today! the salt is mixed, the liverock is in, the sand is down, the water is flowing and i am smiling
thanks to local reefers in the calgary area.
Mid october i bought the following setup from Willito:
60g tank (48x24x14"W) w/overflow on rear left corner
25g sump
Mag18 pump with return pipe on locklines
Euroreef CS6-2+ (sedra5000)
Current USA 48" Extreme Orbit light system (4x130W power compact)
250W Ebo heater
Nov 4 i bought 38lbs of liverock from Accord823, and began to fill the tank with water. Nov 6 (today) i added another 88lbs of beautiful liverock bought from Jim Barry. topped up the water level and turned the whole thing on!
My boyfreinds response was "wow!" i think he finally realizes just how much this has meant to me. within 30 mins we began to notice star polyps extending, and several baby brittlestars (less than half an inch) climbing on the glass. within an hour i found a much larger brittlestar (maybe 2 inches) and snails all over the place.
due to all the liverock being from mature tanks i feel my cycle will be quick, possibly unnoticeable, but i am still planning on waiting a few weeks before adding any inhabitants
Future inhabitants ive planned on down the road are:
2 percula clownfish
1 coral beauty
1 powder brown tang
1 bicolor blenny
1 goby (again havent decided much)
2 cleaner shrimp
various hermits and snails for cleanup
ive toyed with the idea of having a group of 5 schooling fish, but i dont want to overload the tank. im open to suggestions or comments about some of the choices ive made, or am trying to make. the list is by no means finalized or heart set (except the clowns and the coralbeauty).
tomorrow (or whenever i get batteries for the camera) i'll post a pic of current setup.