ReeferFulton's most SPECTACULARLY AWESOMEST tank build(s) EVAHHH!!!!

[reeferfulton]

hey thanks guys !
nice to see people posting in your thread .. let you know someone is reading


well finally got the tank full with rodi .. its running with my rock in there now ,
I am currently trying to add my salt .

But it seems to just be sitting on the bottom . I never anticipated this . This is the first time i have had to add salt into a tank . Especially this much at one time .

Will it eventually dissolve on it own ? or do i need to get in there and stir up the bottom .

i figure tomorrow i will add a raw shrimp and get this started

[mrhasan]

Originally Posted by reeferfulton

hey thanks guys !
nice to see people posting in your thread .. let you know someone is reading


well finally got the tank full with rodi .. its running with my rock in there now ,
I am currently trying to add my salt .

But it seems to just be sitting on the bottom . I never anticipated this . This is the first time i have had to add salt into a tank . Especially this much at one time .

Will it eventually dissolve on it own ? or do i need to get in there and stir up the bottom .

i figure tomorrow i will add a raw shrimp and get this started

Use a powerhead to mix the salt.

[reeferfulton]

i have both power heads runnning plus the return pump and skimmer . But when you dump a cup in some sink straight down .

I have my rock in there , so i was thinking i dont want to get ahead of myself and end up with salt hiding under the rocks or something

i dont know lol
guess it was a simple oversight . should have mixed it all in a 5 gallon buckets and poured it in that way

[mrhasan]

Originally Posted by reeferfulton

i have both power heads runnning plus the return pump and skimmer . But when you dump a cup in some sink straight down .

I have my rock in there , so i was thinking i dont want to get ahead of myself and end up with salt hiding under the rocks or something

i dont know lol
guess it was a simple oversight . should have mixed it all in a 5 gallon buckets and poured it in that way

I think you might want to keep the skimmer off right now. No use for that and I am not sure whether it will break in without saltwater (skimmer_king should be able to give good insight on that).

Yah mixing would have been easier in a separate bucket.

Maybe use the powerheads for a huge turbulence? One shooting at the bottom and one shooting at the top!

[reeferfulton]

ok , stopped adding salt that night .
It was late and was not the right way to do it .

So the next day i turned off the pumps and removed 1 gal at a time and mixed in about 2 cups of salt mix , then added that to the tank . Kept doing this until SG came up .

I let that circulate for an hour or so , then added my rinsed sand.
which apparently could have been rinsed more .


looks like in the end all i added to my tank was around 30lbs . I am happy with the look , its just under an inch thick .

Does anyone see a problem with a sandbed that thin ?

my next concern was my .5 micron first stage sediment filter of my RODI .
My pressure gauge on my maxcap new read about 62 psi . now after passing around 400 gallons through it was down to about 57 and the fist stage looked like this

so i panicked and removed it and added a 1 micron that i picked up as some spares.

So i took it too the kitchen sink to investigate , and It is only just the outside layer . literally just 1 millimeter in and its pure white filter again .. o well

How much pressure drop is common before you decide to change out your filters ?

Will after the dust settled , and i cleaned the clay mud out of the neck of my skimmer the tank looks like this .. no light on



Then finally came the start of my cycle


some for me , 1 for tank lol

[reeferfulton]

so once I got that little prawn tossed in the tank i decided to try my hand at doing my first ever water tests ......

I had picked up an API saltwater master test kit .
So this would be my first test for practice , and I guess set my starting point out .

i know in the beginning there isnt much to test , but wanted to try anyway

results


I guess those are all par for the course 1 day after tossing in the prawn lol

.I then went down to the local industrial plastic store to look at foodsafe storage bins .. for my mixing area . And i wanted some acrylic to make a cover for my overflow area.

What i soon learned was 1. food safe bins are not cheap .. 2 . neither is acrylic .
Luckily they had an off cut 1 foot square.

so i took it home and cut this little jobber to fit


Then finally yesterday I went to the hardware store and picked up a 20 gallon brute trash can to serve as RODI storage .
I rearranged my little utility room and came up with this


notice my LED lighting lol . those came with the tank as moonlighting , but figured they would serve me better in here ...
haha

[kien]

Looks like you've got everything under control here. Looking good!