OP
OP
907_Reefer
2500 Club Member
Good day yesterday - picked up 78 lbs live rock and got the tank running and up to temp! Ended for the evening with 2 heaters, thermometer and 1 power head running, sand and rock all in place. We made a last minute change to location in the house as well, relocating 2 shelves and 1 piece of art, but glad we did! Wanted an area we can keep darker mostly, with ~22 hours of daylight just around the corner..
Ended up using the full 120 lbs live sand for extra room for future sand sifters, and it helps hold the rock in place nicely. May putty a few but should not need to do many. Likely will add 2 more rocks as well to fill it out. The water volume is reduced to just under 40 gallons, as a down side. So far I'm calling it my big nano tank
Did some juggling with the salinity, but sitting at 1.023 now. The suggested mix for Instant Ocean salt (1/2 cup per gal) was giving me 1.026 with 2.5 cups in 5 gal RO water, which is supposed to yield 1.022. I had to cut out 1/2 cup per 5 gal to get that output. I have a brand new Vee Gee Scientific STX-3 refractometer calibrated with room temp RO water ~64 degrees. Either way, all good now!
Today we'll get the lights setup, second powerhead installed and skimmer fired up. Have some Dr. Tim's on hand for setup boost, likely will use that today and let her cycle for a few weeks.
And now, we wait! My wife is calling it "Tank Denali" so far, since "it's always cloudy" (like the mountain). Looks to have settled more this morning however after 12 hrs! (pic from yesterday during setup)
Ended up using the full 120 lbs live sand for extra room for future sand sifters, and it helps hold the rock in place nicely. May putty a few but should not need to do many. Likely will add 2 more rocks as well to fill it out. The water volume is reduced to just under 40 gallons, as a down side. So far I'm calling it my big nano tank
Did some juggling with the salinity, but sitting at 1.023 now. The suggested mix for Instant Ocean salt (1/2 cup per gal) was giving me 1.026 with 2.5 cups in 5 gal RO water, which is supposed to yield 1.022. I had to cut out 1/2 cup per 5 gal to get that output. I have a brand new Vee Gee Scientific STX-3 refractometer calibrated with room temp RO water ~64 degrees. Either way, all good now!
Today we'll get the lights setup, second powerhead installed and skimmer fired up. Have some Dr. Tim's on hand for setup boost, likely will use that today and let her cycle for a few weeks.
And now, we wait! My wife is calling it "Tank Denali" so far, since "it's always cloudy"
(like the mountain). Looks to have settled more this morning however after 12 hrs! (pic from yesterday during setup)
. Progress continued in my build thread below. Spoiler Alert, there's Mocha Storm Clowns in there! (sorry, we're smitten lol)
