My Build Thread - 90g Aqueon

[MarcF]

It's coming today - I'm starting from scratch.
It's a 90g Aqueon with overflow and sump.
So here's where I'm starting - the space next to the bird cage, and the few pieces of Signature cast coral I have.
Also, I created an Excel spreadsheet of all the components, dimensions, power consumption, prices, specs, and links. I used to do this for a living - not with fish tanks, but with mine sweepers and missile launchers.

 

[MarcF]

Everything delivered and set.
Here is where I am at the end of day 1.

 

[Sonja]

Keeping track of what you have spent is either really sensible or just scary. I'm not sure if I want to know what mine adds up to!

 

[MarcF]

I had a startup budget in mind, and promised I’d stick to it. And I did.
Now that we’ve started up, it resets!

 

[MarcF]

Doing well at end of 2nd day.
Added another bag of reef sand and another hunk of reef rock (the synthesized stuff) after I took the pic. Worked out water storage - fresh and salt. I’ll keep conditioned water in the FRESH container. Eventually I’ll have a RODI system but until then I can at least age conditioned tap water a bit. The SALT container has, salt water - strangely enough. I made the tank too salty at first - so bringing the specific gravity down, I’m saving the salt water for future use.

 

[MarcF]

OK, a few little things:

-My first water test. I'm only 2-3 days in, but the water should be fully conditioned and mixed, and I wanted to get a baseline reading, so I can monitor changes after that. All readings were as expected. My pH might be a tad low, but it's brand new (conditioned) tap water, so I'm not concerned about that.

-My Black Pine cabinet is very well made, but without any frills. This was the lowest cost stand. There are two doors to the inside, but with no handles or grips of any kind. No biggie to pull the door from the edge, but I would invariably let them close too hard, making a knocking sound. I want to control the door better, to not alarm the future fishies! Also, I thought they would look nice - and I happened to have these crystal knobs from Home Depot that I used on another project. They looked just perfect for doorknobs to my mystical, fantastical, aquarastical, aquarium! Speaking of which, this is a FOWLR setup, and looks nothing like 99% of the full reef tanks I see. And they're awesome, but I really like the clean look (also simplicity and cost) of this setup, compared with the coral, nem, and invert setups I see. I have the blue lights on but I can have any color I want. Of course there are no fish in there yet but we all know they are far less picky about the light they're getting than the reefers - another reason I went in this direction.

Okay, back to the doorknobs - I installed them (I'm a retired mechanical designer).

That "Composition" notebook you see there, is a continuation of a tradition of keeping my knowledge written down, in this book called "The Pell" for reasons I won't go into at the moment. But there have been many Pells, and in fact I have another one going, but this one is just for my aquarium, and I call it my Aquapell.