Wow! Sick as a dog again this weekend but for some reason I couldn’t just sit and stare at an empty tank during my misery. I managed to set up the entire tank on Friday night and almost the entire day Saturday in between vomiting and napping.
Friday night:
- Completed rockwork and placed it in the aquarium on white egg crate (matches the sand better than the black)
- Installed heater in display tank (There wasn’t enough room in my sump with my very large circulation pump and small reactor pump)
- Heater controller was installed in cabinet
- Installed UV sterilizer in cabinet
- Installed dual media reactor in cabinet
Saturday:
- Ran plumbing for main sump, return pump (Quiet 6000), UV sterilizer, media reactor (Ehiem Universal 600)
- Installed media in reactor chambers (.8 Carbon in chamber 1, Phosban in reactor 2)
- Purigen and Coppersorb in sump
- Installed protein skimmer (HOB style, not as pretty but couldn’t fit one in sump)
- Mixed water and pumped into tank
- Pressure tested all plumbing, fixed one small drip on return but touch wood it all seems to be tight
- Started circulation pumps
- Started protein skimmer
- Started heater (500w heater brought water to temp overnight)
Sunday:
- Half dead by this time
- Tested water in the AM and ammonia=0, nitrite=0, nitrate=0, phosphate= not measurable by test kit
- Went to Gold’s looking for live rock but they didn’t have any pieces that were interesting to me so I went to Pieces and bough 20lbs of very well shaped rock with at least some coralline and remnants of leather corals, sponges, etc with the hope that some may come back
- Placed rock in tank
- Installed HQI bulbs in fixture and holy hell they are bright as the sun
Once again everything was done as a sprint so naturally the setup process has NO pictures. OCD > Me... This morning I did find a nice blue sponge that is attached to the LR I bought. Hopefully it survives
