First forays...

[BlueAbyss]

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

Who knew they sold live rock? 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. 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).