We're upgrading from a biocube to a 40 breeder. We made some mistakes in setting up the biocube and are going to get it right this time.
So far we have the following:
-Penn Plax 1200 Canister filter with 1 tray of sponges, 2 trays of Matrix, and 1 empty try for Chemi Pure Elite when needed.
-Cobalt Aquatics Neo-Therm Heater
-Marineland 900 powerhead that we won in a Reefapalooza raffle.
-1K Gyre Flow Pump (coming tomorrow)
-2 AI Prime Hd Lights
-White non-live sand (also coming tomorrow)
-40 pounds of base rock
After assembling the stand, we painted the bottom and back panels of the tank black to hide any cords in the back.
The live rock arrived in three pieces so we had to break it apart and washed it about 106 times. It took some time, but we finally got the aquascaping right. We added 38 gallons of RO/DI water to the tank to fill it and went to install the filter. This is where it started to go a little downhill. We noticed the filter was cracked and there was no way it was going to hold water. I got on Facebook to chat with chewy.com customer service and they kindly shipped out a replacement. Everything was on hold for the next two days until we got the replacement. After realizing how much more difficult it is to get all of the filter parts right where you would like them to be with the tank completely full, we had to drain 10 gallons out into two buckets. The next night we added the salt, so again we drained water into a bucket 5 gallons at a time, mixed the salt, and repeated several times. Through some miracle, we got the salinity exactly where we needed it to be the first time we tested it. We added Dr. Tim's One and Only and Ammonium Chloride to get the cycle started.
Pictures coming soon.
So far we have the following:
-Penn Plax 1200 Canister filter with 1 tray of sponges, 2 trays of Matrix, and 1 empty try for Chemi Pure Elite when needed.
-Cobalt Aquatics Neo-Therm Heater
-Marineland 900 powerhead that we won in a Reefapalooza raffle.
-1K Gyre Flow Pump (coming tomorrow)
-2 AI Prime Hd Lights
-White non-live sand (also coming tomorrow)
-40 pounds of base rock
After assembling the stand, we painted the bottom and back panels of the tank black to hide any cords in the back.
The live rock arrived in three pieces so we had to break it apart and washed it about 106 times. It took some time, but we finally got the aquascaping right. We added 38 gallons of RO/DI water to the tank to fill it and went to install the filter. This is where it started to go a little downhill. We noticed the filter was cracked and there was no way it was going to hold water. I got on Facebook to chat with chewy.com customer service and they kindly shipped out a replacement. Everything was on hold for the next two days until we got the replacement. After realizing how much more difficult it is to get all of the filter parts right where you would like them to be with the tank completely full, we had to drain 10 gallons out into two buckets. The next night we added the salt, so again we drained water into a bucket 5 gallons at a time, mixed the salt, and repeated several times. Through some miracle, we got the salinity exactly where we needed it to be the first time we tested it. We added Dr. Tim's One and Only and Ammonium Chloride to get the cycle started.
Pictures coming soon.
