Alright so as of 9/17... we're wet!
So for a "25 gallon tank" after sand and rock I got about 18 gallons of water. Man this is going to make water changes so easy.
After about 12 hours we were still very cloudy, I woke up the next morning to crystal clear water, howver I'll say this Fiji pink sand is very fine. I've been playing around with the scape and anytime I move a rock we're getting a dust cloud. I'm hoping once everything settles in the particles will get washed out via my socks/floss.
Here are some shots of the scape I've settled on for now. A front, side, and top down view. We have some swim throughs, valleys, and varying height. I formed a bit of a lagoon for the tank to also have areas of high and low flow with the gyre. Again this is just a fist swing at scape, once I really get to know flow and how things progress I'll decide if I want to switch it up some more. I wanted to make this happen without any mortar and so far they're all steady without needing any adhesive.
I have some marinepure gems (the 90 gram gems, not the spheres or cubes) on order that I will put into the second chamber in a InTank fuge basket behind an InTank media basket in the first chamber. On the opposite side I'm going to have an InTank floss holder and then nothing else in the first or second chambers at this time. I'm leaving the second chamber open on one side to allow for expanding into either a skimmer or reactor. I'll see how much filtration is really needed once I get the chemipure blue in and have all my marinepure cooked. Any suggestions on alternative uses for the second chamber?
I ended up going with two 75Watt neotherms instead of one larger heater. This allowed me to keep a lower water level in the rear chamber, not relying one on heating element, and utilized both plugs on my inkbird temp controller. For now I'm letting the Neotherms use their internal thermostats to regulate temp and only having the inkbird as a backup incase one fails in the on position.
The Tunze 3155 has been super simple to set up and use. I will say I was surprised how large the form factor is for the sensors and to get them to fit how I wanted within the center chamber I had to detach the float valve and use the included second set of magnets. This allows for additional room for error with water changes, as well as moving the scape around in the tank without setting off the alarm. I will say comparing the Tunze 3155 to the Neptune ATK the Tunze motor is significantly louder. Outside of that the Tunze is winning in form factor, performance, ease of use, and setup time. Longevity will be the key to winning outright though.
I'm going to be dosing some BioSpira once my marine pure arrives and then the cycle begins. I have some Dr Tims ammonia so we should be up and running in no time. I'm hoping the time it was curing in the brute with some leftover biospira from my QT tank, and occasional drops of ammonia will make this a super quick cycle. Only time will tell!
Happy reefing everyone!
