New Wife, New Life, and The tank I've always wanted! - Part 1

[Siderjan]

My Wife went to the lumber yard to pick up something didn't have a clue what she was getting. That's why I love and married her! An egg crate for the rock to sit on.


No egg crate.


First layer down.


Double layered to raise the rock over the trim. I hate trim but don't trust my building skills.


The mess from cutting it. Good thing I have a shop vac look a like.


I don't know if this counts towards my build but I was looking on Kijiji for some live rock cheap and I came across this setup for $200. Yes you read it right. $200. I had to call and make sure it wasn't a type-o but it was $200. Only problem was she was ahving someone come that night to look at it. Thinking it was going to be gone that night, I called the next morning to see if she still had it. My luck has never been so good as it has since I met my Wife, the guy never showed up. 2 days later it was sitting on basement floor. Being so close to Christmas I had to wait over a hour for my wife to come home to ask her if I could buy it. It was covered in algae as she had quit taking care of it. Since I'm going to use everything for my build except the tank, hob filter, and gravel, I'm going to post it.


The next pictures are what I purchased for $200.
























Here's a word listing of everything I bought.

Here's a list of everything I purchased last night.
2 5gal pails with lids (1 labeled fresh & 1 labeled dirty)
Mag-Float Glass cleaner
Koralia 3 Power head - 850GPH
500g Kent Marine Supperbuffer -dKH
1/2 a 50 gallon bag Instant Ocean sea salt
Black Diamond Premium Active Carbon 1.87L minus an inch from the top
Emperor 280 Filter System w/ 4 active carbons
Vibra-Flo 1 Air Pump
Maxi-Jet Powerhead (In pieces so not sure the size or if it works)
SeaClone 100 Protein Skimmer + 3 filters (extra pump)
Tropic Marin Bio-Calcium 7 1/2" container never opened
Aquarium Systems sea test
45 - 50 lbs LR
55 Gallon Tank
4' 2 tube T5 light with 4 extra tubes T8 bulb that I have no use for
7 snails
3 hermit crabs
1 black and white clown
1 Red Spotted hawkfish
AquaClear 70 Fliter with 2 carbons
2" freshwater coloured gravel on the bottom of the tank
All the water. (except for what ended up all over my Mom's Jimmy) Sorry Mom!

Here's it covered in algae that I had to clean up.








My Wife and I really liked this guy so I did some research and we bought him. A 'Purple' Urchin. Too bad it's pink.


I need to purchase a return pump, sand and plumb it and a little more Live Rock and I can move everything to my build.

[Siderjan]

This weekend has been a busy one. Thursday I picked up my new return pump and plumbing for it.

New pump;


Here's the plumbing finished. (friday night)




I bought a new Maxi-Jet 1200 to add more flow.


I needed to cover my overflow with something to keep the live stock in the tank so I took a piece of pet proof screen from work and fastened it in place with a wire tie.


Refuguim/Sump is full of water and getting ready to put live rock, cheato, and heaters in it.


Say goodbye to the old tank. Saturday it is getting drained & moved.


Here's my wife, Kim, helping me wash the substrate. Smile Honey!!



She did a good job cleaning it.


Starting the move. I forgot to make a stand for my skimmer so I hung it using string.




Here's a pic of the mess Kim has been begging me to clean up, and the last picture of the old tank.


While taking the LR out, I came across 4 new majanos anemones. Grrr!




I was told there was 50 lbs of LR with the old setup, but there was 41 lbs. I put half a pound in the refugium. I took 7 snails, 3 blue legged hermit crabs, my urchin, hawkfish & maroon clown to the babysitter for him to watch til my tank's temperature stablizes.

The water transfer begins.


Half full....or half empty. Not sure which. Half done sounds good.


Time to put the rock back in and Aquascape it.



Return pump is running and adjusting the flows.



Finished except for adding livestock back in.


Here's a short video of my Aquascaping.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFML6inUoy8

[Flash]

nice job! looks great!

[Madreefer]

Cool! Good job! Interesting watching you guys build your tanks from scratch. You put alot of work in to this. That skimmer is more of a water mover than anything. You should be able to get a good used one for a reasonable price on this site.

[Siderjan]

Originally Posted by Madreefer

Cool! Good job! Interesting watching you guys build your tanks from scratch. You put alot of work in to this. That skimmer is more of a water mover than anything. You should be able to get a good used one for a reasonable price on this site.

Thank you. I heard that about the skimmer. LOL. Waiting til after christmas to get a better one. It doesn't really fit my sump anyways.

[Siderjan]

Water conditions as of 11:41pm

GH - 180
KH - 80
pH - 8.5
NO2 - 0
NO3 - 0
Saltity - 26 ppt
Temp - 80F

[Delphinus]

Looks like things are coming together nicely! That spot where you have the screen over the overflow, keep an eye on that, looks like a pretty tight weave and I see that getting clogged pretty easy. If it proves to be a problem down the road you could consider some gutter guard, the holes are more like 1/4" so less prone to clogging (although not immune to clogging).

[Siderjan]

Originally Posted by bean

nice job! looks great!

Thank you. Can't wait to put my livestock back in it. Need to get my saltity lowered and can't add anymore water. sitting at 26ppt