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.