Picked up a very small amount of live rock and some chaeto. I'm going to let patience do the rest I guess. Skimmer continues to pull some fairly funky water out of the system.

I'm trying my best to not run the lights but already I'm sitting in front of the tank dreaming lol...

LOL Lights out sux

Looking awesome Brett! Nice to see the salt water in there! This will be one incredible SW tank! Very excited to see what you do with it! Very nice!:mrgreen:

How much does the waiting time suck? :lol:

How long you leaving the lights off for?

Haha. I meant my thread about whether I should feed the pods in my fuge at this point but thanks for the input lol...

But to answer your questions it a) sucks hard and b) lights off for a month I'm guessing but we'll see what the test kits tell me. Ammonia is STILL under 0.25 so maybe this rock wasn't that grungy?

Looks good Brett!!

I asked the kids yesterday who wanted to clean the skimmer cup. My bad.

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/build/fight.jpg

Teddy bear looks like your best bet... :razz:

Adorable kids, I would be wanting to clean it now rather than later :biggrin:
Unless you have it all stocked and are going to suprise us with photo's!

I'm bored waiting for my bacteria to get it on. Here's some quick and dirty pics:

Fuge with some rock and live rubble. My pods are growing in numbers. You can see my heaters and a bunch of rock tossed in the return area of the sump. Keeps the display nearly bubble free.

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/build/bored1.jpg

Skimmer right after I cleaned it. Already has a bit of stinky water in the cup. I'm excited to see what this thing can do with a bioload. Far left is my 20 gallon reservoir I empty to do water changes. Filter sock on my herbie is already pretty dirty.

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/build/bored2.jpg

I'm a nerd. So what!

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/build/bored3.jpg

FTS showing the 2 pieces of seed rock in the display. One on each shelf/tower.

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/build/bored4.jpg

Glow off the rocks makes the water appear cloudy but it's quite clear right now.

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/build/bored5.jpg

Left side of my water-change cabinet.

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/build/bored6.jpg

Hard to get a decent shot in the top ro/di reservoir. I extended a 90 out from my emergency overflow bulkhead and then glued my float valve to it. Osmolator pump in there too. It's neat working in my office (same room) and hearing that little pump kick on knowing it's taking care of my system.

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/build/bored7.jpg

Nice photos! You have an amazing eye for aethestic details. I know you were all trying to sound manly before and not know a thing about the pheasant balls but I no longer believe you. Those things are totally yours aren't they, not your wife's! If nerddom doesn't work out for you you could consider a career in interior design, reef style. No seriously, the way you make an empty tank photograph so nice is quite frankly .. kind of disgusting, and I'm thinking I should just hire you to take every picture I want to post of my own stuff from now on.. I bet I can't afford you though now that you're all famous and stuff.

I really like how you have hung your light that is very classy. Where did you get the idea? You must have a ton of patience.....this will be an amazing tank.

Holy crap, that's quite the system you have going there now. I wish I had wiring skillz like that!!

I totally LOL'd when I read Tony's reply. Too funny.

Outstanding setup! You do very nice work.

Looking forward to watching you stock it.

Pretty much what Tony said LMAO


Lookin great tho, :D And I am thinking of copying your light lifter :D Also the switch panel's where did you find them??

Everything's so new, and clean, and shiny, and organized, and well-planned, and artistic. I'm thinking you should drain the water out and leave it as is: corals and fish would just ruin it. :mrgreen:

Tony you're makin' me blush dangit! I'm no photographer I just mostly point and shoot lol. Thanks for the comments guys.

A question for you guys:

How long does it take for me to see an ammonia spike? Since I've had the thing running I measure around 0.25 and it's held steady. Although the smell in the house has risen a lot today. So much so that I turned the house ventilation on for a few hours. Maybe tonight It will have risen. I was starting to think my rock was pretty clean but now the stink and my skimmate has darkened...

What sort of peak can I expect? The kit maxes at ">2".

Be sure to do water changes to keep ammonia down to prevent the ammonia from killing the life on and in the rock. I think my tanks all seem to peak ammonia at about day 10 or so...? Been awhile since I cycled a tank with uncured rock though.

Just tested again (Salifert) and it's simply a milky white colour. Which means it's still less than 0.25 as the actual scale moves from colourless to shades of yellow. I see no yellow at all so far.

Planning a waterchange on my one week anniversary. Skimmate is getting nastier looking daily.

Thanks.

EDIT: Guess miracles *don't* happen. I'm topping my freshwater reservoir up right now and indeed without the DI I'm getting a reading of 4. Which actually makes me happy because zero seemed unreasonable to me before and I questioned the meter. Also when I fired up the unit It read about 170 and dropped to 4 in about 30 seconds. So TDS creep is also real I'll have to run that water elsewhere for 30 seconds in the future with a diverter valve.

The plot thickens:

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/build/breakin.jpg

Mmmmm soup!!

I think water and rock ruined your build. Looked so much nicer empty :p

Thanks for documenting everything so well, this build definitely serves as an inspiration :)

hey Brett

your tank and set up is all so professional, very very well done. :thumb:

i hope my new system will be like this.

cant wait to see some live stock in there.

That's pretty typical. I always let a few hundred mL go through the system before catching the water.

Thanks guys.

Yeah I'll do that next time for sure. After setting up my first water-change today I think I may need to rework how my system works a bit for ease of use etc but for now it'll do.

And last night after I let the unit run even longer it DID drop finally to zero again.

So already I can't keep my hands out of the tank. I'm cursed like everyone else of course. The longer I look at my aquascape the more concerned I was.

1. not enough interesting places for small fish to swim or hide. Not enough rock on display.
2. Lots of nice shelves to place corals on but not enough smaller piles for coral, not enough caves and not enough cracks to swim through.
3. No depth as both towers viewed from the side basically lined up.
4. Kien's underwater video raised the aquascape bar way too high for comfort.

Here is the old FTS:

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/build/aquascape1.jpg

Two slightly different angles of the new FTS. Notice I rotated the entire middle tower so that from the front you see just how interesting it is. Originally I had the neat profile facing the end of the tank.

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/build/rescaped1.jpg

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/build/rescaped5.jpg

Old FTS viewed more from above:

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/build/aquascape6.jpg

This shows perfectly why I am happy I made the change. It's more dynamic, interesting and the swim-through cave on the right end is pretty cool.

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/build/rescaped2.jpg

Few more random looks:

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/build/rescaped3.jpg

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/build/rescaped4.jpg

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/build/rescaped6.jpg

Besides changing my rockwork I also did my first water change. It was easy. Flipped a switch and turned a couple valves. Hardest part was waiting for the small Eheim to top the 24 gallons back into the stand from my office. I didn't mix my new water with a heater. The awesome part about the way I have the water change tank circulating pretty slowly in the system is that the Ranco detected no temperature change at all as the slightly cooler water worked it's way in.

Ammonia still reads less than 0.25. Water prior to messing with my rock was very clear. Skimmate keeps getting darker. I drain about 2 inches from my cup each day. My ball of chaeto is about 6 times it's initial size. Pods are really growing in numbers and a film of algae is forming in the fuge.

As for flow...well my sand in both the front and back will not stay put. For now I have dialed the power of each 6100 to minimum and replaced the 24V jumper in the 6101 with the 15V. All pumps are running much slower and my 7095 is only ramping from 30-40%. It's still got good circulation for now and I will adjust as time goes on.

I also hack-sawed out the old fuge drain and put a proper T fitting rather than an elbow on the bulkhead. Let's me get a bit more flow through the bulkhead and skim the fuge rather than have the bulkhead fully submerged. Cutting pipe in that stand took me over an hour. 2 cuts and careful placement of garbage bags to keep pvc shred out of the water. The new plumbing is much quieter. No more splashes can be heard with the doors shut. It's all motor whir now (Dart).

Love the new aquascape. I thought the original setup was okay - the shelves were very unique - however the new look blows it away. Well done :)

A considerable improvement on the 'scaping. Good work! I'm a big fan of swim through's, caves and ravines. So while I hated your old look your new look is awesome. Ooops, I mean, your old look was fine. :p

What are you using to test ammonia? I would almost just throw that test kit right out. Don't bother testing ammonia, test nitrite. When you get a zero nitrite reading, your initial cycle is done and your ammonia is zero. I've noticed with a lot of ammonia test kits that I'd get a nominal nonzero reading anytime I tried it, unless it was a FW tank. I don't trust ammonia testkits (even ones that say SW) at all.

Thanks guys. I think I have the same issue with aquascaping I do with graphic design. I can work on it till I'm blue in the face and convince myself it's awesome. The real test comes when I wake up and look at it in the morning. I woke up today and dig it hard. Thank god...I'm done mucking about with rocks!

Tony the test kit is Salifert as are all the kits I purchased. If RC had nitrite trust me I would have bought it. I'm going to track down one today and see what that tells me thanks.

:thumb::thumb: Aaaaaah! Much better Brett.

I agree with the other guys, the new 'scape looks awesome.

I have a salifert NO2 test kit that I don't really have a use for anymore, its yours if you want it. Best before date on it is 10/09 though, not sure if a couple weeks past would make much of a difference?

Dammit guys. If you didn't dig the old rocks you should have told me! The rocks tricked me into thinking they were done prematurely =)

Thanks xtreme you have pm!

They weren't BAD before, they just had an Ikea Bükjelv sort of look to them. Now they have a "Brêt's Bjæd Æss Rjockwerk" (say it out loud if I'm being too obtuse)

Haha thanks man. But dude...just how hard HAVE you been coding?:razz:

I dunno. It's a bit facetious, I think, to come out and tell someone that the aquascape looks bad. I don't think there's much 'scapes out there that are bad, just some people have different tastes :p

Besides, we've all been following this build so long that we wanted to love your aquascape. Kinda like when you finished watching Star Wars: Phantom Menace the first time and trying to convince yourself you loved it for the sheer fact that it was Star Wars. It's hard to admit that it wasn't very good...

I was also expecting you to wave your magic wand and make it look incredible - like everything else you've done in this build. And look! You did!

In summary: new aquascape rocks! now, delete those old pictures and let us never speak of it again >>

If my rocks in any way draw parallels to Jar Jar...well there's gonna be fisticuffs haha. I think you're right we best never speak of this again lol.

I think the problem is we try and make our tanks look good before there is coral in them. A real reef is often a pretty boring boulder or two underneath all the splendor isn't it?

That's what I'll tell my dealer. I'll keep you posted haha.

You just have no idea what to say when you've got no place for a 'MORE PICS' do you? No shortage of those in this thread cowboy.

I like both scapes about the same. The first one purely because of the open sand bed/swimming room. The second one because it gives the tank a more filled out look/caves/hiding spots. I think the 2nd one will work best for optimum coral placement though.

Exactly! Rockwork doesn't matter much long term in my opinion. Its more about the layout (ie. islands, rockwall, ect.) but in time, its all about the CORALSCAPE to get the look you want. I don't think as many people are good with placing corals as doing their rockwork. Getting a good aesthetic balance with coral shapes, sizes, ect. is much harder. Especially when going for the Japanese garden style or less is more look. Tanks jam packed with huge colonies always look impressive for the talent it has taken to grow and keep those corals alive but in my opinion have little to no real visual interest...but I work with design all day long and that's pretty much all I look for now lol.

Did you ever see Leonardo's Formosa Forest rockwork? :smile: That became such a "famous" and beautiful tank but if you look at the initial rockswork, you wouldn't think much of the tank.

But I agree with the rest that the second is a better layout.