First forays...
 

So, I was in Prince Albert yesterday and picked up a few (extremely overpriced) items at Petland.

Who knew they sold live rock? :mrgreen: I spent a lot of money for what I got, but it's a start.

I picked up a bucket of Instant Ocean. Cost me 100 bucks. Ouch. I should have saved my money and had the H2Ocean Pro that I originally wanted shipped (it would have cost the same), but I was there, it was there... ya know. :wink: I wanted to get started anyhow.

I paid $50 for a 20 lb bag of Seachem Tidal Aragonite. Nice looking sand, dead, but nice.

I also bought around 2.7 kg of live rock (at $19.78 a kg). Not overly nice live rock, but decent shapes and they will make for a good base. There is some purple coralline growth on both of them (not on the side that I chose to show of course), and I ended up with a hitchhiker blue hermit of some kind. Tiny little guy, I noticed his shell in the leftover water from the rock.

So I emptied the tetra tank (they moved into an old 15 gallon I had kicking about), cleaned it, and added distilled water, salt, a HOB filter (150 gph), and a Rio pump that's meant for a skimmer but helped mix the salt.

I haven't added the substrate because I haven't decided if this tank is temporary or not. I may use this as my contest tank, and take more time to build the custom tank I've been planning for past couple months... I have issues with the design of that system.

Anyhow, a pic now that the water has cleared... excuse the ghetto cover and the lack of decent lights. The Rio has been removed and replaced with a second HOB filter, for around 25x turnover (conservative estimate).
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...rity/001-1.jpg

Ouch, those are some steep prices!!! :eek: Nice shaped rock though. Don't worry about buying "dead" sand, as the "live" stuff in the bag is essentially dead as well, just a well marketed scheme if you ask me.

so now it starts.

Prices aren't that far off. In Edmonton LR goes for $10/pound

oh man!... and i thought it was bad in vernon!

Yeah the rock wasn't a bad price. Just everything else :biggrin: And there is no life on the rock either. Just rock, bacteria, and some purple coralline.

I have added substrate and rescaped a little. It's a good thing I picked the pieces of rock that I got, when stacked you can't tell there is more than one piece...
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...jority/005.jpg

If you're wanting more rock I will have some for sale soon here if you're down in the Saskatoon area, and I will sell it to you for a lot less than $10/lb and most of it has lots of life and color.

thats a sweet aqua scape.

Awesome, I'll be looking to add to my rock for sure, if not for this tank than for the other. Just let me know what you want for it, and maybe I could get you to toss it on the bus for me? I won't be able to get to S'toon anytime soon, it seems... I've been trying for a trip in July but it doesn't look like it will happen.

Thanks. I tried my best with the 2 pieces of rock I have :lol: Now I need decent lights, twin T8s won't cut it at all.

While doing this all I've been testing. Adding the substrate seemed to raise the pH to 8.4 from 8.2 yesterday. While I can't explain that, pH is back down to 8.2 today. Ammonia has been 0 throughout, 0 nitrite, yesterday nitrates were 5 ppm, today I have the same or slightly less. So I think the tank has had a sort of mini-cycle.

I don't mind putting it on the bus. I have some styrofoam boxes I can put it in. I'm not sure what it's worth in these parts, but I will get back to you when I'm ready to sell.

looks good! i think the scape would look good with a branch/overhang coming off the right of the rock pile.

for example (these are just rough drawings to help express what im saying)

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/h...zy101/0051.jpg

oor

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/h...zy101/0052.jpg