'Fringe Benefits'... On hold...

[BlueAbyss]

The section of the reef I am trying to replicate is called the 'fringe', where seagrass beds meet the edge of the reef. Hence the change in name to this thread. A little wierd, I know... but I'm up late reading about aquarium stuff, so I'm probably slightly delerious

[Whatigot]

can't wait to see it in action.
sounds like a lot of planning, and that always seems to translate into a very nice tank.

[BlueAbyss]

Yeah, planning partially because it's my first saltwater tank, partially because I'm sort of going overboard in my plans what with the variety of stuff I plan to keep (and have yet to find a source for seagrasses in Canada), and partially because I'm on a slim budget.

But if things go well I should end up with something I can brag about

[Whatigot]

your best bet for seagrass may be from a fellow reefer...
When your at the stage that you need it, try posting in the classifieds for some.
People get all kinds of cool macro hitch hikers and you might get lucky.

[BlueAbyss]

Yes I'll be doing that, I've figured out that much of what I need will not be available through mail order... photosynthetic gorgonians and sponges, macroalgae, and seagrass mainly, but we'll see. I won't be at the stage where I'm ready to plant the seagrass, which will occupy approximately 1/3 to 1/2 of the tank, until 6 months after I have the tank set up and the rock, sand, and mud in the tank. By then it will likely be winter and I will probably have to wait to find the seagrass from someone who wouldn't mind shipping.

I don't think I'll mind waiting, watching all the things that survive the cycle with the uncured rock grow and take over a predator free tank will be interesting

[BlueAbyss]

So I was doing some measuring today, and the stand that I had intended on using... well not really a stand, but that's beside the point... isn't going to have enough room to have a very large skimmer at all. I have a total of 16" of height where I want to put my sump, so with the height of the sump (around 13" with the trim on the tank) that leaves me with 3" of headroom, not enough to remove the cup on a skimmer. AND I'll have to pull out the sump to do any maintenance, requiring me to have spaflex shipped to me...

ARGH! Why didn't I think of this before?

So, now I need to build a stand. This is actually a blessing in disguise though, for a number of reasons.

1. It will cut down on noise, having all the components enclosed in a cabinet.
2. I can hide ALL of the plumbing by drilling a short side of the tank.
3. I can build an overflow into the same short side, saving some space in the tank AND allowing the tank to be viewable from 3 sides.

Hmm this is gonna work out to be cheaper in the long run, because I don't need to buy good looking equipment... nothing will be exposed. I can also use both MH and T5HO, a la retrofit kits. I still need to do some research on reflectors though...