, looks pretty neat. The coraline algae is growing in really well. It's still hard to get the fish to hold still long enough to get them in focus :)

Black and White Clownfish in QT

So my local reef club, CTARS, sponsored a group buy of Black and White clownfish from LiveAquaria. I purchased two and put them in quarantine on Friday.

Before putting them into quarantine, I gave them a quick dip in 1 gallon of fresh water mixed with Methylene Blue. This was to help knock any parasites and diseases off them.

Not long after getting the fish home, it was reported by other members that their fish had Brooklynella. Since others did it was a good bet mine did too, although they weren't showing any signs. Since showing signs is probably too late to start trying to save them, I decided to take some action.

Fortunately when I was setting up my quarantine tank, I bought a few medications just in case, one of them being Formalin. Formalin is a 37% solution of Formaldehyde and water. To treat the fish, I gave them a 'bath' in 1 gallon of seawater and 1 ml of Formalin with plenty of vigorous aeration. After 30 minutes they were returned to their tank.

It took a while for them to recover, the smaller of the two looked like he took it worse than the larger, but I'm happy to say that after 30 hours out of the bath, they appear very healthy, swim around the tank continuously, and eat heartily.

I harvested a bit of calerpa from the refugium and put it into the quarantine with them to allow them to graze on an copepods that might have come along for the ride. I'll be discarding of the calerpa soon so it doesn't foul the QTs water.

Vortech Pump

Been a while since I posted an update.

Last Sunday I installed my first Eco-Tech Marine Vortech pump. This picture is the driver/controller and the battery backup. The controller lets me set between 300 and 3000 gallons per hour of flow, and the battery backup will provide 30 hours of flow at 50% speed in case of a power failure.

So far I'm really liking the pump, but just this week they put the first batch of the wireless wave controllers up for sale and I was able to order one before they sold out.

With the wireless wave controller, I should be able to set it to provide random varying amounts of flow to simulate the wave motion on a reef. I can't wait. And if I were to get another pump and controller ( and I would like to ), I can set them on opposite sides of the tank either in sync or out of sync to provide some interesting flow effects.

The wireless controller also gives a 10 minute feed window which will be a massive improvement over having to unplug everything to feed the fish.

I also have some Black and White clown fish in quarantine right now. I'll take a picture tomorrow and blog about the efforts I went through to save them from Brooklynella. Fortunately, I think it is working.

The waiting is the hardest part...

Its been over two weeks now that everything was moved to the big tank. In that time, I also added 5 green chromis to the tank. I started with 6 but unfortunately one didn't make it. The remaining 5 seem to be doing really well and have a very healthy appetite.

Over the weekend I added to PhosBan reactors to the plumbing system. One is running carbon, the other phosban. Hopefully this will polish up the water real nice and help get rid of the cyanobacteria that has been showing up. ( the purplish / red stuff in the picture ).

Chemistry has remained stable and the SPS corals seem to be doing well with their new lighting arrangement. Shouldn't be too long now until the AquaIllumination units are released. Hope to have some super high tech LED lighting soon!

Happy in his new home

Everyone is doing great in their new home. Here's a picture of 'Spunky', the yellow tailed blue damsel who seems to be having a lot of fun exploring all the new cracks and crevices of the new rock formation.

All the corals and shrimp seem to be doing well too. One of the cleaner shrimp even molted last night.

And against all odds, I spotted 'Wilson' the black crab going about his business stuffing his pie hole yesterday afternoon so the only unaccounted for inhabitant is a nassirus snail.

Since the old tank was just sitting there doing nothing, I've decided to make it into a temporary quarantine tank. At least for the first set of fish I'm going to add. And they are already in there, 6 green reef chromis. Individually they are nothing too special, but their schooling behavior is very fun to watch. In a few weeks I'll add them to the big tank.

Move In Day

After looking at the chemistry and getting some second opinions on Reef Central, I decided today would be a good moving day for the occupants of the 50 gallon tank. And it would be easy to remember the date too :) Happy 4th of July.

So it took a few hours, and caused a lot of stress to me and the fish, but everything was moved over fairly quickly. The only thing not moved is the open brain coral because he just wont shrink down a bit and I have heard you shouldn't remove them from the water when they are full of water like that, could tear their fleshy parts up. Oh, and one more nassirus snail unaccounted for too, and Wilson the black crap. I'm betting he made it into the new tank, just haven't seen him yet.

It took the fish a while to feel safe enough to come out of hiding. At first it was just the firefish, but then he found the damsel and they started swimming together and the damsel seemed fine. Then they found the royal gramma and he came out of hiding and all three started exploring. It was fun to watch them get used to their new surroundings and explore.

I checked the chemistry again a few hours after the move and everything seems to be in spec. Hopefully it won't take long for the coraline algae to start growing on the new rock. Right now it looks pretty silly with some deep purple rock and some stark white rock right next to each other. All in good time.

Big wall o' rock

Yesterday I rearranged the rock to try to create a better layout since I had just placed the rocks in the tank after the addition of the sand.

I succeeded in creating a "big wall o' rock" and I don't really like it.

Its just too common, too blah. I wanted something a bit different, and this isn't it.

So I'll have to try again.

On the plus side, the water parameters seem to all be good. Salinity is right, calcium, alkalinity, magnesium. I could start adding a clean up crew, and probably will have to since I increased the length of time the lights are on, but I don't want anything in there I could potential crush while moving rocks.

Lighting

I'm pretty sure I want to get an LED lighting system but for now I just have some regular T-5 bulbs above the tank. With all the lights running, the temperature in the hood was getting hot which was causing the water temperature to get into the mid 80s.

A while ago I had bought a temperature controlled 120mm fan for the hood but never installed it. So with a little help, I cut a hole in the back of the hood and installed the fan. From what I've seen so far, it looks like that will do the trick to keep the temperature down.

Also, I didn't like the lights just resting on the frame of the tank so I rigged up a temporary system to keep them suspended on the top of the hood. Works much better now and the light seems to look better when it gets into the tank.

Oh yeah, the reason I couldn't post pictures just yet is because I am writing this while sitting in front of the tank on my laptop. I struggled with the wireless connection setup for about an hour and finally got it working. And with Linux no less :)

Sand is in

I don't have pictures at the moment for reasons I'll explain later, but yesterday I added 220 pounds of sand to the tank. 120 was live Caribbean sand, the other 100 was just plain old ocean sand. It looks really good in the tank. There's probably about 4 inches give or take.

It was quite the experience getting it all in there. I tried to work around the rock, but that didn't work at all. So I filled a rubbermaid container with 15 gallons of water from the tank and put the live rock in there. I put a bunch of cardboard and towels on the floor and put the base rock there. I washed the sand outside ( big mess ) then started filling the tank. I tried not to make a big mess by scooping the sand with a small cup but after a while that became pointless, the sandstorm was inevitable.

This morning the sandstorm has cleared and the tank looks really nice. The rock isn't where I want it to go ultimately, but that'll be a job for next weekend.

Growing Macro Algae

I starting filling my refugium with macro algae today. Thursday I filled it with 20 pounds of live sand which came out to roughly 3 inches of sand. Today I bought some chaetomorpha and Caulerpa of different varieties and added them in.

There are a few Green Grape Caulerpa ( C. racemosa) , some Feather Caulerpa (C. sertularioides), and one other type I haven't identified yet.

The pink stuff is another macro algae that I ordered from another reefer in Rhode Island but it didn't ship all that well so it might not make it. Its in there in the hopes that it'll still grow though.

I'm hoping that the refugium will do well. There is already some detectable nitrates and phosphates in the water for them to use as food.

I'll need a more appropriate light eventually too. The one I have above the sump is 36 inches long and the sump is only about 18 inches so it hangs over the sides a bit :)

I should try to get some of the algae out of my 50 gallon tank to put in there too, its done a great job of keeping the nitrates and phosphates under control in that tank.

Fully assembled

So the tank and plumbing are fully assembled and running.

All in all I think the plumbing came out really well. Its nice and quiet and reasonably easy to work with. And the more the salt water runs through it, the quieter it should get, or so I hear.

The one problem I am having right now is heat. Its currently running at 86 degrees. To combat this, I turned off the extra power heads which were there for circulation. Each was drawing 62 watts and were transferring their heat directly to the water. I am also running with the cover opened for a while. While the T5 lights I have up there don't make a lot of heat, its enough to worry about until I get some sort of ventilation going. I have an IceCap variable speed 120mm fan to put up there, just have to figure out how I am going to mount it.

Live rock arrived today

The 30 pounds of live rock that I ordered from Premium Aquatics came today. I gave it a quick cleaning and through it right in the tank since it was supposedly cured already. Has lots of stuff flaking off it that I'll have to pick out later which makes me glad I left the tank bare bottom for now.

I glued the final pieces of the plumbing system together and am giving it a flushing run overnight. I'm hoping tomorrow to be able to add salt and hook it up to the tank and start really using it.

Wet run 2 a success

Today I finalized the header part of the plumbing design and glued them all together. Only one very minor leak on the pump connections which should be easy to fix.

I'm glad I did another wet run of the system for two reasons. First, I found out I could run the system in the 'herbie' configuration which is a method of adjusting the flow in the overflow to match the pump output making the overflows virtually silent popularized by a ReefCentral poster nick-named herbie.

Secondly because I learned my design to the protein skimmer still wasn't quite right and I have to rethink it yet again. All in all though it is coming along quite nicely and pretty soon I should have tank water flowing through the sump.

The cycle has started

Did a quick ammonia and nitrite test and it looks like the cycle has started with just the 6 pounds of live rock in there. I did order 30 more pounds of cured Fiji rock to help seed the tank.

I did notice 3 live critters on the six pounds I bought, one small black crab, a mollusk of some sort, and what I would describe as a pill bug if I had found it on land.

Initial rock work

I cleaned the base rock and got it in the tank to start the tank cycle. I have a lot of extra power heads and an external filter running now to to move a lot of water around in there. I added 6 pounds of live rock that I bought today to start seeding the base rock with bacteria and critters. Obviously I'll need more than that, but all in good time.

I was trying to make a ledge on the right hand side and I'm not really happy with the left. I was thinking maybe I could try to make the ledge into a bridge or sorts. I'll move some around tomorrow and see what it looks like.

Plumbing 'wet' run

I spent a long time today constructing the plumbing system under the tank from PVC pipes and fittings. I have to say I give a lot of credit to the pipe fitters in the shipyard, that was a complicated jog making sure there was room for everything and flow went where I wanted it to.

Nothing was actually glued together in this picture so there was a lot of leaks. Fortunately I was able to test the system out without having to use saltwater. The water that would normally return to the tank was just redirected to the overflow and thus stayed isolated from the tank water.

I'm glad I did the 'wet' run before gluing everything together. I noticed a problem with the design and was able to correct it.

Today was all the overflow piping. I rigged up a return system out of flexible tubing. Tomorrow I'll work with the 3/4" return piping.

Oh, and excuse the toes :)

Base rock arrived

I decided to take the long but significantly cheaper route of using mostly base rock and seeding it with live rock. I ordered 100 pounds of base rock from MarcoRocks and I was surprised how much I got.

This 100 pounds practically fills the entire tank. And there are a lot of big pieces, some I may have to split to make them fit well.

But thats ok, any extra bits can become rubble for frags or whatever.

Everything in place, but sadly empty

After cleaning the sump and installing it in stand, some of the guys from work helped me move the tank onto the stand. So here it is, looking pretty good.

At the moment I am very slowly filling the tank with RO/DI water. At the rate I can produce it, it will take about 3 days. I'm not going all the way to the top just yet though. I'm going to fill about 125 gallons worth and use that to cure some live rock while I work on the plumbing.

Sump has arrived

The sump has finally arrived! It was packaged really well. It probably took a good 20 minutes to get it all out of the packaging. Once I did the first thing I noticed was the quality of the construction. Very nicely put together, very professional and worth the time and wait.

This weeks progress

Today I stained the canopy. Finally got sick of looking at the bare wood and gave it a good coat of stain. Looks good for a first coat. Not sure if I'll need a sealer on the outside, but I should try to find something for the inside where it can possibly be exposed to water.

Also, I did a lot of work on the moldings in the tank room as well as finishing off some painting. Luckily I was able to find some of the original white paint used in the house so I didn't have to buy anything.

The sump is on it's way from California, albeit slowly. According to the FedEx website it hasn't moved from Bloomington,CA since May 24th. As soon as that gets here, the fun begins.

I was thinking of a way I could cycle the live rock while building the plumbing at the same time. And I think I've got it figured out. If I fill the tank partially with salt water, I can isolate the water used for curing the rock from the water in the overflows. I just have to return the water that would normally be pumped back into the tank back to the overflows and they should be isolated. Once I get everything in place we'll see if I want to do this or just build and test then fill and cure.

Possible slow down due to lack of funds

My car is in need of some major work which is going to cost me a ton of money so I may not have the money to continue with this little project for a while :(

Started painting

After the reef club meeting, I started painting the new tank room. I was thinking of doing the wall the tank will be against and the opposite wall in the 'Paper Bag' color seen here, and it looks pretty good.

So far all I did was some of the bulk painting, none of the detail work. Couldn't do that with a roller. If I decide to stick with the two colors I'll have to do some masking and finish up the details.

The only time critical part though is getting everything behind where the tank will be done. So I have to get the edger and do the top against the ceiling and I have to work on the molding. Other than that, everything else can happen slowly as the tank is brought up to speed.

It's starting to look really good. And the sump is supposed to be shipped tomorrow. So since the tank is cleaned and ready, it could be moved in sometime during this week.

Tank cleaned

This morning I started out by taking some of the old equipment offline and got caught up in the moment and cleaned the whole tank. It was pretty nasty at some points, but a lot of that nastiness is now out in the back yard as lawn fertilizer :)

There's still some of the nasty hair algae stuck on the overflows, but I'm sure the exposure to the air will kill it. And if that doesn't, its in for a rough ride when I add saltwater and start curing the live rock.

After everything was cleaned I removed the old bulkheads in the overflows and found out the replacement ones I bought are too big for the holes. The current holes wont accept heavy duty bulkheads. Time to look for some standard bulkheads.

There was more work I could have done but I had to shower and get to the reef club meeting. I won a plating Montipora which is ironic because I was thinking about buying one anyway. It's only a frag, and not a great one at that, so we'll have to wait and see how it does.

... in with the new.

And here we are with the new laminate floor installed. That certainly was a fun experience. It looks REALLY good. I'm so happy with it. The flooring is by Dupont. Some really good stuff, heavier than any of the Pergo or similar brands that were at Home Depot. Sure it was more expensive, but it was worth it.

I tried to start painting the wall where the tank is going but ended up breaking a screwdriver trying to open the previous paint can. So on my third trip to Home Depot / Lowe's today, I bought another gallon of 'Paper Bag'. The paint guy who mixed the paint for me was wearing a Navy Chief's pin on his apron, so I asked him what he did in the navy. Turns out he's still in and working in Groton. Quite a haul for a weekend job, but he said it's paying for his Master's Degree. Sounds like he's had a fun career serving on some of the Seawolf class attack submarines.

Anyway, tomorrow morning I start painting.

Out with the old...

And here I've torn the carpet out. Hardest part of that job was the carpet strip with all the nails in it and removing it from the concrete. I made quite the mess that's for sure. But it was fun to be a little bit destructive.

Starting room renovation

Well I decided to go with some renovations to the old TV room and place the tank in there. So here's the 'before' shot. Still has carpet, but I did remove the baseboards, should have left them on for the the shot, oh well. Too late now.

Competition in the LED lighting market

Looks like PFO has some competition to it's Solaris line of LED lighting. Aqua Illumination has recently announced their line of LED lighting. I'll be keeping an eye on both.

Weekend update

I received an email from SoCal Creations saything that they should start work on the custom sump on Monday.

In other news, I've started thinking about relocating the 150 from it's current location to the old tv room and turning that into an aquarium / sitting room. Not 100% sure yet, but I like the idea.

I also ordered a bunch of valves from US Plastics and they should be arriving this week.

Before shot

Just for posterity, here is a 'before' shot of the tank as it sits right now. No fish. No salt. Basically no work done to it since I have to drain it all to install the sump and clean it anyway. But I wanted a before shot so that sometime in the far distant future, we'll have something to look back on and say "wow, remember when".

And today i got...

...my new pump, a Velocity T4. Just testing it out here to see how much flow it can put out. Alot!

I also received some new T5 lights and bulbs for temporary use. There's no way that these lights will be enough to grow some of the more light demanding corals, but its a good, cheap start until I can get the lights I really want, a Solaris lighting system.

Catching up

Previous to today, the only new piece of equipment I had was the protein skimmer. I bought a Deltec AP-600 used and in great shape. Can't wait to try it out.

The plan

This is NOT my tank, its a picture I found in the reef central forums that shows what I would like the 150 tank to look like.

I'd like look of the two columns which conveniently hide the overflows too. The open space between the columns is great for swimming room and for placing corals/clams down on the sand bed.

Quick pics

Just a quick pic of the 50 gallon tank taken about a month or so ago. In the meantime, GreenCrab has gotten much bigger thanks to a significant molt and the polyps below him have multiplied a bit. More pictures to come.

Welcome

Just set this blog up today to keep track of the progress of my new 150 gallon reef tank as I set it up. I don't have any pictures or anything to show at the moment, but hopefully soon. The sump is being constructed out in California right now by Socal Creations and hopefully should arrive within the next week or two. After that, I will have the guys from work help me move the tank for cleaning and so I can install the sump. Once that's complete, I'll begin work on the plumbing.